CNN on chess

Here.

European Individual with game.

Here.

Quotation

We should not investigate facts by the light of arguments, but arguments by the light of facts. – Myson of Chanae

"All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time.” ― Mitch Albom

An article by Marina Mahathir

I find her point of view refreshing. Here.

Strong tournaments builds strong players.

When I look at IM Goh's journey, this is what I see. That kind of strength of character is not born in one day. It is slowly nurtured over many many tough tournaments. As I have said before the stresses of tournaments can build and it can also destroy.

Faulty evaluations, fixed tournaments and selection, loose tournament formats that allow self weakening strategies like "ducking", unreasonable expectations etc. are negative aspects that can lead to demotivation of players.

A good way to increase our pool of strong players ready to answer the National call is tough and fair tournaments on our own shores. It is expensive for the Country to send players overseas just for exposure. Look at China for instance; I am told that there are not many Fide events there but even local tournaments are tough. And when the chinese players go out, they can achieve GM norms in one go. There is a lesson here for us if we care to see.

European Individual 2011 with games

Here.

Quotation

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” ― Anaïs Nin

IM Goh makes first GM norm.

I hope this will awaken those who keep saying it cannot be done after 15yo. Here.

For your information IM Goh is 28yo. Please pay attention to the description of his struggle and compare and contrast his mental state with those of our players at National Close. Where and what is the gap? What needs to be done to close that gap?

How to use FGM Thematic Tournaments.

The purpose of the thematic tournaments is to learn so you can win at tournaments that count. Remember I said previously that I train Mark to use smaller tournaments to practice? So one tournament would be to practice sacks, another to test under development secondary weapons etc.

When you play all tournaments to win, you do not dare to experiment. That curbs your chess development. But there is a flaw even in that approach. Sometimes we cannot even test those weapons in normal tournaments because you need the cooperation of your opponents for that to happen.

And so I have brought thematic tournaments. The idea behind this is you get to practice the openings, the lines that you prepare in battle. So use the Ruy Lopez Tournament well. This is a training tournament. Test all the lines, the different ways to play Ruy Lopez.

I will circle different openings in other tournaments and so your lessons will be complete in time. Then use this knowledge to win the tournament that counts. Read up and I'll see you on the 23rd April.

All my best in your chess development.

NC2011- A postmortem

After giving this some thought, I believe these steps will lead to improved selection tournaments. So these are my suggestions.

The first thing would be to cap the minimum fide rating for participants in selection tournaments. If the field is essentially strong, it will discourage "ducking" as a tournament strategy.

The second is to implement a ban on walkouts in the next or subsequent selection tournaments as this affects the tiebreak of their opponents.

These changes will ensure that those who make it will be battle hardened and ready for National Representation.

A Challenger Cup on the side should satisfy the needs of all. Maybe we can add a clause to say that the winner of the previous Challenger can move into the main event the following year. This should encourage players to increase their ratings if they want to vie for National Honours.