Chess should assume its fundamental role as a mental stimulant for students
With Errol Tiwari
(“Our young people must be afforded the fullest opportunity to participate in the processes of political, social and economic change in our hemisphere. To do so effectively, it is necessary to address poverty, social exclusion and vulnerability, which affect the youth in such large proportions.” – Taken from an address to the Plenary Session of the 38th General Assembly of the OAS by Minister of Foreign Affairs , Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, June 3, 2008 Medellin, Colombia.)
For years, chess has been played almost exclusively among students from some select schools in Georgetown. In the words of the Foreign Minister, it has become necessary to address this concept of exclusion of a number of our young people to the intellectual pastime of chess.
We already know chess enhances academia, and students who play the game improve their scores in mathematics, reading and science. The ancient game therefore, must no longer remain a civilized luxury of the leisure class either in appearance or fact. Rather, chess should assume its fundamental role as a mental stimulant for students who study and play it, and should act as a motivational factor in influencing teenager’s lifestyle.
In his bestselling book, Winning Chess Strategies, grandmaster Yasser Seirawan writes about the 5 R’s of chess: wRiting, Reading, aRithmetic, Responsibility and Reasoning, which are vital to the proper development of a child. A player has to write his moves on paper so that a record of the game could be made. He has to read chess books if he wants to improve his game. He has to use arithmetic to count his pieces. He has to demonstrate responsibility for his actions and decisions on the chessboard, and finally, he has to exercise his powers of reasoning when he plays the game.
Chess is found as required curricula in about 30 countries. It has been part of the curriculum for most Russian schools for over 40 years. The state of New Jersey in the US has passed a bill legitimizing chess as a unit of instruction within the elementary school curriculum. A quote from the bill states: “In countries where chess is offered widely in schools, students exhibit excellence in the ability to recognize complex patterns and consequently excel in math and science”.
In Quebec, there are programmes in place where schools teach chess at the elementary level. Instructors are often professional chess players hired by the school board to teach part-time during the week.
By reaching out to the schools that never had the opportunity to learn the game, essentially those schools in the rural areas, the Guyana Chess Federation is confident that it will make a great contribution to communities whose intellectual achievements are rarely celebrated. It is possible also, to bring schools from obscurity to national attention through chess. And not only in excelling at the game, but also in excelling academically.
The renowned coach, television commentator and the first black grandmaster in the history of the game, Maurice Ashley, brought the Adam Clayton Jr High School in Harlem to national prominence in the US with chess. He introduced chess to the school and coached six students, calling themselves the Raging Rooks, and made them co-national champions in the Junior High School National Chess Champion-ships. The Adam Clayton Jr High tied for first place with an elitist school from Philadelphia, where chess was taught for many years.
Ashley makes the point that kids are influenced and inspired by what we as adults do, and how other schools perform. He tells us that when Tiger Woods won the US Masters title in golf in 1997, he had an epiphany. Immediately he began to dream of becoming the first black grandmaster of chess ever. And the Mott Hall High School in Harlem, influenced by what Adam Clayton Jr had achieved, also excelled in chess at a national level.
When Ashley became a grandmaster and visited Mott Hall, one Dominican student of chess felt he could also become a grandmaster. He said: “Because he did it, he made me believe I could do it, because we are both minority”.
Carlsen defeats Radjabov
Here is a game from two of the world’s rising stars. Norway’s teenager Magnus Carlsen revives an old line of the popular Sicilian Defence and defeats Teimour Radjabov at the FIDE Grand-Prix in Azerbaijan in April.
Radjabov,T (2751) – Carlsen,M (2765)
FIDE GP Baku AZE (7), 28.04.2008
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 Nc6 8.Qd2 0-0 9.Bc4 Bd7 10.Bb3 Rc8 11.h4 h5 12.0-0-0 Ne5 13.Bg5 Rc5 14.Kb1 Re8 15.g4 hxg4 16.h5 Nxh5 17.Rxh5 gxh5 18.Qh2 Ng6 19.Qxh5 Qa5 20.f4 Rxg5! 21.fxg5 e6 22.Nf5?! exf5 23.Qxg6 Be6 24.Qh5 fxe4 25.Rf1 Qe5 26.Rxf7 Bxb3 27.axb3 g3 28.Ka2 Rf8 29.Rxf8+ Kxf8 30.Qg4 e3 31.g6
31…e2! 32.Qf3+ Ke8 33.Qf7+ Kd8 34.Qg8+ Kd7 35.Qf7+ Qe7 36.Qf5+ Kd8 37.Qa5+ b6 38.Qd5 e1Q 39.Qa8+ Kd7 40.Qb7+ Ke8 White resigns ! 0-1 .