A Chess Saga In The Land Of Soccer
Olá a todos, e bem-vindos ao meu blog! (“Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog!” in Portuguese).
What springs to your mind when you hear the word 'Brazil'? Probably football/soccer and legendary players like Pelé, Ronaldo, and Romário? Or perhaps, if you're not a fan of the sport, you think of the beaches and beautiful landscapes? Or if you like to party, maybe it's the carnival parades and celebrations? There are many possibilities, but whatever your answer was, I'm almost sure it wasn’t "chess", right?
That’s why, today, I have decided to challenge this stereotype, at least a little, by paying tribute to my lovely (well, not always...) country and telling my readers more about the history of chess there. We may not be the richest, strongest, or most influential chess-playing nation, but our archive is certainly interesting and full of stories that, if you’re not Brazilian, I bet you had no idea about!
Together, we will trace the records of chess national tournaments back to their beginnings in the late 1800s, including the creation of an opening by one of our most famous players. We will also recount the story of our Greatest of All Time, who reached world ranking #3; discuss our World Chess Championship titles (yes, we have won them); and talk about the current situation and future projections.
Stay with me for the next few minutes, and I promise you will learn a lot by the time you reach the end of this exciting journey!
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 - THE BEGINNING
1.1 - First Recorded Tournament
1.2 - National Championship
1.3 - An Opening To Call Our Own
1.4 - Our First Olympiad
2 - THE GOLDEN AGE
2.1 - The Brazilian GOAT
2.2 - His Peak
2.3 - National Hero
2.4 - The Hardest Opponent
3 - THE LEGACY
3.1 - The First "Post-Mecking" Crop
3.2 - Women's Chess Consolidation
3.3 - A Historic Rivalry
3.4 - World Champion! In Double Dose
4 - THE PRESENT
4.1 - Current Situation
4.2 - Strongest Players
4.3 - Top Women
4.4 - YouTube Popularity Boom
5 - THE FUTURE
5.1 - Young Talents
5.2 - What Is Next?
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1.1 - First Recorded Tournament
Our voyage back in time starts in 1880, when the country's first registered amateur chess tournament took place. Six players participated in it. Among them was Machado de Assis, one of the most famous Brazilian writers of all time and author of classic Portuguese-language books such as Dom Casmurro and Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas. This small, friendly tournament was won by the host, Arthur Napoleão, a musician born in Portugal, who came up with the idea of organizing the event at his home.
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However, the first Brazilian national chess championship did not take place until many years later, in 1927. At that time, the format was very similar to today's World Championship, meaning it was decided by a single match between two players. The first edition was won by João de Souza Mendes, our strongest name at the time, who defeated Vicente Romano in a five-game match with a score of 3.5–1.5.
When it comes to Souza Mendes, he is not only the first champion, but also the player with the most national titles to his name - seven in total - a record shared with three others who will be mentioned later in this article. GM Rafael Leitão placed him in seventh position in his list of the greatest Brazilian players of all time. There were also many other strong ones back then, such as Walter Cruz, who won the championship six times, and Orlando Roças Júnior.
Among the women, who had their first championship only in 1957, some of the leading figures were Dora Rúbio and Ruth Cardoso, who is considered by many to be the best female player the country has ever had (although I disagree. Read on to find out why).
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1.3 - An Opening To Call Our Own
But a section on the early history of chess in Brazil would be incomplete without mentioning the most famous name of all! OK, maybe he wasn't the most famous one back then, but he certainly is today, even if not everyone realizes that he is Brazilian. I am talking about Octávio Trompowsky, the 1939 national champion. Don't let his surname fool you, he is still our pride and joy!
And if he was the champion only once, why is he so famous? That's a good question. Despite being a strong player, his greatest legacy is not his results, but the fact that he created an opening still widely played by elite players, the Trompowsky Attack! (1. d4 Nf6 2. Bg5). Garry Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen have both used this line. The latter even played it against Karjakin in the WCC in 2016.
Below is a game where Trompowsky won against Latvian player Lūcijs Endzelīns with his signature opening!
