Chess as a strategy for success: interview with the head of the federation
The Turkmenistan Championship among cadets continues at the Ashgabat Chess and Checkers School, in which young lovers of intellectual games take part in the age categories up to 8, 10 and 12 years.
Yesterday, medals in rapid chess were played out not without surprises, and today the cadets entered the fight in classical chess - with full time control, when the main criterion for success is not the speed of thinking, but the quality of the game, including an understanding of the positional aspects of chess and deeply thought-out calculations. It is this type of chess art that is historically considered the most prestigious.
This tournament format also includes nine rounds according to the Swiss system and will last until February 3, when its winners will be determined and awarded. And ORIENT, taking advantage of the pause, decided to ask several questions to Chairman of the Chess Federation of Turkmenistan Vepa Myalikgulyev, who headed this organization in February 2022.
– According to sports observers, the last year in the chess life of the country was quite successful. And what do you think about it?
– This is a rather high assessment from experts, but without false modesty I share their point of view – 2023 was a successful year for the Turkmen chess school. There were more than twenty trips abroad to various competitions, and about thirty different tournaments were organized within the country. Our chess players have won more than twenty medals at international competitions, including the World and Asian Championships.
– As you know, objective success is known through comparison. How will your results look compared to previous years?
– We started working at a time when the pandemic was still ongoing in the world, and we were focused on establishing systematic work within the federation. And starting from 2023, participation in national and international competitions has become a priority in our work. This was necessary in order to restore past experience and gain new one, to actively involve existing chess players and to educate a new generation of lovers of intellectual games.
– What event during this period do you consider important, maybe even significant?
– Probably, this is Leila Shohradova’s bronze medal at the World Rapid Championships, which was held in Batumi in June 2023. This was the first important medal, after which our chess players believed in their capabilities. The result was a string of other awards. A month after that, our chess players won seven medals at the Asian Championships among schoolchildren, including Amanmuhammed Hommadov's gold medal in blitz. After that, there was a medal in Moscow at the Botvinnik Cup, a medal at the West Asian Championships won by six-year-old Begli Annagylyjov, and a number of medals at the West Asian Championships for juniors under 20 in early December in Sri Lanka.
– I would like to know what the quality of these medals is?
– Most of the medals won are from official championships, as well as from open, so-called open tournaments. Although they do not have the status of official tournaments, they are competitions with the participation of chess players of a high level enough. Our achievements, as I have already said, included not only silver and bronze medals, but also gold. These are several gold medals of Saparmurad Atabaev, the leader of our team, who won gold medals at grandmaster tournaments in Iran, Uzbekistan and Turkey, and a silver medal-in China.
– Despite the fact that you take a balanced approach to the issue of training athletes of different age categories, you still get the impression that you are placing a noticeable emphasis on the younger generation of chess players
– You correctly noted that, despite the systematic and integrated approach, we pay special attention to the training of young chess players under the age of 12. Why? They are the future of the Turkmen chess school. And not only. The fact is that this is not only an intellectual sport that stimulates the development of teenagers as chess players, it provides ample opportunities for their comprehensive development.
Skills such as the ability to analyze a situation, reason logically, concentrate attention, quickly make the right decisions, etc., will be useful to them not only in chess, but also in other areas of activity. These abilities will help them throughout their lives. After all, they learn to understand that failures are opportunities for growth, and victories are the result of persistence and strategy.
– And if we consider this issue from a purely sporting aspect?
– Chess as a sport is becoming much younger. In many countries around the world, teenagers become high-level masters. And in order to be competitive, the education of Turkmen chess players must begin from early childhood. And such a strategy of our federation can lead the Turkmen chess school to achieve more significant results.
Along with this, we are creating conditions for strengthening the group of older generation chess players, and, of course, the national team. This year we plan to attract foreign coaches at a high grandmaster level for targeted work with members of the Turkmenistan national team.
Considering that the main factor for maintaining sports shape and further development is tournament practice, we have planned about 3-4 trips of the Turkmenistan national team to foreign competitions.
– These, as I understand it, are the federation’s immediate plans. And in the long term? For example, the introduction of chess into school education as an optional activity or even as planned classes in the system of physical education disciplines.
– Good question! But in the plans of our federation this is not such a distant goal. Starting this year, we expect to take the first steps in this direction. For example, start with a pilot project at a school. During the negotiations, the Russian Chess Federation provided us free of charge with appropriate educational materials and the right to use them in Turkmenistan. These are manuals, so-called workbooks, assignments, etc.
The World Chess Federation, which has a committee on chess in education, has also provided us with some resources. Under the auspices of the World Chess Federation, various seminars and courses for training school teachers in chess are held, and we took part in some of them.
Including in the international conference on chess in education, which took place in April last year. So, the members of our federation and the leading chess players of the country are ready to apply their knowledge, experience and efforts to bring the spread of this wonderful game to a new level.
– In other words, initial steps in this direction have already been taken. What will be the next step?
– The next step is to coordinate this issue with the country’s Ministry of Education and identify a pilot school with which it will be possible to work closely.
– In my opinion, it would be advisable to conduct such an experiment on the basis of more than one school and in more than one region. To one of the capital's schools, add, for example, an educational institution in the Lebap region, where there has been noticeable progress in the development of children's chess. And in other regions, teenagers have recently shown good results.
– I agree that different approaches are possible. But this needs to be resolved in a working manner at the level of various departments. After agreeing on all issues and starting the corresponding work, it will be necessary to monitor the basic indicators of the project participants (increasing the level of academic performance, the progress of children not only in chess, but also in various school disciplines), conduct tests for the positive impact of systematic practice of intellectual games on the overall development of the child and etc.
– Well, it remains to wish you success in holding not only the current championship, which covers more than three hundred children aged 5 to 12 years, but also in spreading the art of chess in Turkmenistan.
Bekdurdy AMANSARYEV
