Chess and Statistics Part 1

I've wanted to talk about this for a long time, but I never really found myself the time, and when I did, I always ended up procrastinating and doing something else.

Nevertheless, I start simply by refuting a claim about the Elo rating system which many people already know to be false:

"A person's rating does not mean anything"

I can only say that anybody who finds the nerve to say something like this either:

1. has no understanding of the Elo rating system, or
2. has no understanding of statistics
(or both)

Some may recognise a version of that phrase being said by Raymond some time ago, but it is not limited to him, and he is definitely not the sole target of what is about to follow (I have better things to do!).

It is indeed unfortunate that I have also heard this nonsensical statement (or some less dire version of it) from chess players who I know and respect (though definitely not within the mathematical branch of statistics!), and I hope that by the end of this article, if you do read it, you find that a person's rating does indeed tell you a lot about the player.

To some, it seems incredibly trivial that this statement is clearly incorrect; but if one puts too much thought into it, it does indeed get confusing. Take the famous case of one person who Garry Kasparov, the highest rated player in the world, has a minus score against: Boris Gulko, who, in terms of rating, is relatively much weaker than Kasparov. The rating system is in jeopardy! Suddenly things are not so clear: we have to closely examine the workings of the Elo rating system.

Behind such a fallacious claim, to some extent, is the assumption that the Elo system assumes that the better player will always win. Also be reminded that the Elo system implies that the higher rated player is the better one. It then follows that if the lower rated player beats the higher rated player, the premise of the our rating system breaks down, because the outcome has contradicted the prediction of the system.

To anybody with a formal understanding of logic, it's clear that the fault in such an argument lies in the assumption, which is, in this case, of an assumption!

We need to go back to the foundations of the Elo rating system.

Rhetorical question: What is it?
Answer: It's a prediction model for the outcome of a game between two players (Note: not limited to chess!).

Next rhetorical question: How does it work?
Answer: Unfortunately this is rather complicated to be defined formally and understood at first glance.

A difficult part is assigning a rating to a player; we'll assume that the ratings given are in their "steady state", i.e. "appropriate". This will be the case after assigning a provisional rating and playing a large number of games, assuming the model is good. In a way, two key features of the model support each other: an appropriate rating and the prediction made. Strictly speaking, this is philosophically unsound, but in practice it is acceptable (real world example: money and goods/services; we are willing to exchange one for the other, even though fiat money doesn't have any intrinsic value).

We'll look at the basic ideas of how you compute your rating change:
1. Define the result of a game as we know it: 1 point to the winner, 0 to the loser and 0.5 each for a draw (interpretation: 1 point to be given away per game, 2 players fight for it).
2. Compute the rating difference between ourself and the opponent*. Then we plug this into a formula and get an expected value, denoted "We", which stands for "wins expected", strictly between 0 and 1. This is the model's prediction.
3. Note the actual outcome of the game, W: 1 for a win, 0.5 for a draw and 0 for a loss.
4. Calculate W-We, the difference between what actually happened and what was predicted**.
5. Multiply this by the K-factor which is defined by FIDE (30, 15 or 10). That's your rating change.

In a sense, you could think that your rating changes because the model made an "error" in predicting the outcome of your game (somewhat true, but this "error" is what makes the system work!).

Enough beating around the bush; we are starting to go off tangent here. Remember that the key point is the outcome that the Elo system predicts; in fact, steps 3,4 and 5 are irrelevant to our discussion.

The false claim that we started with essentially stems from the disapproval of step (2). From a statistical point of view, this is due to the unfamiliarity of the notion of an expected value. How can a number like 0.73 make any sense when the actual outcome can only produce 0, 0.5 or 1?
What does this mysterious number tell us?

Well, consider a coin toss. Biased coins aside, we can safely say that the chance of getting heads is just as likely as tails. Say we get a point for a head, and none for a tail. Then the expected value is given by 0.5. Yet, if we tossed a coin once, we can only score 1 or 0. But say we decide to toss the coin 6 times, and I ask you to tell me how many heads will turn up. You wouldn't bet your house on it, but if anything, it seems most probable that the magic number is 3. It may be 2, it may be 4, but most likely 3 (which we obtain by multiplying the expected value by the number of trials, i.e. 0.5*6). Unfortunately, by most likely, I mean there's a 31.25% chance of this happening. But that's still the lion's share of the probabilities; you can have anywhere between 0 and 6 heads, so the remaining 6 individual possibilities have to split 68.75% of probability among themselves. So you are very likely (notice I did not use the word "will"!) to get close to 3 heads: in fact, you'll get between 2 and 4 heads 78.125% of the time.

Anyway, within this context, it is not wrong to say that it is the proportion of the total points you will get from the games played in the long run***. That is, the model predicts that, assuming neither player learns anything from the previous game, if your wins expected is 0.73, then if you played 100 games against each other, you're likely to score about 0.73*100=73 points. This is known as the law of large numbers.

(In fact, this is basically how rating changes are calculated: We don't look at each individual game, but rather overall score in a tournament; we look at your rating, the average rating of all your opponents, then your score against them. Interestingly, the rating change, in some way, is linear: you can calculate the change against each opponent individually, or look at the aggregate of all your opponents, and you get the same numbers. This allows people to calculate individual rating changes instead, which is in fact more common nowadays.)

In a nutshell, some people fail to grasp that a 73% chance of winning your game does not mean that you will win the game, which is when they lose faith in the Elo system.

This is where applied statistics becomes difficult to accept for some people: such a scenario where two players play a large number of games, learning nothing from the previous one, is imposible to create. So how do we know it's working? By empirical evidence! We check the predictions of the model against the actual outcomes:


Taken from ChessBase. The dots represent the actual outcomes and the line is the prediction. As far as the model is concerned, the basic shape is right, except that the line appears slightly too squashed inwards. Also, the horizontal lines are due to the difference between players ratings being limited to 400 when calculations are made, which apparently should be removed. So fundamentally, the model is good, it's just the case of changing a few numerical parameters. Applied statistics works!

*Interesting note: this implies that only the difference in rating matters; the model predicts the same outcome for a game between a 2600 and 2400, or a 2400 and 2200, which further implies that if the ratings of everybody in the world went down by 1000 points in the next rating list, essentially nothing will change!

**This number is always positive if you win, negative if you lose; if you draw, its positive if your rating is lower and negative if it's higher.

***If you're unhappy with this definition, here's a link to the Wikipedia page for a proper one; eat your heart out.

An important thing to remember is that applied statistics in the real world is essentially predictions. A good model makes correct predictions most of the time, and in fact there is no model that can predict everything in a system (in this case, the world of chess games). If there is, then the system would be deterministic, i.e. with no randomness, which we know cannot be the case (chess players can have lapses of concentration and off-days, neither of which we can see coming, at least not 100% of the time).

Needless to say, there is always room for improvement in the model, but sometimes this improvement requires the consideration of more variables, thus complicating the model. An example would be whether you played white or black, where statistics show that white is advantageous. Furthermore, as the absolute (not difference in) strength of the players fall, this advantage diminishes (compare white score in low level tournaments vs. high level tournaments), and we'll lose property (*) in doing so.

And never forget, ratings attempt to reflect your current strength, but changes in ratings are constrained. If a 2000 rated player improves his understanding of the game and is suddenly 100 points stronger, the model would see his performance in a tournament, and say, "Sorry, my prediction was erroneous, here's a positive W-We for you", and go on until it will eventually (not instantly!) be the case that he reaches 2100. Of course it works both ways: a rusty player will definitely play weaker than his "steady state" rating, which is why FIDE has an inactive list.

To conclude: A person's Elo rating is not an arbitrary 4-digit number, and sure as hell means more than nothing. Granted, it is not a magic number that determines the outcome of a game, but you can predict the outcome with a certain degree of certainty based on this number. Empirical evidence has shown that the Elo system is very good at making predictions in general, although there is undoubtedly still room for improvement. Consequently, since the predictions are good, it follows that ratings are indeed a good indicator of a player's strength.

Further reading: ChessBase's and Wikipedia's explanation of the Elo rating system.

Re: FGM banned from all MCF events

I don't know what the relation between your title of your post and its content is, but again, I don't care.

It's so nice of you to only implicitly make a reference to me in your post with your attempt of (humourous? I hope not) irony attached to it, but anyway, the only thing I have to add is; it's not my fault that you used the wrong word. "Throwing a game" implies a deliberate action. The miscommunication caused is not due to an incorrect interpretation on my part, but by your use of such condemning phrases, ironically, "out of context". But fine. Let's forget this. Maybe it is my fault that you didn't know what it meant to "throw a game", since you obviously don't. So okay, maybe I'm sorry.

