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Chess Olympiad 2024


Vickydev

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19 minutes ago, rangeelaraja said:


@Gollum
 

Yes, Danailov’s obnoxiousness  made people hate Topalov and Bulgarian chess. 
 

Kramnik got support and sympathy from everybody in his tussle with Topalov. But the special rights he wanted for himself ( private bathroom in a world championship in his home country ) , he will not be comfortable extending others. This is a classic holier than thou attitude. 
 

I am sure you would also recall that during 2010 Championship against Topalov in Sofia, Bulgaria - all the legends queued up to support Vishy ( Kramnik, Kasparov and even a young Carlsen ).
 

The first two did not do it out of love for Anand, but out of dislike for Topalov / Danailov.
 

Like i side none of these guys are friends - they all have axes to grind.
 

There are actually very few sane gentleman characters in chess. Vishy is obviously top of the pile - but others IMO are - Boris Gelfand, Aronian, Caruana. 
 

Kasparov uses sweet words for Anand when it suits him. He tried to “ advise “ Anand during his 2010 match against Topalov and then when Anand was to defend his title

against Gelfand, Kasparov tried to switch camps and wanted to offer help to Gelfand to beat Anand. 
 

Gelfand being the gentleman that he is rejected Kasparov’s offer considering it unethical and immoral. 

You are right.

 

Though Kasparov helped Anand expecting his support in FIDE election after that. 

 

Carlsen then was good friends with Anand but even there he might have wanted to get a taste of world championship preparation, gain insights into Anand's way of thinking etc.

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33 minutes ago, randomGuy said:

'coming home'

Yep, russians acknowledge that chess was invented in India. A few russian comments on chessbase India also read similar.

Russians are in general sporting when it comes to chess, a game they dominated for so long and so thoroughly. Of course you will always find exceptions like Nepo. 

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Just to appease Magnus and counter rise of India. Our boys are much stronger in classical than speed chess. Same thing they did in hockey, cricket in the past. Never tried this stunt in 90s and 2000s when Vishy was in his peak/prime days. 

 

Norway chess went from pure classical to classical plus Armageddon when Magnus struggled in its initial editions. Always be wary of goras and their nefarious designs. 

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On 9/25/2024 at 9:17 PM, Tillu said:

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Stamping Vishy's name on everything related to indian chess is a dis-service to scores of faceless coaches and instructors.

 

The dude immigrated to spain many years ago.

 

Our cult of individual worship is unique. 

 

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1 hour ago, kepler37b said:

Stamping Vishy's name on everything related to indian chess is a dis-service to scores of faceless coaches and instructors.

 

The dude immigrated to spain many years ago.

 

Our cult of individual worship is unique. 

 

This is why little knowledge is a dangerous thing. His base was Spain for around 10 years in late 90s and 00s, because of proximity to his trainers and other strong sparring partners, and ease of playing tournaments (Prakash Padukone did something similar in 80s by setting up base in Denmark, country of Deepika's birth.....Neeraj Chopra too has his base in Germany where he lives for 10 months out of 12). Anand moved back permanently to India around the time of his Bonn match in 2008, his son too was born around that period.

 

He runs an academy called WACA in Chennai where Gukesh, Pragg, Arjun (till late 2022), Nihal, Vaishali, Raunak etc. train...he is basically a trainer/mentor to almost all our youngsters who played in the Olympiad. Sure there are many coaches/instructors at junior levels (all get their due including govt. awards as well as from AICF, likes of Ramesh, Kunte, Thipsay) but they needed someone like Vishy to take the next step in their careers. WACA is modelled like Botvinnik's Soviet School of Chess with Anand assuming the 'Botvinnik' role, his friends like Yusopow, Gajewski, Gelfand too train the kids there. Kasparov is not an idiot, did you ponder to consider that he may know a bit more than you who probably follows chess updates once in a decade?

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Sasikiran, Harikrishna, Vidit, Arvind Chithambaram etc. are a bit unlucky that they didn't have a WACA like centre when they were in their teens (most important years to make the leap, develop)....unfortunately Anand was an active elite player (even champion or title contender) then and didn't go into coaching. Otherwise who knows, these guys too wouldn't have stagnated in 2600s and low 2700s. 

 

Gukesh, Pragg, Arjun and next set of prodigies are born at the right time, they can maximize their potential and hope to fight for the biggest prize. 

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20 minutes ago, Gollum said:

This is why little knowledge is a dangerous thing. His base was Spain for around 10 years in late 90s and 00s, because of proximity to his trainers and other strong sparring partners, and ease of playing tournaments (Prakash Padukone did something similar in 80s by setting up base in Denmark, country of Deepika's birth.....Neeraj Chopra too has his base in Germany where he lives for 10 months out of 12). Anand moved back permanently to India around the time of his Bonn match in 2008, his son too was born around that period.

