Let's say, I'm a person with good intentions to help Malaysian chess, juniors in particular, but I'm not really sure how. Well, perhaps I'd try to do something unique, like run a specialised tournament to train juniors to play certain stages of the game.
Then I get sponsors. Oh, perhaps a private university college, originating from Australia, with a campus in Subang Jaya, would be kind enough to sponsor the tournament venue. Then maybe I could get additional sponsorship for the miscellaneous expenses from a prominent no-frills airline company.
Then this tournament. Perhaps I should charge RM50 per person, with the optimistic hope of getting 40 players. One could claim that the limit is because I am really expecting 40 participants. Then let's have a prize fund. Eh, RM300 for first place and nothing for the rest sounds like a good idea, since it encourages people to fight every game out. At least I could say that if people start complaining.
If my math is correct (though I'm never really that good at mental calculations), RM(40*50)-RM300=RM1700 is left over. Yeah, that should cover any remaining expenses, like... I'll think of that later.
Unfortunately, this thought experiment which I have shared with you has a consequence; there is a high chance that history from 4 months ago will repeat itself. Oh well...
Sunday 17 April 2011
Sunday 13 February 2011
Just checking
Yeah, just a re-poll again to distract everyone from the truthful matter at hand with my lies, slander, belligerence, ugliness, dengkiness and oh, just read a damn thesaurus already.
Please remember if I lose this vote, mind you, it's because the poll could have been possibly fixed, as my expert hacker connection told me when consulted.
-Jimmy Liew a.k.a. The Chess Ninja/Rationality/Thought
Well, sarcasm aside, please vote. Thanks!
Please remember if I lose this vote, mind you, it's because the poll could have been possibly fixed, as my expert hacker connection told me when consulted.
-Jimmy Liew a.k.a. The Chess Ninja/Rationality/Thought
Well, sarcasm aside, please vote. Thanks!
Thursday 10 February 2011
How it all began
The fact that Raymond doesn't even know how this "war" developed is pathetic, so I offer my version, with actual references.
Here's how it started:
Raymond criticized Mas' draw against Michael Adams in R1 of the Olympiad, which was not taken too well by many. This strained his relations with the internet chess community. Then, a few posts later he somehow got people to dislike him further, and I have no recollection of how he managed to do that.
After(?) the Olympiad, Jimmy Liew made an attempt at a humourous post, parodying the bloggers in the internet chess community. Then Raymond went on to attempt an emulation, but his re-parody was done poorly; he was only attempting to portray the bloggers involved as bad people, with Raymond as the righteous man refuting their flawed claims (which he put into their mouths), a-la 20th century propaganda films. This further strained the issue.
Following which, Raymond confused himself between "throwing a game" and "losing by default" in a post which criticized the Olympiad Team, after which he was smashed, figuratively speaking. Instead of admitting that he made a minor error, he made things worse by saying that everyone else was at fault for not being able to understand him. At this point, his relations went from very strained to hostile.
Then came Malaysia-Singapore, where Raymond heroically shouted at Peter Long for having the nerve to express himself. He proceeded to talk about this on his blog, and further address the previous affairs. Rationality responded with a lengthy post, calling him a hypocrite [rather true; his latest post as of now, UTC+8 9:54pm 10th February 2011, is titled "Freedom of expression" when his dream is to see some people shut up and rot in hell for talking too much] and useless, also citing the ASEAN affair in one paragraph. It was written just like any of the other points in the post, but he went on to single out this paragraph in due time.
Then Raymond gave up the game and made a leap, threatening to make a police report and file a lawsuit against Jimmy Liew, Rationality, and The Chess Ninja for libel, with a 2 day ultimatum for them to reveal themselves and kiss his ass. Raymond cited an allegedly slanderous short-lived post made by Rationality late last year regarding the ASEAN affair, which was deleted hours after it was posted.
Rationality responded by removing parts of his post which may have been considered slanderous. I would say that it was a peace offering by Rationality; he had deleted (albeit tongue-in-cheek-ly) the slanderous sentences on his latest post, and the ASEAN post was deleted only hours after it was posted, i.e. months ago, but anyway that is only how I interpret his actions. Meanwhile, the Chess Ninja chose the less compromising choice of challenging Raymond's allegations and getting public opinion on the situation, and Jimmy stayed relatively silent and inactive throughout the duration of the ultimatum, besides a post questioning the validity of Raymond's case.
Raymond took Rationality's concession as an admission of guilt (I presume he believed that he had "won"), and continued to hammer the bloggers. 2 days and no police report later, he continued to claim that he was "winning", and, to paraphrase, he decided to "let the [accussed] bloggers off".
Then there were the polls, one by the Chess Ninja, and the other by me. These didn't have much impact on the situation; it just made Raymond go through the trouble to consult an IT guy to confirm that it is possible that the polls were just the same guy voting multiple times, something which everyone already knows.
Shortly afterwards, Raymond addressed the ASEAN issue again, prompting many to ask what was the post that was on Rationality's blog, requests which were swiftly deleted by the dear blog admin. This is where I come in; I had saved that post, and I decided to share it to satisfy everyone's curiosity, and add some gasoline to the fire, because why the hell not?
Raymond addressed it further, changing the story as he went along, and now, this is where we are.
Up to this day, Rationality has made no further posts, but yet somehow he's still the second biggest target of Raymond, after Jimmy. Maybe you did win, Raymond. It seems you managed to silence one blogger. Unless, of course, you want to claim that I'm him too. In that case, whatever effort you made to shut him (me?) up was just futile.
Notice how he had so many opportunities to put an end to this just by not talking about it anymore. But his compulsion to tell everyone that he is never wrong did not allow it.
The current issue is the ASEAN affair, and Raymond's continued assault on Jimmy for "promoting slanderous blogs", i.e. blogs that Raymond doesn't like.
I can't end without giving my further opinion on the current discussion, but what I can say is that:
A simpler solution would have been to just have been honest from the start and say that it was an enterprise, which made a loss due to the lack of response. Everyone would have been fine with that. But saying that this and that was sponsored, and yet somehow money having to be paid here and there only muddies the water. Over what? An attempt to make it sound like FGM was also sponsoring is a dishonest attempt to receive credit. Now there's the perspective argument, but unfortunately it has already been rebutted before this argument even started.
Yes, it would have been completely understandable, considering that Raymond is currently unemployed, and as shocking as it sounds, he makes a living off running chess programs.
He also believes that the many people against him are the same few people; he thinks that only one or two person in the whole of Malaysia does not share his ideology. Similar to how the rejected American Idol singers think that Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson are the only guys on Earth who think his/her singing is disastrous. In further analogy, Raymond seems to have met his Paula Abdul, too. Notice how there's only one of them. Furthermore, with him withholding the identity of his only cited supporter, how is that any better than the many equally anonymous people who cannot stand him?
His attempt to say that MCF and AirAsia are also being slandered (too many citations on this; here's just one) as far as this matter is concerned is pathetic; MCF was just the official body (in fact, if my memory serves me well, he was unhappy about them too for not covering the cost for your flag ceremony. Which side is he on?), and AirAsia, mind you, sponsored the tickets (unless you're saying they didn't, but that's besides the point). Unless he's the one saying that they had a hand in this. Then that's Raymond slandering them.
"To" Raymond:
Even if they were affected, it's up to them to file a lawsuit. Since when did you represent MCF and AirAsia? If you want to press charges, file them under FGM. You have no say over MCF or AirAsia's action. You're not as big boss as you think.
You keep talking about the truth, and yet you hide so many things. It used to be "sponsored by AirAsia and FGM", and suddenly it's now, "a win-win situation for FGM and the players". Then, with some of your favourite words; you spin the illusion of transparency by publishing your letter to AirAsia, but not the further correspondence. Furthermore, why did you truncate the part of the letter with the proposal? That's the most important part. Are you hiding something?
It's also nice to see you introducing a word from another language into your writing to describe others. I have one too, to describe your writings: гавно.
Fight your own war. You got yourself into this. Your struggle to diffract the accusations onto others in hope of their support is miserable.
P/S: I still find hilarity in your attempts at analogies from chess.
PP/S: Hypocrisy in action.
PPP/S: My prediction of Raymond's response, if any:
"Lies. Poisonous lies from a person who uses belligerence and ugly language in his postings."
Followed by no concrete evidence to tell his side of the story.
