Registration details for Thematics.

Here.

The form is a word document so you can type directly on it and email back to me. Just attach your payment details for the package you want.

Related posts.
Purpose of thematics. Here.
Starting position.  Here.

Thanks.

Selamat Hari Merdeka.

Selamat Hari Merdeka everyone. May we grow in body, mind and spirit as one people.

What do you think? I think this is something we should think about seriously.

Ref: Here.

For Malaysian chess to progress, we will need the following conditions:

1. We need to increase our internal competition by ensuring that there are no more shortcuts/fixing. Stop the gajuh kampong mentality. For that to happen we need the support of parents/players to accept the results of the written selection criteria. Consider this. How are we to compete with our neighbours if we cannot even compete in a healthy and rule based manner at home?

So the focus must be on improving those selection criteria.

2. We need the sponsors to support MCF by not trying to influence selection and paying the money direct into MCF.

For that to happen, we need strict management of the finances so that money is not filtered out unnecesarily into unauthorised accounts. That will build confidence for investment.

3. We also need the traditional sponsors of chess to stop their people from sabotaging efforts by others so that chess becomes a magnet for more and more support and funding.

4. We need private academies, coaches and trainers to understand that the way forward is by selection and not by fattening of Fide rating to bypass competition.

5. We need to foster a climate of learning and experimentation simply because chess is a mind sport and developing the mind and reasoning are the corner stones to progress.

6. We need to be result oriented so that our players are given goals and targets to achieve and not just go to overseas tournaments aimlessly and already mentally defeated.

For that to happen, we need to develop our understanding of competitor analysis.

For all of the above to happen, we will need an MCF/State Affiliates that will govern the chess community fairly and allow the expressions of private enterprise to flourish and not to allow their authority to be misused.

Ergo we need unity of purpose and the proper understanding of the roles of each within the chess community.

Starting position for Thematic and general comments.

Please have a look at the starting position for our Thematic. Here.

As I have said earlier, main line French Defence is one of the best ways to learn and understand about the control of squares. In fact if you look at how our first IM Jimmy Liew play at tournaments you will see that a strong signature of his games is how he controls the squares surrounding his points of attack. So this is an important part of the learning process to becoming a strong player.

Having said that I have had some comments from parents that learning the french will confuse their kids. I beg to differ. I see the mind as an extremely powerful tool, a super computer unless you tell the mind that it cannot. Look at it this way. Our kids learn many subjects in school. Are they not able to digest all the different subjects if their confidence remains intact?

So there are almost no limitation to our minds except those that we self impose or if it is controlled by fear instead of reason. Besides the thematic is not meant to replace your opening repertoire. It is meant to continue your education in chess, in training events, to improve your ability to bring more to your competitive tournaments.

You may or you may not choose French as your final array of weaponry for your competitive battles. But you would be hard pressed to win without the understanding that French can teach you. These are all essential parts to becoming the complete mental warrior.

When you have the parts, then all you need is the right strategies and the winning mindset. When that happens, our GM will come. There are no shortcuts. The journey to becoming a strong player has little to do with ranking. Do you know that Lin Dan is ranked over 200 plus? And yet he can win against the top ranked players in the World. How do you think that is achieved?

All my best for Malaysian chess.

Register for Thematic here.

Announcement, FGM Thematics-with details for registration.

Purpose of Thematics. Here.  The first few opening moves will appear here shortly. Here.

Dear all,

It's finally confirmed. Please note the following. The dates have been changed to the 5th and 6th Oct so as not to clash with another Perak chess event. FGM will always try to work together with other organisers and Associations whenever possible for the benefit of the chess community.

Also note that we have booked 2 rooms for our National squad players. One for the girls and one for the guys. However they will have to pay for the registration. I hope you guys and girls don't mind sharing. So National squad players, write in and I will arrange the sharing, subject to availability.

As for the parents, I have also negotiated special rates for rooms for you. You have to send me your names early as it is on a first come first serve basis. So there is no guarantee for a room at that special price if you book late. After your names have been registered, please pay to the hotel when you check in.

Please also note that I only have places for 60 players. So do register early so as to avoid any possible disappointment.

There is also a short talk followed by Q&A on the Thematics for parents at 10am on the first day ie 5th Oct with coffee and light refreshments served.

All my best for Malaysian chess.

Details and registration form here.

NB: For those who are below 1600 National rating and do not have material on French Defence, I recommend you take the package with the material so you can read up and practice before the training tournament. Do this early so you can get maximum benefit from the training tournament.

FAQ's on Thematics.

I was asked many questions by parents and players this morning concerning the Thematics. So let me try to answer them here as well for the benefit of others.

Please realise that FGM is a private entity with our own small group of like minded sponsors. I made the decision to head in that direction partly because I had found it very hard to get effective cohesion when I was in a State Affiliate with many differing and sometimes even polar opposite opinions there.