But above all, you are nothing more than a hypocrite. You are the one spinning stories. Peter Long was giving suggestions. He was not objecting the idea of the incentive. He's the one who facilitated it in the first place. You obviously forget that Peter Long was largely responsible for Edmund Santhara's entry into the Malaysian chess, who, in case you don't know, is the one funding the incentives. Do you think he came all the way from KL to play 1 game in a friendly match (which, for irrelevant reasons, is not exactly at the top of his list of priorities), and to object the incentives put forward by a man whom he introduced to Malaysian chess?

Peter Long may be a controversial man. Some think he causes unnecessary noise, and some think he contributes to Malaysian chess. I personally think he's in the latter, but that's just a normative statement. But many things say that he's a far better person than you. Let's go down this list:

1. He set up a chess academy in KL; the first of it's kind in Malaysia, at least among the widely known ones. He brought in international trainers, certified by FIDE along with a curriculum, tried and tested from the ASEAN Chess Academy. His students included Edward Lee and Kaushal Khandhar, two players who you love to mention in your posts at every opportunity. Within a year of training, they showed significant progress. Today, it most caters to the slightly lower levels because the higher levels were unprofitable, i.e. the high-level trainers were too expensive to keep, and there were insufficient high-level students.

You, on the other hand, set up an academy which just followed the bandwagon after Intchess was set up in Malaysia. You so arrogantly named it like it was going to produce the first Malaysian GM, and proceeded to hire local coaches. Not that they are lousy, but if you think a 2000-rated player is going to train a player into GM-hood, you're terribly wrong. Which notable national players were, at any point in time, students of your academy? And by that, I'm talking about finishing with a top 3 ranking in the National Age-Group, and being offered the chance to represent the country.

2. He has organized huge tournaments in Malaysia; some ASEAN junior team tournament a few years back, and the annual KL Open, which you yourself have been to.

What have you done? Perhaps some small tournaments, one of which included a frenzy of drama (at least that's how you make it out to be), which nobody outside Perak knows, nor cares about. If you have organized an international tournament before, how many people know about it? I don't. And what response did you get, if any?

3. His Elo, if you know what that is, is at least twice of the most I project yours to be, though I don't think we'll ever know.

4. He has played in a chess tournament more than zero times. You, on the other hand, have yet to press the "start" button on a digital clock, or wind an analogue one. In fact, you are the only person in Malaysia who talks about competitive chess and tries to be heard, but with zero technical knowledge yourself. "Practice what you preach"?

5. He has balls. He dares to single out anybody whom he dislikes, and even more so, to do it under his true identity. Even I don't dare to do that. You only go half the way; you say it's someone without disclosing names, but leaving enough clues so that others would know who he is, while hoping that you've left some reasonable doubt to make yourself look pretty.

6. Read the third paragraph.

I am not a spokesman for Peter Long; my point is that he has done many things, and yet many do not immediately see him as a contributor to Malaysian chess. You, on the other hand, have done nothing, and you see yourself spearheading "change".

There are so many other things that show your hypocrisy; you talk about people behaving like gangsters, inappropriate outbursts at the wrong place; yet, being part of the Malaysian contingent of a friendly match in Singapore, you are the one who practically shouted at a man just because he opened his mouth, which you so nicely mentioned explicitly. It does not take a shrink to know that this caused a lot of discomfort during the meeting. Are you proud of this?

You wonder why nobody talks about the outburst of that man in MAS-SIN. First off, I don't understand why you're not on his side. He was being totally unreasonable, just like you! Secondly, there was only one mention of it on Hairul's blog. The rest was just people on the shoutbox. And yes, I think it's sad that nobody mentioned you unreasonably shouting at Peter on their blog. You had to mention it yourself!

In case you didn't realize, the reason why you have have heard some people talking about that outburst guy, but not the Peter Long one...well, you should ask that man whether he heard others talk about him. Hint: Probably not. You don't hear people talking about you shouting at Peter Long, because they don't want you to know that they're talking about you, as they fear it gets them into muddy waters with you. Bravo on that too, Uncle Raymond. Please don't shout at me.

You talk about people having to pay excessively to represent the country. You probably thought that you were making a major contribution by getting AirAsia to sponsor tickets to the ASEAN Age-Group in 2010. You did nothing. Participants had to pay the money they would save on air tickets in exchange for "training", and when there weren't as many players as you hoped for [SLANDER! Deleted], you opened the "training" to anyone willing to pay 30% of what the representatives forked out. [SLANDER! Deleted]. [SLANDER! Deleted]. [SLANDER! Deleted]. You have so much the nerve to talk about preserving the welfare of the Malaysian contingent.

You further demonstrate your lack of knowledge in chess. "You cannot shout at your opponent and then say you cannot play that line or else I lose. You cannot shut your mind to reasoning and then hope to win.". That is the most stupid analogy I have ever seen. You will obviously disagree, for reasons that have been mentioned countless times. But anyone with a rating above 1200, and possibly below, will notice that your little analogy is "not even wrong". You talk so much about learning "life lessons" from a game you can't play.

There are people who think you need to be fixed? No, people think you need to shut up. Or at least learn en passant. That's a start. Then learn the proper way to say it.

You are so arrogant; most people unconsciously do their best to avoid having to apologise. I am no exception. But the biggest problem lies in people who think they are perfect, and make no mistakes. This is you. You misuse the term "throwing a game", and then blame me (and Jimmy prior to that) for not understanding what you said, despite the fact that your sentence structure was so bad that you mentioned a phone ringing, and throwing a game like it was two different things. You find it so difficult to even just say that you used the wrong word, and if you did, then you could have at least managed to follow up by calling me some fancy synonym of "stupid" for not being able to differentiate a vocabulary slip and a serious accusation. Actually, I wonder if you really meant what everyone thought you did, and you're just saying this now to cover your ass.

You are so afraid to name names; you don't even mention me, an anonymous blogger, explicitly. You're not trying to hide/"protect" their identities (if you were, you're an idiot. Unless you were the only witness, the truth gets out there sooner or later). How do you expect to create change in the local chess scene, when you are so fearful of naming those who you see as negative? In your own words, how do you intend to "eliminate the cancer", mein Fürher?

You are useless. You do nothing but talk shit about a new MCF, and what "we"(you) would want. We're not idiots. We know what we want. We don't need someone like you to tell us what is best for the country, Comrade Raymond.

What kind of "new MCF" were you hoping for? I myself have always wanted one, but frankly, a new MCF being founded under the influence of a man who knows no further than the rules (I hope!) of the game is not the type which I envision.

You are still here. You've made it clear with your attention grab at MAS-SIN. You are also an idiot. You've made that clear by updating your blog.

P/S: Your current job involves making money from chess, i.e. "taking shelter in chess" as well. And you once charged kids RM1000 for a 3-day training session.

PP/S: I find it incredibly amusing and somehow frustratingly unintelligent, at the vegetative level, of you when every response you make of me involves accusing me of lying without any reference or questioning of the credibility of what I said about you. Instead you incoherently continue to rattle off the same thing you say in every post you make, albeit with different words.

Yes, delete the comments! Censor all those who oppress you! Silence those who go against you, and soon the motherland shall be glorious! Have you started to remove the faces of those who oppose you from photos yet? Yes, Premier Raymond, keep order in our glorious nation, exterminate the non-people!

Malaysia throwing a game at the Olympiad?

Someone told me that recently, Raymond Siew posted something on his blog. This post does not address the main subject of the post (because frankly I'm not really sure on what it's about, especially since the content doesn't seem to relate much to the title. Yet, there are parts of his post that I have to agree with. Whatever. I'm not interested in those parts.). What I'm addressing is his scorching accusation of "[A player] throwing a game [in the Olympiad]". While I don't think it's good policy to attack a not-so-relevant minor detail of someone's "comment", those 3 words carry serious weight with them, especially in the context of the Olympiad while representing Malaysia. There is a huge difference between attacking a player for losing a game by accident, and losing on purpose. Sadly, he did not specify whether his accusation was onto a single player, or the whole team, so I'm not sure on how to carry out my attack.

Now of course, the most obvious argument is the lack of evidence. But I'm not writing this just to point that out. Anybody with a brain larger than a peanut knows that. Besides, most thrown games are hard to prove, since even grandmasters can blunder their queens or mate in 1 move(think Deep Fritz-Kramnik in 2006). Unless you do something so stupid, like replay a very nice-looking game from your database.

So let's give Raymond Siew that, and allow such an accusation without proof. Now, ask yourself this incredibly simple question:

WHY WOULD ANY COUNTRY IN THE OLYMPIAD WANT TO FIX A GAME WITH MALAYSIA?!

