Then Rizal goes on to talk about it from the perspective of religion after exhausting his other slightly more relevant points (this player has cheated before, because other people said so, yada yada yada), ending with, "The truth shall prevail" in large font. OK let's be frank, again, the whole purpose of that post was because he was unsatisfied with Norazman and he wanted everyone to take his side of a matter that he made known by opening his mouth (well, I don't really know what its called when you do it in writing...), which otherwise would remain unknown. My friend, you already won first place by disqualification of the real winner. Do you need to further de-glorify him and let the world know that you won (as you had so relevantly pointed out in that same post, entitled 'Controversies')?
The second offense he committed was that he participated in a tournament that was meant for players rated below 1600. A bit of background on this situation before I continue: Norazman and the organizer, Latiff, were having a strained relationship due to some business outside of chess several years ago. Anyway, back to the story; Norazman was told to 'play first' despite informing the organizer that he was outside the rating restraints. Upon conclusion of the tournament, his 1st place win was negated and the prize was awarded to Rizal instead.
There is simply no justice in this. If someone wants to play in your tournament despite being unqualified, you have to deny him entry. If you let him play, you damn well better let him play up to the end and win a prize! The organizer generally has the right (though there are no written rules in this case) to deny entry at will, but denying the winnings despite allowing entry is downright absurd. The pathetic refund given to Norazman is worthless. First of all, he wasted his time in the tournament throughout the day. Secondly, in economic terms, Norazman's entry is worth RM500 after winning first place, not RM25.
In addition to that, at the time of writing, the tournament details on the organizer's blog are misleading. There is only a single line that vaguely mentions that there is a rating restraint for non-bloggers. My Malay is also not that good, but the word 'Terbuka' roughly translates to 'Open' as far as I know. You do not get to call a tournament 'open' if only a certain group of people can join! Imagine the government informing the nation that "Income Tax will be completely refunded for all Malaysians!" only to write down later in fine print at some point, "Only Malaysians who earn less than RM20 annually qualify for this.". You'd be pissed, wouldn't you?
Another thing I need to add is how sickeningly hypocritical I find it that these people do not dare to state the accused's name. Everyone knows that his name will be found out eventually, so, unless you're mentally challenged, if you really wanted to "protect the guilty", you'd just shut up and not talk about it. But let's be frank. I don't think you (bloggers who do this kind of thing) are stupid, nor do you consciously think that everyone else is (let me tell you though, unconsciously, you do think others are gullible enough to think they are brilliant gossip followers when their names are 'accidentally' divulged). Here's a star example from Rizal's blog. So we see blah blah and blah, then we reach the point where he says, "(I shall refrain myself from stating his name)", followed by "this particular player emerged as the champion" and then just underneath is a picture of the results. No need for me to mention who was the champion...I need to protect his privacy! You could have made it look more authentic if you let some other chess blog post the final standings. But seriously Rizal, do you really think we have the IQ of a dead frog? We know we didn't find out who you were talking about through our brilliant skills of observance and investigation.
Another blogger, Azizul, posted his sad story of being "cheated" on his blog to add some gasoline to the flames of the current affair. His first story demonstrates his poor knowledge of the laws of chess, regarding the procedure to claim a draw by threefold repetition. Similar to Rizal, he drops slightly less obvious clues to who his opponent was (I know who he is though - and so do many others. The hints he gave were obviously designed for that, even though he might not consciously know it). Again, Jimmy Liew's blog post, which I gave the link to above is a good summation of his foolhardiness complete with an appropriate analogy.
Moving onto his second story. Apparently, he got up from his table 2 minutes away from claiming a walkover...after sitting at the table for 23 minutes (He said over 20 minutes, but I'll do the proper and simple math for you). Who the hell does that?! If you were seriously that foolish and he really cheated you like that, you don't deserve any sympathy. On a less important (but far more embarrassing) note, you lost with a 25 to 5 minute advantage. My guess is that you were trying to win on time, which, by the way, by your logic, is not what a "sporting and gentleman player" would do.
One thing I find to my sickening and amusing at the same time is that both bloggers were aware that it was partially their fault at the very least in all the cases. Rizal knew for a fact that if he was going to make a claim, he should have made it on the spot. He didn't for an obvious reason: He wasn't sure! And maybe he did think he could win with less time if he really was cheated. But that's besides the point. He said it himself, and I quote:"I failed to comply with the requirement to lodge a proper complain.". His reason was because he was "in a state of confusion". Alright, he either can't differentiate between confusion and lack of confidence or he's suffering from a mental condition. Anyone who becomes confused when they realize their opponent cheated them of a small amount of time needs to go for a brain scan. People get confused over complicated matters. This, by my logic, has 2 simple sides to the coin: Norazman either cheated or he didn't.
Azizul, on his case, implies that he didn't know how to claim a draw. He asks that, "somebody with knowledge of the chess rule confirm [that he can claim a draw in the manner that he did]". Well, the answer is no, as he admitted and acknowledged later in his shoutbox. Then in the shoutbox, he starts drifting from the topic, talking about how he was bullied because he didn't know the elementary laws of competitive chess. Buddy, if say, you played the a4 variation of the Najdorf and advanced your pawn to a5, and your opponent played b5, only for you to play axb6 and leave him in confusion, that, by your logic, would be bullying too! On his second story, if his opponent had really cheated him on time, he should have called the arbiter. Though personally I think that its possible that he left the board for 3 minutes when his opponent had 5 minutes of time, but I won't muddy the waters by speculation; I don't want to give any of that. Second point, as I had pointed out earlier...is it so difficult to continue sitting at your board for the final 2 minutes after being there for the other 23?