Here's how it started:
Raymond criticized Mas' draw against Michael Adams in R1 of the Olympiad, which was not taken too well by many. This strained his relations with the internet chess community. Then, a few posts later he somehow got people to dislike him further, and I have no recollection of how he managed to do that.
After(?) the Olympiad, Jimmy Liew made an attempt at a humourous post, parodying the bloggers in the internet chess community. Then Raymond went on to attempt an emulation, but his re-parody was done poorly; he was only attempting to portray the bloggers involved as bad people, with Raymond as the righteous man refuting their flawed claims (which he put into their mouths), a-la 20th century propaganda films. This further strained the issue.
Following which, Raymond confused himself between "throwing a game" and "losing by default" in a post which criticized the Olympiad Team, after which he was smashed, figuratively speaking. Instead of admitting that he made a minor error, he made things worse by saying that everyone else was at fault for not being able to understand him. At this point, his relations went from very strained to hostile.
Then came Malaysia-Singapore, where Raymond heroically shouted at Peter Long for having the nerve to express himself. He proceeded to talk about this on his blog, and further address the previous affairs. Rationality responded with a lengthy post, calling him a hypocrite [rather true; his latest post as of now, UTC+8 9:54pm 10th February 2011, is titled "Freedom of expression" when his dream is to see some people shut up and rot in hell for talking too much] and useless, also citing the ASEAN affair in one paragraph. It was written just like any of the other points in the post, but he went on to single out this paragraph in due time.
Then Raymond gave up the game and made a leap, threatening to make a police report and file a lawsuit against Jimmy Liew, Rationality, and The Chess Ninja for libel, with a 2 day ultimatum for them to reveal themselves and kiss his ass. Raymond cited an allegedly slanderous short-lived post made by Rationality late last year regarding the ASEAN affair, which was deleted hours after it was posted.
Rationality responded by removing parts of his post which may have been considered slanderous. I would say that it was a peace offering by Rationality; he had deleted (albeit tongue-in-cheek-ly) the slanderous sentences on his latest post, and the ASEAN post was deleted only hours after it was posted, i.e. months ago, but anyway that is only how I interpret his actions. Meanwhile, the Chess Ninja chose the less compromising choice of challenging Raymond's allegations and getting public opinion on the situation, and Jimmy stayed relatively silent and inactive throughout the duration of the ultimatum, besides a post questioning the validity of Raymond's case.
Raymond took Rationality's concession as an admission of guilt (I presume he believed that he had "won"), and continued to hammer the bloggers. 2 days and no police report later, he continued to claim that he was "winning", and, to paraphrase, he decided to "let the [accussed] bloggers off".
Then there were the polls, one by the Chess Ninja, and the other by me. These didn't have much impact on the situation; it just made Raymond go through the trouble to consult an IT guy to confirm that it is possible that the polls were just the same guy voting multiple times, something which everyone already knows.
Shortly afterwards, Raymond addressed the ASEAN issue again, prompting many to ask what was the post that was on Rationality's blog, requests which were swiftly deleted by the dear blog admin. This is where I come in; I had saved that post, and I decided to share it to satisfy everyone's curiosity, and add some gasoline to the fire, because why the hell not?
Raymond addressed it further, changing the story as he went along, and now, this is where we are.
Up to this day, Rationality has made no further posts, but yet somehow he's still the second biggest target of Raymond, after Jimmy. Maybe you did win, Raymond. It seems you managed to silence one blogger. Unless, of course, you want to claim that I'm him too. In that case, whatever effort you made to shut him (me?) up was just futile.
Notice how he had so many opportunities to put an end to this just by not talking about it anymore. But his compulsion to tell everyone that he is never wrong did not allow it.
The current issue is the ASEAN affair, and Raymond's continued assault on Jimmy for "promoting slanderous blogs", i.e. blogs that Raymond doesn't like.
I can't end without giving my further opinion on the current discussion, but what I can say is that:
A simpler solution would have been to just have been honest from the start and say that it was an enterprise, which made a loss due to the lack of response. Everyone would have been fine with that. But saying that this and that was sponsored, and yet somehow money having to be paid here and there only muddies the water. Over what? An attempt to make it sound like FGM was also sponsoring is a dishonest attempt to receive credit. Now there's the perspective argument, but unfortunately it has already been rebutted before this argument even started.
Yes, it would have been completely understandable, considering that Raymond is currently unemployed, and as shocking as it sounds, he makes a living off running chess programs.
He also believes that the many people against him are the same few people; he thinks that only one or two person in the whole of Malaysia does not share his ideology. Similar to how the rejected American Idol singers think that Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson are the only guys on Earth who think his/her singing is disastrous. In further analogy, Raymond seems to have met his Paula Abdul, too. Notice how there's only one of them. Furthermore, with him withholding the identity of his only cited supporter, how is that any better than the many equally anonymous people who cannot stand him?
His attempt to say that MCF and AirAsia are also being slandered (too many citations on this; here's just one) as far as this matter is concerned is pathetic; MCF was just the official body (in fact, if my memory serves me well, he was unhappy about them too for not covering the cost for your flag ceremony. Which side is he on?), and AirAsia, mind you, sponsored the tickets (unless you're saying they didn't, but that's besides the point). Unless he's the one saying that they had a hand in this. Then that's Raymond slandering them.
"To" Raymond:
Even if they were affected, it's up to them to file a lawsuit. Since when did you represent MCF and AirAsia? If you want to press charges, file them under FGM. You have no say over MCF or AirAsia's action. You're not as big boss as you think.
You keep talking about the truth, and yet you hide so many things. It used to be "sponsored by AirAsia and FGM", and suddenly it's now, "a win-win situation for FGM and the players". Then, with some of your favourite words; you spin the illusion of transparency by publishing your letter to AirAsia, but not the further correspondence. Furthermore, why did you truncate the part of the letter with the proposal? That's the most important part. Are you hiding something?
It's also nice to see you introducing a word from another language into your writing to describe others. I have one too, to describe your writings: гавно.
Fight your own war. You got yourself into this. Your struggle to diffract the accusations onto others in hope of their support is miserable.
P/S: I still find hilarity in your attempts at analogies from chess.
PP/S: Hypocrisy in action.
PPP/S: My prediction of Raymond's response, if any:
"Lies. Poisonous lies from a person who uses belligerence and ugly language in his postings."
Followed by no concrete evidence to tell his side of the story.
Wednesday 9 February 2011
Just sayin'
Does anyone notice that there's a certain blogger out there that tells people to keep their "poisonous opinions" (OK, maybe some paraphrasing here) within the "confines" of their own blog, but yet he himself attempts to spread his ideology at every given chance in the blogs of others?
I'm just saying. I won't disclose any names, because it's not a nice thing to do. Besides, he's like, the only blogger I've been writing about since I started this blog.
Oh wait. Shit...
P/S: Onto less personal agenda, namely the ASEAN...gate(?):
It's interesting how the aforementioned blogger, whose identity I shall withhold, is beginning to embrace a half-Glasnost policy by showing the correspondence between his party and AirAsia on his blog, assuming that "correspondence" means "just one letter from one party without a reply from the other party".
Initially I was pretty sure that the request for sponsorship from AirAsia was said to be simply air tickets for the entire contingent. I guess everyone was just listening wrongly. Then again, this can't be proven right or wrong since the exact request to AirAsia was truncated from the published letter. Now it seems to be that the request has been changed, namely for AirAsia to sponsor chess training (w.t.f.?) to the participants as well as the air ticket. Yet somehow it costs money to the participants too. The most baffling part to me is how AirAsia had the ability to train chess players. I don't know. This stuff is too complicated for my poisoned brain to process.
I also find it incredible how this affair can be led by Jimmy Liew when there is no record of him mentioning this, ever.
Also, could someone tell me how AirAsia's name is threatened to be "sullied"?
Damn, the postscript was longer than the main body.
I'm just saying. I won't disclose any names, because it's not a nice thing to do. Besides, he's like, the only blogger I've been writing about since I started this blog.
Oh wait. Shit...
P/S: Onto less personal agenda, namely the ASEAN...gate(?):
It's interesting how the aforementioned blogger, whose identity I shall withhold, is beginning to embrace a half-Glasnost policy by showing the correspondence between his party and AirAsia on his blog, assuming that "correspondence" means "just one letter from one party without a reply from the other party".
