You cannot blame the real chess players.

All they want to do is to play chess. All they want to do is to study the game, learn from the game, train hard and then compete to win their place in a clean selection. In a contest of skills. And there are many of them.

So we must look to those few officials, those few parents that want the back doors for their children and those even fewer "players" that want to represent the Country without playing strong or real chess to find where the problem is for our protracted decline.

This is simply because those few people are setting the culture for our players. The way into the squad is to conform to their cycle of failure.

There must be a way to stop them from killing off the real players and the game of chess in Malaysia. Then we will shine.

Welcome back Jonathan Chua and Marcus Chan.

Here.

Very slowly the real chess players are moving back into the active list. I think there were no good reasons to continue chess on the senior level before. This is very good news for Malaysia indeed. If this continues we will finally see the end of the deadbeats and the unproven.

Although this may actually mean that there is less chance for those with ratings not reflective of their playing strength to enter the senior squad, I would still like to advice caution by MCF. I had a chat with Nicholas Chan after this year's selection to ask if he was called to play in the Masters. And he said no.

So that means that the people in charge of calling the players did not do their job properly. Why did I suspect that? Actually that is a well practiced trait in Perak. They just simply skip till they get the players they want. Selection did not mean much those days if there even was one. They may have changed since the recent Perak Close but that is yet to be seen.

With Jonathan and Marcus coming back to the circuit I think this opens up new possibilities of yet another Masters.

But to get the very best players we would still need at least the top 15 from National Close to compete with the top 10 from the active list.

The reason is that there is a good chance that there are more than a few players from the top 15 in the National Close with lower ratings who can take the fight to the top 10 in the recently active list.

Caveat. This is only a good idea if the top 10 active list is strictly followed. Someone must audit this.

And then the top 8 from the Masters challenge get selected for the senior squad straight down the line from the top. Period. No more twisting the criteria.

And we will see the beginnings of a strong Malaysian Team.

Note: I hope we can see clearly from this how strong players have been sidelined in the past by a few people out for pure personal gain.

Why the desperate need to attack Mark and FGM?

Lets examine this a little deeper. Ref: Here.

Why indeed? I have never said Mark was the strongest Junior. I have only stated his achievements from his tournaments which is public record. I have not added but I have also not subtracted.

A clue may be gleaned from the reason why Jimmy and his cohorts attacked the FGM training by a GM for the National Juniors in 2010. Could it be they fear that the Juniors may improve?

After all if Mark is not strong he will just lose and not make the selection. There is absolutely no need for that sort of ugliness.

There was no need to force Zhuo Ren to write that email to attack me publicly on Jimmy's blog or Sumant to be attacked the way he was by anonymous people coming from Jimmy's blog till he too attacked me publicly.

There is no need for Eddy Fong to teach his children how to lie or slander on FB.

After all if Mark is a weak player he just won't make it in a proper selection. It is that simple.

And chess is supposed to teach us how to find the clues to evaluate the position on the board.

So what is your evaluation of this situation?

This is what I can see so far. They do not want a proper selection with no loop holes. They are deathly afraid of healthy competition. If you dare to compete on the board and try to win selection then they will set Jimmy, Peter and Eddy on you.

Why?

Could it be this? When there are deals made as to who should enter the squad and who should not, there is one thing they must make sure of. That there are no loose cannons that can upset the results. Ref: Here. Very obviously Mark is not yet the strongest. But Mark is continuing his training for National Close. And they know we have the better training program or at least equal to theirs.

So if Mark is to continue to pose a challenge, he may be good enough by National Close to create an upset and ruin the deal. I think that is their greatest fear and why they so desperately need to keep their side doors open. I find that quite obvious. What about you?

Why don't they just spend all that time improving their chess instead if they are so afraid?

Of course in life we need to learn to partner too. I play a game called Bridge. That game teaches us about partnering. It tells us how to find the right partners in order to compete better.

But that is not the job of chess. Chess is supposed to teach us how to compete. You do not use chess to learn how to partner up to keep strong players from developing.

So what is so wrong about healthy competition and clean selection for chess? Do you think our players will be able to partner up with the players from the other Countries to enable Malaysia to win medals at SEA games, Olympiads etc?

