Kasparov in South Africa

World Chess Champion, Gary Kasparov is visiting South Africa!! Kasparov was the top rated player for 21 years.  He will be playing some chess on the 12th November. Pres Zuma has recently launched the MOVES FOR LIFE Chess development programme. From the link:

Kasparov comes from Moscow to South Africa on 12 November to form a joint venture with Tshwane/Pretoria based chess educational project Moves for Life (MFL).

13th Chess World Champion, Garry Kasparov, has announced that he wishes to link his Kasparov Chess Foundation to MFL to take the successful MFL formula to other African countries.

He has added that he plans to work with MFL to make Johannesburg the chess capital of Africa

Kasparov stated:. “I was greatly inspired by the words of President Zuma last October, when he spoke so movingly on the many benefits of chess for children – and of his remarkable connection to my beloved game. I am happy to join him and the South African Moves for Life programme in a commitment to bringing chess to schools across the country and for turning Johannesburg into the continental capital for chess.”

Kasparov will be visiting South Africa as the guest of MFL from the 12th – 15th November to promote the Kasparov Chess Foundation link up with the Moves for Life programme.

The Moves for Life programme was launched by President Zuma last year and has since expanded to over 50 schools around the country, resulting in measurable improvement in maths and science performance amongst children

Watu Kobese, Moves for Life trustee and one of South Afriva’s top chess players Operations says: “The game of chess impacts positively on Maths, Science and comprehension abilities while also imparting valuable life skills to children. In learning to play chess, children are mastering a wide range of skills such as pattern recognition, classifying information, reasoning by analogy, following principles, calculating possible sequences of events and critical thinking — which in fact helps with all their academic subjects,”

President Jacob Zuma, is clear that there is a place for chess in South Africa’s education system. When President Zuma launched the MFL initiative in 2010, he highlighted the benefits of chess saying, “We want to convince parents and teachers that chess is one of the most powerful tools available to strengthen and enhance a child’s mind.”

Moves for Life is now training over 6000 children per week and has trained more than 200 educators in 2011 both to teach chess in schools and also as an extra-curricular activity.. According to Kasparov, “The Moves for Life programme is already doing a wonderful job and we expect to cooperate and aid them in developing both their chess and sponsorship efforts. To promote our activities, chess in the media, and to inspire the grassroots, I will personally donate my time, to train South Africa’s most promising young players as well as the country’s elite teams, as I have done in the United States with great success.

The mission of the Kasparov Chess Foundation: Africa will be to bring the many educational benefits of chess to children throughout Africa by providing a complete chess curriculum with associated enrichment programs. The foundation promotes the playing of chess as a cognitive learning tool in classes and in after-school programmes for primary and high schools. The Moves for Life programme has both the South African experience as well as the material developed uniquely for the African situation. Through collaboration both KCF and MFL will be able to optimise all available resources and reach their respective goals.

“Chess is an individual sport, but promoting chess is not. With your support, Johannesburg will take a prominent place alongside New York, Brussels and Sao Paulo,” says Kasparov.

In June this year the Kasparov Chess Foundation launched its European leg, based in Brussels. The Foundation has ambitious plans to develop a programme for the entire European Union. On September 20th, the Kasparov Chess Foundation Europe presented its proposal at the Headquarters of the European Union.

Update: Saturday 12/11/2011
 Was really disappointed when reading on CHESSA’s site about MFL, Kasparov, etc. I agree, MFL is a PRIVATE company and HERE is Dr Kemm,  one of the 5 trustees of MFL and hopefully he will do something to get CHESSA also involved in this important visit – a visit our Chess players look forward to.  This is a visit that happens only ONCE in a life time and Chess South Africa is not even fully involved! MFL: You CAN do something about it.

Update [again] – Saturday 19/11/2011

If you are interested to read Mickey’s reaction as a MFL-trustee – you can read his comments in the comments box. It’s sad to know that MFL actually contacted CHESSA and that CHESSA asked MFL to cancel Kasparov’s visit. I think CHESSA needs to ‘grow up’ and show that they are there for the Chess community in South Africa and that they are serious about developing Chess in South Africa. CHESSA’s article is misleading the general public about their role in Kasparov’s visit. CHESSA is obviously not thinking about their international image.

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Bobby Fischer… was and is!

Rest in Peace Bobby Fischer —b. 1943 – d. 2008
You can read my Bobby Fischer-poem
HERE…
On THIS LINK
you can read an article about him that was published in the UK Times.