Initially I was pretty sure that the request for sponsorship from AirAsia was said to be simply air tickets for the entire contingent. I guess everyone was just listening wrongly. Then again, this can't be proven right or wrong since the exact request to AirAsia was truncated from the published letter. Now it seems to be that the request has been changed, namely for AirAsia to sponsor chess training (w.t.f.?) to the participants as well as the air ticket. Yet somehow it costs money to the participants too. The most baffling part to me is how AirAsia had the ability to train chess players. I don't know. This stuff is too complicated for my poisoned brain to process.
I also find it incredible how this affair can be led by Jimmy Liew when there is no record of him mentioning this, ever.
Also, could someone tell me how AirAsia's name is threatened to be "sullied"?
Damn, the postscript was longer than the main body.
Sunday 6 February 2011
Qh5
Well, I would like to clarify something first:
I am not trying to send a message to Raymond Siew. It has been proven that this is impossible.
For one, notice that Raymond responds to everything said against him by calling the allegations "lies", and redundantly similar words (presumably chosen to demonstrate his extensive vocabulary) without questioning, or even referring to the evidence on which the allegations are based on.
In fact, ask yourself: What was the last idea that Raymond believed in that was not conceived by himself? While it is true that those who are successful are due to the conception of their own ideas, it is obvious that Raymond is not one of them. I would just describe him as a model example of someone with a god complex who also suffers from paranoia.
"Paranoia is a thought process thought to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs concerning a perceived threat towards oneself."
--Wikipedia.
Replace "Bono" with "Raymond Siew". At least I spread my lies in thousand-word form.
So in that case, why am I still writing?
Simple. I only ridicule Raymond's insanity for the entertainment of you, the reader :-)
With that aside, onto my topic:
Gong Xi Fa Cai to all; having come back from wherever I've been for CNY, I see that Raymond had no intention of taking a break and took a shit all over his blog for the past week without stopping.
Being a person who is aware that he is spending his time rather unproductively by writing this post, I shall pick just one of Raymond's posts to "reply" to:
The real reason Jimmy and party is attacking FGM?
Before I start quoting, notice that firstly, the title is just pure paranoia. "Jimmy and party" are only interested in attacking stupid ideas and views; proven by pre-FGM content/drama. For one, Jimmy used to be in partial support of Raymond, before his ideas became increasingly delusional and insane. Secondly, most of what Raymond writes is totally irrelevant to the title of his post. Frankly, I don't see any part of his post referring to its title, so I'll just assume that the title of the post is just a method of identification, something like a serial number.
"I said that after 12 or when the players have been given the right tools to learn for themselves, technical begins to recede in importance ie technical trainers become more and more redundant and a coach becomes more important."
Notice how he used the word "coach" instead of "mind coach". It implies that to him, a "coach" primarily refers to a "mind coach". I think the number of people in the world who share this idea can be counted.
Back to his point: I suppose Anand/Topalov/Kramnik/[insert strong player/WC contender here]'s seconds are to provide him with psychological motivation? Also, that would really put more trainers out of business. You like to reference Singapore's Goh Weiming so much, now let's look at Singaporean "technical trainer" Ashot Nadanian's former students:
Timothy Chan, Tan Weiliang, Dominic Lo, Christer Aplin, Jeslin Tay, Liu Yang, Jonathan Koh, Edward Lee, Ryan Ow, Najwa Rujok, Timothy Wee, Chen Hoay, Andrew Ong Lay Teng, Zhong Kemin, Esther Huang, Wang Yining, Frederick Goh
--Ashot Nadanian leaves Singapore
I'm pretty sure a significant number of them are older than 12. Edward Lee is a strong Malaysian junior. Notice that he's in that list. Also notice that "strong Malaysian junior" means that he's stronger than most Malaysian juniors. And "most Malaysian juniors" are not in that list.
So you're suggesting that they would have been better off spending their time learning under the likes of Raymond Siew? Maybe they'd turn out stronger that way?
If there is any truth to your statement, it's the complete opposite. Why don't you observe 2 kids playing, and how often the game ends within minutes. Why? Because one player plays fast, and the other wants to keep up. Or one player bluffing the other by pretending to make a mistake. These are results of an attitude problem. The fact that you cannot even pinpoint the time when mind coaching is important only highlights your idiocy.
"The fight across the board is between 2 players. It is about their ability to think on the board, strategise, prepare and train, despite their fears."
Thanks, Captain Obvious. We chess players never knew that.
"Technical today can largely be found in books, videos and online programs etc."
This is where your lack of common sense comes in. Those are lectures. Did you not have recitations and tutorials while you were in university, if you've been to one?
A crucial part of the learning curve is inquiry. Non-interactive methods of teaching often fail to satisfy questions, unless the student's questions are so predictable that they can be answered before they are even asked.
All the technical Mark had via a face to face with a "technical coach" was a 2 hour private session with GM Ziaur Rahman and the 3 days training sponsored by Air Asia and FGM for Asean 2010. The rest is about me nurturing his desire to learn, nurturing his curiousity, teaching him to think for himself. In that 2 hour session, what we asked Ziaur for is the roadmap. What to do and what not to do. That was all.
First off, FGM did not sponsor the training. Or rather, let me ask: What was the RM1000 from each participant for then?
Now let's assume that what you said is true, and you influenced his success. You've counted the hits. What about the misses? He did not exactly have a star-studded performance in the ASEAN tournament, and he lost the last round of the 2010 National Juniors, short of becoming champion. And before that he finished 4th in the National Age Group. Why was he not first in either case? Do you honestly think that was the case because the lacked the mind power, rather than the technical expertise? Are you saying that getting him a "technical trainer" would have had no impact? And even so, then you are contradicting yourself. If technical training is so insignificant, why in God's name did you even have a session with Ziaur Rahman? And what was the point of the 3-day ASEAN training then? I'd speculate that it was a way to make money, but I'll just stop here and not say it. Oh wait, I already did.
So now you begin to see why my approach threatens some people. But they have no way of refuting my arguments. So they attack my partners, my sponsors, my son, my integrity and my dignity.
Your arguments were refuted countless times. You just refused to read or comment about it. Rather, you accuse people of personally attacking you, and calling their refutations "diversions".
So far, the only person being affected is you. Your integrity and dignity is non-existent, and even if they exist, it's part of you. Of course it's affected when people ridicule you.
Your son? No. You present him as evidence of your "success". Any argument has to start from the evidence. If you stop referencing him in your posts, the "attacks", at least that's how you perceive it, will go away. You have brought this upon yourself. You are the one hiding, using your son as a shield.
With Gufeld's words (albeit in a different context), "It's like a soldier going to war, with a machine gun in one hand and a baby in the other". If the baby gets hurt, is it because the enemy was taking cheap shots? I don't think so.
Notice how Jimmy makes no reference to Yeoh Li Tian when arguing with you. Having brought it up, why don't you tell us how Li Tian manages to draw GMs and IMs. Because of mind coaching? I don't think so. As far as I can tell, his antics while playing show that while he has extraordinary technical knowledge, he is like any kid his age otherwise.
"I will only give you rest if you say that technical is king". I say prove it.
I say beat Rybka 3 with the power of your mental stability.
I say that by hidding in the dark and then saying I am scared is proof of the contrary. You only hide when you are scared.
"hidding in the dark" allows people to truly express their opinion. Doing that under a true identity is either foolish, or insane bravery. Look at Julian Assange. Don't mistake insanity for bravery.
I say that attacking everything except the challenge I have given you will not distract me.
I say you can't read. You perceive every attack against the challenge as an attack against you. At least now, in this post, I am primarily focusing my attack against you. Anything I say against your challenge is simply to ridicule your ideology.
I say more anonymous sites may only swamp you with a lot of work but also prove nothing.
Swamp who with a lot of work? You're the one posting on your blog, attacking others every day, even during the New Year, hoping that they will be too busy to retaliate. Either that, or you really have nothing better to do during the festive season. Having said that, it really does consume time for me when I argue with you, knowing that the only people that I am trying to reach now is everyone besides you.
I say that only by teaching your students to think on the board will you prove something.
Yes. We don't expect players to prove anything by thinking off the board.
At least you have used the words "I say". You should keep it that way, because frankly speaking that is only your opinion and nobody else's.