Also note that in the past FGM events were met with a lot of resistance. For instance when we brought in the GM to train our Juniors going to Asean, we were told by MCF that there would be approximately 40 players going. And in the end only 13 went. I was informed then that there was a member of Council who told parents to go to another event. On top of that FGM was double charged for normal services rendered. And so our costings were way out and we ended up in financial deficit.

Our past Thematic events were also met with threats to arbiters and bloggers for them not to support our events.

So I hope you realise that there is a lot more than meets the eye to organising these events. There are also venues to secure, arbiters to get and chess sets and clocks to obtain.

And then there are the new sponsors that needs to be convinced and the old ones reassured again. I secured one old sponsor a couple of months ago and am now waiting for the other sponsor to come back to me. I am informed that this will be on Wed/Thurs this coming week.

But whatever happens the event will go on, even if I end up funding the Thematics again, so I need to also plan for contingencies. So in short, those are the dates I can secure for now. I hope for your understanding and support.

Yes, the Thematics are important. This much we know. Even the Filipino trainer I am working with now finds it hard to understand why we have so much resistance to something so important to our progress. But that is our chess culture to date isn't it? Even our sponsors were publicly attacked on the blogs.

Hopefully with the new Council in MCF we will see some changes with the beginnings of a more winning culture and I am counting on that to happen even as I organise again.

So please be patient and the announcement and prospectus will come out later this week k.

All my best and this time Malaysia truly boleh.

The purpose of the Thematics.

When I first came into the chess scene, I saw something in our chess culture that I felt could be improved on. Let me give you an example to show what I mean. At the recent Malaysian Open, Greg asked me why I didn't send Mark to HD and Bangkok Open this year. What I told him was that I felt Mark wasn't ready at that time for that level of competition yet. So what we did was to go through our new repertoire and played at local tournaments to beta test it here first.

My thinking goes like this. Why spend so much money going overseas when we have not properly tested out our strategies and trained at home yet? Why go out to get bad results at the higher age group categories or Open tournaments?

That was why I formed FGM. To provide the training that we will need before we send our boys and girls out to compete. And so I offered the training by a GM for our National Juniors before Asean in the past and I started on the Thematics. Ref: Here.

Another word for the Thematics is a training tournament. You play the tournament not to win the prize money but to learn. By taking away the prize money except for the Champion, it is my hope that the players will use the tournament to learn and to experiment with new ideas. Then we go to competitive tournaments to win. Make sense?

I realise that this is a little anti-culture for us but I hope this spirit of learning and experimentation will take root in our chess culture. And after we have trained, we go out to win. Yes?

So this coming Thematics will be on mainline French. This opening is very instructive to learning the control of squares. Please note that I can only take 60 players and they will be split into 2 categories. Approximately below 1600 National rating and above 1600. Basically they will be split based on playing strength. This is so that the players will have a good work out.

The Thematics are meant for the competitive players and the serious amateurs. I will also be putting out a basic package on the French defence so that all the players will come with a good knowledge of French Defence before we play the training games.

By playing 10 rounds of the same opening as white and black, we will have a grounding that will be difficult to achieve via just a trainer/student scenario and so will speed up your development much faster than other methods. This is simply because different players will play the French differently. After the 10 rounds I suspect you would have learnt more then 2 years of playing in normal tournaments. All over a weekend.

If this tournament receives good response and the idea of proper training before competitive tournaments takes root, then FGM will endeavour to bring more of these types of training tournaments to you.

I do not know what the response will be now that we have a better chess climate but I have had good feedback from parents recently when I spoke to them about this. So if you are concerned about missing out, you can write in to me earlier before the prospectus is out.

All my best for Malaysian chess. May we go out in the future and kick butts.

FGM Thematics on the 28th/29th September.

We are now working hard to bring the Thematics to you for the 28th/29th September sponsored by Pappamia and the Malaysian Intellect Development Foundation and it will be held in Ipoh. Stay tuned for further announcements but keep those dates in mind.

See here for our past events. Here.

All my best for Malaysian Chess.

Indonesia Open in Oct, thinking out loud.

I was informed at the Malaysian Open that MCF is applying for our National squad to play at the Indonesian Open. They have a ceiling bar of 2200 and so many of our National squad won't qualify without the intervention of MCF. Now that is a good thing.

But I was thinking it may even be better if MCF also opens this out to other strong players who may be contenders for next years National Close. So why would I say that and on what grounds? I think that a good way to get our own GM is to increase the level of competition amongst Malaysians. So why not?

Consider this. The other strong players cannot ask for sponsorship because they are not in the National squad. Agreed. That is fair. But if they can finance themselves, where is the harm? After all, to organise for say 10 to go would not be much more difficult than for say 15 or 20 to go. So long as they find their own financing right?

What do you think? Wouldn't that be even better? Just thinking out loud.

Latest on EGM, taking sides and a little about sucking sweets.

I spent a lot of time during the Malaysian Open talking to all that would talk to me from all sides of the divide to get a clearer picture of the issues. Some of the conversations were cordial and constructive and some were outright hostile. Directly after having a meeting with the Deputy President of MCF, I heard that some people were running around and saying that I have changed sides.