I was age 11, when I got my first chess set and chess book. It was a book written by Cor Nortje in Afrikaans…”Skaak!” In the back of the book, there are the games of Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. I used to play through those games to “teach” myself a bit more of the game. Nobody else in the family played chess! I got to like Bobby F and he was always – and will always be! – my favourite chess player! It’s very sad to know that he’s passed away, and as somebody said on the chess site… at the age of 64! A “good” number, as there are 64 squares on the board!! Bobby had an IQ of 187! A very gifted and talented player, for sure… What happened to him was really sad and even more sad that the American government “chased” him because of violating sanctions… that means that you don’t have the freedom to do what you love and what you are brilliant at! Sad….that is what politicians are good at…ruining other people’s lives! ..and sometimes with their “fantastic” ideas… even divide nations all over the world!

Fisher died in a Reykjavik, Iceland, hospital on Thursday of kidney failure after a long illness.

Born in Chicago and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Fischer faced criminal charges in the United States for playing a 1992 rematch against Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia in defiance of international sanctions.

This chess book is written in Afrikaans and was my first chess book at the age of 11. It has all the games of Spasski and Fischer.

Robert James “Bobby” Fischer (born March 9, 1943), won the World Chess Championship on September 1, 1972 and lost the title when he failed to defend it on April 3, 1975. He is considered to be one of the most gifted chess players of all time and, despite his prolonged absence from competitive play, is still among the best known of all chess players.
 
“Chess is war over the board.
The object is to crush the opponent’s mind.” – Bobby Fischer

“I am the best player in the world and I am here to prove it.” – Bobby Fischer.

He dropped out of competitive chess and largely out of view, emerging occasionally to make erratic and often anti-Semitic comments.Fischer, whose mother was Jewish, once accused “the Jew-controlled U.S. government” of ruining his life.

He fell into obscurity before resurfacing to win a 1992 exhibition rematch against Spassky on the Yugoslav resort island of Sveti Stefan in violation of sanctions imposed to punish then-President Slobodan Milosevic.

A fierce critic of his homeland, Fischer became wanted in the United States for violating the sanctions.

Read here…about Bobby’s death Read on THIS LINK about his first rated tournament.

NIGEL SHORT about Fischer:

“The United States is evil. There’s this axis of evil. What about the allies of evil — the United States, England, Japan, Australia? These are the evildoers,” Fischer said.

Source: Click here  for the news.
Fischer told reporters that year that he was finished with a chess world he regarded as corrupt, and sparred with U.S. journalists who asked about his anti-American tirades.

He renounced his American citizenship and moved to Iceland in 2005.
 Japanese Release Bobby Fischer
Ex-Chess Champ Heads to Iceland

By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, March 24, 2005; Page A14

NAGOYA, Japan, March 24 — Bobby Fischer, the chess legend who feared deportation to face charges in the United States, was freed Thursday by Japanese authorities after eight months in prison, the Justice Ministry said. He left immediately for the airport to fly to Iceland.

The deal to free Fischer came after Iceland — a chess-loving nation that hosted his historic Cold War-era victory over the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky in 1972 — granted Fischer citizenship this week in a move to help him avoid trial in the United States. Fischer, 62, who grew up in New York, has dodged a U.S. arrest warrant since playing a chess match in Yugoslavia in 1992 in violation of U.S. sanctions.
Read the rest of the article HERE …

Bobby as a 15 year old teenager….and America’s champ!

Born in Chicago and raised in Brooklyn, Fischer was a U.S. chess champion at 14 and a grand master at 15. He beat Spassky in a series of games in Reykjavik to claim America’s first world chess championship in more than a century.But his reputation as a genius of chess soon was eclipsed by his idiosyncrasies.A few years after the Spassky match, he forfeited the title to another Soviet, Anatoly Karpov, when he refused to defend it.

Bobby Fischer, the reclusive American chess master who became a Cold War icon when he dethroned the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky as world champion in 1972, has died. He was 64.
Fischer died Thursday in a Reykjavik hospital, his spokesman, Gardar Sverrisson, said. There was no immediate word on the cause of death.

Fischer’s first Filipino friend: He was very special

By Artemio T. Engracia Jr.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:10:00 01/20/2008

MANILA, Philippines–FLORENCIO CAMPOMANES, the country’s chess pioneer and former president of the International Chess Federation (Fide), was Bobby Fischer’s original Filipino friend.

They met in New York in the mid-1950s when Fischer was emerging as a chess phenom barely into his teens and Campomanes was shuttling between New York and Washington DC while working for the State Department
Read the complete article here.

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