You take away their confidence from your own insecurities and fears and then you ask them to fight in the light of day. But they wont be able to do that. Why? Because they have become like you.
BLUUUURGHWHATTHEHELLAREYOUSAYING
So stop hiding behind your title Jimmy...
Again, it's pretty hilarious that Jimmy's IM title has anything to do with this. Diversive cheap trick, anyone?
...and stop your support of venomous anonymous blogs.
Yes, support only the truth! FirstGM!!
Be proud of your name, be proud of who you are. Own your words and thoughts. Dont hide behind anonymous bloggers and voices to say what you really want to say. They are but shadows. Forget the cheap tricks.
You have yet to specify the "cheap tricks". Hint: Use quotation marks.
I am not trying to send a message to Raymond Siew. It has been proven that this is impossible.
For one, notice that Raymond responds to everything said against him by calling the allegations "lies", and redundantly similar words (presumably chosen to demonstrate his extensive vocabulary) without questioning, or even referring to the evidence on which the allegations are based on.
In fact, ask yourself: What was the last idea that Raymond believed in that was not conceived by himself? While it is true that those who are successful are due to the conception of their own ideas, it is obvious that Raymond is not one of them. I would just describe him as a model example of someone with a god complex who also suffers from paranoia.
"Paranoia is a thought process thought to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs concerning a perceived threat towards oneself."
--Wikipedia.
Replace "Bono" with "Raymond Siew". At least I spread my lies in thousand-word form.So in that case, why am I still writing?
Simple. I only ridicule Raymond's insanity for the entertainment of you, the reader :-)
With that aside, onto my topic:
Gong Xi Fa Cai to all; having come back from wherever I've been for CNY, I see that Raymond had no intention of taking a break and took a shit all over his blog for the past week without stopping.
Being a person who is aware that he is spending his time rather unproductively by writing this post, I shall pick just one of Raymond's posts to "reply" to:
The real reason Jimmy and party is attacking FGM?
Before I start quoting, notice that firstly, the title is just pure paranoia. "Jimmy and party" are only interested in attacking stupid ideas and views; proven by pre-FGM content/drama. For one, Jimmy used to be in partial support of Raymond, before his ideas became increasingly delusional and insane. Secondly, most of what Raymond writes is totally irrelevant to the title of his post. Frankly, I don't see any part of his post referring to its title, so I'll just assume that the title of the post is just a method of identification, something like a serial number.
"I said that after 12 or when the players have been given the right tools to learn for themselves, technical begins to recede in importance ie technical trainers become more and more redundant and a coach becomes more important."
Notice how he used the word "coach" instead of "mind coach". It implies that to him, a "coach" primarily refers to a "mind coach". I think the number of people in the world who share this idea can be counted.
Back to his point: I suppose Anand/Topalov/Kramnik/[insert strong player/WC contender here]'s seconds are to provide him with psychological motivation? Also, that would really put more trainers out of business. You like to reference Singapore's Goh Weiming so much, now let's look at Singaporean "technical trainer" Ashot Nadanian's former students:
Timothy Chan, Tan Weiliang, Dominic Lo, Christer Aplin, Jeslin Tay, Liu Yang, Jonathan Koh, Edward Lee, Ryan Ow, Najwa Rujok, Timothy Wee, Chen Hoay, Andrew Ong Lay Teng, Zhong Kemin, Esther Huang, Wang Yining, Frederick Goh
--Ashot Nadanian leaves Singapore
I'm pretty sure a significant number of them are older than 12. Edward Lee is a strong Malaysian junior. Notice that he's in that list. Also notice that "strong Malaysian junior" means that he's stronger than most Malaysian juniors. And "most Malaysian juniors" are not in that list.
So you're suggesting that they would have been better off spending their time learning under the likes of Raymond Siew? Maybe they'd turn out stronger that way?
If there is any truth to your statement, it's the complete opposite. Why don't you observe 2 kids playing, and how often the game ends within minutes. Why? Because one player plays fast, and the other wants to keep up. Or one player bluffing the other by pretending to make a mistake. These are results of an attitude problem. The fact that you cannot even pinpoint the time when mind coaching is important only highlights your idiocy.
"The fight across the board is between 2 players. It is about their ability to think on the board, strategise, prepare and train, despite their fears."
Thanks, Captain Obvious. We chess players never knew that.
"Technical today can largely be found in books, videos and online programs etc."
This is where your lack of common sense comes in. Those are lectures. Did you not have recitations and tutorials while you were in university, if you've been to one?
A crucial part of the learning curve is inquiry. Non-interactive methods of teaching often fail to satisfy questions, unless the student's questions are so predictable that they can be answered before they are even asked.
All the technical Mark had via a face to face with a "technical coach" was a 2 hour private session with GM Ziaur Rahman and the 3 days training sponsored by Air Asia and FGM for Asean 2010. The rest is about me nurturing his desire to learn, nurturing his curiousity, teaching him to think for himself. In that 2 hour session, what we asked Ziaur for is the roadmap. What to do and what not to do. That was all.
First off, FGM did not sponsor the training. Or rather, let me ask: What was the RM1000 from each participant for then?
Now let's assume that what you said is true, and you influenced his success. You've counted the hits. What about the misses? He did not exactly have a star-studded performance in the ASEAN tournament, and he lost the last round of the 2010 National Juniors, short of becoming champion. And before that he finished 4th in the National Age Group. Why was he not first in either case? Do you honestly think that was the case because the lacked the mind power, rather than the technical expertise? Are you saying that getting him a "technical trainer" would have had no impact? And even so, then you are contradicting yourself. If technical training is so insignificant, why in God's name did you even have a session with Ziaur Rahman? And what was the point of the 3-day ASEAN training then? I'd speculate that it was a way to make money, but I'll just stop here and not say it. Oh wait, I already did.
So now you begin to see why my approach threatens some people. But they have no way of refuting my arguments. So they attack my partners, my sponsors, my son, my integrity and my dignity.
Your arguments were refuted countless times. You just refused to read or comment about it. Rather, you accuse people of personally attacking you, and calling their refutations "diversions".
So far, the only person being affected is you. Your integrity and dignity is non-existent, and even if they exist, it's part of you. Of course it's affected when people ridicule you.
Your son? No. You present him as evidence of your "success". Any argument has to start from the evidence. If you stop referencing him in your posts, the "attacks", at least that's how you perceive it, will go away. You have brought this upon yourself. You are the one hiding, using your son as a shield.
With Gufeld's words (albeit in a different context), "It's like a soldier going to war, with a machine gun in one hand and a baby in the other". If the baby gets hurt, is it because the enemy was taking cheap shots? I don't think so.
Notice how Jimmy makes no reference to Yeoh Li Tian when arguing with you. Having brought it up, why don't you tell us how Li Tian manages to draw GMs and IMs. Because of mind coaching? I don't think so. As far as I can tell, his antics while playing show that while he has extraordinary technical knowledge, he is like any kid his age otherwise.
"I will only give you rest if you say that technical is king". I say prove it.
I say beat Rybka 3 with the power of your mental stability.
I say that by hidding in the dark and then saying I am scared is proof of the contrary. You only hide when you are scared.
"hidding in the dark" allows people to truly express their opinion. Doing that under a true identity is either foolish, or insane bravery. Look at Julian Assange. Don't mistake insanity for bravery.
I say that attacking everything except the challenge I have given you will not distract me.
I say you can't read. You perceive every attack against the challenge as an attack against you. At least now, in this post, I am primarily focusing my attack against you. Anything I say against your challenge is simply to ridicule your ideology.
I say more anonymous sites may only swamp you with a lot of work but also prove nothing.
Swamp who with a lot of work? You're the one posting on your blog, attacking others every day, even during the New Year, hoping that they will be too busy to retaliate. Either that, or you really have nothing better to do during the festive season. Having said that, it really does consume time for me when I argue with you, knowing that the only people that I am trying to reach now is everyone besides you.
I say that only by teaching your students to think on the board will you prove something.
Yes. We don't expect players to prove anything by thinking off the board.
At least you have used the words "I say". You should keep it that way, because frankly speaking that is only your opinion and nobody else's.
You take away their confidence from your own insecurities and fears and then you ask them to fight in the light of day. But they wont be able to do that. Why? Because they have become like you.
BLUUUURGHWHATTHEHELLAREYOUSAYING
So stop hiding behind your title Jimmy...
