New blood needed
With our less than stellar performance at the Olympiad, I personally think that improvements should be seen at the grass roots level. No point discussing how we should have won that critical last round which would have propelled us to 80th ++ position. No point discussing who was the weak link or who pulled the team etc. Mas, Yee Weng, Mok, Jimmy and Edward did their best despite the result. Their time, effort and energy has already been sacrificed for this Olympiad and adding salt to the wound by criticising them just doesn’t help.
We need to discover new talents. I believe there are many “Yeoh Li Tians” out there that’s left to be found. I don’t care if history shows us that most of our Malaysian talents lose their “drive” after universities. If we have more talented kids at the very start very likely there will be the odd one or two willing to go the distance and put in the blood and tears needed for professional chess.
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The trouble is MCF doesn’t learn from it’s mistakes. Automatic/semi-automatic entry into the team is wrong because it supresses the player’s killer instinct; but year in and year out we resort to choosing players based on past reputation despite them not playing in many tournaments, and that too without outstanding results to boot.
I previously thought that we had the strongest team for a long time, but it turned out that we also got the worst result for a long time.
It is not a matter of just finding the young local talents, but they must have the official coaching and financial assistance needed to reach the top as well as receive recognision for their achievements.
I could be wrong, but from what I hear, only Mas has some recognisable form of official support to improve his game. The others have none to talk about, so the team’s performance is expected.
Guest_2566 : he malaysian team took a long, indirect route(my sources tell me) to dresden which definitely results in a drop in playing strength early in the tournament
Guest_2566 : having said that, MY theory on why yee weng only scored 1/2 in the first 2 rounds against 2100 players is because 1)maybe yee weng was one of those people who perform badly as a result of a little bit of jet lag/fatigue. 2)because his last tournament was the selangor open. those 2 factors combined probably led to dropping of 2 half points to relatively weaker opponents in the early rounds. mok and jimmy are somewhat past their prime…mas performed only slightly below his rating. besides that, t
Guest_2566 : lastly, my “outbirst” was not unwarranted. the blind criticism on malaysia’s performance and its players was unwarranted.
Guest_2566 : btw throw in the fact that he upset a player 100 points above him.summarizing this:1)edward’s losses were against players in the 2400 region, i dont care how you look at it. 2)so what if he scored against a weaker player? at least he didnt lose.(WE=wins expected)
Guest_2566 : he point, edward either gains or loses rating in this situation but if he scores half a point he would be playing above his normal strength. to condense this, im implying that if edward was to be said to be performing badly, he would have to lose again to another rated player(his WE would be at least 0.5 then)
Guest_2566 : he 2400 REGION, roughly 300-400 points above his rating. he is in fact expected to score 0.37/3 against them with his projected strength obtained through his rating. factoring mathematical arguments into this requirement, he would need to offer his oppenent 2/3rds of a point in any game(lol) to theoretically perform just a point or two below his rating strength. any better and he is performing below his projected strength. since fide does not give players the option to offer a 1/3-2/3 split of t
Guest_2566 : i said region.2350 is considered close to 2400. so what if he had a win against an unrated player?he scored the maximum for that game. you want him to score 2 points against that player?even god cant score more than 1 point in a single game unless he changed the scoring rules of chess. the whole point of criticism is to point out weaknesses, mistakes and imperfections(lo ts of people here are gifted at that, mind you). edward’s imperfection in his performance was a 0/3 score against players in t
Guest_1678 : Ithink your outbirst was unwarranted. Firstly, not all edward’s losses were against 2400 players. Research yourself. Secondly, 1 of his 2 wins were against an unrated player.