Now do you understand why we get thrashed overseas? Now do you understand why Jimmy, Peter and Eddy do what they do?

Simply put, if they do not manage to break Mark with their psycho attacks then all future deals could be in jeopardy. And they won't be able to put into the National Team who they want. And mind you, the considerations won't be about chess. That is why we fail on the International circuit. We mainly send out the weaklings with fat numbers some of which are manufactured. Players who are scared to compete. And we still want medals from them?

So leave Mark and the rest who wants to learn from chess alone. You can do any partnering you want. We cannot stop that.

But when we meet you on the table we will still compete in healthy competition. In case you still don't know what that means, it means we won't do it by sabotage. It means we will only do it by being the better chess player or not. The table will decide. Ok guys?

New Year Resolution: A new culture of excellence for Malaysian chess.

Ref: Here.

Do have a look at the comment posted by Peter. What does he mean by friendship? I would like to comment a little on it as well as the general climate of the writers on Jimmy's blog.

Please try to follow because I hope this will help explain why we are in the rut we are in. During the SEA games training in my home in 2011 we had Zhuo Ren and Sumant there. Mark was pretty much the new player on the National Junior level. Until Mark, most of the top Junior winners were pretty much the same players for many years.

What the boys told me was that for years they have been fixing the games at the level. They even have discussions to decide who the next Champion should be. Who's turn. Although I had my suspicions till then, it was not something that I actively thought about. Until then I had just focused on raising Mark's game.

So this was discussed in my house. Mark explained to Zhuo Ren that by fixing, what you are essentially doing is to deny another player his rightful place. To his credit Zhuo Ren said that he never looked at it that way before. That was just how things were done at that time.

Now I have argued for healthy competition and clean selection and that has brought all those guys together on Jimmy's blog. What is so threatening about that? Healthy competition means yes, we are friends but no I will still fight my best when we meet on the table. I will not collude to pre-agree a result.

Clean competition means that the very best players in Malaysia plays for Malaysia. And so they compete. No biased selection criteria from the active list because the ratings there are suspect. It is simple. If the ratings are reflective of playing strength then it will show up in the selection tournament.

And so I would say that the fight for a change in culture in Malaysian chess today is between those that want a strong Malaysian Team and those that wants to protect the culture of failure.

And so they form the cycle of failure with all their lies, slander etc. Here. The rot starts right from the top with participation from a select group of officials, arbiters, parents and players who wants the back/side doors. And their cronies.

So for 2014, I hope our chess culture will be one of healthy competition. Yes, we are friends but we will still compete. And also one of clean selection. Yes, you have a big fat number but show me what you have on the table. We will still compete.

That is the only way for us to have strong players that can stand tall in the International arena. The other culture breed weaklings.

The first step we need to take, to change that culture, is to get every player that wants to represent Malaysia to fight in National Close period. No side doors from the active rating list or other side deals. And then we choose straight down from the top.

Think of this. They keep telling us how strong this person or that person is. They keep telling us how strong they are. I say, no need to talk. Show us on the table and from an unbiased selection criteria.

Happy 2014.

Happy New Year.

To all my readers whether you agree with me or not, I would like to wish you a happy and prosperous 2014.

And to the readers who agree with what I say here and the new FGM players, I would like to wish you a new year of many changes and many mistakes. Change yourself and the whole world changes. Don't be afraid to make mistakes as that is the surest way to learning new things.

The vicious cycle of failure.

Ref: Here.

In the post in the link above, I mentioned that I told the President of PICA that I wanted to resign but he chose to find a reason to sack me. Let me try to explain more on this.

During PICA meetings we were all talking about a Perakian GM. And one of the things I urged my fellow committee members to do was to go out and measure ourselves against the States that were doing better than us. We need a measure otherwise we risk being trapped in self delusion. But nobody else saw the importance of that.

So even though we were all talking about the same thing, I knew I had to do it alone. I wanted the measures, to see the gaps and to find the mindset and the methods to narrow those gaps. And they wanted something else. So I decided to set up my own chess academy. But they wanted the academy under PICA. And I thought Perak was big enough for two academies.

Funnily the officer who spoke to me during Perak Close was still saying much the same thing about a Perak GM and he wanted Mark under him. But this is many years after 2009. And we have moved much further on since without any help from the State. And he is still saying the same thing we talked about then and without an academy.

