First Moves /Chess stories from around the world CHEQUERED HISTORY
Thanks to Indian grandmaster Viswanathan Anand’s victory at the World Chess Championship (see our report on page 36), a new passion is emerging on the subcontinent for the nation’s oldest game, as Kamala Thiagarajan reports:
IT IS A DECADES-OLD SCENE common to every hamlet, town and city in India— a dusty playground at midday, chock full of schoolchildren armed with cricket bats and rubber balls, sweating bullets, but playing earnestly, despite the searing heat. Yet these days, there’s more to it than that. On street corners and in school corri- dors, a new breed of Indian sports is emerging—the chess fan, for whom strategy and skill holds the thrill. Though chess originated in India in the sixth century CE, its native country gradually lost touch with the game. Several centuries later, however, the world championship match between Bobby
Fischer and Boris Spassky at Reykjavik in 1972 created a new generation of Indian chess enthusiasts. Today, reigning World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand’s success (for the fifth time) is responsible for another wave of interest in chess. Vibhas Pande is a former air force pilot who has been an avid chess player for
the past 36 years. Pande now challenges players around the world, playing online whenever time permits. He says the Internet has made the nuances of the game more accessible in India, providing exposure to chess at an international level. “Chess is a growing sport in India,” he says. “And the Internet has improved edu-
cation about the game. Today, game databases are available on the ‘Net’ for study and analysis. After Anand’s success we have more players turning grandmasters and international masters than ever before.” Augusto Pinto, chess player and former vice-president of the Goa State Chess Asso-
ciation, concurs: “There is little doubt that chess has grown enormously. Until the mid-’70s there was just one [Indian] IM, namely Manuel Aaron. Look at the num- ber of GMs and other titled players now, not to mention a certain world champion! Yes, chess certainly has a strong grassroots presence, especially in the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bengal. For its size, the progress of Goa has been remarkable too.” In recent years, Goa, the smallest Indian state, famous for its sun, surf and sands,
has turned out a remarkable number of child chess prodigies who are making waves in chess circles across the world. Among them is the now 13-year-old Ivana Fur- tado, who was exposed to chess at the age of three by following her eight-year-old brother’s tournament progress. ‘She picked up some very basic tips this way and at the age of five, she expressed her desire to play,’ says Eli Furtado, her father. Ivana went on to win innumerable age-group state championships, before twice taking out the World Youth Chess Championship. High-profile Indian chess success stories have brought about a subtle yet signif-
icant change in the psyche of many Indian parents, who now look to chess as an acceptable career option for their children. Considering the conservative nature of the average Indian, who veers towards government jobs and the traditional money spinners like engineering and IT, this has been a remarkable development.
CHILDREN AND CHESS
TODAY, INDIA’S BURGEONING ECONOMIC GROWTH has also resulted in better chess infrastructure in universities and schools. “The chess scene is quite upbeat now,” says Roomy Naqvy, assistant professor of English at Jamia Millia University, New Delhi. Naqvy began playing chess as a student, captaining his university team in 1990. He recalls sitting by the kerb near college playing—and winning— four different games simultaneously, yet couldn’t even contemplate making money from chess then. Thanks to the All India Chess Federation (AICF), it’s a different picture now. The
AICF has created infrastructure across the country, engaged quality coaches such as Maxim Sorokin and Evgeny Vladimirov (who coached Garry Kasparov), arranged tournaments and groomed champions. “By the time Anand came on the scene, the AICF was a reasonably efficient chess
administration and had gradually started organizing more tournaments where, slowly, young players of a fairly good merit were emerging,” Pinto explains. “When Anand started out, the youngest age group was the under-15 [sub-juniors], but later, younger age-group tournaments were started. This began throwing up more players into the cauldron of the chess fraternity.” It’s an approach that is steadily seeing India succeed the Soviet Union and Rus- sia as the world’s chess powerhouse.
FACES ACROSS THE BOARD
By AL LAWRENCE
KEN THOMAS NEW JERSEY Mega-Director
More fortunate than two of his six siblings, Ken sur- vived childhood in Okla- homa’s pestilential 1930s dust bowl. Enlisting in the Army, he knew only what
Fred Reinfeld had squeezed into Chess in a Nut- shell. Ken since studied with a grandmaster, founded numerous clubs, and directed more than 1,000 USCF events—along with disarming a malfunctioning nuclear warhead in Holland. The 2012 U.S. Amateur East “is probably my last na- tional, but I’ll continue to run club tournaments.”
AKSHITA GORTI
VIRGINIA
North American Youth Girls’ Gold Medalist U8 & U10
Diminutive Akshita plays nearly eye-level with the pieces but can pounce on her opponent from a great height. Only nine, with an 1800-and- climbing rating, she studies chess 20 hours a week and is on the road with her family to two or three tourneys a month. She also works in tennis, swimming, and Indian classical dance. Goals? “I want to play in the U.S. women’s championship!”
DELL BETTON MISSOURI
Put the “Fine” in Finegold
Dell is a member of the flabbergasting Saint Louis Chess Club, where he puts even resident grandmas-
ter Ben Finegold in time pressure, if not over the board. Dell is a parking enforcement officer who once ticketed Ben’s anonymous car and still takes a good-natured teasing from the popular grandmaster. “I’ve been hearing about it for three years,” Dell laughed.
www.uschess.org 9
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