Raymond, you have defied mankind's understanding of the human brain by converting whatever that's left of the "reasoning" part of your brain into "talk more about a game that I can barely play" brain matter. Either that or you just lost the ability to think logically.

Let me break it down for you: There are 2 types of countries relative to Malaysia: stronger and weaker/roughly equal in terms of strength.

The stronger countries don't need to fix games with Malaysia. Unless they suddenly happen to be losing, and by then it's not really possible to fix a deal(perhaps you imagined the players saying "$300 for a draw!" and pressing their clocks, and their opponents replying with "$225 and its a deal!" and pressing their clocks.).

Then there's the other two. What do these countries want to fix games with Malaysia for? There's too much to lose for something that has little value. Ranking in the Olympiad gauges where a country stands, and nothing else(unless that ranking is has a medal attached to it). Why would a team pay off another to improve their ranking from, say, 120 to 80? It's false progress if it wasn't earned, and they'd be bluffing themselves.

Now you also need to consider the fact that if a weak team wants to pay off an opponent, they're just going to get knocked off the next round, and their final ranking won't change much if they carried out the deed with more than 1 or 2 rounds to go, unless they managed to continuously bribe their opponents. So maybe they can just buy the last round match? Well, Malaysia won that round.

Perhaps it was just 2 individuals conspiring for a gain in rating? Again, there are better places to do such things. Such as individual tournaments, where the consequences of getting caught are not as serious, and there is actually a chance of winning.

So there's 2 possibilities to a lost game in the Olympiad; perhaps it was a completely fixed game, choreographed so that a game gets thrown after 2 hours of pretend-hard-thinking, so that the opposing team can advance, only to lose the next round to an opponent who will most likely not accept a bribe. And they do this in the Olympiad because most people don't think anyone dares to fix a game, so they make a bluff and do it anyway, because they want to improve their final ranking, or maybe they just want to let the world know that they beat a Malaysian player. The second possibility is that our player just blundered.

Occam's Razor: It could be the first, but isn't it much easier for it to be the second?

If anyone bothered to read Raymond's blog entries and my comments on them, you might remember that my last post was my vow to never visit his blog again. I had a good reason for that: this post. I've wasted my time writing a long article to debunk an incredibly stupid idea from our friend here.

Commitment Fees?

The guys at MCF have really outdone themselves this time. Rather than overcharging us with ridiculous exchange rates, they've taken the next step and called the recent RM100-per-participant in the 2010 MAS-SIN match a "commitment fee". I could argue it's a step in the other direction as they could just call it a "management fee", but I guess they think it looks less like a scam if it was a "commitment fee".

Really, guys? You must think we are a nation of idiots (Sadly, we have been proven to be exploitable, with 101 people taking part. That's RM10,100). What warrants this ridiculous fee? At the last MAS-SIN we had in Singapore, in 2007, seriously, how many did not show up? If I recall correctly, maybe a few. 5, perhaps? Does this justify taking RM10k off a hundred people?

Now, one (just MCF) might argue that it is to deter people from signing up but not showing up. I call bullshit. There are two reasons for this:

First off, MCF made it crystal clear that nobody will be getting their RM100 back. If that was the case, it would be called a deposit, and MCF being MCF, would only give refunds if they grossly implied it. Here, it's the opposite. Being called a fee, we're obviously not going to see our RM100 again. It's like "paying" bail (which is the case in some countries, but you and I both know that I don't mean them). If the point of the RM100 is to make sure we lose RM100 for nothing if we don't come, then the RM100 should be refunded if we do show up. That is non-negotiable.

The second point is the punchline: Players are allowed to pay the commitment fee on the day of departure, i.e. when they're already quite obviously committed. I can only imagine someone arriving in KL Sentral with all his luggage at 7:00a.m. on the 30th of December, paying the fee, and then changing his mind and deciding to go back home at 7:15a.m...or maybe get on the train, go to Singapore and decide not to partake, and ride the next train home. That image cracks me up.

I think you guys should have just called it a management fee. At least that way you're only insulting our ability to estimate the cost of "management".

It's on!

So the Malay "Open" is on!

A tournament meant exclusively for the race that makes up more than half of the chess playing community anyway!

Malaysian chess is now at reaching a peak!

Maybe I'm just repeating myself. Whatever. Good day!

P/S: What a high level, prestigious event! They encourage strong participation by waiving the entrance fee for IMs/WIMs/FMs! Also known as Mas Hafizulhelmi.

Just a thought

I wonder whether it is possible to appreciate something without truly understanding the nature of it. Hypothetically, if someone with no knowledge of astrophysics said that he was fascinated by the appearance of a constellation, nebulae, comets and whatnot in the night sky, and called the universe a beautiful, majestic creation of God, does he understand what he is saying? Would he still say the same if he knew what it was like to be near a black hole? Or that you would likely be vaporized if you came within 100 million km of any living sun without protection? Or that outside the planet, without a multi-million dollar suit, your lungs would almost instantaneously collapse, and at the same time you would turn to ice due to the nearly 300 degrees of temperature difference? These are the not-so-heavenly characteristics of the place in the universe that some of us may refer to as "the heavens".

My question is: Is it actually possible for anyone to truly appreciate anything, considering that by "backward extension", it is unlikely that we fully understand anything? History has shown that the second part is quite true: we have had evolution, or advancements in knowledge, but a more humble way to say it is, "Oops; looks like the previous school of thought was wrong". Examples are abundant: mercury was proven to be deadly to life--a few thousand years after some ancient civilizations treated it like a freaking fountain of youth. Earth was believed to be flat; it was also believed to be the center of the universe; but again, centuries later, it was shown that Earth is just another planet in the vast universe. Newton's laws of physics, which completely revolutionized the world of physics, were proven to be inaccurate only almost 300 years after their introduction. There are very few, if any, "permanent postulates". Even today, there exist branches of mathematics where -1 is not considered to be less than 0.

It even shows up in chess; look at the classical, romantic schools--and then the hyper-modern school, both of which are polar opposites of the other. The ultra-ultramodern in the future might even show that the best opening does exist, and it's called 1.d3; in an even more distant future, if humans still exist, and somehow miraculously figure out a way to solve chess, the conclusion might be that a forced win exists for white if he plays 1.a3 on the first move, while black wins in other cases.

To say that this is not possible only demonstrates ignorance. What is so special about us, that our theories and ideology are exempt from being corrected in the future? Our technological advancements are about as good as the introduction of electricity: a big milestone of the century, but that doesn't bring absolute perfection to human knowledge.

However, one thing is that old, outdated knowledge, logically, has almost never prevailed over its modern, updated counterpart. That means, our knowledge does advance. It is still far from absolute accuracy, but it is closer than what we had previously thought to be true.

So I wonder, if all this is true (and to me, it does look so), it would imply that nobody can say that they truly understand what they are talking about; in fact, they can only claim to understand something better than others, but to say that they truly understand something is impossible. The sad thing is that it is so often that I see people talking as if they are in the latter case. The manifestation of pride and ego...

Just a thought. Not trying to polarize your thinking(not directly at least), but just propagating a thought that I(and maybe some others too) have had for as long as I can remember.

It's slightly quiet in the Malaysian chess scene right now, at least as far as I know, so I'm sorry if I disappointed you with another not-so-chess-relevant article. Just kidding, I'm not. If you didn't like this article, let me know what you think in the comments section.

A parody of chess blogs

Rationality: Well, it looks like it's a new fad in Malaysian chess blogs to poke fun at other blogs, so I'm gonna do one because I'm probably better at it than most of you.

First GM: I think Mas should have played on against that 2700 English GM. He has to break through that psychological fear. The mind plays an important role in chess.

First GM: That's a lousy parody of me. Here's how it should be done:

First GM: Hey guys, I have an idea, I think I know why we are still in the same spot after 30 years. I think we have damaged our spirit. I think that may be a clue to why we dont do well after U12. It's about imagined fears. It's about the inner child. It's about us neglecting the other 3 parts of the components of chess.

Jimmy: We have covered this over 10 years ago.

First GM: Really? Sheesh, I only finished this work a few years ago. Even the American war veterans Association wrote in to learn more about it. Wah! you really advanced man. Sorry about that. But can I still write about it so others can also learn? They may not have the same resource as you have.

Jimmy: Stick to what you know. This is Malaysian chess. Here we only look at technical.

First GM: But hey, NJ just said maybe even all of his loses not due to technical.

Rationality: Let me demonstrate how we strong chess players think. Let me analyse Mas's, draw.

First GM: Great! But what about Qe3?......(Confusion, some back peddling).

Chess Ninja: Hey guys, you are missing the point. It's about Hamid. He is a grandmaster you know. I know even though I am blind folded....(In case you missed that, that means I can play blind folded chess).