 

He runs an academy called WACA in Chennai where Gukesh, Pragg, Arjun (till late 2022), Nihal, Vaishali, Raunak etc. train...he is basically a trainer/mentor to almost all our youngsters who played in the Olympiad. Sure there are many coaches/instructors at junior levels (all get their due including govt. awards as well as from AICF, likes of Ramesh, Kunte, Thipsay) but they needed someone like Vishy to take the next step in their careers. WACA is modelled like Botvinnik's Soviet School of Chess with Anand assuming the 'Botvinnik' role, his friends like Yusopow, Gajewski, Gelfand too train the kids there. Kasparov is not an idiot, did you ponder to consider that he may know a bit more than you who probably follows chess updates once in a decade?

Good post but there is an underlying sentiment of @kepler37b post. The coaches at junior level need more recognition. The people who trained gukesh Arjun pragg vidit Hari raunak Divya harika growing up and took them to GM level.

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1 hour ago, randomGuy said:

Good post but there is an underlying sentiment of @kepler37b post. The coaches at junior level need more recognition. The people who trained gukesh Arjun pragg vidit Hari raunak Divya harika growing up and took them to GM level.

Coach Ramesh who trained Pragg, Vaishali and many others got Dronacharya award recently. As did Humpy's coach (her father) in the past. 

 

I am sure many such coaches are given recognition, maybe some miss out.

 

But true for all sports, do you know who the childhood coach of Neeraj Chopra is? Sreejesh? Harmanpreet? Mary Kom? Leander Paes? Malleswari? Pujara/Ashwin/Jadeja/Bumrah/Shami etc? Or even Anand? 

 

Gopichand, Padukone, Vimal Kumar trained Saina, Sindhu, Prannoy etc. after a certain level. Does anyone know their childhood coaches?

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17 minutes ago, Lord said:

Is this the top event in chess? How does it compare to World Championship and Candidates etc?

Top team event. 

 

World Championship is the biggest individual prize. Candidates is to determine the challenger to the champion. 

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16 minutes ago, Lord said:

Is this the top event in chess? How does it compare to World Championship and Candidates etc?

Chess is an individual sport, so WC is probably more important. But to gauge which country is strongest, Olympiad would be considered. But here also, population is ignored. For ex. Armenia, Uzbekistan,  Kazakhstan are small countries, so their Olympiad achievements/medals should be more impressive.

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8 minutes ago, Gollum said:

 

 

Gopichand, Padukone, Vimal Kumar trained Saina, Sindhu, Prannoy etc. after a certain level. Does anyone know their childhood coaches?

 

 

Good post but question on this part. 

 

Did Anand train gukesh, Arjun from same level as a gopichand/padukone trained Saina/Sindhu/lakshya? 

 

Anand shortlisted youngest GMs for his academy. Which was obviously a very smart decision for India. 

Edited by randomGuy
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Had Anand not developed into an elite player by early 90s and captured public's imagination, chess would never have been a viable career option in India so soon. None of these coaching centres or trainers would have emerged. That is harsh, cold, reality whether some people like it or not.

 

Bangladesh had South Asia's first GM (till late 90s were ahead of India), and produced 5 GMs by mid 2000s. But none of them rose to the elite, sponsorship became tougher and now you see the drought there. 

 

Find out all the childhood coaches and give credit to them, but do so in all sports.

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2 minutes ago, randomGuy said:

Good post but question on this part. 

 

Did Anand train gukesh, Arjun from same level as a gopichand/padukone trained Saina/Sindhu/lakshya? 

 

Anand shortlisted youngest GMs for his academy. Which was obviously a very smart decision for India. 

WACA was opened in 2020, one can check their ratings then. They had promise, talent, but not all prodigies develop beyond a point.

 

Their childhood coaches do deserve credit (who is denying? I hope all of them are given Drona award asap) but making players take the next step is something not all can do. Access to someone like Anand will also open up lots of opportunities, like Gukesh's collab with Gajewski who was Anand's second in multiple world championship matches. We had talented prodigies earlier as well, Sasi, Hari, Negi, Abhijeet Gupta but maybe with the ecosystem back then, they couldn't fulfil their potential. 

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8 minutes ago, Gollum said:

 

 

Find out all the childhood coaches and give credit to them, but do so in all sports.

Personally I would say chess coaching at junior level, say upto GM level, is significantly more hard work than javelin coaching, badminton coaching etc.

 

So chess coaches at junior level deserve more. I would be happy to see those humble unassuming junior coaches from Chennai, Hyderabad Madurai etc. get heroic recognition ....for ex here, some real grassroot building blocks of Indian chess - 

 

 

Madurai 

 

 

Chennai 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyderabad 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by randomGuy
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