of training (is it necessary for juniors), coaching (how much and when to start), and how many hours of chess for juniors? Also there were some interesting bits on chess as a career and making it on the international circuit.
The bulk of comments came from a transcript of an interview given by World Champion Anand Viswanathan to two Indian journalists in december 2008. Part I is here: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5222
There was another study by two Polish academics on juniors, chess and health, found here: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5214. Basically, they found that juniors at tournaments do not practise very healthy habits, especially eating habits. What was also interesting was in the background data they collected form the participants in the study.
Main points from Anand (my summary):
- Training and coaching is important but not as important as playing lots and lots of games, at least until you get somewhere, ie, when you are good enough to participate in international tournaments, then training and coaching becomes important in preparation.
- Chess infrastructure is important including sufficient regular tournaments.
- Starting in chess earlier, possibly pre-adolescent, is now the norm to becoming good enough for international competitions.
- Crucial decision-making times will come when the junior has to decide whether to continue with chess. I think in Australian context, definitely Year 10 and Year 12/pre-Uni.
- The life as a chess professional is similar, believe it or not, to life as tennis and golf professional, involving lots of travelling, lonely nights in strange motels/hotels, playing chess in varying conditions (hot, cold). In addition to Anand's recount, I remember a comment made by GM Ian Rogers on a fellow junior (back in 1980) who was very very talented, Greg Hjorth. Ian said Greg tried the chess professional life for a while in the USA after year 12 but did not like it and gave up professional chess. He went on to become a Professor somewhere in the USA (or maybe in Melbourne?).
- The polish are pretty serious about their chess training: 11.5 hours per week, 16.6 tournaments in a year; 5.1 tournaments during holidays, 80% (of 60 juniors) use computers as aid to training spending 5.4 hours per week (not clear whether this is included or in addition to the earlier 11.5 hours).
- There is a danger that chess juniors will not get enough physical exercise since the high majority list computers and watching television as their main hobbies.
Excerpts from Anand's Interview.
On Training:
Interviewers: You have mentioned the Soviet Union. In retrospect your success seems incredible because the Soviets had a very comprehensive system in place for spotting and then training that talent, not only in chess but other sports as well. They also had world-beating players, so you could get practice partners. Apart from the Soviets there is you and there is Fischer. Fischer at least had the advantage of coming from the US, which is a rich country. You didn’t have that advantage either. Do you think you would be an even stronger player if you had gone through the rigorous training of the “Soviet school of chess”?
Anand: No, I believe that my days in the Tal Club [in Madras] was more important than getting training. Nowadays you see lots of kids like Magnus Carlsen who didn’t come through some training program. They came through playing chess on the Internet. Instead of going to a physical club they played 40 games a day on a server. You can see the results. You can see the tactical reflexes they have. Training does help; it has its role, not to demean it. I don’t think it’s necessary at that stage.
I would almost say that it is the inspiration for what we are doing at the NIIT Mind Champions Academy. We are trying to introduce kids to the game and get them playing with each other. We think that’s 90% of the work. f you reach a certain level, it’s so easy nowadays, and technology has bridged the gap we had in the 80s with information and so on. [......]
Technology has levelled the field quite a lot. There is for instance no big disadvantage to being an Australian in chess. If you get good, the breaks are there. It’s very easy to play anyone you want. For someone in a remote part of the world as long as you have an Internet connection, you can practice, interact with people and get to the initial stages. Now it’s just a question of whether you get good enough. Not to dismiss training and tournaments but this is a big help. That’s why in the academy it is important for me that they simply begin to learn to play. They play a few games with their friends in school and they get into this habit of playing often.I don’t feel training was a problem (for me). When I was preparing for the candidates matches, then yes, training was very important. If you go into this, with and “oh I’ve played a few blitz games” attitude then you are walking into it a bit innocently. There you need somebody to guide you through some real-world strategies, what your opponents might do. (Training) is not necessary at an early stage. I don’t think it was a disadvantage at all.
On adequate chess infrastructure vs chess stars:
On how early to start on the road to chess career:Do you need stars to crop up at constant intervals to prop up the scene or can the infrastructure keep it going?