Again, it's pretty hilarious that Jimmy's IM title has anything to do with this. Diversive cheap trick, anyone?
...and stop your support of venomous anonymous blogs.
Yes, support only the truth! FirstGM!!
Be proud of your name, be proud of who you are. Own your words and thoughts. Dont hide behind anonymous bloggers and voices to say what you really want to say. They are but shadows. Forget the cheap tricks.
A truly low blow
Here
I was rather disgusted when I saw this post. It is one of those posts, which rather than being stuff to poke fun at, angered me. You really can't give your bullshit a break, can you?
All Jimmy did was share an inspirational video, a post which finally did not involve you. A ceasefire over the Chinese New Year. And what did you do? You try to start a fire by involving yourself, and condescendingly say that "[you] hope this means that Jimmy has turned a corner". Thankfully there were no visible responses (unless they've already been deleted), but since you're asking for trouble, I'll give you a response.
You are a disgrace to the spirit of the festive season. You have no respect for a holiday that even you celebrate.
Seriously Raymond, go fuck yourself.
I was rather disgusted when I saw this post. It is one of those posts, which rather than being stuff to poke fun at, angered me. You really can't give your bullshit a break, can you?
All Jimmy did was share an inspirational video, a post which finally did not involve you. A ceasefire over the Chinese New Year. And what did you do? You try to start a fire by involving yourself, and condescendingly say that "[you] hope this means that Jimmy has turned a corner". Thankfully there were no visible responses (unless they've already been deleted), but since you're asking for trouble, I'll give you a response.
You are a disgrace to the spirit of the festive season. You have no respect for a holiday that even you celebrate.
Seriously Raymond, go fuck yourself.
Sampling Errors
"In statistics, sampling error or estimation error is the error caused by observing a sample instead of the whole population."
--Copy-pasted from Wikipedia
Or we could say, "counting the hits but not the misses".
In the real world, sampling errors are common. One that we observe daily, albeit unconsciously, normally in the media, is one that I would call a forced sampling error. For example, a biased news report may cite "many people disliking [insert topic here]", followed by quotes from respondents. Unfortunately, it is not an obligation that ALL respondents are quoted; it might even be the case that only those who are known to be in favour of the bias are interviewed, i.e. it is possible that the opinion of an entire population is wrongly portrayed by a (possibly) erroneous sample, due to the fact that a sample is only a part of the entire population.
You might want to note that this is a very powerful tool of propaganda; in WWII, Nazi advertisements of inmates in concentration camps were portrayed as well-fed, enticing the Aryan population to expose Jews without guilt. Or when a Jew commits a crime, the media does not fail to ensure that it is known nationwide so that "Jew" was synonymous to "criminal".
In North Korea today, visiting journalists and tourists are brought to model cities, farms, etc., portraying the economy as being well-off and developed, despite defector testimony strongly suggesting otherwise.
So, how is this related to Malaysian chess? Frankly speaking, not much. But lately, there is one example.
If you manage to reach the third paragraph without your head exploding, you will see that the sample in this case was one parent. Statistically, this is an impossible sample to work with.
Ilham, have you been tricked?
--Copy-pasted from Wikipedia
Or we could say, "counting the hits but not the misses".
In the real world, sampling errors are common. One that we observe daily, albeit unconsciously, normally in the media, is one that I would call a forced sampling error. For example, a biased news report may cite "many people disliking [insert topic here]", followed by quotes from respondents. Unfortunately, it is not an obligation that ALL respondents are quoted; it might even be the case that only those who are known to be in favour of the bias are interviewed, i.e. it is possible that the opinion of an entire population is wrongly portrayed by a (possibly) erroneous sample, due to the fact that a sample is only a part of the entire population.
You might want to note that this is a very powerful tool of propaganda; in WWII, Nazi advertisements of inmates in concentration camps were portrayed as well-fed, enticing the Aryan population to expose Jews without guilt. Or when a Jew commits a crime, the media does not fail to ensure that it is known nationwide so that "Jew" was synonymous to "criminal".
In North Korea today, visiting journalists and tourists are brought to model cities, farms, etc., portraying the economy as being well-off and developed, despite defector testimony strongly suggesting otherwise.
So, how is this related to Malaysian chess? Frankly speaking, not much. But lately, there is one example.
If you manage to reach the third paragraph without your head exploding, you will see that the sample in this case was one parent. Statistically, this is an impossible sample to work with.
Ilham, have you been tricked?
Friday 28 January 2011
Some slander (I mean libel) from me
In reading what Raymond Siew says, I find it either incredibly frustrating or amusing, depending on whether I'm the second or third party.
Notice how he talks like the stereotypical bad-guy politician in old movies. He uses the words "cleanse", "win", "true/truth", "focus", "ideas", "victimised", "reasoning", "anger" for himself, and "poison/venom", "illusion", "lies", "tricks", "noise", "divert/diversion", "ploy", "tantrum", "threat/intimidate", "belligerence", "childish", "break", "hate", "cowardice" in describing others. I wonder whether these words come naturally from him, or he's reading off a propaganda textbook he got hold of while he was studying psychology. Or maybe he really is copying the movies and hoping to emulate their success, while avoiding the ending.
In any case, I think Raymond Siew was born into the wrong country, in the wrong era. He would have put Joseph Goebbels out of his job had he been born just two generations earlier.
With reference to Jimmy Liew's post, I found the "conversation" pretty amusing as the third party. Do you remember how, as a child, when arguing with another child, if he runs out of counterarguments, he either 1)covers his ears, and scream, "blah blah blah" at you to annoy you, 2)he sways the topic by asking a barely relevant 'question'("I bet you don't know the square root of 4!"), or 3)call you short/fat/skinny/etc? It's amusing to watch that happen when it comes out as the last line of defense. This looks very much like that, only a slightly more sophisticated version.
And do IM title holders receive diplomatic immunity? Or does hiding behind an IM title mean holding a shield with the letters "IM"?
I just hope our friend here has always been like this, as opposed to becoming like this because of a brain tumour. Now that's a low (or high?) blow :)
Notice how he talks like the stereotypical bad-guy politician in old movies. He uses the words "cleanse", "win", "true/truth", "focus", "ideas", "victimised", "reasoning", "anger" for himself, and "poison/venom", "illusion", "lies", "tricks", "noise", "divert/diversion", "ploy", "tantrum", "threat/intimidate", "belligerence", "childish", "break", "hate", "cowardice" in describing others. I wonder whether these words come naturally from him, or he's reading off a propaganda textbook he got hold of while he was studying psychology. Or maybe he really is copying the movies and hoping to emulate their success, while avoiding the ending.
In any case, I think Raymond Siew was born into the wrong country, in the wrong era. He would have put Joseph Goebbels out of his job had he been born just two generations earlier.
With reference to Jimmy Liew's post, I found the "conversation" pretty amusing as the third party. Do you remember how, as a child, when arguing with another child, if he runs out of counterarguments, he either 1)covers his ears, and scream, "blah blah blah" at you to annoy you, 2)he sways the topic by asking a barely relevant 'question'("I bet you don't know the square root of 4!"), or 3)call you short/fat/skinny/etc? It's amusing to watch that happen when it comes out as the last line of defense. This looks very much like that, only a slightly more sophisticated version.
And do IM title holders receive diplomatic immunity? Or does hiding behind an IM title mean holding a shield with the letters "IM"?
I just hope our friend here has always been like this, as opposed to becoming like this because of a brain tumour. Now that's a low (or high?) blow :)
Thursday 27 January 2011
A deleted post from malaysianchessaffairs.blogspot.com
As requested, I'm reuploading a post made by Rationality last year, which got taken down a short time after.
An Intricacy in Malaysian Chess This Year
Well, apparently some people could not comprehend an example I gave about something fishy that happened in Malaysian chess, so I'll have to elaborate. Minus the sarcasm.
An Intricacy in Malaysian Chess This Year
Well, apparently some people could not comprehend an example I gave about something fishy that happened in Malaysian chess, so I'll have to elaborate. Minus the sarcasm.
OK, I lied. Reading Chess Ninja's post just reminded me of something which I wanted to write about months ago, except that I didn't have the time and eventually forgot. So I want to elaborate on this regardless of whether you understood what I said or not.
