Why the lies and spins?

Today I break my own promise and refer readers to a blog post here and here .

Once upon a time, I remember Raymond Siew used to be full of praise for MCF Secretary, Gregory Lau. I believe the word he used was "courageous". Maybe that was back when Greg seemed to be supportive of the former. But Greg seems to have fallen out of favour now.

Raymond Siew says Greg is so powerful now, even IM Mok has to wait for Greg to have lunch. The insinuation is that Greg has some kind of "hold" over people. Hmmm. Maybe Mok just want to have lunch with a friend, and Greg was attending to something important so he "forced" Mok to wait for his lunch. Sounds better?



Raymond says a lot of other things about Greg, most of them bordering on libel so I am not repeating them here. Later , to rub salt into the wound, he has the cheek to say it is not personal, it is not about Greg. Really? After accusing the guy of various impropriety, it is not about him? You could have fooled me.

Most of you may not understand, since you have not been dragged through the mud publicly like I have. Raymond is just doing the same thing to Greg what he did to me. Lies and spins. That is why I feel it has to be addressed properly. Not because I have known Greg for over twenty years and he is my friend. I saw he did a good job at last year's SEA Games in Palembang. He does not deserve to be character assassinated because Raymond wants to play God on his own blog.

Let me tell "my own truth" now.

Raymond Siew tried to start a chess school few years back but that did not work out and it was eventually shut down. At the beginning, he tried to get my close friend to get involved by lying (I think Raymond did not know he is my friend). In an effort to convince him, my friend was told that I had already agreed to be involved in his school. In other words, he was lying and using my name without my permission at the same time.

My friend felt something was not right with this man. One night he called me. I confirmed his suspicions - that I had never met or talked to Raymond Siew before. When confronted, Raymond denied it and claimed he meant to ask me later. My friend is no fool and knew exactly what he meant the first time. Later he advised me that this guy was bad news and warned me not to get involved in his blog. At that time Raymond had just started his blog and I was one of those that encouraged him by making comments on his posts (as I do with new chess blogs). Yes, I was a fool once.

He harps on his "one of a kind" training for the juniors. You mean for over thirty years no junior training were ever conducted? Astounding. The only "one of a kind" was that the juniors got "free" tickets by paying for training lasting only a few days. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one.

Let's see, he says he helped Zhuo Ren and Sumant by training them in his house. What kind of training since he is  not  a chess player himself? Zhuo Ren felt he was being used and asked Raymond to publish his (Zhuo Ren's) clarification. All requests were ignored by Raymond to the extent that Raymond deleted Zhuo Ren's comments on his blog and claimed that they were deleted by persons unknown. Raymond thinks everyone else is a fool and will believe anything he says. So Zhuo Ren asked me to publish his letter on this blog instead. All these are on  record on this blog as well as Raymond's blog.

Raymond took the opportunity to accuse me of masterminding the whole episode. That is Raymond's so called "his own truth" which actually consists of what Raymond thinks up and totally separate from reality.

Sumant qualified for the SEA Games squad but I believe on his own merit. By the way, at Palembang my hotel room was usually open and Sumant would just come in and plonk himself on the bed next to mine and chat with me. We had quite a few long talks and some involved Mr Raymond Siew. Since these are private chats I refrain from publishing the content here.

His only real achievement is his son, Mark, managed to get 2nd in one of the National Junior tournament but marred by the scandal. I do not want to go into that one, interested readers can check my old posts for the details.

Next he says he was sacked from PICA because he brought in big sponsors. What? I cannot brain that. Those guys in PICA must be out of their minds if we are to believe Raymond. Or were there other reasons? Apparently Raymond tried to get MCF to hold an inquiry. But it has been quite some time now and Raymond has not mentioned the inquiry since and nothing has been forthcoming. Did MCF do anything or could it be that MCF did and found the reasons valid? Do tell.

Here is a story from the Bible.

Jesus came upon a crowd gathered around a prostitute in one of the towns he was passing through. "Stone her to death", the crowd shouted. Jesus told the crowd, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone". The crowd fell silent and slowly one by one walked away. Jesus told the woman, "Go and sin no more"