Mashafizul GM Quest

Today, Quah Seng Sun write about Mashafizul GM quest on his weekly chess column in The Star. It has been more then a year since Mashafizul (photo right) start the mission and he have been playing several international chess tournaments mainly in Asia and Europe for the past year . Sadly so far he has not yet achieve the norm he badly needed. Basically he need 3 norm and reach 2500 rating to achieve the GM title.

Not to pressure Mas but i think as i mentioned before it's hard for him ( or anybody) to do it alone . Although he has been helped by a strong and experience GM - Ian Rogers occasionally, it looks not enough. Probably he need an intensive and continuous training sessions with experience trainers. Another factor which doesn't help is he doesn't have a good sparing partner / trainer available in his own country compare to our neighbours such as the Philippines and Indonesian. They can afford not to have special coaches because they have many strong local players ( GM and IM strength) to train with.

If i'm not mistaken, Mas have another 2 months ( as mention by Quah Seng Sun in his past column) before he has to start working with his employer - PETRONAS which mean.....no more chess tournament. I hope that the burden of being the "sole" GM candidate for his country doesn't effect Mas confident so much and i wish him all the best to continue his pursuit for the GM Title !