Anyway, here's the story that I will start from:
This year, 2010, the First GM Academy had secured sponsorship from AirAsia, who will sponsor the air tickets (so we're told) to the ASEAN Age-Group tournament. This implies that one had to pay for everything else if they were interested, i.e. accommodation, entry fees, etc. However, there was a catch: You must attend a 3-day training program conducted by the First GM Academy, and pay for it. The cost? RM1000.
Later on at the last minute, participation to this training was opened to outsiders, i.e. people not playing in the ASEAN, at the cost of RM300.
We can draw up this argument:
It's agreeable the air ticket was a significantly expensive item: It would cost somewhere within the RM1000-1500 range, and having that taken off a package which normally costs around RM4000 would be like getting a 30% discount. But then, you have to pay an extra RM1000 anyway. Mathematically, that meant you'd be saving up to RM500 compared to not following FGM. And you can't possibly be paying more than you would. To the player, the better deal definitely lies in following FGM.
Now let me tell you what's wrong with this picture:
FGM got the air tickets sponsored for them. Yes, the players might see the better deal in going through FGM. However, remember that they were supposed to be saving somewhere between RM1000 and RM1500. But now, it's somewhere between nothing and RM500. Now, let me clarify that these numbers are only my rough estimates; their magnitudes don't matter. What matters is that there is a difference of RM1000 in what they were supposed to save, and what they really will be saving.
Well, there is no 12th dimensional portal for money to disappear through that I know of (OK, I promise, there will be no more sarcasm after this), so that RM1000 per person has to go somewhere. And that somewhere is into the First GM Academy's bank account.
Then after that, the program is opened to outsiders for RM300.
There are a few things wrong with this:
1. It shows that FGM is willing to run the program for RM300 per head. That means the people who had to pay RM1000 were victims of price discrimination. For those unfamiliar with the term, it meant FGM charged the ASEAN players RM1000 only because they were willing to pay that amount.
2. It dilutes the pool of students. It gives the coaches more people to focus on, and hence the students will not manage to receive as much training as they would, had there been a small number of students in the training session. This is non-negotiable. Training works better with less people. That's why there's a market for one-to-one tuition in everything. Perhaps training in small numbers can arguably be more effective than training a single one, but beyond that "small number" training loses its effectiveness. And this theory would only be applicable if the players are of the same standard. Would training a 2000 player together with 5 people who are just starting to learn how to capture en passant increase its effectiveness compared to training them separately? Of course not! And, the only time when having more people may have only a negligible effect on the benefit of whatever they're trying to enjoy is when that something is non-interactive, e.g. fireworks.
3. Can we take a step back? There are people paying RM1000 and RM300 for the exact same thing. How would you feel if you go to your local Mamak, and your Mee Goreng costs you RM10, and the guy sitting on the table next to you pays RM3 for the same thing?
Now, let's do some math. If I'm not mistaken, GM Ziaur trains for RM150, give or take, per 2-hour session. How long is the training under FGM? Let's say 8 hours times 3 days. RM150*8*3=RM3600. There are many things wrong with this figure. I will just stop at the fact that FGM received RM8000 from the ASEAN players alone, and let you figure out the rest.
Actually, this would all be fine if FGM themselves sponsored the air tickets. It's just business then. The problem is, this is not the case. It was sponsored by a third party. Let me illustrate with numbers. Assume that each ticket costs RM1500, and 8 were sponsored, and we're only looking at the players and not their parents. Each person had to pay RM1000 extra to First GM. What it is for is not important; it was a forced payment. Anyway, each person effectively saves RM500.
AirAsia sponsors RM12000
Players save RM4000
That missing RM8000 is the problem. When someone sponsors something, all of it should go to where it is meant to go. And AirAsia sponsored the tickets for the players. The players should be saving very close to RM12000. Any significant leakage of value on the way to them is due to corruption. And I find 66.7% to be a significant portion.
Whether or not the training managed to cover its expenses of hiring its coaches (it probably did, though), or that it had served a purpose or whatnot is irrelevant. At the end of the day, the players had to attend that training whether they liked it or not (i.e. they had no choice), and had RM8000 taken from them.
Now, I'm not exactly a lawyer (Yee Weng, you must be feeling safe now!), but technically what FGM did seems legal. They offered players the choice of going to ASEAN through them, despite them knowing the fact that they will siphon some of their money, which was cleverly placed in the form of "training" instead of "air ticket", so the players technically weren't paying for something that they should not be paying for. Call it a profit-making legal loophole, if you must. I still call it unethical, among other things.
The exact problem is that the costs were engineered so that the better deal still lay in FGM. Yes, players had the choice between going themselves and paying, say, RM4500 or through FGM and paying RM4000 only. Of course any sane person would pick FGM. However, FGM had exploited the sponsorship granted by AirAsia; they could still get an extra RM1000 from anyone who wanted to follow them.
I dare say that, had the cost of going been RM1000 cheaper as it should have been, there would have been a higher participation rate. Which means that the extra RM1000 charged by FGM has contradicted with a certain sub-goal of a certain academy: To get players to play in an international event.
I'm sorry. I just can't write about these donkey-obvious things without sarcasm.
Tuesday 25 January 2011
Cheap Tricks in Chess?
I think it's pathetic that my first post on this blog is with regard to Raymond Siew (i.e. stuff that other bloggers have shot down countless times), but it seems like this is going to be the trending topic for the next few weeks, and hey, we all have to start somewhere, don't we?
Just so we're clear, the following is copy-pasted from the so-called First GM blog, with what I have to say in bold:
Remember the question raised below. That is the issue.
I guess this is the question you're referring to:
One party asks a question where the opposition has no answer ie winning on the board. The other party throws all sorts of distractions hoping to divert from answering that question.
It's nice to see you using another analogy from a game you can't play. But the problem here is, what do you mean by winning on the board? By itself, it is a disgusting analogy, but you can be forgiven for that.
A good piece of advice: If you want to get your point across, stop using analogies to chess. How do you expect to be understood through an analogy of a game which you don't understand yourself?
Now if you go to any tournament, speak to most players and parents, they will agree. So we have the winning argument. We are winning on the board. So now how?
That's nice. Have you been to a social event before? You would find that those who truly agree with you will continue the conversation in detail, and most likely criticize some flaws in your point, because they truly see your point. Those who don't would just agree and change the topic of conversation, or just avoid you. Only very few people would actually disagree with you in such small talk.
You know, if you keep citing support from outside the online chess community, then perhaps you should consider publishing a weekly journal and distributing it, because your blog in the online world is obviously not garnering much support from the online community.
Now if we can stay focussed and not sabotage ourselves then we can win.
The question is should players who have not played competitively for a period be automatically selected for representation of the Country?
No. In agreement with you at this point.
If not, then what is the solution? We have SEA games this year. Dont you think we need to at least debate this question now?
The solution is already half the way there. Players are selected through the Malaysian Masters tournament. The flaw is that the eligibility is tough, starting with the fact that this tournament is a knockout with 8 players. One way to qualify is by finishing in the top 2 in the National Championship.
But it's not a perfect world. If the Malaysian Masters was a Swiss tournament, players' strategies change. The solid "draw with black and win with white strategy" only works in matches. What if it was a round-robin? Then there exists the possibility of match-fixing (which has happened before in Olympiad selections, but having no proof of this, let's say that it's only a possibility) which could be exercised if the Malaysian Masters was a round-robin. So we're back to square one: a knockout match-based system. But having a knockout tournament does hold a major flaw, in that it only finds the best player in the field.
Perhaps an improvement is not to be made in the tournament structure, but in the choice of players for the tournament itself. Maybe Mas, Nicholas, Mok, Edward, Evan, Tariq, Yee Weng and Chern Ee don't deserve to play in the Malaysian Masters. Picking players based on their overall performance seems like a good option. Maybe even better is basing the participants of the Malaysian Championship on their overall performance. But in practice, not everyone takes chess as their first priority. Having said so, that does not mean that they do not deserve to play for the country. The fact of the matter is, it's just a matter of chance. Almost nobody makes chess their first priority. Who in their right mind, given that nobody here is above 2400 except Mas and probably Mok, chooses chess over work? Or SPM/PMR/UPSR?
Furthermore, "good performance" is very subjective. Does a player who wins 2 tournaments but plays crap in 10 others perform better than one who wins the only tournament(of the same standard as the other guy) that he plays that year?
