Chess takes the world on
board By Matthew Hennessey
When people think of chess, they usually
think of Russia. But chess excellence has now gone
global: the current world champion is from India,
and the current world junior champion is an
Egyptian. Since 1991, Russian players and teachers
have fanned out in a chess diaspora, gradually
affecting how, and where, the game is played.
For all but three years between 1948 and
2000, Russian players laid exclusive claim to the
title of World Chess Champion. The lone exception
came in 1972 when the American maverick Bobby
Fischer, who died last month in Iceland at the age
of 64, wrested the title from Russian Boris
Spassky. While his victory would become a defining
cultural moment of the Cold War, Fischer's tenure
at the top was merely an interlude. He
relinquished the title
in 1975
to Anatoly Karpov, and Russians held the top spot
for the remainder of the century.
That
winning streak was no accident. To the Soviets,
chess was political.
"The Soviets set out
to dominate world chess," said New York-based
chess teacher and historian Christopher
Maksymowicz in an interview with Policy
Innovations. "It was a decree from Joseph Stalin.
It was an expression of the superiority of the
Soviet Union over the West, over capitalism."
Chess training academies were lavishly
funded in the Soviet Union, and promising players
were groomed from a young age. The resources of
the Soviet state were mobilized in support of
champions like Mikhail Botvinnik, Tigran
Petrosian, and Garry Kasparov. "If you were any
good as a chess player, you didn't live like an
average Soviet," said Maksymowicz.
The end
of the Cold War had a withering effect on Russia's
state-sponsored chess dominance. During the 1990s,
funding for the chess academies dried up; many
closed.
"The political changes in Russia
have had a wide impact [on chess]. A lot of that
talent and expertise has been diffused across the
globe in recent years," according to Bill Hall,
executive director of the US Chess Federation.
"They didn't used to produce big names in places
like Africa and India. But there is a real
opportunity now to play and to learn."
Current world champion Viswanathan Anand,
a native of India, succeeded Russian Alexander
Khalifman in 2000. He surrendered the top spot
shortly thereafter, only to win it back from
Russian Vladimir Kramnik in 2007. Another Indian
player, Krishnan Sasikiran, is currently ranked
39th by the World Chess Federation (FIDE).
"By non-Russian standards, India is pretty
good," Anand told the Financial Times in January.
Thanks to Anand, India may have a future
in chess. Arvind Aaron of the All India Chess
Federation recently told Policy Innovations that
prior to Anand's win at the December 2000 World
Championships in Tehran, Iran, chess was
"non-noticeable" on the Indian sporting scene. "In
the summer of 2001 all chess academies and age
group chess tournament organizers had huge
responses from Indians," said Aaron. "This was due
to Anand's win." In the months after Anand's
victory, Indian chess academies found themselves
turning away young students for lack of space.
In 2007, 19-year-old Ahmed Adly of Egypt
became the first African player to win a major
chess title when he became World Junior Champion.
"Chess isn't very popular in Egypt. My duty as
champion is to help my society, and help them
understand how good chess is," Adly told ChessBase
News. "My dream is that I will be able to
popularize chess in Egypt."
In recent
years, China has produced some of the most
promising young chess players. Wang Yue, the
top-ranked Chinese player, became a grandmaster at
the age of 17. Now 21, he is ranked 25th in the
world by FIDE. The rise of another young player,
19-year-old Wang Hao, has been particularly rapid.
He bypassed the ranking of international master
entirely, going straight from master to
grandmaster. Hao is now the third-ranked junior
player in the world.
Like the Soviets, the
Chinese have adopted a decidedly political
approach to developing chess talent. The Chinese
often sponsor tournaments, including travel
stipends for Russian grandmasters and lucrative
prize purses, simply to afford young players the
opportunity for international experience.
Chess is undergoing a globalization of
sorts, but Russia is still the figurative, if not
the literal, center of the chess world. Eight of
the top 10 players in FIDE's world rankings are
from Russia or former Soviet states. The vast
majority of the top 100 players have Russian
names, if not Russian citizenship. Gata Kamsky,
the top-ranked US chess player, is a native of
Siberia. The Spanish grandmaster Alexei Shirov,
ranked seventh in the world according to FIDE, was
born in Soviet-era Latvia.
"Let us not
forget that Russians are still dominating chess,"
said Aaron.
The migration of top Russian
players during the 1990s and early 2000s coincided
with another landscape-changing development in the
chess world: powerful chess software for use on
home computers. So-called "chess engines" with
fanciful names like Fritz and Rybka allow users to
rehearse difficult openings, analyze complex
positions, and consider strategic options at
lightning speed. Some expect the impact of these
programs to equal if not exceed that of the new
Russian chess diaspora.
"The databases
have had a huge effect. You can learn new openings
and analyze your games afterwards. The [program]
will actually point out your mistakes." said Hall.
"This technology is available to everyone. It
levels the playing field."
"That's why you
have 12-year-old grandmasters now. Bobby Fischer
did it at age 15, which was stunning. But he did
it reading old Soviet magazines," said
Maksymowicz. "Fritz is to chess what NASCAR was to
foot racing."
Soon, it seems, when people
think of chess, they'll think of India or China
before Russia. Then again, maybe they'll think of
Fritz.
(Published with permission of the
Global Policy
Innovations
program at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in
International Affairs.
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