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Brazil's first participation in the Chess Olympiad also took place in the 1930s. In the 1936 edition, held in Munich, Germany, the Brazilian team comprised Octávio Trompowsky, Adhemar de Silva Rocha, Walter Oswaldo Cruz, and Souza Mendes. They finished in an honorable 16th place, which was quite an achievement for a country where chess was still in its infancy.
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2.1 - The Brazilian GOAT
After a slow start, Brazil had its golden era of chess in the 1970s, thanks to a man who is undoubtedly the GOAT of the country. Although this article is not intended to be a biography, it is almost impossible not to devote an entire section to him. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Henrique da Costa Mecking, affectionately known as Mequinho, the greatest master we have ever produced.
Born in Santa Cruz do Sul on 23 January 1952, Mequinho was considered a child prodigy from an early age and was even compared to Bobby Fischer. He became Brazilian champion for the first time in 1965 at the age of 13 and won the trophy again in 1967. The only reason he didn't win dozens of titles was that he usually preferred to play in other, more prestigious world events, so higher was his level compared to most of his peers at the time.
Unsurprisingly, he was the first Brazilian to be awarded the title of Grandmaster in 1972, when this honor was much harder to achieve than it is today. Mequinho represented Brazil at the 1968, 1974, 2002, and 2004 Chess Olympiads.
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At his peak, Henrique Mecking won two Interzonals, which at the time were worth a place in the Candidates Tournament.
The first was in 1973 in Petrópolis, Brazil, where he finished ahead of legends such as Paul Keres and David Bronstein. In the Candidates Tournament one year later, he reached the quarterfinals, only to be eliminated in a great match against the legend Viktor Korchnoi.
Three years later, in 1976, he won the Interzonal in Manila, Philippines, ahead of names like Polugaevsky and Ljubojević, and reached the Candidates stage for the second time in a row. Once again, Mecking reached the quarterfinals, but this time he lost to Polugaevsky.
His highest FIDE rating was 2635, achieved in 1977, which placed him third in the world behind Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi. Mequinho was therefore considered a genuine contender for the World Championship in the mid-1970s. Below is a game that is probably his best ever, played against Viktor Korchnoi in 1974.
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As is often the case with people who excel on the world stage, Mequinho became a real celebrity in his country, despite playing a sport that was not very popular before him. Raul Seixas, the most famous Brazilian singer of the era, even mentioned him in his song "Superheroes", which talks about some of the national idols of the time. You can check it out in the video below from 1:16 to 1:39.
| Original | Translation |
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Quem é que no Brasil não reconhece o grande trunfo do xadrez? Saí pela tangente disfarçando uma possível estupidez Corri para um cantinho pra dali sacar o lance de mansinho Adivinha quem era? Mequinho! |
Who in Brazil doesn't recognize the great asset of chess? I went off on a tangent to disguise my possible stupidity I ran to a little corner so that I could sneak up on the move. Guess who it was? Mequinho! |
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Sadly, his chess career was interrupted by a serious illness called myasthenia gravis, which forced him to withdraw from the 1979 Interzonal in Rio de Janeiro. This disease is so serious that it was widely believed that he might soon die. But fortunately for us all, he survived and still occasionally plays chess tournaments in Brazil, earning the respect and admiration of all his colleagues and fans, including the author of this text.
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3.1 - The First "Post-Mecking" Crop
Mequinho's legacy continued over the next few years. Riding the wave of his success and fame, a number of great players began to emerge on the national scene to become the next generation of Brazilian GMs. Among the most prominent of the first crop were Jaime Sunye Neto, Darcy Lima, and Gilberto Milos.
Although they haven't won any major world titles, these players have reached a very high level. Gilberto Milos, for example, has already beaten Judit Polgár, while Jaime Sunye has defeated the Dutch legend Jan Timman. They also dominated the national scene for the next few years and certainly helped to inspire and pave the way for the next generation to achieve the greatest feat in our "post-Mecking" chess.