Having said so, the system is definitely far from perfect, e.g. since qualifying in the Olympiad by winning the National Championship is somewhat easier than winning the Malaysian Masters.
MCF did make a sad call last year to put Peter Long into the team. However, in their defence, it was a last resort. They had little time, and MCF being MCF, who could they pick in such a short period of time, and with what criteria?
This is an ever persistent problem; no system is perfect. Magnus Carlsen pulled out of the FIDE WC cycle in protest of the system. The point is that even the world championship is flawed. It's not practical to expect a perfect selection system for the national team. Having said that, it can be improved, and this is one thing which I can agree with you.
So what do you propose? And be specific. We need a detailed solution. A vague one is useless, anybody can come up with that.
Here comes the cheap tricks. First they distort the the point of the parents having heartache when they hear about the stories of what happened in the Olympiad. Of course the investigation should now be if the stories are true or not, isnt it?
What happened in the Olympiad? Fixed games?
What investigation do you want? It's easy to establish if it was true or not.
Then they add a little slander. Go to the poll, its on chess ninja's blog. The poll is about whether I have a case to sue? Another misdirection. Who said sue? Go back to what I said.
Nice to see that you were hiding your cards on this one. When you make a threat, alleging libel, 99.999999% of the time, there is a lawsuit involved, with the plaintiff intending to sue for damages. Well, it's nice of you are part of the 0.000001% prepared to go through all the trouble; making a police report, writing a letter to MCMC and spend some money, just to expose 2 people and getting them and a third guy to "apologize".
Now that I think of it, you declare that you never intended to press charges. What does this mean? Did you have nothing better to do with your time and money and decided to "haiyah, give you guys chance la", or were you just bluffing all along?
Now if the poll is about the point I raised which is who is Chess Ninja and who is Rationality?
Does your brain work? By starting a poll on who is who, I'm assuming you mean to poll: Is Chess Ninja A)Mas Hafizul B) Mok Tze-Meng C,D,E,F, etc. Well, that is a pretty stupid thing to do. You can only have so many choices on a poll. A poll has a small, finite number of choices.
What do you think the outcome would now be? Do you want to know who they are? That was the issue.
Is this a rhetorical question? Because I sure as hell don't know the answer.
[OK, now I see what you mean. You're asking to poll if people want to know who the Chess Ninja and Rationality is. You really need to work on your written communication skills. Well, of course they do. Everyone wants to know the identity of an anonymous person. Superman/Batman, you name it. But what does this have to do with anything? It's not even relevant to your point. A realistic poll would be to ask whether people think that the Chess Ninja and Rationality are talking nonsense, which in turn means that they should be closed, and you have so kindly cited that the majority want this without reference in your posts.
There's a poll for this. It doesn't mean that they want Rationality and the Chess Ninja gone, but it sure as hell means that they want you gone more than them.]
So a few members have now fallen for the cheap tricks. The numbers are whittled down.
You're being vague again. What are you talking about?
Remember the issue still is do we want players to represent the Country after a long time out of competitive play.
If they fulfill the selection criteria and prove that they are able to, then why not? And I make the assumption (because of your vagueness) that you are referring to Peter Long and Gregory Lau only , because as far as I know every other player who represented Malaysia has been active in tournaments. Well, Greg is not someone which could be removed from the team for irrelevant reasons. Peter Long...well, he was a last resort. Who else could have been picked?
Also, given the scenario, this has only happened once. Not that I'm saying this should happen again, but you talk like this is an ongoing problem.
So they bring up the PICA issue. Let us distract even more people.
The PICA issue was only cited, once or twice. And then it was never made part of the argument. There was no elaboration. If someone did mention it and make a fuss out of it, do point it out.
The PICA issue has been brought before MCF. They are the highest Authority in Malaysian Chess. Would I bring it up to them if I have something to hide?
You bring things upon yourself. The PICA issue is unrelated. Yet, why are you telling us more about it?
A few other minor cheap tricks were tried. I wont insult your intelligence by going through them all. You are chess players. You can work things out.
Sadly, chess players are not mind readers, contrary to what many may think. What minor cheap tricks are you referring to? And if they were minor, why do you even bother to mention them?
So who are these people? Why do they need to use this tactics?
What tactic(s)?
Why use threats and intimidation if they have the winning argument and the winning number?
Isn't this you? Aren't you the blogger that is threatening to expose their identities? And intimidating them by threatening to lodge a police report?
Think on this. Who would object to this case? Who is affected and what is their true number?
Now you are learning to see past the cheap tricks. If you can see past these ruses, I promise you will be a stronger chess player. You have the winning game. Now convert.
Blah blah blah. More improvement advice from you.
ps: I've just been told by an IT guy that the poll can be fixed. What a waste of time.
You show even more of your technological incompetence. Of course the poll can be fixed. Just clear your cookies and refresh the page. But who is so jobless to do that? What's the point? We don't need to tell the online chess community that you're full of shit. We know that. The poll was to tell you that you're full of shit.
Your citations of support are no better. Perhaps you can argue that you need not say who gave you their kind words of support, since they only matter to you. In a way, the poll only matters to us. That the online chess community wants you gone. By the way, the guys who vote on the online poll are likely to be chess players who actually have an idea on what's going on. What about your supporters?
P/S: Jimmy Liew's votes went from 4 to 15 within a half hour in the shut-up poll. Go figure what that means. And just in case you're wondering, I started that poll.
Do you know what your problem is? The thing is, sometimes you are capable of coming up with a valid point. But every time you do or say something stupid (which, sadly, happens very often), you lose credibility. Your posts are already boring walls of text (Here's a fact: We don't have the time to read through your average of 4 posts in a day. We have lives.), and many of them are just irrelevant, some of them quotes, which is fine for personal blogs. But if you wish to be heard and taken seriously, you need to keep to the point. Nobody cares about your quote of the day or whatever . And when you say things that destroy your credibility, nobody is going to bother looking through your valid points when you do come up with one, because people are just to think, "Oh, just another word of crap coming from the guy who keeps talking shit."
And you need to be clear in what you say. Withholding elaborations to your point does not help the issue. Maybe you can spend more of your time elaborating the topic than talking about things off-topic.
It's nice to be an active blogger. But if you intend to propagate what you have to say through other people's minds, you need to cut the crap, and keep it short and simple. For example, I can't find your proposed solution to this problem of representing the country. Or rather, I'm not willing to wade through your last 100 posts, and hopefully find it somewhere there.
I have quoted your entire post, and answered every part of it. If you tell me that I'm trying to make the diversion, then I think it's clear that the problem lies in you.
And to sign off, it's safe to say that I'm definitely not going to get a warm reaction from you. After everything you have to say to me, I only ask you to remember:
Propose your solution the the current problem. And don't be vague.
Just so we're clear, the following is copy-pasted from the so-called First GM blog, with what I have to say in bold:
Remember the question raised below. That is the issue.
I guess this is the question you're referring to:
One party asks a question where the opposition has no answer ie winning on the board. The other party throws all sorts of distractions hoping to divert from answering that question.
It's nice to see you using another analogy from a game you can't play. But the problem here is, what do you mean by winning on the board? By itself, it is a disgusting analogy, but you can be forgiven for that.
A good piece of advice: If you want to get your point across, stop using analogies to chess. How do you expect to be understood through an analogy of a game which you don't understand yourself?
Now if you go to any tournament, speak to most players and parents, they will agree. So we have the winning argument. We are winning on the board. So now how?
That's nice. Have you been to a social event before? You would find that those who truly agree with you will continue the conversation in detail, and most likely criticize some flaws in your point, because they truly see your point. Those who don't would just agree and change the topic of conversation, or just avoid you. Only very few people would actually disagree with you in such small talk.
You know, if you keep citing support from outside the online chess community, then perhaps you should consider publishing a weekly journal and distributing it, because your blog in the online world is obviously not garnering much support from the online community.
Now if we can stay focussed and not sabotage ourselves then we can win.
The question is should players who have not played competitively for a period be automatically selected for representation of the Country?
No. In agreement with you at this point.
If not, then what is the solution? We have SEA games this year. Dont you think we need to at least debate this question now?
The solution is already half the way there. Players are selected through the Malaysian Masters tournament. The flaw is that the eligibility is tough, starting with the fact that this tournament is a knockout with 8 players. One way to qualify is by finishing in the top 2 in the National Championship.
