By Iva Wharton
Former 1980s junior and national chess champion Tony Hanoman praised the skills of the current group of local players though he opined that they did not understand how to play strategically from go and needed stronger competition to boost their skills.
Hanoman recently won a tournament against local players while home on holiday for the Christmas season.
In an interview with Stabroek Sport following his win, he said although he did not get a chance to meet some of the more seasoned players, he based his assessment on the skills displayed by the players he competed against. “I met with the present junior champion and the senior national champion from a few years and what I can say is that they are quite good tactically, they are good at solving problems and so forth, but they lack certain bit of knowledge about how you open the game, how you play strategically, which putted them at a disadvantage against me,” he told this newspaper.
The former champion said that he is willing to help the players boost their game, if a request is made. “I have been back here a few times before and previously I brought some chess sets for them and the last time I was here I had some training sessions with some juniors at that time, but I am sorry that I could not do anything with them this time because of the holidays,” he said. However, that might soon change as he plans to visit Guyana more frequently.
Hanoman, brother of lawyer Glen Hanoman, resides in Sweden and plays chess at the club level there. “Sweden is a very strong chess country, they have about 16 or 17 grandmasters and I am not at that level, I am far from that level. To reach that level you have to work hard at the game every day for four to five hours, I never had the time, because I had to study and then work,” he said. He also said, bashfully, that he did not think that he had the requisite talent to reach the highest level of the game as at his club he is currently ranked 50 out of about 1,500 players.
Hanoman said he plays about 20-30 games per year, which is not too often. He also does both paid and voluntary work at his club introducing new players to the sport. “It’s very rewarding because kids at that age is open to new influences and is always open to doing something new,” he explained. Also, as obtains in Guyana, and in several other countries, chess is also a male dominated sport in Sweden. “When we start is 50 per cent boys and 50 per cent girls but as they get older more girls stop playing than boys do and I am not sure why that is. Some say it’s just the chess culture which is male dominated that stops girls from playing,” he said.
According to Hanoman, local officials are hoping to create a broad base of junior players, and from there hone skills that will produce one or two top players.
He supports this view, but also opined that, “You need competition, lots of tournaments and you also need to get the chance to play against some strong players.” He said he understands that plans are in train to host a Caribbean tournament later in the year with players from Barbados, Venezuela, Suriname, Trinidad so on. “I hope they manage to pull it off, because it is necessary to play against stronger players to improve,” he asserted.
He recalled that he started playing chess at 11 years of age, when he enrolled at Queen’s College. “At that time there was a very active chess scene in Georgetown, there were the Broomes brothers, Maurice and Gordon, the Wharton brothers, Patrick and Louis. We had a lot of good players and lots of tournaments and I learnt to play chess in that environment.”
In the mid 1980s he won the title of junior chess champion.
Hanoman said he then won the national chess champion title the following year, modestly adding that the best players did not compete that year. He remained active in the sport until 1987 when he migrated to Sweden to study Physics Astronomy. Though he is no longer pursuing that field and is now a teacher, he believes that this new career has better allowed him to introduce the sport to more students. Since living in Sweden, Hanoman has not represented Guyana at any international tournaments but, he said if he is eligible to do so, he would take up the challenge.
