Yuri Rasuvaev: "Our ancient game has turned into hi-tech sport"

A first Russian Open Championship among children?s chess clubs will take place in Dagomys in April. Shortly before this event we interviewed the Chairman of FIDE?s Trainers? Committee, the member of the Russian Chess Federation Trainers? Council, Yuri Razuvayev. We talked about the work of a chess trainer, children?s chess, club movement and modern trends of chess evolution in the world.

? Yuri Sergeevich, when did you become the Chairman of FIDE?s Trainers?Committee?
? I received the proposal to head the Committee in 1998, soon after the Olympiad in Elista.

? What are the core activities of the Committee?
? When you tackle such job you need to have a clear program. The key issue is that in most countries chess is not formalized as a formal occupation. It is perceived as an exquisite and exclusive kind of hobby. For instance a famous Swedish female chess player officially was a school nurse. The director of that school was very fond of chess and he wanted her to teach pupils but he could not hire her in any other way except as a nurse.

Previously when a Chess Federation received a request for a trainer from some country they picked a professional chess player who had finished his or her career and was eager to be a trainer. These days a number of kids willing to play chess has risen dramatically and the demand for chess trainers followed this pattern. This problem can not be solved simply on a routine basis.

Furthermore the system of chess trainers must have been formalized; a chess trainer must have become a formal occupation. There was a necessity to introduce a trainer certificate and a procedure for prolongation of certificates. These required establishment of corresponding agencies which would carry out such work. Most countries do not have educational institutions to teach chess trainers like we have in Russia e.g. Russian State University for Physical Training, Sports and Tourism, Russian State Sports University and others.

Moreover chess is not even recognized as sport in those countries. We used FIDE to solve these problems; and in 2000 in Istanbul the Presidential Board approved the establishment of an Academy for chess trainers.

But then another issue arose immediately ? who possesses the skills and expertise to conduct courses for chess trainers. For this purpose a team was formed by the World Chess Federation. This team was comprised of the top world chess trainers who spoke English and had the experience in this field. There were 30 trainers in the team who indeed became the so called ?Golden Guard?. The list of team members was compiled in FIDE Congress in Blede (Slovenia) and it was finally approved in FIDE Congress in Calvia (Spain). Members of the team were given the title of FIDE Senior Trainer. There were four Russians in the team (Alexey Kuzmin, Mark Dvoretsky, Alexander Nikitin and Yuri Razuvaev ? editor?s note).

However we didn?t start from scratch. There were many professionals who did not have to study. We annonced a six-month transition period for the national chess federations to compile and provide lists of trainers who were granted a two-year certificate. Those trainers who take the course in the Academy are given a four-year certificate. When the certificate expires a trainer must again take a course and verify his/her qualification. This system is not a unique one; it is used in many sports.

The first Chess Academy was opened in Berlin in 2000, soon after that the second Academy for Trainers was opened in Singapore. Recently the third Academy was opened in New York.

? Who are the members of the Trainers? Committee?
? The composition of Trainers? Committee is the utmost success of mine. All Committee members are grand masters; one of them is the Ex World Champion Judit Polgar. My deputy Adrian Mikhalchishin helps me a lot with the routine work. The Chairman of the FIDE Computer and Internet Chess Committee, Jovan PETRONIC is an excellent expert in his field. He promotes the information about the activities of Trainers? Committee. One month the article of the Trainers? Committee got in the top three popular articles in the Google search system with over 500,000 entries! This also indicates that Chess and education draws much attention in the world today.

? Which subjects are taught in Academies for Trainers?
? Chess and general subjects are taught equally. For instance an excellent course on Sport Psychology and Decision-making Theory is read in Berlin Academy by one Professor; she works in Universities of Germany and the USA. In Soviet Times she was working with the National chess team of German Democratic Republic. One day of the course is completely devoted to the company ChessBase. They bring their up-to-day developments and teaching software. Of late I heard their lection on computer-aided remote teaching. I believe that such pieces of knowledge are extremely useful for trainers. I myself use in my work some of the methods I learnt in courses. And this knowledge is essential for trainers who teach children.

There is still a problem we yet have to solve ? it is the establishment of training programmes for various level chess players and development of international manuals based on such programmes. In Russia we only have one manual by Golenishchev, but it was written in the precompute era and it does not meet up-to-date requirements. Chess manuals for schools are also yet poor (although in many countries chess is included in school education program).

These days we have excellent opportunities to face this problem. Now having in hand top chess professionals like German National team manager Uwe Bönsch, Migel Ilyeskas, Josef Dorfman, Judit Polgar, who head chess schools in their own countries, we are capable to develop high quality training programmes and manuals.

- What direction do you think chess develops these days?
- Today our ancient game has turned into hi-tech sport. It is beyond any doubts and any chess player will confirm this. New promising software is rapidly developed. Some time ago during the competition in Singapore I met a five-year girl. She played the games, entered them in the computer then showed and explained them to me. New time sets forward new requirements and advanced opportunities and we have to follow them and facilitate children learning. This is the key objective for FIDE Trainers? Committee. Let?s take Advanced chess for example ? it is a computer chess game. It allows to perform the computer aided analysis. In some several years the ?computer ? human? interaction will be universal for all spheres of our life. And we still lack manuals and textbooks in this field. We must duly accept the call of time.

Interestingly, in Germany they teach chess in schools to develop creative thinking and artistic skills. I believe that this is a very precise approach. Germans have accurately allocated chess in the classification of sciences. Now we see the upturn of interest to chess among children and their parents. The statistics is overwhelming even for me though I am not a novice. Recently a children tournament was held in Singapore with over 1000 participants; another example is 1550 participants in the World Chess Championship among schoolchildren which was held in Turkey. Mind those were the finals. 4500 schoolchildren participated in the All-American Chess championship. In the preliminary competitions a number of participants is many times more. The report of the latest All-American Championship among schoolchildren was published in the front page of New York Times. Nowadays schools set higher requirements for development of artistic skills, independent decision making and computer skills.

Classical education does not provide means to develop such skills. Chess makes up for this shortcoming. And chess is broadly used for exactly this purpose in many countries. There is a widely perceived understanding of how important chess is, and attitude to chess is altering. I genuinely believe that soon chess will become a popular children game. Georgy Vladimov once said that all famous children books originally were just famous books (?Robinson Crusoe", ?The Count of Mote Cristo?, etc.) before they became popular among children. That is why I believe that chess will once become a popular children game.

- You were the organizer of Russian Open Championship among children chess clubs, could you tell about the Championship in detail?
- Life has changed in many ways but old forms of competitions are yet preserved. Children competitions are sponsored by two governmental agencies ? State Committee for Sports and Ministry of Education. The financial support from both agencies has dramatically reduced of late. Few children?s team competitions are held and there is a perceived lack of such events. In our case if a city has a chess team to participate in a children chess tournament they need to find an enterprise eager to provide financial support for the team. Almost every prosperous company has an opportunity to establish their own chess club. It does not require much money or expenses to be included in the company?s budget, and provides a perfect opportunity for a man of action to busy him/herself and children with some challenging activity. I hope that this practice will be broadly accepted and those who are interested will get involved. We have to promote the club system here in Russia and develop a calendar of tournaments and championships. I hope there will be found organizers and sponsors to promote this.

I have to give Kirsan Ilyumzhinov credit for his contribution. He supported the idea of championship among children?s chess clubs and provided a good prize fund. He has the fantastic feel for new ideas. He recognized the importance of such event and promised to promote such championships in the international level.

Eldar MUKHAMETOV

Source: "Chess week", Russia
?7 ? 2006

info@chessfidelity.com