But it's not a perfect world. If the Malaysian Masters was a Swiss tournament, players' strategies change. The solid "draw with black and win with white strategy" only works in matches. What if it was a round-robin? Then there exists the possibility of match-fixing (which has happened before in Olympiad selections, but having no proof of this, let's say that it's only a possibility) which could be exercised if the Malaysian Masters was a round-robin. So we're back to square one: a knockout match-based system. But having a knockout tournament does hold a major flaw, in that it only finds the best player in the field.
Perhaps an improvement is not to be made in the tournament structure, but in the choice of players for the tournament itself. Maybe Mas, Nicholas, Mok, Edward, Evan, Tariq, Yee Weng and Chern Ee don't deserve to play in the Malaysian Masters. Picking players based on their overall performance seems like a good option. Maybe even better is basing the participants of the Malaysian Championship on their overall performance. But in practice, not everyone takes chess as their first priority. Having said so, that does not mean that they do not deserve to play for the country. The fact of the matter is, it's just a matter of chance. Almost nobody makes chess their first priority. Who in their right mind, given that nobody here is above 2400 except Mas and probably Mok, chooses chess over work? Or SPM/PMR/UPSR?
Furthermore, "good performance" is very subjective. Does a player who wins 2 tournaments but plays crap in 10 others perform better than one who wins the only tournament(of the same standard as the other guy) that he plays that year?
Having said so, the system is definitely far from perfect, e.g. since qualifying in the Olympiad by winning the National Championship is somewhat easier than winning the Malaysian Masters.
MCF did make a sad call last year to put Peter Long into the team. However, in their defence, it was a last resort. They had little time, and MCF being MCF, who could they pick in such a short period of time, and with what criteria?
This is an ever persistent problem; no system is perfect. Magnus Carlsen pulled out of the FIDE WC cycle in protest of the system. The point is that even the world championship is flawed. It's not practical to expect a perfect selection system for the national team. Having said that, it can be improved, and this is one thing which I can agree with you.
So what do you propose? And be specific. We need a detailed solution. A vague one is useless, anybody can come up with that.
Here comes the cheap tricks. First they distort the the point of the parents having heartache when they hear about the stories of what happened in the Olympiad. Of course the investigation should now be if the stories are true or not, isnt it?
What happened in the Olympiad? Fixed games?
What investigation do you want? It's easy to establish if it was true or not.
Then they add a little slander. Go to the poll, its on chess ninja's blog. The poll is about whether I have a case to sue? Another misdirection. Who said sue? Go back to what I said.
Nice to see that you were hiding your cards on this one. When you make a threat, alleging libel, 99.999999% of the time, there is a lawsuit involved, with the plaintiff intending to sue for damages. Well, it's nice of you are part of the 0.000001% prepared to go through all the trouble; making a police report, writing a letter to MCMC and spend some money, just to expose 2 people and getting them and a third guy to "apologize".
Now that I think of it, you declare that you never intended to press charges. What does this mean? Did you have nothing better to do with your time and money and decided to "haiyah, give you guys chance la", or were you just bluffing all along?
Now if the poll is about the point I raised which is who is Chess Ninja and who is Rationality?
Does your brain work? By starting a poll on who is who, I'm assuming you mean to poll: Is Chess Ninja A)Mas Hafizul B) Mok Tze-Meng C,D,E,F, etc. Well, that is a pretty stupid thing to do. You can only have so many choices on a poll. A poll has a small, finite number of choices.
What do you think the outcome would now be? Do you want to know who they are? That was the issue.
Is this a rhetorical question? Because I sure as hell don't know the answer.
[OK, now I see what you mean. You're asking to poll if people want to know who the Chess Ninja and Rationality is. You really need to work on your written communication skills. Well, of course they do. Everyone wants to know the identity of an anonymous person. Superman/Batman, you name it. But what does this have to do with anything? It's not even relevant to your point. A realistic poll would be to ask whether people think that the Chess Ninja and Rationality are talking nonsense, which in turn means that they should be closed, and you have so kindly cited that the majority want this without reference in your posts.
There's a poll for this. It doesn't mean that they want Rationality and the Chess Ninja gone, but it sure as hell means that they want you gone more than them.]
So a few members have now fallen for the cheap tricks. The numbers are whittled down.
You're being vague again. What are you talking about?
Remember the issue still is do we want players to represent the Country after a long time out of competitive play.
If they fulfill the selection criteria and prove that they are able to, then why not? And I make the assumption (because of your vagueness) that you are referring to Peter Long and Gregory Lau only , because as far as I know every other player who represented Malaysia has been active in tournaments. Well, Greg is not someone which could be removed from the team for irrelevant reasons. Peter Long...well, he was a last resort. Who else could have been picked?
Also, given the scenario, this has only happened once. Not that I'm saying this should happen again, but you talk like this is an ongoing problem.
So they bring up the PICA issue. Let us distract even more people.
The PICA issue was only cited, once or twice. And then it was never made part of the argument. There was no elaboration. If someone did mention it and make a fuss out of it, do point it out.
The PICA issue has been brought before MCF. They are the highest Authority in Malaysian Chess. Would I bring it up to them if I have something to hide?
You bring things upon yourself. The PICA issue is unrelated. Yet, why are you telling us more about it?
A few other minor cheap tricks were tried. I wont insult your intelligence by going through them all. You are chess players. You can work things out.
Sadly, chess players are not mind readers, contrary to what many may think. What minor cheap tricks are you referring to? And if they were minor, why do you even bother to mention them?
So who are these people? Why do they need to use this tactics?
What tactic(s)?
Why use threats and intimidation if they have the winning argument and the winning number?
Isn't this you? Aren't you the blogger that is threatening to expose their identities? And intimidating them by threatening to lodge a police report?
Think on this. Who would object to this case? Who is affected and what is their true number?
Now you are learning to see past the cheap tricks. If you can see past these ruses, I promise you will be a stronger chess player. You have the winning game. Now convert.
Blah blah blah. More improvement advice from you.
ps: I've just been told by an IT guy that the poll can be fixed. What a waste of time.
You show even more of your technological incompetence. Of course the poll can be fixed. Just clear your cookies and refresh the page. But who is so jobless to do that? What's the point? We don't need to tell the online chess community that you're full of shit. We know that. The poll was to tell you that you're full of shit.
Your citations of support are no better. Perhaps you can argue that you need not say who gave you their kind words of support, since they only matter to you. In a way, the poll only matters to us. That the online chess community wants you gone. By the way, the guys who vote on the online poll are likely to be chess players who actually have an idea on what's going on. What about your supporters?
P/S: Jimmy Liew's votes went from 4 to 15 within a half hour in the shut-up poll. Go figure what that means. And just in case you're wondering, I started that poll.
Do you know what your problem is? The thing is, sometimes you are capable of coming up with a valid point. But every time you do or say something stupid (which, sadly, happens very often), you lose credibility. Your posts are already boring walls of text (Here's a fact: We don't have the time to read through your average of 4 posts in a day. We have lives.), and many of them are just irrelevant, some of them quotes, which is fine for personal blogs. But if you wish to be heard and taken seriously, you need to keep to the point. Nobody cares about your quote of the day or whatever . And when you say things that destroy your credibility, nobody is going to bother looking through your valid points when you do come up with one, because people are just to think, "Oh, just another word of crap coming from the guy who keeps talking shit."
And you need to be clear in what you say. Withholding elaborations to your point does not help the issue. Maybe you can spend more of your time elaborating the topic than talking about things off-topic.
It's nice to be an active blogger. But if you intend to propagate what you have to say through other people's minds, you need to cut the crap, and keep it short and simple. For example, I can't find your proposed solution to this problem of representing the country. Or rather, I'm not willing to wade through your last 100 posts, and hopefully find it somewhere there.
I have quoted your entire post, and answered every part of it. If you tell me that I'm trying to make the diversion, then I think it's clear that the problem lies in you.
And to sign off, it's safe to say that I'm definitely not going to get a warm reaction from you. After everything you have to say to me, I only ask you to remember:
Propose your solution the the current problem. And don't be vague.
Hello
Well, I don't feel like introducing myself.
But welcome to another blog that focuses on Malaysian chess, outside the confinement of the 64 squares!
But welcome to another blog that focuses on Malaysian chess, outside the confinement of the 64 squares!
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