So lets tackle this topic first before I give you the updates. I am on no side except for the issues. Let me show you the evidence. Look at my blog from 2009, 2010, 2011. Then 2012 and 2013. How many years has that been? And I have been talking about the same thing haven't I? For your further information, the first contest as far as I know in a State Affiliate was when I challenged for the post of President in PICA in early 2009 and I lost by one vote. I then took on the post as the Chairman of the selection committee in PICA.

After I was sacked without any grounds, I shared my experiences with Greg, who was then the new Secretary of MCF, on the problems surrounding putting in a selection criteria and then the first written criteria for National selection for NAG and National Juniors came out. Go back to my postings in 2009. That posting came out even before the official announcement. Why? Because that posting created an uproar with certain parties within the MCF at that time, who still wanted the authority to award back door entries.

It was also from my experience in contesting in 2009 that I adviced the candidates at the recent AGM. Go and look at all my postings just before the AGM addressing the issues.

So there are no sides as far as I am concerned. There are only the issues that I have raised. I belong to no gang. I started talking about those issues long before there were contestants for the AGM. So maybe it is those people that have used the issues raised by FGM to launch a contest that have lost their way. So let us remind ourselves what those issues are.

All must follow due process without exception. You cannot sack an official without grounds. You cannot ban a player without any legitimate reason. You cannot attack the players who freely choose to train with another Coach/Trainer. And you cannot represent the State or Country without a proper selection. MCF and the State Affiliates do not belong to you. It belongs to all within the chess community.

You cannot attack the training of the National Juniors by a GM by attacking the organiser and the sponsors by coming up with numerous vile anonymous blogs all sprouting from Jimmy Liew's site with impunity. You cannot sabotage a training tournament meant to help our top players with impunity. All of those things happened because MCF did not take action to protect private initiatives. In fact there were strong circumstantial evidence that the attacks took place with the collusion of certain MCF officials.

So those were the issues that caused the ground swell and were used by the contestants as the mantle for contest at the AGM. And all those issues were those raised by FGM. So how could I have changed sides? Lets see.

We now have selection for the Juniors and the Seniors. We now have due process for conflict resolution. See here. Are these not the issues raised by FGM? So what sides are they talking about? Gang 18 immortals?

So we have progress on the issues. That was the goal. And it was hard earned. So where is the problem now? Why have the EGM? So let me risk a little by talking about sucking sweets. More than one official have talked to me and urged me to write and attack certain people. What I told them was why didn't they raise the issue in Council? One told me that he didn't want to get shot down and the other said that he didn't want to be shot down and not to teach him how to suck sweets. And that is the problem isn't it? They have the authority but they want to use my blog. So how is that any different from those using anonymous blogs to attack all and sundry coming out from Jimmy's site?

Read this again. Here. Doesn't point a) sound very much like what they said about FGM until they wanted to use the issues raised by FGM to contest? So who have failed in their duties to the chess community?

This is how it works. The way is not to whisper and talk to bloggers. Follow due process as there is one now. The way is to put down a motion for debate in the Council by writing in to the Secretary. So lets take the example used in the petition. The treasurer puts in a motion. He goes to the Council with his evidence and then convinces the Council that he has a case. All of this must be documented. Then he waits for the minutes to determine that the minutes reflects accurately the decision of the Council. And if he is a good official he not only goes to the meeting with the problems but he also goes with a few good suggestions for solutions.

But they are scared of speaking up at meetings but they want the office. So they learn to write poison letters and put it up on unscrupulous blogs. So where is the problem when these people do not use due process? Do they not suspiciously sound like the same people who attacked FGM and then tried to use the issues raised by FGM with modifications to run in the AGM?

So I say no, the problem is not with the entire new Council. There have been improvements and we should support that. And there are still a lot of things left to be done. I am informed that some of the signatories of that petition who are on the Council have not even had a single meeting of their committee. That is the problem.

They only know how to tear down and not how to build.

Consider this. In order to build we need new ideas to replace the non functioning ones. Otherwise what are we going to replace the bad ideas with? So if they do not have meetings to generate new ideas, put it to Council for debate and then make decisions, how are we to progress further?

What are the architects of the the petition putting forward? Don't they know that merely using character assasination, slander and lies speaks more about them and who they really are?

So I urge those people who have been misguided into supporting the petition to withdraw their names. There are no grounds. Ask those Council members behind the petition to go back to the table and engage the full Council and to learn how to work as a team.

In one of my conversations at Malaysian Open, I was asked if I am for an EGM. My answer was yes. But only if there are real and substantive grounds. But I will not lend my name and support to this blaming of others for their own shortcomings.

If they have done all that I said above and they have documentary proof that their requests to put substantive topics up for discussion have been unreasonably rejected, if the minutes have been manipulated and changed; if the decisions have been sabotaged, then produce all that evidence to the State Affiliates and then ask for an EGM, I will surely lend my support to that cause. But not this way, not via the Jimmy method. That way only knows how to tear down.