Chess: Ringside seats at 20th International Chess Festival, Germany

The Indian chess federation’s circular gets murkier day by day, at least to the discerning eye, if one reads the vague answers (to my email query) provided by a stalwart like Praful Zaveri, the FIDE instructor from Mumbai, who is closely associated with the game, and same being endorsed by own Sameerbab, who is the vice-president of the body controlling the game of 64 squares in the country. So much so that Zaveri relates the AICF circular to a press release of a film, saying that the reviews of a film are written after watching it and so according to him, Shrikant Barve should have first seen the `chess film` unfolding at the AICF executive committee meeting on March 27 before posting his comments on the net. Which in other words means that it is AICF’s usual procedure of announcing such plans in detail following an executive committee meet, much after putting the circular on its website.

Zaveri’s merry-go-round
And by the way why did Zaveri chose to do the merry-go-round, when I asked him (through email) to use his good offices with the AICF bosses to get in a straighter circular which could be understood by all and sundry without requiring to do any guessing work (or interpretation) of its contents. That Zaveri chose to forward a copy of his `merry-go-round’ reply to Sameer is quite understandable but I do fail to understand what Sameer tried to indicate by redirecting that reply to me along with his compliments sent to the Mumbai official. Why the hell would I be interested in knowing how Sameer complimented Zaveri for his reply to my query? Did Sameer thought it was a tit-for-tat reply and therefore tried to taunt me? Well I reproduced in the adjoining space what I asked Zaveri and his subsequent replies. Looks like there is more to it than what meets the eye.


The missing link
Interestingly, according to Zaveri, the circular should be interpreted as Rs 1000 per session, which in his opinion would amount to Rs 30,000 for a 10-day period if the GMs were to conduct three sessions of 90 minutes each day. So what’s missing in the circular are only the words “per session of 90 minutes each�. Whether the GM conducts more sessions per day is secondary here. It would be a Herculean task indeed. But what’s the need for the AICF to unravel the `suspense’ at the executive committee meeting if the circular just has a few words from the jigsaw puzzle missing. Was it really AICF’s intention not to reveal the exciting part of the story till it’s meeting in Chennai?

Questions and more questions
If what Zaveri says is true, wasn’t Sameerbab, being an important member of the Federation, aware of it? Instead of Zaveri providing the answers, why didn’t he (Sameerbab) tell the Taleigao Chess Academy secretary that he had not interpreted the circular correctly? If that is the case, I am sure, Barve would have certainly relented. Not even the members of the state association’s executive committee were apprised of such hidden meanings in the circular, when they met on March 9 to decide on action to be taken against Barve. Or did he not let out the `secret’ because he wanted to put Barve in the dock?

I do not want to comment on whether Barve was right or wrong in venting his frustration at the AICF circular or whether he ought to be banned for it. What, however puzzles me is that the AICF is not forthcoming on its own decision over a trivial matter and is instead waiting for its Executive meeting to reveal the story in detail. Wouldn’t it have been better to douse the fire as soon as it was spotted?

Simon Alphonso GT Weekender Page 14 dt 23/03/08 GOA

Nice to see chess covered in the Sun-Sentinel! Good writer too.

I will post more good thinks of Indian Chess also...

Mark wrote:

Nice to see chess covered in the Sun-Sentinel! Good writer too.