Echoes : First GM (Updated Addendum)

What do you mean 'some kid somewhere'? He is already here and his name is Mas Hafizul. The only scenario i can forsee where he will not become GM is if he loses the financial support from his sponsors whoever they are.

It would be easier for him if there were a strong pool of players to give him the competition he needs to attain  his goal.Unfortunately as everyone seems to agree, this pool is  non-existent as non of the current crop of  players are anywhere near the same standard.

If Mas doesn't make GM , I am going to eat my pawns. I'm not going to wait another 15 years for someone like him to come along again....




This was how I answered someone else's post in Quah Seng Sun's chess-malaysia group, posted on December 13, 2000.

Forward to 29th November 2005, I wrote

We had an interesting discussion here, about 4 years ago whether Mas will make GM. As we are painfully aware, nobody has made any significant progress in 4 years.  And the way it's going, no Malaysian will make GM in this decade either.

Malaysia has been competing as long ago as 1974 when a team was sent to the Olympiad that year. As rightfully pointed out, Vietnam started from zero and within a couple of years already a force to be reckoned with in SEA.

Already it looks like the malaysian chess team will return empty handed from the SEA games.

In Torre's biography, "Beyond the 13th Move", there is a picture of him with  the caption "........ after you, who?". That about sums up my feelings about Malaysian chess.
 
Twelve years have passed since that 2000 posting ....

Imagine that Mas Hafizul was already touted to be Malaysia's first grandmaster in year 2000. I really should have ate my pawns :)

The "next kid"? Current year 2012 and I can only see Yeoh Li Tian as the only possibility. Unless Lim Yee Weng or Mok Tze Meng decides to take a sabbatical and shoot for it and prove that you can become GM at any age.

I welcome everyone to put there two cents here....

Addendum: The discussion was sparked by Ronnie Lim. See his post and my subsequent posting here