2007 World Cup Chess has begun!

Angola’s Pedro Aderito facing the Ukraine’s Vassily Ivanchuk on board #1. FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and Alexander Filippenko (governor of Khanty-Mansiysk) make the ceremonial first move.

The World Cup Chess Championship has begun and the African contingent has fought valiantly but have bowed out. Only Essam El-Gindy could break into the win column with a win over Ukraine’s Ruslan Ponomariov. World Junior Champion Ahmed Adly held Gata Kamsky in the first game, but lost the second.

Ahmed Adly (right) playing against Gata Kamsky

It is time that African players begin to make a stronger presence and advance to the second round. I believe El-Gindy’s win may be the first since South Africa’s Watu Kobese beat Peter Leko some years ago.

Official Site: https://www.ugra-chess.ru/eng/main_e.htm
Drum: https://www.thechessdrum.net/newsbriefs/2007/NB_WorldCup07.html

7 Comments

  1. The african players are starting to prove their worth, i belive this is a sign of things to come in the future. With Simutowe gaining his GM title soon and Robert Gwaze probaly on his way too, sub saharan africa chess has never been brighter. Now to add the icing on the cake Amed ‘madly’ Adly is world junior champion!
    The Egyptians have proved their strength with GM Bassem making light work of the strong panomirov and Adly drawing an opponent 270 points elo ratings higher!?
    Angola’s pedro the lowest rated player in the tournament was given the true baptisim of fire when he was paired in board 1 aganaist the newly minted world blitz champion V. Ivanchuk.

    Congragulations to you all.

  2. Gwaze played well in the first game against Alexei Shirov and he showed that he has understanding of the complex Najdorf. El-Gindy’s game against Ponomariov was very interesting. I believe Ponomariov underestimated El-Gindy and threw away a better position. Then at a point when he could have allowed a draw by repetition, he blundered and El-Gindy mated him. Adly played very well against Kamsky in game #1 and he may have found his strength. I don’t believe Aderito played his best chess against Ivanchuk. In the second game, he was merely shuffling pieces around and fell far behind on the clock.

    Hopefully, an African player can advance past the first round in the future.

  3. Wow thanks once again brother Shabazz for providind great coverage on some of theses young African players vs the higher rated competitors! This ” Shuffle Chess” that you speak of from Aderito vs Ivanchuk i believe is a cause of the current form of chess being a bit more difficult for theses young African to grasp strategically, theses slower restrictive methods of the hypermoderns! From an Ultramodern perspective it is like asking Michael Jordan to go back to the 1960s and play bastketball ” below the rim “, Of course that would be difficult for him to do because it goes against what is natural for him to do! (I.E. Above the Rim!) LOoking forward to 2008 when theses young people can compete and evolve with their own form of chess thats is Ultramodern. Peace.

  4. African chess is improving brothers, it is evident in the results. Other than Aderito from Angola, a formidable performance was put up by some individuals though the overall result was bad. The African individual championship 2007 winner Gwaze ,who carried most of the hopes went through some middlegame complexities in game one with shirov only to loose ,though his performance was a little lucking . Adly is my hero .He did give a good account of himself in game one with Gata kamsky this showed this young Egyptian has a good understading of chess and might carry many African hopes in the near future. The man of the moment was El-Gindy , whose style of exercising great patience in equal positions paid off when ponomariov blundered,giving mother Africa a respectable lead and real hopes of advancing to round two though this didn’t happen.
    The overall play during these games shows animprovement in the game of these young Africn men and here in Kampala,Uganda i welcome the result.

  5. Look guys, lets face it. Africa is simply not good enough to play against the BIG players. We will always be satisfied with maybe getting a lucky draw or a lucky win now and again. It will probably take another 100 years or more before someone from Africa can actually challenge the world’s best. Sorry that I sound so negative but that is the truth.

  6. Leonard,

    The wins are not luck, but I would say that Africa is certainly a long way off because the continent has been ignored by FIDE. Despite having had an African presence in executive positions (Emmanuel Omuku and Lewis Ncube), Africa has gotten no additional funding or additional consideration for chess development. The problem is that Africa has a lack of organization and there is not much of a coherent plan in place to serve the huge continent.

    Granted, Europe is much, much smaller than Africa and it is much easier to travel for chess. They also have the resources and the luxury to concentrate on chess as opposed to worrying about how to survive in this hostile world. Simutowe was at least as talented as the players he competed against at the junior level. However, due to the lack of competitive tournaments and lack of training, he improved very slowly. He then had to concentrate on his studies for four years and has now only qualified for his three GM norms.

    I think we will see Africa competing at the top level with 20 years. If we take the single country of India with its 1.1 billion people, we can see that growth in chess (without tremendous resources) is possible within a 20-30 year period. I believe in 20 years, we will not only be looking to Europe as a powerful chess region, but Asia! However, if we do not take care of players like Simutowe, Robert Gwaze, Watu Kobese (players having shown immense talent), then Africa will continue to languish.

  7. Hello chess brothers my predictions concerning African growth happen to be a bit more in the here and now so i will offer the idea that we will subdue the “BIG PLAYERS” in 2008 . Our Ultramodern Strategy vs their traditional ideas and to be completely honest with you all 20- 100 years is absurd at best!When have u know Africans to take so long in anything, haha! PEACE. 😆

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