The Trinidad and Tobago Chess Foundation can look back on an active year in which it made history by its effort to popularise the sport among the wider community. Thanks to the Foundation's free teaching and coaching initiative, chess has gained dozens of new participants in Trinidad and the game has been revived in Tobago after some 20 years in the doldrums. This thrust had its launching pad in the Foundation's innovative Let's Play Chess programme which consisted of eight Sunday morning sessions at the Public Library in Port-of-Spain. More than 80 participants, both juniors and adults, came from as far as Arima and Chaguanas and were taught to play the game free of charge by a team of experienced tutors. "We are happy to carry out this programme," explains Edison Raphael, the Foundation's president." "Chess is the world's greatest intellectual sport and, as such, has a lot to give to our people. Experts and academic researchers have demonstrated that chess can assist in the training and education of young people and, generally, in the building of a thinking society."
"This is what makes chess more than just a sport and this is what motivates the Foundation's effort in taking the game to the public, particularly among the country's youth." Thanks to a strategic partnership forged with RHAND Credit Union Cooperative Society, the Foundation's Lets Play Chess programme was extended to the folk of the sister isle, climaxing in a tournament for both juniors and seniors. "After so many years of inactivity, we achieved a breakthrough of sorts in Tobago, but it is clear that we still have a lot of work to do on the island," says Raphael. In the new year, the Foundation expects to expand its Chess-in-Schools programme with the assistance of the Tobago House of Assembly, establish an annual Open tournament for both juniors and seniors and provide a venue somewhere in Scarborough where chessists can meet and play on a regular basis.
"We are hoping to rebuild the sport in Tobago so that the island can once again have its own champion and produce competitors in the popular open tournaments and national championships," Raphael added. The Foundation's intention early in the new year is also to expand its Let's Play Chess effort to different parts of Trinidad in response to requests received from participants in the 2009 sessions held at the Public Library. In offering free chess lessons and coaching to members of the public, the T&TCF is making history of an enlightened kind, seeking to popularise a sport that, inspite of the enthusiasm it generates around the world and its recognised social benefits, remains something of a Cinderella child in the local sporting arena. Surely by now a national Chess-in-Schools programme should be well under way.
Why is the sport not being used as a strategic instrument to help meet the problems of indiscipline and poor learning skills among our young people?Maybe the authorities should see that wonderful movie, Knights of the South Bronx, which tells the true story of how chess transformed the lives of a class of recalcitrant, under-achieving school children in one of the slums of New York. According to Raphael, the Foundation's annual Caribbean Chess Carnival, the only international tournament held in the country, now has the support and endorsement of the World Chess Federation (Fide) which advertises the Trinidad event on its official website. As a result, this year's CCC at the Queen's Park Oval is likely to attract an even larger contingent of foreign players. Last year the contest drew a total of 150 participants, both juniors and seniors, from across the region together with four international masters and one woman grandmaster.
"A major advantage of this tournament, of course, is that it offers T&T players an opportunity to enhance their ratings, even achieve master norms, without having to leave the country." says Raphael. The Nestle Grand Prix tournament, which after four years has become the largest junior chess event in the country, is also expected to draw an even larger participation than the 130 youngsters it did in 2009 as many "graduates" of the 2009 Let's Play Chess programme enter the tournament circuit. Chess, as Double Rooks has repeatedly written, needs every support it can get. In this regard, Nestle and RHAND are commendable exemplars from the private sector.
C?orrections:
?Double Rooks regrets these two errors in last week's article. UWI student Marcus Joseph is the national chess champion and not ex-champion FM Ryan Harper. Vishnu Singh, Bronze medallist at the 2009 CAC games, was inadvertently omitted from the list of 2009 achievers announced by T&TCA president Quintin Cabralis.