Lost in a time warp perhaps?

I wanted my players to learn the powerful lessons that chess can teach us. Here. But what do they want? Now if we can see this I think we will see much clearer the vicious cycle of failure.

I believe they want the short cuts. Short cuts would be categorised by fixing tournaments in it's myriad ways. In Perak Close a new one was found by the father calling on the handphone while his son and daughter are playing to give the daughter a win and a point to get into the Perak team. This happened on the second last round. So this is bad for the player's development and bad for Perak. And it was Eddy who made the call. Do you think that was done accidentally?

From my observations I see that certain officials will close a blind eye to the various forms of fixing. Why would that be? How can it be good for the official or for the State he represents? This question was posed to me in Penang Open. My believe is that it gives the officers a sense of power that they do not have in the outside world and this becomes a sort of drug that they cannot do without. A false sense of self esteem from the parent's grovelling so they look the other way and still sponsor the child. Those officials are "big men" only because they can provide the back doors. They have nothing else to offer.

So they have chosen their way and I have chosen mine. So the question remaining is why the need to sack me or attack my academy and my players by the spread of vicious slander? Why did they attack a program from a GM to train our national players?

I think the reason is because they already know deep down inside that their method doesn't work. It has been used since the inception of MCF and the affiliates and all it has produced is weak players. And they are deathly afraid that my method of doing competitor analysis, measuring the gaps and then doing the hard work of training and fighting in selection may actually work.

And so I believe that is why they felt they needed to sack me and then try to throw slur on my reputation. Otherwise it doesn't make any sense. And they won't do that only to me. They will do that to anyone that really wants to learn the lessons of chess and dare to compete. And so the vicious cycle of failure is formed. They now have the ascendancy because they are in control of MCF. Or maybe not.

I think you can see from this link how desperate the situation can become. Here. How they can spin asking for proper selection and healthy competition into that. They will lie and behave in the most despicable way to keep their drugs. Jimmy will do whatever he can to stay on the Malaysian Team and Eddy will do whatever he can to keep his child ahead of the game. Even to the point of lying. Even to the point of teaching his children to lie and slander. Compare this type of behaviour to those of drug addicts and I think we will see many similarities. Is that not the harsh reality?

Think about this and then think about the MCF AGM. If we want to stop the rot then we cannot just have an AGM without identifying the real issues that keep us backwards. You see what they will do to keep their priviledges, you see how vicious they can get. My question to you is if you think chess is worth the fight for the sake of our future generations. My belief is that chess can build the type of towering Malaysians our whole Country is clamoring for if used correctly. It is too important to allow people like Jimmy and Eddy and those few others to take away from us.

What do you think? What is your stand on this issue? It is tough yes? They know this. They know you don't want that type of ugly confrontation. And they count on that to keep their back doors open.

HAPPY NEW YEAR. May 2014 be the year of change for you by first changing yourself. Stand up to the gangsters. You have too much to lose.

Actually it's lets write a new history.

Ref: Here.

I think once the fight between those that wants genuine selection and those that defends the back doors through lies and deceit is finally settled once and for all then this type of writing will also stop. And only MCF has that power.

The whole of Malaysia is fed up of being thrashed in International circuits and having players in the Malaysian team that comes in through the back doors long after they are able to play chess anymore or before they have proved themselves. I have highlighted Perak simply because the causes for decline is much more obvious there than anywhere else I know.

I hear that there are new moves to have an MCF AGM in March. When my views were solicited I said that I think we need to hear about the issues that will be resolved by the change of leadership and not just the name of the leader and everything else remains the same. If that is the case we may as well save on the money and the energy spent from calling for an early AGM.

The new history that we need to write is for Jimmy Liew and everyone else mentioned in the link above to play at National Close and then make the Malaysian team. No more back doors. If the new leadership is able to provide solutions to all that has been ailing Malaysian chess then it will be well worth the trouble.

So lets write a new chapter in Malaysian chess yes Jimmy and Eddy? See you guys at National Close k, so you can show us all how a Ferrari is supposed to play. Much better than putting down the other Juniors yes? Show them by example.

