It's about the forest, not the trees.

First off, I would like to thank Jimmy for sharing so openly with us. From his latest tirade we get to see inside his thinking and his world. Remember I said that those who are in a lot of pain cannot see the pain they inflict on others? So what can we infer from Jimmy's site?

God complex. He still thinks that it's about him. He has the right to determine who represents Malaysia and who doesn't. He has the right to say who can be a coach and who can't. He has the right to not allow players from a chess academy he doesn't like to play in a fair competition and who can attend their training and who cannot.

Of course he does not acknowledge selection even though we can see he cannot even play good chess anymore. Of course he cannot see the pain he has caused to others. Players and Parents. To him it's all about him.

So lets remind ourselves what this is all about. It's about a level playing field. It's about our players being able to go to any coach they want without being attacked. It's about the best players having the chance to win in healthy competition and not be left on the back burner while weak players take their place via the back door.

It's about the coming AGM in MCF where we have the chance to make a change.

Look carefully at the world that Jimmy exists in. That was the environment where Jimmy and his friends were lords and masters. There was no written selection before 2010. So it's a new thing and FGM fought hard to bring in the changes. Selection. Look up the history. No written selection for juniors or seniors. During those times it doesn't matter how well you do. It was all up to the deal makers. That was of course during Hamid's time.

When Greg came in we helped him to bring in the changes you now see. So yes FGM has a stake in this. But slowly we are seeing the reversals. What Jimmy and cronies want is to go back to the good old days. And that was what destroyed Malaysian chess. Weak players built up by PR and fattened numbers. Players who cannot compete on the world stage because they cannot even win in Malaysia in clean competition.

Jimmy would like us to go to his gutter level and make it about hate. That is his world. In the world we want we will not allow our juniors to be publicly attacked the way Jimmy wants just because their decisions and wins are not endorsed by him. His is a black and white world of win at all cost no matter who he tramples in his path or how many lies he has to tell. We want a chess culture where we can nurture our juniors till they are strong enough to weather their own storms. We correct them when they make mistakes. We guide them till they are strong oaks in their own right.

So we have to decide. Do we want to live in Jimmy's world where the whole world is reduced to his narrow interpretation of chess or do we want to see a bigger world with more parameters and variables.

Parents, players and decent officials, you need to make up your minds. Do you want Jimmy and his kind to define you or do you want to make your own decisions. If your child is good he moves forward, if you are the stronger player you move forward. Or will you allow Jimmy to decide for you. Who you can train with or you will be attacked. Not only you. Child, parent or player, it makes no difference to him. The only thing he wants is that you submit to his decisions.

I have made my decision. I will decide how to bring up my own kid. I will defend any player who freely chooses to train with FGM. They can freely come or go if they want. I respect their choices.

So Jiimmy, no matter how you twist and turn you cannot change the fact that the Olympiad team is fraudulent. But I will not go to your gutter level to debate this with you anymore. I will continue to lobby for change and a new team for MCF so we can move forward and not back to those days of utter failure.

I do not want to see any of our Juniors growing up to be another Jimmy Liew who grows weaker and weaker by the year but still deludes himself into thinking he is a Ferrari. I want to see our players growing and growing till one day we too have our own GMs. I want to see Malaysians among the world beaters. And your way only takes us into your nightmare world of failure after failure.

We want to move away from your culture of self sabotage to a culture of building.

So it's not about you Jimmy although I know you want to personalize this. You are not significant enough. You are merely the spokesperson for the other failures. It is the culture of failing that you want to force on us that we are against.

But thank you for your time and cooperation all the same. It has been very instructive.

Go and visit Jimmy's site to see what I mean. Here. Is that the culture we want to place our players in?

An interesting discussion at Asian Amateur

First round of the blitz and FM Ignatius Leong lost to one of Singapore's young players. He asked the boy to explain to me his loss. I commented that it is a testimony to his coaching that the young boy was not intimidated by him.

Later on there was me, Ignatius and an IM and we got to talking on the topic again. The IM said that it is not his fault that the younger generation of players were weaker than the older ones. Maybe not personally but I think that generally the next generation should be stronger than the previous one. And if that is not so then there is something wrong with the way the older generation is handling things.

Again I found someone trying to lay the blame on the kids. Why don't the decision makers, ie the older members of the chess community, try to see where we can improve things so that each subsequent generation of players become stronger and stronger.