Guest_2566 : ded
Guest_2566 : by the way, edward’s w-we is +0.3 so he is expecting to gain rating. do some research and analysis by yourself first before blindly criticising the performance of the malaysian team despite it being relatively terrible compared to the previous years. saying an analysis is needed is incredibly redundant and obvious. for crying out loud, of course an analysis will be done. its like a doctor telling the family of a surviving victim of a 7-storey fall that he has been injured and an analysis is nee
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Taking an indirect route to Dresden as an excuse for performing badly… that is a grandmother of an excuse! More likely, our the players were could not match their opponents.
FYI, the team beat Libya 3.5-0.5 in the first round and Jersey 2.5-1.5 in the second. Even if they had camped in Dresden 1 month before, nobody expected them to beat the Germans in round 3. So your theory doesn’t hold water.
A national player who plays for the country is expected to have his performance subject to scrutiny and praise or criticism. I don’t understand why Edward was your prime “defence candidate” as I did not focus on his performance.
Just 4 rated games in such a large team tournament is unlikely to give a true reflection of elo performance. Imagine if he had lost to 3 players at 2600 instead of 2400, he would have scored +20 elo, maybe, for winning 1 game against a 2100+ player. Is that fair?
Moreover, 2350 is not in the region of 2400, however you look at it. At 2400, you get your IM title ratified. At 2350, you are far from being an IM. LYW should be able to tell you his frustrations on this point.
you try taking a 30 hour journey all over the world and see. under such fatigued conditions you cant expect to create an upset or hold your ground so easily(im talking about squeezing more points out of the first 2 rounds).
of course malaysia couldnt match germany, i didnt bother to mention it because i assumed everyone would know a whitewash was in order.
i dont believe that “A national player who plays for the country is expected to have his performance subject to scrutiny and praise or criticism” is true for chess. in other sports the government, and in turn, the rakyat pay to send the player(s) overseas to represent the country. of course something is expected from them. but in chess, you and i do not pay a sen to see our malaysian chess team fly overseas to play in the olympiad, the organizers pay for that(and other sponsors too if im not mistaken). you want to criticize the national squad’s performance? earn the right to do so. pay for their trip and board and lodging. then you can swear and curse at them all you like after they lose 0-4 to russia/armenia/
and yes, “Just 4 rated games in such a large team tournament is unlikely to give a true reflection of elo performance”. you said it yourself. you cant say any player in the team is performing badly, simply because the difference between a good and bad perfomance is one upset, and good or bad is determined by which side of the upset youre on. in an 11-round tournament it is not easy to create more than 1 upset, but it is possible, but thats why it would be considered great. because of this, after getting upset once it is hard to get back on your feet because it means you have to pull off an upset too. and we all know its easier to be on the receiving end of an upset.
LYW is not an IM only because of his rating, I’m sure you already know that. If you are so determined to have 2350 considered as within the 2300 region, thats fine because all these rating categories dont mean anything to me and is irrelevant to my point, and i know youre the type of person that always has the last say in an argument. My point is that the players edward lost to were at least 300 points higher than him. The odds for him to score well against such players by outplaying at this point in time is lower than the chance of getting number 37 in a game of roulette(and before you say anything, this is just a figure of speech, i know his odds are better than that), because he is still climbing up the rating ladder. why is edward my “prime defence”? apparently you werent reading the earlier shoutbox posts. Mr.882 suggested that a more “experienced” player than edward should have been sent to dresden and commented that he “isnt that great anyway”. all i am proving is that he “isnt that lousy anyway”(in a sense of olympiad performance). edward performed well given the circumstances. he was subbed into the games against stronger players and only played 2 games against weaker players, and he won those 2. asking edward to crack a 2350+ player with only 3 shots at it is just not enough.
having said that, my point is that while an analysis is needed to improve(like in 99% of life), nobody in the team is to blame for the less-than-usual performance in this olympiad. everyone played close to their rating strength.
I think you could not read properly. I did not single out anyone to blame. I just said that “all” the players lost elo points. Show me where I pinpointed anyone to blame.