And Eddy, please...you taught Mark? What can't you lie about? What is the level of your chess? How did you play in Penang Open? But teaching your children how to lie too? Isn't that a new low even for you? And your children deleted those comments because you know they have finally crossed the line into slander. Why don't you yourself repeat what they said instead of hiding behind them?

My version of the history of Perak Chess from 2009.

There has been some interest in the history of Perak Chess on facebook. I will be the first to admit that many things are murky and it took me a while to unearth even as much as I know. But since there are accusations levied against me on facebook, I think I will give a short account of my version here. Actually much of this is already known outside of Perak but many in Perak are still in the dark.

The first accusation levied against me is that I was sacked from the committee in 2009. Yes, that is true but the reasons given are not. Actually if you read this blog back to it's starting point then a lot is explained there. But here is the gist. When I came into Perak chess, I did a couple of things that pissed a lot of people in the committee off. I tried to put in a selection criteria. Apart from the committee members there was one parent in particular who objected very strongly. That person was Eddy Fong.

The other thing that happened was that I was called up by Dato Tan Chin Nam who wanted me to do things for him in Perak. So he asked me to handle the KLK sponsorship. Of course the older committee members could not understand why me and not them. This combined with the fact that I also introduced DKLS as a potential sponsor was too much of a threat. That meeting between DKLS and PICA was also attended by Dato Tan.

So that is the brief background. Do let me add a little more here. At the meeting in DKLS, I informed the President of PICA that I wanted to resign as a committee member to set up a chess academy. However for reasons best known to the President and committee, they decided to sack me. The excuse they used was for the presentation of accounts from Syuen. I agreed to that but I also asked for the simultaneous presentation of accounts of 2 earlier events done by PICA.

The meeting was set on a date when everyone knew that I would be in KL. I asked for a change of date but that was refused. The meeting was held when I was in KL and I was sacked. So of course there were many constitutional issues. First of which was if the committee can sack an elected official. And then if the sacking can be on grounds of not being able to attend one meeting. I had perfect attendance till then. And PICA is an NGO.

So it seems the sacking was done for 2 possible reasons. One was possibly just spite and the second was that the sacking would facilitate for somebody to do the KLK event since it can be conveniently explained to Dato Tan that I was sacked. Anyway that issue is still hanging till today. I asked for the right to present my case at the next AGM as stated in the constitution but that too was denied me. The next AGM was held in secret.

The other accusation levied at me is that I used "free tickets" and charged players. This attack was first coordinated by Jimmy Liew's site via the use of anonymous blogs. That is of course also not true as we were sponsored by Air Asia to train our national players and I hired a GM to do that. All the evidence were presented on my blog including the letter from Air Asia that stated this. I even published the accounts. And FGM is a registered company and not an NGO as they try to spin. The worst thing about this accusation is that it is Eddy Fong's children that are saying this on FB. And so they hide behind children again. Why doesn't Eddy himself come out and say this?

I think it is hard for anyone to know the truth now since there will be many versions. So why don't we just look at the evidence. Who's children has benefited from sponsorships from Perak over these years? I think you may find that it is from the same people who objected to clear selection criteria. So we just need to pick up the clues or in the due course of time, the truth will also be revealed.

I think their greatest fears are when the parents come together and share their experiences. I think they will also be very afraid when more and more Perakians travel out. Could that be why I only see Fadzil, Yit San and Yit Ho in most of the tournaments outside of Perak? And now I hear that even Fadzil has moved to greener pastures. Why don't they encourage more players to go out and participate like how all the other States do? Could it be because they can then still continue with their nonsense here if everything is bottled up? But how long do they want to keep Perak in the dark?

But there is some good that came out of this. My failed attempt at implementing selection criteria in Perak was then subsequently adopted by MCF in 2010 for NAG. Not all is mine but I shared a lot with the new Secretary of MCF after the aborted attempt in Perak.

The other "good" thing is that the entire chess community is now seeing new innovations to the idea of playing tag team in individual tournaments. The latest being a telephone call to make sure that all 3 children makes the team. So that is a new one to deny someone else their rightful place. Wonders never cease. And I thought I had seen quite a lot in 10 years.

Full results of Perak Close.

Here.

DATCC closes down!!!

I just read on facebook that DATCC will close down from the new year. Can anyone confirm?