First GM: Did anyone of you even read before you threw out what I am saying?

Jimmy, Rationality and chess ninja: Cannot read lah. Read means must acknowledge you are on to something.

Jimmy: Dubai our best Olympiad.

First GM: We have nothing to lose. Any of you guys got a suggestion? None of you are engaging the information.

Jimmy, Rationality: No. Dont want to listen. We are closing our ears. We like complaining. Who wants solutions? Besides if anyone listens to you, we wont look "terror" anymore.

Jimmy: Damn it! Did anyone check out Dubai?

First GM: What is the point? That is in the past. We are looking for solutions in the here and now.

Terminator: Raymond Siew is a liar. Listen to me. I know even though I am hiding behind a pseudonym. Please believe me. I may be a crook, a criminal but ignore that. I am working with someone in MCF and PICA. See, I can say these things. So I must be in the know.

First GM: Hey man. Show yourself. I am sure you are a credible source of information. It is tough on this blog. Even when the evidence is shown people are still slow to engage. These are chess people. They are thinkers. So show yourself. Present your credentials and the evidence. I wish you luck. Do a good job. Then you will be the best terminator you can be.

Jimmy and Rationality: We have had enough. We are going to strike you off our blog roll.

Chess Ninja: I'm telling you guys its Hamid. Blame it on Hamid.

Terminator: Lets attack the women and children guys. We know that Raymond gets upset when we attack the children. We saw it in Perak. That is his weak chink. His Achilles heel. Why dont you guys do that and I'll take it to the next level. I'll attack the women. Trust me guys. This will work. We need to shut him up. He is making us look bad.

Ilham: We are the champions, my friend. And we'll keep on fighting to the end.....

First GM: Sheesh, and all I said was examine the evidence. You have tried technical only and you have not got far. In fact you are still in the same spot. Hasnt anyone noticed that?

The unknown: Hey guys try NLP. They are the experts not this Raymond Siew guy. I dont know how to read. This is the "penultimate" opinion. But believe me. I too need to hide because otherwise you will know that I dont know anything.

First GM: The noise level going up. Now someone who can just about identify the letters NLP has joined the fray.

Chess Ninja: It's Hamid I tell you. He is a grandmaster, he can do funny things. I saw that through my blind fold.

First GM: Hey this is starting to sound like what went on inside my mind while I was writing my inner child work. Why my mind resisted me and tried to prevent me from growing up. Thanks guys, you are the best. Thank you for helping me see this. So if you are right, this work can also be applied to the chess community. All this noise is because you guys dont want to grow up. Hmmmmmm

Ninja, look at the tricks applied over these years, if it was Hamid that is. There are no new ideas. It is the same trick over and over again. No accounts, use your fears against you, smear their good name etc. If Hamid was all that smart, he would have brought us to the next level. Stop fighting this demon. Let it go. A GM has many many ideas. So go out and find some more ideas. Stop this stuck tape. He is no grandmaster. We have been stupid. And there is a world of difference between the 2 conclusions.

Think about it. If we can be fooled by the same tricks again and again by a not so clever guy, then where are we really?

Jimmy: Hey check out Dubai please....I'll give you a clue. See who was on the team.

Ilham: We will we will rock you.........

First GM: Chess is a mind sport. Check out the mind. If you make a dumb mistake because of the chatter, technical wont help. If you stop fighting because of a failure in courage, technical wont help. Look at the evidence. Our strongest chess minds are even afraid to engage in new information. That is where we have gone wrong. The mind is often called the last frontier. Some even argue it holds more complexity than outer space. It is much much much much bigger than the 64 square puzzle. Still the mind and those puzzles will reveal itself. Stop running away. Focus on the problem.

First GM:[Propaganda tone, enacted by Rationality] I hope you also realize that I did not include GilaChess, Hairulov, Ilham because they are not among the blogs which I intend to attack. I just gave Ilham one line so that it won't be so obvious that the whole point of my parody was just to attack 3 people, and sort of halfway attack a 4th. [End of propaganda tone. Reset to impersonation tone]. Now, having said that, I sincerely hope that the situation that we are facing now in Malaysian chess is crystal clear to every one of you now. You see, when bloggers who have a rather high tendency to speak negatively, such as Jimmy and Rationality, our minds will narrow. We will become pessimistic. Then we also have people like Terminator, who are the cancer within our minds, whom must be eliminated from Malaysian chess. Please read all of my previous posts. Understand that all this is important to our development in chess. I'm going to tell you about my experience I've had as a mind coach, and tell you how it is fully applicable in chess. Focus on improving as a player. It is alright if not everyone knows about what is going on at the administrative level. What matters is that some 100 people know, and that's good enough. These people care, you care. Having said that, I'm going to write out a 3-part story about something that happened between me and PICA for everyone to read, because it is very important that everyone knows what happened. I was abused, and then fooled. Everyone should know the true story, and what really happened. Now, I'm planning to organize a trip to this year's ASEAN tournament. The air tickets will be sponsored by AirAsia, but you must pay an extra RM1000 to attend training to prepare you for the tournament. It is strongly recommended, although my previous sentence suggests that you don't really have a choice. It is no point going to a tournament completely unprepared, because it defeats its purpose. Back on topic, it is important to know that chess is more than just technicalities. It is about the mind. When playing, the body should stay completely still. Don't walk around or make unnecessary movements, because it is the mind that is at work. It does not matter if you have been sitting at the table for 3 hours, and blood has been pooling in your legs. [Propaganda tone again, despite that I've forgotten to include this phrase numerous times in this paragraph:] No, I do not realize that every 99.99% of the chess players in the world this, and the top players are not from that remaining 0.01%. [Back to impersonation tone:] As I was saying, you may notice that many people like to challenge my views. Just because I have zero technical knowledge on chess, it does not bar me from making in-depth suggestions regarding the game which are usually related to technicalities [Damn! That tone keeps coming out without being asked!]. Some people like to make these vicious attacks against me. These attacks come from a traumatised mind. One of the reasons I find it so difficult to counsel people like these is because they, the patient, fight back. It's also imperative that everybody understands that by this, I am implying that I know everything that I talk about, and have never been wrong in a single one of my 400 posts. Everyone who thinks otherwise is wrong.[Alright, you know what, I'm not giving any more 'propagandic' tone warnings]. Yes, I may contradict everything I say [I stress that this is actually true. Please challenge me if you feel like it, and I'll show you 5 contradictory posts (because I don't have the time to find the other 95+. I've wasted an hour of my life writing this post, and if there's anything I could wish for, it's that I could have it back)]. Back onto my subject of discussion, remember that when, given a situation, it is important to join the dots. In doing so, dsfbljbuwyrnjkh9632t472qfasfalkmdklaf sdgfbawlhr sdfblkjbaqiekaf465s6 65sdg5646s5g4sd te65sd4ge5t4 sdfgshihiushf9e89sdnf sdjfjksdfsagfagodasho jksjakjfhasukfidsfasudasdnklasdas;ldaskdwopriawf safasfuiwer7878asdjhdaskjnokthatsenough.

YOU ACTUALLY READ UP TO THIS POINT?! I'm disappointed in you, and probably myself for failing to get the point across.(Just so we're clear, the parody is itself the unnecessarily elaborate, dense wall of boring text which you're not supposed to be willing to read)

Message to all the bloggers whom I made fun of in this post: Stick to your serious tone. You sound funnier when you're not trying to crack jokes.

Olympiad 2010

It has been clearly proven this year that as far as the Olympiad is concerned, MCF does more harm than good. They could not afford to pay for Greg's accommodation, so they sent him as a reserve player to have it paid for. Correct me if I'm wrong (you probably can't, though), but the only reason Greg went was to vote for the next FIDE president.

Is it so difficult to just let someone else on the team make the vote? Is the secrecy of your vote so important that you are willing to fill a valuable slot in our team with someone only for the sole purpose of casting a single vote? Get your priorities straight, fools. What use is it to protect your international political stance, when your local image to the non-blind is like shit? And I stress: this one vote came at the cost of a player for our team. A player who might have contributed greatly to the team's progress. Allowing us to meet stronger teams, get better games. Let our players learn more by playing with good opposition. Look at this; we met good teams up to round 4. It went downhill from there on.

Next question: How did you people select our team?

Well, that question was obviously rhetorical; you took the 2 highest rated players in the country, the winner of this year's National Championship and the first strong player to raise his hand. I don't blame any of the players for this. Given the opportunity, who would pass the chance to qualify to play in the Olympiad with minimal effort?

Compare this to 2008. I forgot the primary selection criteria (probably because it never really existed), but there was a round-robin tournament between some players to pick a representative. At least that is more decent than this year. We might as well have selected our players with a dartboard.