If you had followed the progress of the tournament, all the while Edward was put as unrated. Only 2 days after the tournament ended was his rating rectified as 2054 in the official site. I checked before my post that day, he was still put as unrated. I left it at that and said all our players lost elo points, and that was a correct statement as nothing was shown for Edward.
Even if you had paid everything on your own, if you play for the country, anyone has a right to comment on your performance as a national player. That is the burden of being a national player, you can’t escape that fact. Go play in your own private capacity if you want to avoid criticism.
I had also said that I was of the opinion this was probably our strongest team possible based on the selection method. Base on the final pool of players, I would also have picked these players. But that doesn’t mean even if they performed badly, they cannot be criticised.
We were seeded 73 but ended up at 96 with 19/44. And you said we performed adequately????
i think you failed to realise that you are not the only person in the shoutbox. you obviously didnt notice that i was also talking to another person. anyway, i give up. people your age with your mindset are impossible to be given a new perspective of thought. have fun criticising our national players. we’re not going to listen to your criticism anyway, especially since you have never represented this country anyway. so long and goodbye.
Frankly you do not know what you are ranting about. People who post personal attacks repeatedly despite having been warned, have not place on internet forums.
Just that you know, (The Malaysian website) http://www.themalaysian.com.my, has nothing to do with this ‘Malaysian’ person.
Malaysia’s situation in chess is almost like the Malaysian football situation. The thing is that at least for the past 25 years we have remained stagnant if not regressed. It’s not true that we do not have talent. I can name you a whole list of these guys.
Over the past 25 years we have had Peter Long, Francis Ching, Eric Cheah, Ahmad Muzaffar, Mohd Nor Yahya, Lee Soi Hock, Mohd Kamal, Ng Ek Leong, Ng Ek Teong, Gregory Vijayendren, Chay Joon Hong, Yeoh Chin Seng, Tan Eng Seong, Mohd Saprin, Mohd Hirmiadi, Mohd Irman, Adrian Wong, Darren Ong, Thomas Lam, Yap Swee Hong, Ronald Hogg, Navin Pillay, Ahmad Nazri, Ooi Chern Ee, Ng Ee Vern, Tan Wei Sin, etc etc… all talented, and some of them at one a point in time schoolboy champions.
Many of them like Andrew said apparently “lose” their drive after attending universities. But that is furthest away from the truth. It’s crazy to think that they lose their drive after attending universities. Many of the above mentioned are very talented people in their own right and are today successful professionals in their field. I believe that combining chess and studies would not have been a big deal to them.
There are countless of examples out there of those who have combined both chess and studies perfectly. GM Dr. John Nunn, GM Pascal Charbonneau, GM Dr.Wong Meng Kong, just to name but a few.
The truth is that all of the mentioned were not nurtured. They were very well left on their own even when their talent was known. There was no support/programme for them to continue playing and studying. In short, there was no help, no guide. And so no matter how many “Yeoh Li Tians” we continue to produce, they will still fall by the wayside granted the way our society goes. And more so if there are no one out there to convince parents that studies and chess and come together.
So the fact is that IM Mas is surely one very lucky player to get such good support from his employers to get his GM norms. Because history has shown that this almost never happened before. Mas must surely be kicking himself if this chance goes abegging.
“Over the past 25 years we have had Peter Long, Francis Ching, Eric Cheah, Ahmad Muzaffar, Mohd Nor Yahya, Lee Soi Hock, Mohd Kamal, Ng Ek Leong, Ng Ek Teong, Gregory Vijayendren, Chay Joon Hong, Yeoh Chin Seng, Tan Eng Seong, Mohd Saprin, Mohd Hirmiadi, Mohd Irman, Adrian Wong, Darren Ong, Thomas Lam, Yap Swee Hong, Ronald Hogg, Navin Pillay, Ahmad Nazri, Ooi Chern Ee, Ng Ee Vern, Tan Wei Sin, etc etc… all talented, and some of them at one a point in time schoolboy champions. ”
.. ahem, not all are talented.