NICK BARNETT CHESS

FIDE has announced that chess will be featured as an official sport in the 2019 African Games which are scheduled to be held in Morocco. The African Games, formally known as the All-Africa Games or the Pan African Games, are a continental multi-sport event held every four years, organized by the African Union (AU) with the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA) and the Association of African Sports Confederations (AASC) The 1999 games were held in Johannesburg with Thabo Mbeki opening. But no chess among the participating sport. The previous African Games in 2015 did not include chess while the 2003, 2007 and 2011 events had chess in the official programme. *** LET US HOPE our chess players can participate and maintain the record of being third on the ranking of all sports featured on the African continent. But publicly, Chess South Africa is missing in action! CHESSA website only displays a junior tournament from March. The next tournament I found on the FIDE website (Moja Open Chess Tournament in Kimberley over the Easter weekend), has been cancelled. Requests from me to the secretary for a South African tournament list have not been answered. This list, together with contact details of the Provincial union officials are not displayed. Chess South Africa: a parlous state of affairs! *** SOMETHING that struck me while perusing the list of the Moja Open, is how many of our African compatriots had registered: Joseph Mwale from Malawi with a rating of 1969 and Providence Oatlhotse from Botswana with a rating of 1958 were the top-most rated players. And then behind the South Africans, at number 7 was Kenneth Ruchaka from Zimbabwe with a rating of 1871. *** SIMULTANEOUS performances by grandmasters are often a way to publicise chess and most players who fancy their chances like to test their skills against famous grandmasters. Gregory Serper, in his weekly column in chess.com muses about this phenomenon: ‘It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that the worstever result in a simul happened in the Soviet Pioneer Palace in 1951, when the British IM Robert Wade played 30 local school children age 14 and below. ‘After seven hours of play, IM Wade managed to make 10 draws, losing the remaining 20 games!’ For players the message is clearly: don’t underestimate yourself! For grandmasters it is clearly: don’t overestimate yourself! *** LAST WORD by Richard Branson @richardbranson ‘Simple ways to improve your memory. I like to train my mind and work on my memory by playing chess.’ For comment or news write to thechessnik@gmail.com

PUZZLE BY HJC Andrews