Perhaps I'm wrong about the "2 highest rated players in the country" as selection criteria. Mas and Mok might have been chosen because of their result in the 2009 Malaysian Masters. But then again, playing in the Olympiad was not explicitly stated in the details of that tournament as far as I know. And, it was a knockout tournament. Anyone with a level of intelligence above borderline retardation can tell that a KO tournament only produces a first place. Everything below that cannot be ranked accurately.

The National Championship? Perhaps it is prestigious (though it does not have the country's top players participating), but if I'm not mistaken, in 2008 (and only 2008 if my memory serves me well), the winner still had to play in the round-robin. This year, Tan Khai Boon automatically qualified.

The fourth is by far the most ridiculous. Yes, maybe we had run out of strong players to pick from. Peter volunteered himself as a last resort. Apparently MCF skipped the hundred options before that and saw this as an instant resolution to the problem.

Just wondering, what happened to the juniors? No need to elaborate much on this; how are we going to progress if we keep sending a team fully composed of the 'experienced' elite to the Olympiad every time? We have some strong juniors, in particular, one who is still studying in primary school. Looks like the MCF "selection committee" have never heard of him.

Anyway, so we had our lineup:

1. Malaysian #1 rated

2. Malaysian #2 rated

3. Wildcard!

4. National Championship winner

5. Vote carrier

Does anyone notice that the players from boards 1/2, 3, 4 and 5 were chosen from totally different pools of players? To MCF's credit, at least I can tell with 100% certainty that they picked the right 5th board player. Greg is definitely better than Hamid...

Please, selecting people to represent Malaysia in the Olympiad is not like selecting countries that qualify to play in the FIFA World Cup. This team looks like the chess equivalent of Rojak. It may be an identity to our country, but we don't have to demonstrate it in the selection criteria. Besides, Rojak is foodstuff. Let's keep it that way.

Who am I?

Honestly, I don't know why some of you guys keep speculating about who I really am. Does it really matter? Well, maybe it's none of my business either. Actually, I'm rather flattered that people continue to talk about me despite the fact that I've only made like, at most, 10 posts with some substance over the last 6 months.

I find it rather incredible that some people think they know who I am, considering the fact that even I have problems answering that question myself sometimes. First it was just the small time lurkers and bloggers, then slightly more well-known people, e.g. Lim Tse Pin who implies that I'm Lim Yee Weng by dropping obvious "hints", and others who just make random guesses: Joseph Toh, Najib Wahab, Collin Madhavan, Christie Hon...I'll die of old age before I complete the list. Here's something to consider: there is a chance that one of you are right; the only question is, if that's the case, which one of you are?

Don't forget that your earlier guesses were Gregory Lau and Peter Long. I had to make a comment on Jimmy's blog while they were playing for everyone to be actually convinced that I'm not Peter or Greg. To add to that, may I remind you that a handful of you were so confident that I was Peter because of my writing style.

It's ridiculous; recently our famous Hairul claimed that he knows who I am (and that I am still playing chess), but will not say in fear that I still stop writing, and that's bad because he enjoys reading what I have to say. Well, to this, I can only ask you to stop insulting my ability to think, and tell you, that while you may enjoy my posts, you've obviously not fully understood what I've said (read the last paragraph). Bro, I have my own defense mechanism if I ever feel myself get exposed. Don't worry about me. Just think of your ego once you turn out to be wrong. Think about it too though; if I really thought that anyone knew who I am with 100% certainty (unlike the apparent 99% which is demonstrated by most), would I really continue to write? I would just stop, and build up my deniability. Don't try to say you're protecting me or something similar. I don't need it. Goddamn it too, it's like a freaking paradox. If you're really trying to protect me, don't tell anyone that you know who I am.

If you think you know who I am, spit it out, or shut the fuck up. It's like deciding what to do with your vomit. You either keep it in or let it out. Unless you enjoy gargling it.

And looking at that, let's make a small detour too; a message for most of you bloggers out there: your overconfidence just makes you look dumber than you really are. You post your analyses of your shitty games. You even have the ego to annotate a blitz game you played online. In other words, you spent more time annotating a game than playing it. And then you even post the dry crap that you played in a small-time local tournament. Maybe you thought it was a good game. Wake up call: It wasn't. It's nonsense that makes me shit bricks if I ever see people comment on it in the real world. Then to make your commentary more interesting (or rather, make any sense at all), your "analysis" is "assisted" by a chess engine. FYI, the inverted commas are to represent sarcasm; all of your "analysis" is taken straight from the engine's recommendation. Nobody takes interest in what your engine thinks, or Fritz/Rybka opening book says. The rest of us have a computer and access to pirated software too. In addition to that, your variations are unnecessarily long. I know what's going to happen to my queen when you put a rook between her and my king. You don't need to tell me that "white is winning" after showing the next 7 moves. And your commentary is stuff of Captain Obvious. I know that black is going to lose an exchange when white played Nxc7+.

Back on topic, here's some things I can bet that most of you guys have never considered:

1. Was I really giving you real information in my introductory post? Who knows, maybe I'm unrated, both on and off FIDE.

2. Am I only one person?

3. Am I still living in Malaysia? Am I still Malaysian? Was I even Malaysian at any point?

4. Do I even have a job? I seem to make posts at totally random times of the day, many of which are during working hours.

It's also incredibly intriguing that every single one of you make your "deduction" with such confidence, when all but one of your guesses from an endless list of names will be wrong. But one thing, honestly, boils the hell out of my curiosity: What are your guesses based on? My style of writing? Come on, that stuff doesn't work. Professionals do stuff like this for the FBI, and they almost never lead to breakthroughs. There are usually better things to go on. Besides, my writing style changes with every few posts, in case you didn't realize.

Here's some outside help for you guys. It's what your guesses about my identity are based on. And this will be too, though I still have infinite confidence of my anonymity thanks to your gullibility.

Yes, I am mocking your attempts to guess who I am.

P/S: Are you guys going to suggest that I'm Raymond Siew this time, based on the second last paragraph?

The problem with us

I find it stupid when people try to defend our team's overall disastrous performance in this year's Olympiad. Really people, stop trying to be nice. Our players played like shit. Stop sucking up to them by giving them excuses for losing. And if you want to defend them, at least blame it on the fact that we have no reserve players. I cannot stand people who try to be Mr. Nice Guy. Yes, maybe your dick-sucking words to our poor players will make them feel better. But you know what else it makes them feel? Adequate. You make them think that it was perfectly acceptable to lose. Guess what: it's not.

Someone blundered in time trouble. It's not their fault? Then whose is it? The clock, for not reminding our players to play faster? Open your eyes, my friends; did nobody tell you that time management was a skill in chess?

"Don't criticize each other's performance...", etc. Phrases like these make me want to kill someone. Why can't we criticize each other's performance? Are we only allowed to praise them? "Wow, Greg, nice comeback after a 8-year hiatus!" is willingly said by many, but yet, nobody wants to say, "Greg, what the hell were you doing in your second game in this tournament? Were you fatigued after your first?". Do you know what happens when you count the hits but not the misses? You believe in paranormal things. Psychics. Pseudoscience. Crap like that.

"They were doing their best"? Seriously, do you think about anything you say? In case you didn't click on it, we're ranked 106 with 1 round to go. That's 20 ranks below our initial seeding. If that's really our best, then it means we're overrated. Do you think we're overrated? No? Then they weren't doing their best.

We need to give them a break? Yeah, you know what a break is? Not playing. That's a break. There's competition for their places out there. It's also what drives them to perform.

And the worse thing about it is that our players probably know that they played badly. Your fucking excuses are not going to do anything, except make yourself feel like the angel of conscience. What your lame, unnecessary excuses will do is cause people to unconsciously think that it came from the players themselves. And you know what happens when someone gives you a lame excuse? You scold them more. So to the Mr.-Nice-Guy-political-assholes: Shut the fuck up. Your detrimental words of kindness are just going to cause our players more shit.

In case it's not apparent yet, I just want to highlight: The only reason why you're defending our team's performance is because you want to feel good. You never bring up the bad points because most people don't like the truth, and you want people to like you just as much as you don't want people to dislike you.

And you know what else? There's a 99.9% chance that you're just a fucking hypocrite if you talk like that. How much are you willing to bet that you are the type of person who never scolds his teammates in team tournaments if they underperform? That's a rhetorical question, mind you.

So now that I'm done beating (or smashing/blasting/f-bombing) around the bush: What's our problem (apart from these...)? It's the attitude. Plain and simple. We keep on making excuses for ourselves when we lose. And when we don't, some nice guy out there makes them for us. And in case it's not clear yet, excuses are bad.

