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.