Something very interesting has happened at the Champions League currently being staged in Vitoria Gasteiz, Spain. Four world-class Grandmasters have decided to donate their tournament earnings (regardless of tournament position) to a fund for building a hospital in the beleaguered Democratic Republic of Congo.

The tournament theme is 'playing for a better world' and the gesture was expressed by Grandmasters Ruslan Ponomariov, Veselin Topalov, Judit Polgar and Rustam Kasimjanov.

Of course Viswanathan Anand held a charity fundraiser for cerebral palsy in India, but this gesture is perhaps the first of its kind by a cadre of Grandmasters to help a fund in Africa. The continent has been faced with a number of political, economic and social challenges over the past five decades and such gestures will certainly lift the morale of the African sons and daughters. The gesture by Ponomariov, Topalov, Polgar and Kasimjanov is greatly appreciated and they are to be commended. One day Africa will produce a champion chess player and we may find that he/she may have looked at this gesture as a as point of inspiration.

Posted by The Chess Drum: 10 November 2007