One of the things I did not anticipate when I started this blog was how international it would become! We have regular readers from Denmark, Spain, and France, plus one person who spent a significant amount of time in England. And who knows what other countries might be represented by “lurkers” who read this blog but haven’t posted any comments?
So I’d like to take this opportunity to ask you about chess in your country. How is chess viewed in society as a whole? Are there any chess radio or TV programs? Is your country’s chess federation a visible, functional body? How many opportunities are there for kids to play? How could chess become more popular in your country? And finally (if you want to hazard an opinion), what do you think is the best country to play chess in?
I’ll get things started. It’s hard to speak about chess in America as a whole because we have such a large country; chess in New York is, for example, very different from chess in Manitowoc. Still, I would say that chess in America is viewed, as it always has been, as a rather quirky, intellectual pastime. “Intellectual” is, in America, generally not a good thing. However, I do think there is a growing awareness among parents that chess helps kids to develop their mental abilities. So the U.S. has lots of good scholastic chess programs, but we currently lack the means to turn these kids into lifelong chess players or fans.
One thing that’s sorely lacking in America is any concept of chess as an international competitive sport. We virtually never have major international tournaments, and major chess competitions get almost zero publicity. Chess promoters in the U.S. have never really figured out how to get corporate support for chess, either for tournaments or individual players. I think that the current leadership of the US Chess Federation is pretty good (I’m a big fan of Susan Polgar, who understands the need for promotion). But historically the USCF has struggled so much with money problems and internal bickering that it has not been very successful at improving chess’s image.
Of course I think the best country to play chess in must be Russia. I spent four months there in 1978 and was very impressed with the popular enthusiasm for the game (it’s the country’s #3 sport, really, behind soccer and hockey). Saint Petersburg, where I was studying, has a big hall for its central chess club — vastly different from the chess clubs we’ve been talking about in U.S. and Spain, which have to scrounge for room in unlikely places. Russia has a culture of respect for intellectual activities that is mostly absent in America, and this makes a more hospitable environment for chess. On the other hand, in Russia there are so many good players that I wonder if the average player feels kind of overwhelmed.
Now it’s your turn… tell us about chess in your country!
