More Malware from Andrew?

Nowadays when I go to Gilachess or Malaysian Chess Blogs I get this pop-up



Depending on your browser settings , you may or may not get this popup. I think it is some kind of malware. If you click Cancel it keeps popping up again and again. My advice is do not click the Run button.

I'm staying away from Andrew's sites until he fixes it.

How fare our juniors?

In year 2010 I mentioned our most promising juniors that impressed me were  Yeoh Li Tian, Mohd Nabil , Sumant Subramaniam, Tan Jun Feng , Low Jun Jian and Fong Yit San and Mark Siew. Now in 2012 I can  review their progress since I made that statement.

Yeoh Li Tian has progressed the most having broken the 2200 FIDE rating barrier in the latest rating list. He is now in the top 10 in Malaysia by rating. The next best is Sumant who is rated 2074 and represented Malaysia in the 2011 SEA Games. Mohd Nabil is ELO 2054  and won the last National Junior while Mark Siew only came in fifth.

Li Tian, Sumant and Nabil can be considered to have achieved something since 2010 while the rest have not lived up to (my) expectations although both Tan Jun Feng and Fong Yit San did qualify for the SEA Games selection event.

Li Tian's target for this year should be to qualify for the Olympiad Team. It is not going to be easy with IM Lim Yee Weng getting an automatic place and IM Mas the hot favourite to grab another. This leaves only three more places.

Incidentally, Li Tian is entered for the Brunei Campomanes Open in April. This will be a real testing ground for the boy with many grandmasters and international masters taking part. Both Fong brothers , Yit Ho and Yit San are also taking part. Hopefully they can make some impact too.

I have been following another junior , Aron Teh Eu Wen, since the 2011 National Championship. I met this boy over the board in the very first round. He handled the white side of a Benko Gambit very well and I had to offer a draw as I was a pawn down and with less time. I thought he is talented, I had a chat with his mother. They are based in China (not sure if he receives training from the Chinese coaches).

Since then he has been collecting rating points from every tournament he played. In the last National Junior he placed third defeating Mark Siew in the last round.

This year he has played in the Aeroflot Open (gained 46.8 points), 2nd HD Bank Open (gained 25.35 points) in Vietnam, defeating  WIM Nguyen Thi Mai Hung (Vietnam's representative in 2011 SEA Games) in the last round. The lastest rating list has him at 1900. This is another boy to watch.

Actually I had wrote this post yesterday and scheduled it to be published tonight, so I was kind of beaten to the finish line by Peter Long who also wrote something about our juniors here. Synchronicity at work?

Strange and Interesting statistics

I found a feature of blogger that I did not know about until recently. This is the statistics feature which has lots of interesting information.

One of the highest number of pageviews was yesterday. It reached 482 pageviews. My latest post "Why the lies and spins" garnered 244 pageviews.

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?

Capablanca against a Martian

It is Friday again and time for some light-hearted article.

I found the following story at a site called Cyberprimo. It is an excellent story - some swear it is true  - but whatever the truth , it is too good not to share it. I took some liberties to translate it as the original story appeared in Spanish.

Capablanca was probably the greatest natural genius in chess  history, his style of play and way of life was very inspiring, so much so that the generations of today will continue to have a lot of admiration and respect, not to mention that we enjoyed many of the stories written in his memory, some as varied as this.

Selangor Open 2012

From Lim Tse Pin,


Dear fellow chess enthusiasts,

CAS is pleased to announce that Selangor Open, a FIDE-rated and
National-rated event, will be held from 1st May to 6th May 2012. There
is a change in the schedule format if compares with previous years. It
is to accomodate more working adults and school going children to take
part in this event.

Seremban chess

Received an email from Lee Siew Fai as follows -

 

Dear Malaysian Chess Arbiters or Chess Organisers, 

The Seremban 2 Community Chess Group is extending an OPEN BID to Malaysian Chess Arbiter to come forward to help us host our Maiden Chess Competition at Seremban 2.

Malaysian Chess responds

I see that a certain blogger is getting  bolder and bolder after successfully shouting down those who dare oppose him such as Chess Ninja, Chess Connections , Rationality and  Malaysian Chess Affairs.

No one is spared - from MCF President to chess organizers like Peter Long.

His latest posts are he thinks there is some corruption going on in the chess scene. Practically screams corruption , corruption but when asked to make a report , declines as he "does not want blood on his hands". Then he turns around and asks anyone with evidence to make the report. Hypocrisy?

So far nobody except Najib (Chess Ninja seems to have given up) has stood up to him albeit in a polite way. But I think Najib has gone the same route as the others as his blog is no longer available.

It seems the normally unflappable Lim Tse Pin (there, I spelled it correctly!) got upset when a mad man trains his sights on him. Read Tse Pin's response here.

Since it is a Friday, I prescribe more readings for my readers. Maybe this story is also relevant to the happenings in chess today.

The Myth

Disclaimer: I only write this to clear any misunderstandings being perpetuated.


This is a true story that bears resemblance to a certain blogger. OK, you all know him as Raymond Siew. Now I do read his posts just to see what rubbish is the flavor of the month. Normally I ignore the points but there is one that needs to be addressed as I am afraid people might start believing it.

The myth perpetuated is that certain people (Raymond does not name them) trying to tell "the kids" (whoever they are) that ( and I quote ) " they are all washed up by 15yo".Raymond wants you to believe that some people (whoever they are) are "attacking" the kids (again).

There was a quotation from Anand which I believe was first mentioned in a local chess blog by Ilhamudin in his 2010chessodyssey. Subsequently there was some mention of this same quote in one of the chess blog's shoutbox by some anonymous person. Raymond jumped on this and clung on ever since (for the reason , read #8 in my post here)

So the myth(s) -

#1 People are attacking the kids by telling them they are washed up by fifteen years old.
     Nobody ever said or meant that kids are washed up by 15 years old. They were just quoting Anand. It is all part of Raymond's poor understanding. Problem is he repeated it so many times, I think he actually believes it himself now.

#2 Anand's quote is  "If you are not grandmaster by fifteen, you can forget it".   If you understood the background where this quote was taken from, you will know that  Anand never meant that you cannot be grandmaster after fifteen. This is just someone's poor comprehension and worse - laziness to do background work. If you read the full interview you will understand the quote better. Let me just re-phrase that quote to show what Anand really was talking about. My addition is in  bold .
 
   " Nowadays if you are not grandmaster by fifteen, you can forget about becoming a super grandmaster or world champion"

Clear?

   

Peter Long on Chess in Schools

Here

What is MCF doing about chess in schools? Only when there is a large base of players, will there come more and more stronger chess players. The future IM or GM could be a school going child today.