Local head cites chess as crucial intervention tool

BY DANIA BOGLE Observer staff reporter

Thursday, December 29, 2011

THE Jamaica Chess Federation (JCF) is on a drive to use the sport to help reduce the level of violence in the country.

JCF president Ian Wilkinson told the Observer that since the local governing body has been into some of the most troubled areas of Kingston such as Grants Pen, Mountain View, August Town, Text Lane, Beeston Street, Wildman Street, and Arnett Gardens, he has witnessed a major change in some of the mostly boys who have been introduced to the sport.

"I have personally seen, I'm talking first hand, where I have been into communities where persons who are supposed to be fighters and trouble-makers playing chess. We introduce it to the so-called bad boys and it has changed them," Wilkinson said.

"One of the beautiful things about it, too, is that the literacy levels have improved so much in the schools that we do chess. It's a major solution to a lot of our problems," Wilkinson emphasised.

Wilkinson said mainly young boys had taken up the sport because "it is competitive and boys tend to be by nature more competitive".

This spreading of the value of playing the sport is one of the projects that the JCF has planned for the upcoming year.

"People who play chess are usually non-violent because of the kinds of things it does to your brain. We can kind of use it to curb violence in the country," Wilkinson reiterated.

The federation is working on a project to get inner-city schools in which chess programmes been introduced such as Charlie Smith, Vauxhall, Kingston High, and others in August Town more help.

It's just one of the things the local chess body has planned for the upcoming year.

Wilkinson said another major project will be fielding a male and female team to the World Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey.

"We hope to do very well at the Olympics. (In the past) we have done better than some countries that have full-time chess players."

"For the first time we want to send two full teams with proper coaches in place and we are putting pressure on the Sports Development Foundation (SDF) and government to support us fully."

The Federation also plans to send a team to the sub-zonal championships in Ecuador in March: "It provides an opportunity for our players to get international titles," Wilkinson explained.

Having already seen the number of chess players locally increase to close to 20,000, Wilkinson hopes to push that number to as many as 30,000 or 40,000 by year-end.

Looking back at the recent year, Wilkinson is proud of the fact that chess has been placed on the curriculum in a number of schools.

He said the high point of the year came less than two weeks ago when 14-year-old Shreyas Smith won the 2011 Fredrick Cameron Chess Tournament.

"Shreyas on his birthday... won the tournament ahead of all the favourites. It was his first ever tournament win (and) first time anyone of that age has won an open tournament in Jamaica," he said.

Meanwhile, Damion Davy won his first national title and created history by entering the Umada Cup in Barbados where he won the Challenger's Cup.

"This was an international victory because you have close to 10 different countries playing in that tournament, so this was a big feather in our cap," Wilkinson declared.

On the women's side, Deborah Richards-Porter created history by winning the national women's title for the tenth straight year.

In fact, Richards-Porter has been so dominant that Wilkinson said he has suggested that for future tournaments, she plays against the men.

"We tell her she shouldn't be playing against the weaker women," he said. "(The good thing about chess) it's about brain, not about brawn; it's gender neutral. It's age neutral."

Wilkinson addressed the issue of chess not being considered a sport by some and not being an Olympic sport.

"There is a misconception that when people think of sport they think of things were you have to run, jump, leap, but the definition of sport is the competitive edge and absence of games of chance," he said.

"It's a question which has been a perennial question, but it has been settled in favour of chess. The general view they have is that board games cannot be a sport, but that is not really true.

"A lot of countries that never regarded it as a sport do (now). More than 100 countries in the world see chess as a sport. In other countries where football is popular you have had chess players being Sportsman of the Year," he said.

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Local head cites chess as crucial intervention tool