Sheesh.

P/S: I care so much about what you think of "me". And I don't need to enable comments, Hairul. I already know what comments I'm going to get. Do none of you actually digest my posts? [Spoiler: read here]

P-P/S: You don't like my usage of vulgarities or not-so-nice words? Are you joking? This isn't fucking poetry. If you want to see beautiful language, go read Shakespeare.

Olympiad R10

For Round 10, we are paired with Wales. I still don't think Greg should be subbed in now. I would normally expect 3-1 with the team's strength. but given their current performance, I can only predict a 2.5-1.5 win for us, with Mas and Peter winning the point and Mok taking a half. Alternatively, we might get a draw since I'm not confident that Mas will be able to take the full point from his opponent.

But if Greg were to play...well, it depends on who is subbed out. If he does play, I am rather sure that Khai Boon will be rested, as I can safely speculate that his team is rather unhappy with his disastrous performance. My prediction would still remain the same in that case, unless Wales fields their 2009-rated 45-year old player.

All in all, I can safely say the chances are somewhat split 50-50 between a draw and a win. This match is going to depend on Mas' game.

So it was 2-2. I guess prediction is not one of my specialties. Greg played worse than I had expected, though it does not surprise me. As for Peter...I honestly don't know where he went wrong. His play looked somewhat innocent until his opponent had a forcing sequence coming out of nowhere, and then suddenly white had a strategically lost position. Mok and Mas simply outplayed their opponents.

Olympiad R9

Malaysia met Andorra this round. Well, it was rather unfortunate that we lost 1.5-2.5, but it's not shocking. Mas may be a strong player, but at the end of the day, his opponent is the one with the GM title, and it stands for something. Mok and Khai Boon again demonstrated the weakness of Malaysian players: openings. Mok played strangely in the Tarrasch, reaching a non-theoretical (if I'm not mistaken) position by the 10th move, and got into a position where I cannot say he has an advantage; in fact, he was probably worse because of his weak c5 pawn. Khai Boon erred when he violated opening principles, costing him a pawn and reaching a completely lost position by the 15th move. Peter did well to win his game.

I guess fatigue is demonstrating itself wholly in the Malaysian team now.

Olympiad R6-R8

R6: MAS-SMR

4-0. Good.


R7: MAS-ICSC

Well, our performance was overall mediocre, let's call it below par. It wasn't a disaster, but definitely not great either. We were more or less evenly matched on the first 2 boards, and had a rating advantage and disadvantage on the last 2. I had predicted a 1.5-2.5 loss, but we got 1-3. Not much difference in terms of match points anyway...

R8: SRI-MAS

I have one question for the Malaysian team:

Was Mas really THAT tired? Or have you guys really gone mad?

You must be kidding me, fielding a player who has not played a rated game in like, 7 years. The only chess he's been playing lately is blitz, and he's no good at it either. He has a peak rating of 1800 on playchess.com, or so I've heard.

Alright, so I was in the midst of writing this, and Greg just won. But that is not going to change what I think. First and foremost, just so we're clear, the fact of the matter is that Greg won just because he was lucky.

Honestly, how much time did you guys spend thinking of this? You fielded a player who has not played a serious game in over 7 years. Even Peter Long, who has been dormant for over a decade until just recently (2 years, which is not exactly 'recent') is not playing up to the standard that he used to have. How much more for Greg? Seriously, what winning chances did you think he had?

Seriously, is it so difficult for Mas to play? It's just a 2016 opponent; a lower rating than his 2085 Hong Kong counterpart. How much trouble did he have winning his R2 game? Yes, maybe it's arguable that his Sri Lankan opponent might be an underrated up-and-coming player, but based on what I see in his rating growth, the absolute maximum real strength I would ever possibly say he has is 2150, assuming his losses against players below 2000 never happened. How much energy do you need to beat a player more than 200 points below your not-inflated rating?

But then again, if we argue that the Sri Lankans are underrated, then it would be suicide to put Greg in anyway.

Now, I understand that it's incredibly tiring to play 8 games in a row; Humans who play proper chess come close to dropping dead at this point. But being experienced players who are playing a game associated with the question, "How many steps ahead can you see?", if you know this is coming, please plan ahead. Make this substitution in R2.

There is a rather high degree of batshit insanity involved when you have your first rated game in almost a decade against a person with a rating equal to yours. If you hope to win, that is.

Well, all this is based on the assumption that Mas was not sick or anything. If he really was sick, then sorry, ignore what I said. But otherwise, really, what were you guys thinking?

And now, for R9, we have Malaysia paired with Andorra. Their 4th and 5th board players are on a downward rating trend. If Greg plays this round, if he plays in the same way he did yesterday, I can only predict a draw for him at best. On the other hand though, neither of his potential opponents have won with black in the tournament...

Olympiad R3-R5

Well, I have things to do on weekends so I didn't really look at the games much, and I don't plan to give stale annotations 4 rounds late. But hey, there's always commentary on performance...

R3: LTU-MAS

Malaysia did great this round. Mas managed a black win against GM Rosentalis. Mok and Peter held their opponents to draws while Khai Boon lost. An incredible performance, considering that we were out-titled and out-rated, and yet, looking at the games, we would have actually won, had Mok seen the win against GM Sulskis. Really a great performance, one where the underdog is the one that was supposed to win!

R4: MAS-SUI

Well, we couldn't really have expected to win this round. On board 1, Mas managed to win a pawn in an endgame against GM Pelletier, but Pelletier proved that it was insufficient with his almost flawless endgame defence, when Mas again missed another win. Interestingly, the game ended in a not-so-well-known theoretical draw where black had only a bishop against a white rook and pawn. Peter held a draw without too much problem, and the other 2 boards lost.

R5: BOL-MAS

We lost 2.5-1.5 to an a team 30 seeds below us. Pathetic.

Well, at least we have a rest day to recover from such a traumatic stumble.

Olympiad R2 HKG-MAS

Well, this round had Malaysia paired with Hong Kong. Needless to say, Malaysia was expected to win. There's not much point annotating in detail since frankly, the Hong Kongers played rather weakly, and besides, it wasn't really my aim to talk about OTB chess when I decided to start this blog. And I don't think most of you guys come to this blog hoping to see tournament updates or read my annotations in the first place.

But anyway...

On B1, Mas' opponent played without a concrete plan; Rather aimless, and based on cheap tricks(9.Ng5, 11.Qb3...), I must say. Mas won this one quite simply.

B2 saw Mok playing some unusual chess, castling kingside earlier than necessary, followed by a h4-h5-h6 advance against an uncastled king. His opponent did not know how to react, and after some tactics(16.b4!,17.Nxb5) white set up a position to drum up an attack against the uncastled black king, eventually being a rook up in the final position. Very nice middlegame play by Mok, although I can't say the same about his opening plan. 0-0 was unnecessarily early, and the h-pawn advance is questionable.

B3 highlighted the main weakness of Malaysian players: the ability to play openings well with a concrete middlegame plan. Khai Boon, with little experience against players from outside Malaysia entered the Sicilian Dragon with a rather dubious move order (4...Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 gives white the option of 6.Nxc6 which is known to be bad for black) and picked a strange plan against the Classical setup:

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.Be2 0-0 8.Nb3 d6 9.0-0 a6 10.a4 Na5?


This move does not go well with a6, because the pawn on a6 is pretty much useless here. Actually, it's probably better placed on a7 since it needs to cover the b6-square in case of Bb6 ideas. In fact, this tactical and positional possibility is one of the reasons why the Na5 variation of the Rossolimo is not good.

11.e5

What did I say? If 11...dxe5 then 12.Qxd8 Rxd8 13.Bb6 [Sorry. I mean 13.Nxa5]

11...Ne8 12.Nxa5 Qxa5 13.Nd5

In layman's terms (and mine), black is in deep shit.

13...Qd8 14.Bb6 Qd7 15.Be3 Qd8 16.Bb6 Qd7 17.Ba5 Rb8 18.Bb6 e6 19.Ba7 exd5 ½-½?

Incredible. Well, black isn't immediately lost but I think that after 20.Bxb8 dxe5 21.c4 d4 (opening files isn't a good idea when you opponent has more rooks than you) 22.Bf3 eying the d5 square, and a potential target on e5 as well as a queenside majority, white has a great position. Maybe white got cold feet here. It's hard to tell if he's a strong player since the only good move he made was 11.e5, which is somewhat obvious. Perhaps to him, squeezing a win out of this position is very difficult, and hence not worth it since they were the last game to finish, if I'm not mistaken. Who knows, maybe some people in the Hong Kong chess community is grilling him for his dubious call now. Eh, that sounds familiar...