I think it is both. It is not really one or the other. They feed off each other. If now, a very strong Filipino player emerged, there is already a base on which he can build. I think you need both.
I think the earlier you start the better your chances are. The system maybe producing very young players, eventually they become senior stars, it is almost unheard of that someone starts at 16 and has any realistic chance of getting to the top.On becoming GM and support systems:
Basically the goal was to become a grandmaster. I think there were some support systems in place in India. There were a few, let us say, patrons or well-wishers who would sort of look after chess players, who would give them employment when they became International Masters. When you became a grandmaster that is when they paid you to take part in tournaments. As International Master some events would give you some compensation but essentially you knew you had to become a grandmaster to have this chance.On chess as a career:
Did you subconsciously believe, even then, that you could take chess as a career?
Probably yes. I never saw anything else as my career. The moments when you would hesitate, is first in the tenth standard, because you need to get a group of your choice, and then in the twelfth standard, when you are going to university. Until then, you could put off the decision and pretend that both streams were going okay. But what I wanted to do clearly was chess. The reason I might not have taken chess would be if I hadn’t got the breakthroughs. Then you begin to weigh your career options. “Can I make a living playing chess?” and all that stuff.
But for me at those critical moments I had incredible results. Around the ninth standard I had very good breaks, then again in the tenth standard I had a good year. Got my International Master title a bit earlier. So that was good. And in the twelfth standard, just after I had finished, I got my world junior title and the grandmaster title within the space of a few months. So at the moments when I might have hesitated I did not need to hesitate at all, The choice became clear. But I decided to go to college anyway and do my B.Com, just to keep my options open. I had a feeling that as a grandmaster it was possible to play chess for a living. I felt somehow I wanted to go to college simply because I didn’t want to miss that part of life, I didn’t want to have never gone to college.
After I finished college things became clear. I was already number five in the world. I had very very good results. I would basically say that from the age of six, unless I saw very good reasons not to play chess, it was what I wanted to do. There were no logical arguments against it.[......]
I think the argument still holds, when you get to the age when you are in college you may be very good for chess but you may not be cut out for it. It is not just that if you can play chess you should. You also have to want that kind of lifestyle, which has travelling, playing tournaments. It is a different kind of lifestyle, some like it, some don’t. I mean there are chess players who did it for 4-5 years, they really loved chess and then they said they couldn’t take the travelling any more and wanted to get into different things. That is such a personal decision you can’t really influence that further. But you make the set-up interesting and go from there.Excerpts from Polish Study:
A sample of 75 individuals (36 girls – 48.0% and 39 boys – 52.0%) aged 8-19 years took part in this study. Participants were recruited from the Chess Academy belonging to the Polish Chess Federation. Among them were medallists of European and world championships, medallists of Polish boys and girls championships and members of national team.
All young athletes were divided into four groups:
- Group I (n=20) – persons aged 8 – 10 years
- Group II (n=31) – persons aged 11 – 13 years
- Group III (n=14) – persons aged 14 – 16 years
- Group IV (n=10) – persons aged 17 – 19 years
Tables 1 and 2 contain sports and anthropometric characteristics of young chess players.
Table 1. Characteristics of sports level and training of studied chess players
On the basis of the conducted study it was noticed that in all groups the highest percentage of chess players spent their leisure time using computer or watching TV (Tab.4).
x±SDTraining duration (years)
6.3±2.4
Number of hours of training per week
11.5±6.4
Number of tournaments during school year
16.6±16.3
Number of tournaments during holiday
5,1±3.1
Team camps during the year
3.0±2.1
Using computer in training
60(80.0%)
Number of training hours with the use of computer per week
Total (n=60)
5.4±2.1Table 4. Kinds of activities during leisure time among chess players – comparison between groups
Activities
Group I
(n=20)Group II
(n=31)Group III
(n=14)Group IV
(n=10)Computer
85.0%
74.2%
92.9%
100.0%
TV
75.0%
67.7%
92.9%
100.0%
Books
70.0%
58.1%
85.7%
90.0%
Hobby
45.0%
64.5%
71.4%
40.0%
