Illinois Chess Bulletin Julio - Agosto 2002 | Page 32

Chess Club

Chess From the Middle
The World Championships And Ramblings
of Kids, Adults and Learning
By Ron Suarez
Hi there, hey there, ho there chess players of all
ages! It looks as if we will be having a unification
match of the World Chess Championship. This
feels, kind of, like, boxing. Where is the Mike
Tyson of the chess world? I notice that none of
the contenders has bitten any of the other
contenders either, boring. They also made a big
deal of making sure everyone was invited to
compete. Just to let you know, I withdrew from
the competition on moral grounds (or was that
coffee grounds). I simply refuse to lend my
accreditation to the whole mess that FIDE has
created the past few years. The winner, of
course, will need to come to the Middle and beat
me, if he can, before he can lay any real claim to
the title of World Champion. Realize my gentle
friends that in order for anyone to actually beat
me they first have to get me to play them. I can’t
tell you any more otherwise you will know my topsecret tactics for remaining the contested World
Champion.
Do you remember when they had the Zonal
qualifiers and candidate matches? That was cool
and took a long time too, something like three
years. The games played were of a high quality
and produced a lot of interesting theory. Then
they came up with the FIDE way, everything
contested from beginning to end quickly, a week
or two. The quality went out so the garbage could
come in. Can’t they find a happy medium
(basically a drunk fortune teller)? Why not have
qualifying tournaments where anyone, yes even
we from the Middle, can play and qualify to
compete at ever higher levels until we too could
reach the ultimate of the World Championship? I
know, they are afraid of…me.
At this writing I still don’t know if Anand will have a
chance to compete. Yasser Seriawan seems to
be in agreement with this latest venture. It is hard
to tell where Kasparov is on anything. What we
need is to Americanize the whole process.
Speaking of which…why is it that we have no
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Americans in the top ten of the world players?
Why are the best players of the world not from the
good old USA? It seems that our best GM’s really
spend their time teaching, going into the business
sector, etc. The economics of it are such that it is
more profitable for them to spend their time and
energies teaching kids how to play or counting
stock market stuff instead of honing their playing
skills to be competitive on an international level.
This leads us into my next area of discussion
which I will take up shortly. Let’s all watch the
unfolding of the World Champion thing and see
what happens. I suggest you be prepared for
anything. Kasparov may team up with Bobby
Fischer and start a new psychotic chess group or
something. You can be assured that a very few
will profit greatly while the majority will play chess
and live otherwise.
Now I would like to present a point of view that
may not be popular. Just give my proposal a bit
of time and thought though and you may very well
agree with me. It has become a publicized fact
that the USCF is losing adult members at a
remarkable rate (that is why I am remarking about
it here) over the last five to ten years or so. The
scholastic and youth membership rosters have
grown tremendously though. It was thought that
these younger players would grow up and
become active adult members. That has not
been the case. It really doesn’t matter why they
haven’t continued on. What matters is what we
as the presently active chess people in the Middle
can do to change the course of this declining
adult activity. What has happened in the past is
that many chess activities and tournaments have
been populated more so by kids. Because of this
the attitudes and activities have also changed in
the direction of being more “kid friendly” and less
“adult oriented”. For example, entry fees and
dues have been lower for kids almost always.
Often times the kids are competing for the same
prizes as the adults and paying a lesser entry fee.
This creates a discrepancy making things less
attractive for the adult. With a higher number of
kids at an event, the noise level often times is
substantially higher than previously when there
were fewer kids present. This creates a less than
previously pleasant chess playing experience for
the adult. Please don’t get me wrong, I like kids
(my wife tells me I am still one myself). I am
trying to solve the problem of a dropping adult
chess playing population. I think the problem is

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