Progress.

Today's Contemplation.

The purpose of therapy is not to remove suffering but TO MOVE THROUGH IT to an enlarged consciousness that can sustain the polarity of painful opposites.

-- James Hollis

Today's Contemplation.

If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying, 'Here comes number seventy-one'!

-- Richard DeVos

Today's Contemplation.

If in the darkness of ignorance, you don't recognize a persons true nature, look to see whom he has chosen for his leader.

-- Rumi, "Mathnawi" [IV, 1640]

Today's Contemplation.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. It is not necessary to seek for what is true but it is necessary to seek for what is false.

-- A Course In Miracles

Today's Contemplation.

Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.

-- Oprah Winfrey

Today's Contemplation.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

-- Barack Obama

Today's Contemplation.

Everything you want should be yours: the type of work you want; the relationships you need; the social, mental, and aesthetic stimulation that will make you happy and fulfilled; the money you require for the lifestyle that is appropriate to you; and any requirement that you may (or may not) have for achievement or service to others. If you don’t aim for it all, you’ll never get it all. To aim for it requires that you know what you want.

-- Richard Koch

Today's Contemplation.

Make No Small Plans for they have no power to stir the soul.

-- Niccolo Machiavelli

Today's Contemplation.

I challenge you to make your life a masterpiece. I challenge you to join the ranks of those people who live what they teach, who walk their talk. -- Tony Robbins

Today's Contemplation.

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life … Therein he cannot be re­placed, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.

-– Viktor Frankl

Your work is to discover your work and then, with all your heart, to give yourself to it.

-– Buddha

The consequences of today are determined by the actions of the past. To change your future, alter your decisions today.

-- Anonymous

Leave the mind in its natural, undisturbed state. Don't follow thoughts of "This is a problem, that is a problem!" Without labeling difficulties as problems, leave your mind in its natural state. In this way, you will stop seeing miserable conditions as problems.

- Lama Zopa Rinpoche, "Transforming Problems Into Happiness"

Today's Contemplation.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

-- Steve Jobs

Today's Contemplation.

Self-acceptance comes from meeting life's challenges vigorously. Don't numb yourself to your trials and difficulties, nor build mental walls to exclude pain from your life. You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find peace not in denial, but in victory.

-- J. Donald Walters

Today's Contemplation.

...that the method of the enterprising is to plan with
audacity and execute with vigor.

Christian Nevell Bovee said that, and it is a valuable
observation. As we approach this holiday season, and
you begin thinking about the New Year ahead, plan
with audacity.

And as you move into the New Year, executive your
plans with vigor. There is excitement in life -- but you
have to put it there.

Incidentally, you may begin executing with vigor right
now. Why wait?

Today's Contemplation.

"Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all."

Norman Vincent Peale
1898-1993, Author of The Power of Positive Thinking

Change.

Everything begins with the resolve to take the first step. From that action, wisdom arises and change begins. Without action, nothing changes.

Mr the Rock. (facebook)

But with change comes a little discomfort.

I was talking to a chess friend yesterday and he said that they don't want to improve. I think that is now obvious. They are stuck in a time warp. For some reason Jimmy and friends think that they own chess and they also own MCF. So they keep telling MCF what they should do or not do. They attack anything new. Even a training program for our Junior's before International Tournament.

So I told my friend, chess does not belong to Jimmy. It belongs to all of us. It also belongs to all the players that came back to play when we had selection. Each of us should be able explore our own path to improvement without offence to Jimmy. That is our right. We should not be subject to lies and slander just because we bring in new value and different ideas.

Since Jimmy claims that he knows best, the right way is to prove it over the table. In a clean and fair chess competition. The ideas that don't work will then just slowly disappear. All the dirty tricks to defend ideas that hasn't worked for 30 years will just keep us backward. So we do not need Jimmy to tell us who are strong players and who are not. We want to see for ourselves.

And we look to MCF to protect our right to that space.

Today's Contemplation.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life...Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.

-- Steve Jobs, Founder, Apple Computers

Today's Contemplation.

Don't wish for less problems, wish for more skills. Don't wish for less challenges, wish for more wisdom.

-- Jim Rohn

Today's Contemplation.

There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue.

-- Hagakure