On B4, Peter Long played the same setup as Mas, but with the white pieces. With a strong grip on the d5 square, he opened the position and had a strong pawn on d5, hampering the scope of black's light squared bishop and reducing black's mobility. White proceeded to infiltrate black's position, and emerged a pawn ahead with a continued attack against the black position on move 28. Black sportingly resigned in the final position. I liked this game; white played very simply but took apart his opponent nicely, though his opponent's poor defence contributed to this.

The team played genuinely well this round, but I can't say the same for Khai Boon; he played the opening badly and had no chance to demonstrate his strength in the middlegame. Well, there's still 9 rounds to go.

Olympiad R1 MAS-ENG

Well, let's not talk about the selection process and the fact that our men's team consists of only 4 real players. That can be covered after the dust settles, since I'm sure there will be more exciting things to add following the aftermath of this tournament.

I'm not going to give many evaluative comments; any patzer with Fritz/Rybka/Shredder/whatever can do that. In fact, I'm not going to use an engine to annotate.

B1

Mas,Hafizulhelmi (2422) - Adams,Michael (2728) [C28]

1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d3 Nc6 4.Nc3 Na5 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bh4 c6 7.a3 Nxc4 8.dxc4 d6 9.Qd3 Be6 10.Nge2 Be7

So it's more or less theory up to this point:



11.b3

Well, Mas' strongpoint never really was opening theory. This move cautiously, but unnecessarily overprotects c4 and makes queenside castling unfeasible. I think White could make a more productive move than this.

11...g5 12.Bg3 Qa5


13.f3

Not necessary either. Now there are points to attack on both flanks.

13...0-0-0

Reasonable. Black's pawn on c6 is not as bad as white's on f3; and it's obvious (at least with hindsight) that white's king will have to go to the kingside. (See next move)

14.0-0 Kb8 15.Rfb1 h5 16.Bf2

Improving the worst placed piece, and also prophylaxis against a consecutive h4-h3, since white has the option of replaying h4 with h3 himself.

Nd7 17.a4

White had to choose between the a- and b-pawn. I'm not too sure about the advance with the a-pawn: white wants to play a5-a6, since attacking with the b-pawn seems slow, as b5 can be met by c5 if necessary. But on the other hand, if this happened, d5 would be weak, d6 backward and the dark squared bishop would need to find something to do. Black would then have to rely heavily on his kingside attack.

17...Rc8 18.b4

a loss of 1 tempo!

18...Qd8 19.a5 g4


White is in trouble. The reason why f3 turns out to be weaker than c6 is apparent:if the f-pawn goes (and it probably will), white is saddled with the weak e4 pawn. The same can't be said about the c6 pawn. Black also may play f5, though it is unlikely to be necessary. Looking at the attack, black is also faster. White's pawn on f3 is already challenged, and it is very likely to be taken off. Then there are moves like Qg8 followed by f6 or f5, attacking the c4 pawn. The white queen will be overloaded by the defence of white's pawns. White on the other hand, is way too slow.

½-½

I'd presume Black offered the draw as he made the last move. Some Malaysians told me or their peers that Mas should have played on[Alright, I'm lying about the ambiguity; it was just Raymond Siew]. Like the rest who are of sound mind, I think otherwise. Come on, Michael Adams has 300 points on Mas. You don't play to win against a 2700 in a position where you are in deep shit. Don't forget the team has no real reserve players. Is it really a wise idea to "squeeze"(I don't think there is any jargon in chess to describe "pressing for a win when you stand worse") a position for a meaningless extra half point at the cost of your energy which will be needed for the next 10 rounds? Don't forget that the most likely outcome is a loss for white.

I'm sorry, I have nothing personal against you. But when people say incredibly stupid things and pass them off as words of wisdom, I feel an obligation to tell them how wrong they are.


B2

McShane,Luke J (2657) - Mok,Tze-Meng (2416) [A01]

1.b3

Well, it's only reasonable for one to assume that this was white's preparation. What a crude way to prevent the Modern!

1...e5 2.Bb2 d6 3.e3 Nf6 4.g3 Be7

I don't really like this move. It kind of looks like the way a beginner would place his bishop. I would have preferred adopting a KIA setup, with 4...g6 instead, having played d6.

5.Bg2 0-0 6.c4 Nc6

I don't know. Why not 6...c6? Now the position is starting to take the character of a reversed Closed Sicilian, but with the bishop badly placed on e7; Black has no Ne7 and a kingside pawn storm would be tantamount to suicide, as he white would own the a1-h8 diagonal then.

7.Nc3 d5

Well, it's hard to suggest a better move. 7...Be6 would be met by 8.Nd5 and black is slightly tangled up.

8.Nxd5 Nxd5 9.cxd5 Nb4 10.Qb1 Nxd5 11.Nf3

White was threatening 11...Nb4

11...f6 12.0-0 c5

It's hard to suggest a better move. The strategy to set up a Maroczy Bind fails instantly to the thematic break on the next move fails to...

13.d4


but white would have played this move anyway. After

13...exd4 14.exd4 Be6

Black manages to maintain some fight for the center, so perhaps 12...c5 was necessary

15.Qe4 Qb6 16.Rae1 Bf7 17.Nh4 Rfe8 18.Nf5

It's common principle that a knight on f5 is a strong attacker.

18...Bf8 19.Qg4 g6

preventing 20.Nh6

20.dxc5 Qxc5 21.Rc1 Qa5 22.Qh4!

A piece sacrifice which nets 3 pawns, and of course a possibly mating attack. I can't see an immediate win for white here though.

22...gxf5

I don't think black could reject the knight. His king is under heavy pressure, and his f6 pawn is loose.

23.Bxd5 Bxd5 24.Qxf6 Re6 25.Qh8+ Kf7 26.Qxh7+ Ke8 27.Qxf5 Rd8 28.Qh5+ Ke7 29.Qh7+


29...Kd6??

What?! 29...Ke8 leaves the king stuck in the centre, but there is no immediate (or obvious, at least) win for white. The text is complete suicide, and it doesn't get the king anywhere (except to the other half of the board). I have no idea what possessed Mok to make this move.

30.Ba3+ Ke5 31.f4+ 1-0

B3

Tan,Khai Boon (2160) - Howell,David W L (2616) [D85]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Bg7 7.Ba3!?


It's not exactly a main line move. But it's good to see that Khai Boon made an effort to prepare something.

7...0-0 8.Rc1 b6 9.Nf3 c5 10.Bc4 Nc6 11.Bd5 Qc7 12.0-0 e6

Perhaps the point of Bd5: to provoke e6. But was it really worth 2 tempi?

13.Bc4 Bb7 14.Qe2 Rfd8 15.d5


Maybe it was: e6 is weak now. But unfortunately, the dark squared bishop is now badly placed on a3, biting on granite.

Na5 16.dxe6 Nxc4 17.Qxc4 fxe6 18.Ng5

Maintaining the tension first. The e6 pawn isn't going anywhere. But perhaps, with hindsight, white should have just taken immediately with 18.Qxe6+

18...Re8 19.f4 h6 20.Nxe6 Qf7

The point. Now the knight is pinned.

21.f5 Bc8 22.Bb2

The d4 pawn, having advanced, has left its compatriot isolated on c3 and in need of defence. But c3 remains to be a weakness, while seriously hampering the bishop. In view of this, I think it would have been better for white to jettison the pawn and play Rcd1 or Rce1 immediately.

22...Bxe6 23.fxe6 Qxe6 24.Qxe6+ Rxe6 25.Rcd1 Rxe4 26.Rd7 Rf8 27.Rxf8+ Kxf8 28.Kf2


How unfortunate! The need to play this move first takes away white's opportunity to restore material balance and any hope of saving the game.

Re7 29.Rd6 Kf7 30.h3 h5 31.g4 hxg4 32.hxg4 Be5 33.Rd8 Ke6 34.Rg8 Rh7 35.Re8+ Kd6 36.Kg1 Rh4 0-1


Jones,Gawain C B (2576) - Long,Peter (2302) [B11]

1.e4 c6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Nf3 Bg4 4.d4 Nf6 5.e5 Nfd7?!

The theoretical move here is 5...Ne4. But Peter wants to play a French structure without the problem child light-squared bishop. Looks like a sound, practical, albeit passive choice to me.

6.h3 Bxf3 7.Qxf3 e6 8.Bf4 a6 9.Be2 c5 10.dxc5 Nc6 11.Qg3 Nxc5 12.0-0 Nd4 13.Bd1 h5

The condition of the black position are highlighted by this move: It's solid enough to warrant this move, but at the same time passive enough that this is probably black's only "plan". He basically gains some space on the kingside, perhaps with the intention to fix the structure with h4 if it becomes feasible.

