Bob

In interviews with both parties during the FIDE election last year, I asked about a training programme to develop talent within Africa and here is what was said:

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov: It’s an interesting idea. But one needs a balance between a natural as opposed to a nurtured grandmaster. If there is a concrete proposal, FIDE might look at it.

Well… there was a proposal by the Right Move party:

Bessel Kok: The Right Move is offering, as part of its development program, 40 invitations per continent per annum to players covering board, accommodation and tournament expenses in Europe and the United States. The objective is to give players in developing nations a chance to get international experience and norms. These invitations will be discussed with Continental Presidents and allocated on a fair, rotating basis.

I’m not sure what FIDE has done in the current administration, but I have seen that Liberia, Senegal, Ghana, the Gambia and Cameroon are trying to invigorate their chess communities. Some have contacted me directly. We need plan for the development of chess at the federation level and also for the development of individual talent. I’m sure Barbados’ Allan Herbert (Co-Chair of CACDEC) may want to shed light on this topic because it needs addressing. We will come to another Olympiad in Dresden, Germany and nothing will have improved for these countries since the last Olympiad in Turin, Italy.

With regard to the withdrawal from the AAG, this was really sad. Indeed balancing patriotism with personal achievement is not always easy. There is surely no better honour than flying your national flag. However, as a professional chess player, there is also need to partake in a venture that will put food on the table. Some compromise was therefore necessary between Chess Federation of Zambia and Amon to ensure participation at the AAG.

As a continent, there is need to identify and nurture more talent to ensure that Africa takes its proper place in the chess arena. Although our major focus at the moment is building technical capacity (trainers/coaches and arbiters), expanding the base of rated players, the next priority area is identifying talent. In Botswana, we currently have an elite athletes programme which is working well. This model could be explored in the rest of the continent. A major challenge would of course be the financial status of African Chess Union.

Speaking on that issue… many of you remember the piece I did on the white supremacist site discussing Black chess. Some of the members on the site were joking around saying that a Black person lacks the intelligence to become a chess Grandmaster. Someone on the site did some checking and found a story I did on Maurice Ashley. The conversation and jokes ended immediately.

Recently I saw an entry on the “Underbelly” blog under “Poker, Chess and IQ” by a non-chess player. A questionable comment was made about Blacks playing at the coffee shop look like they learned chess in jail. There was also the assumption that there was not yet a Black Grandmaster. As excerpt of the comment was,

I don’t play either chess or poker, but I do spend a lot of time reading in coffee shops near university campuses, so I’ve had a chance to observe a fair amount of chess. I offer two thoughts:

A lot of these guys look to me like they learned their skills in the joint. Which would stand to reason: low opportunity cost on their time.

A lot of the really good ones are black. Which may or may not stand to reason but it probably violates a common perception. I’m just waiting for the first black grandmaster, so I can watch Charles Murray explain him away (link).

Fn: Wait a minute! Here he is (link)! So much for common perception. And here is an interesting post on the general topic of prejudice against blacks in chess (link).

Certainly, Maurice has been a GM since what… 1999? Maurice told me some time ago (in an e-mail) that people are still contacting him to do interviews on his story. We have to do a better job of dispelling these notions that only one African-American can play chess. That’s what I have been trying to do for six years, but have not targeted the general public yet.

Amon Simutowe’s GM quest is not to be taken lightly. It will do a number of things for Africa, but it will also show the chess world that along with Asia’s rise, Africa (and her descendants) will one day dot the tournament with a slate of GMs. It will be a credit to the chess community.