With one round remaining, all 14 teams are motivated to give a final push to their respective players for a good last round performance. After a hard-fought 6 rounds battle, Penang has emerged as the frontrunner and likely to sweep this year overall MSSM title for the first time since Chess was introduced back to MSSM calendar in 2004 at Labuan.
Penang will also become the first state to break Klang Valley dominance since 2004 if they continue their good performance in today last round. Why Penang can show such dominance until they are in a driver seat position for the last phase of the race in this year edition, let me starts the ball rolling........
1. They are very discipline.
2. They are very united.
3. They are very humble in chess learning.
4. They didn't let their ego get into their heads.
5. They have a systematic way of centralised training.
6. They are fighters.
7. They are hardworking.
8. They are determined.
9. They have great admin people to implement the right things.
10. The key to all - They organised this year NAG (March 2010) where most top players around the country took part ...... scoresheets analyzed !!
and the list can goes on but I will stop here.
When the Klang Valley contingents return back from this competition, they must do a thorough SWOT analysis on two aspects i.e. (i) the pre-MSSM preparation; (ii) the things that happened during MSSM.
Will Penang falters on their own at the last hurdler or Selangor to produce a superb result to overturn the deficit against Penang with a razor-thin margin to retain the Crown? We will know the answer in the next 12 hrs.
My bet is Penang is not going to falter. Hence, Selangor needs a miraculous effort from 36 players (like winning at least 33 pts from 36 games) to retain the title.