14.b4 Nf5 15.Qf3 Nd4 16.Qe3 Nf5 17.Qd2 Nd7 18.Nxd5?


Very dubious. White can't get enough for his piece.


18...exd5 19.Qxd5 Ne7?

Why? This only succeeds in shutting in the bishop. 19...Bxb4 was probably better, intending to castle if white doesn't do anything immediate.

20.Qxb7 Ng6 21.Qe4 Nxf4 22.Qxf4


Now the position is opened, with black's king stuck in the center. He is never going to be able to castle, since white always has e6 to open the f-file. Black will suffer.

Rb8 23.c3 Nb6 24.Bb3 Qc7 25.a4 g5

Suicide. But it's impossible to suggest a move that doesn't lose; white is going to infiltrate anyway, and black is only speeding up the process.

26.Qf5 Qd7 27.e6 fxe6 28.Qe5

Oops.

1-0

USD Exchange Rate

Well, I'll be quick with this one. It's about time someone mentioned this:

MCF needs to find another money changer. As far as I know, as of 2010(or several years before for that matter), RM3.80 for US$1 is a total rip off. I wish I could track down the culprit bank that is taking our dear federation's money, but unfortunately I haven't been able to find any banks that sell US$1 for more than RM3.50 since 2007. MCF seems oblivious to this con job, since I've seen that they've quoted US$1=RM3.80 in all of their cost tables/sheets(e.g. participation for a tournament through MCF)! Either that, or money has been leaking out through a fourth dimensional portal while payments were facilitated through MCF...I mean, where else could our money be going if we keep paying RM3.80 for something that costs RM3.20, right?

Deserving to Win

Well, I've pretty much had nothing to write about, since so far we've been lacking drama at the local scene (at least I haven't caught wind of any so far). I'd tell you first that this post more or less unrelated to what I expected to be writing about when I first started this 'blog'. I guess it does have a faint connection with why we tend to have problems advancing, since this subject can be related to our morale. But whatever. I'm only writing this because I'm bored to death right now, and it's been ages since my last post. My main policy still stands.

So, to start things off, I'd suppose that most people are familiar with this concept, and have their own taste of the experience of being on the receiving end and 'sending' end of a turn of the tables in a 'decided' game. And the feeling is, more or less, consciously, unconsciously or somewhere in between, "Why did this happen? I should have won! I was killing him and pressing to win! He didn't deserve shit!". Well, aside from citing the quote, "Your game is only as good as your worst move", or something like that, let me share my personal experience on this subject with you.

I was in a tournament some time back (sometime within the span of 3 days to 127 years ago). My opponent for the round had a much higher rating than me at the time, and I'm pretty sure I was playing either white or black. So anyway, the game starts, and my opponent plays relatively quickly. He misplays the opening by making a move-order inaccuracy on move 8, which I capitalized on. We reach a position where my opponent's position began to look troubled in many variations, despite the fact that the present position looked rather calm. I had 1:00 to his 1:20. He realized this, and started to spend a lot of time on each move he makes. He spends half an hour over the next 5 moves, and I spent 10 minutes. We've reached a position where I have a lot of potential for a sudden attack against his king. His position looked pretty defenseless, and he spends the next 40 minutes thinking. For a certain duration of this time I was wondering if he was disgusted and refused to simply resign because he was about to be destroyed by a player who he should statistically be scoring some 80% against.

Finally, with less than 10 minutes on his clock he makes a move that doesn't seem to change anything in the position, but he was threatening to win some material (albeit being irrelevant to the action that's going on). But as I looked at the position I started to doubt my attack. Maybe he can hold off the attack with only minimal loss of material, then I would have had a net loss of material, which would pressure me to attack even further, which is risky and such, considering that there was even the possibility of a counterattack. After thinking for half an hour, I didn't see an immediate win with my programmed move, so I decided to play a different move. He instantly replies with a move that parries the threat but fails to create one(the threat he created was pinned, so to speak). But then I looked at the position again. I had no way to continue my 'attack'. Let's skip the technical details of why, it's boring and irrelevant.

Soon it dawned upon me that his position had some sort of 'coil-spring effect' onto mine. He had threats of his own. The position finally simplified into a 3-piece endgame, and I continued to play badly, and since there was an increase in time, my opponent won. I was horrified at the end of the game. How could this happen? He was just defending, and at one point he even offered me a repetition of moves! I was doing all the work!

Then I analyzed the game. My handling of his slight error was great! I made all the best moves in the position. I was a genius! But then I took a second look. What would have a player slightly weaker than me done? Nothing different, I supposed. I realized that my moves were quite obvious for anyone familiar with the type of position that would arise. It was either that I make the moves I played, or allow my most valuable piece to be exchanged off. It was about as genius as not playing 5.Nxe5 in the exchange Ruy Lopez.

Fine. But what about the position where I was about to destroy him? It was only 10 moves after his error! Of these 10 moves, the first 4 were obvious; the next 3, I could say were good strategical moves that led to a lot of trouble for my opponent; the next 3 were obvious...and the final one was my mistake. What was worse was that I realized, I should have just gone to sleep during my 30 minutes of thought. I had given my opponent an extra tempo in my calculations for my 'programmed move'. No wonder why my opponent spent ages thinking in that position! He probably realized that he was completely lost! But even then I realized, I was still winning in the extra-tempo-variation I had calculated! In other words, I spent those 30 minutes calculating utter crap. I had no idea of what made me make that move I played. But even then, further analysis showed that my position was still marginally better. After which I was gradually outplayed and lost anyway.

So I realized, perhaps I could argue that my opponent did not deserve to win. All of his problems were self-inflicted, akin to playing with fire. But did I deserve to win? Absolutely not! I didn't make any great moves; he just made bad ones. And in the final position, when the killing blow was right under my nose, I failed to find it(to add to my embarrassment, I should add that I gave my opponent the extra tempo only 3 moves into the variation). And because of that, the game equalized. After this oversight, and another, the position was rather balanced. I guess one could say that karma finds its way even on the chessboard! After that, I was outplayed; he came up with a better plan than I did in the endgame.

It was at this point when I would figure out: I was only winning due to a series of opening inaccuracies by my opponent! I only managed to punish it because I knew he had made a wrong-looking move since I (apparently) understood the position better than he did, since I happen to study that opening! I wasn't playing better than my opponent (as the result evidently suggests). I was simply, in the words of what some players call their opponents when they lose, 'lucky'. After the position leveled off, I was duly outplayed. That means my opponent played better than I did. And outplaying me meant that he did not simply win because of some one or two mistakes on my part, unlike what was happening to him earlier. I did not deserve to win, contrary to what one might think!

In fact, this phenomenon of a weaker player losing to a stronger player in a position which he/she 'did not deserve to lose' was more or less testified by my performance in subsequent rounds in that tournaments. I lost to higher rated players. But looking at my games against weaker players, I noticed that in 3 of them, the game had been reduced into rather equal 2-piece endgames, and yet I won at the end of each of them. And I even had one game which I won a losing endgame! Similarly in this case, I noticed that in the drawing games, I had presented my opponents with no chances to go wrong in the middlegame. That's why they made it to the endgame, which they ended up playing poorly! As for the losing one, all I did was make 1 mistake while pressing to win; and I turned the tables at the end! So to summarize these 4 'fortunate'(but I beg to differ) games, I asked myself: Was I playing well? The answer was, of course, a flat out 'no'. But then comes the question: did my opponent deserve to win/draw? Double no! They had shown no effort to do/create anything in the position prior to the evaluation being 'very drawish' or 'winning' for them!

[Also, a piece of advice to most Malaysian players: The players I had beaten in that manner are stronger than most of you. So don't agree to a draw in 'drawish' endgames only because endgame textbooks say so. It's only drawn when it's obviously drawn to you AND your opponent. A psychological fact too: Those who agree to draw only because it 'should be drawn', but don't know why, are simply doing that because they are afraid to lose. So don't fool yourself. Play on. And if your opponent offers the draw, you can deduce something from that. The experience will do you good.]

So what can one say about 'deserving to win'? Well, to me, after that experience, such a 'phenomenon' does not exist, not over the board at least (e.g. if you were completely winning and the tournament venue caught fire and the game had to be restarted, then yes, you deserved to win. But that's off the board interference). Say, if you make an elementary blunder in a won position, that would just show you were overconfident. You don't deserve to win. Remember that when you argue that one side does not 'deserve to win', that does not automatically imply that the other side does. In fact, if the score was awarded for 'a well-deserved win', I think those 5 games I played in that tournament will end with a 0-0 score at the end.

So the next time your opponent/friend/some random person tells you that they "deserved to win", please, show them this article.