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3.2 - Women's Chess Consolidation
Meanwhile, Regina Ribeiro, the second greatest female champion in our history, began to dominate the women's boards, winning eight titles by the end of her career. Lígia Carvalho, Jussara Chaves, and Tatiana Ratcu are other names worth mentioning.
Together, they were part of the development of women's chess in Brazil, which started much later than their male counterparts. Although there is still a long way to go, today we must thank them for the high level of so many outstanding girls.
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Immediately after this generation, in the early 1990s, two impressive names began to emerge in the junior categories. Rafael Leitão and Giovanni Vescovi were the protagonists of perhaps the greatest rivalry in our chess history. Practically the same age, they fought for years, game by game, for the Brazilian title. Between 1996 and 2014, they won no less than 14 out of 19 national championships!
The end result? Seven trophies for each of them in their gallery, placing them alongside Souza Mendes and Jaime Sunye as the greatest Brazilian champions of all time.
But if you think this is their only achievement, there is more to come in what I consider to be Brazil's most impressive achievement in the world of chess.
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3.4 - World Champion! In Double Dose
It was in Warsaw, Poland, in 1991 that Brazil reached the summit of the chess Olympus for the first time, when Leitão became World Champion in the U-12 category, after a nail-biting point-for-point battle with his main rival at the time, the famous Hungarian GM Péter Lékó, who would go on to play a World Championship match later in his career.
Naturally, such an achievement was hugely celebrated by the Brazilian fan base! At the time, it was even reported on the main sports news program of the country's main TV channel, which usually focuses exclusively on soccer.
Not satisfied with just one title, Leitão did it again in 1996 in Menorca, Spain, this time in the much more prestigious U-18 category! And who was he competing against this time? Giovanni Vescovi, his main rival, who also performed very well in the same tournament. Another prominent name in this event was the Uzbek Rustam Kasimdzhanov, the 2004 FIDE World Champion.
To celebrate this national hero, here is the game that Leitão considers the best of his career:
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4.1 - Current Situation
Now that we have covered everything I considered indispensable in the history of our national chess, the natural questions arise: How is Brazil doing today? Who are the strongest players? How popular is the game there nowadays? “Please help, Leticia! You are the only person who can answer these questions for us!”. Don’t worry, because the good news is that this is exactly what I plan to do!
Brazil has a total of 15 Grandmasters, but unfortunately, I won't have time to talk about all of them in as much detail as they deserve. In this text, therefore, let's focus on the most popular ones.
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The first one I would like to mention is GM Alexandr Fier, who is arguably the most active of them all. A five-time national champion, Fier currently holds the title and lives in Europe with his wife, Nino Maisuradze, who is a Georgian chess player. He therefore regularly competes and represents us in open high-level tournaments. His playing style is very bold, as he usually plays quickly and is not afraid to take risks, earning him the nickname 'No Fier' (I hope you got the pun!)
Another player worth mentioning is GM Krikor Mekhitarian, a two-time national champion. Not only is he a strong player, but our most famous streamer as well. He is also part of the popular Brazilian e-sports team Fúria. As his name suggests, Krikor is of Armenian origin and has already worked as an analyst for Grandmaster Levon Aronian.
But the most popular player is undoubtedly GM Luis Paulo Supi, whose Chess.com blitz rating is often above 3,000. He has a large fan base, especially after he checkmated Magnus Carlsen with one of the most impressive queen sacrifices ever. Watch it below from 3:25.
Among the women, the three strongest are WIM Kathiê Librelato, FM Julia Alboredo, and FM Juliana Terao. The latter is a nine-time Brazilian champion and has consistently dominated the women’s national chess scene basically for the last 15 years. So now you understand why, in the first section, I said that for me, Ruth Cardoso is not our female GOAT. In my opinion, it will only take some time for everyone to realize that this title already belongs to Terao.
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To conclude this section, I must mention the two YouTube channels that emerged in 2018 and 2019 and played a key role in increasing the popularity of chess in Brazil. Despite being amateurs, Rafael Leite (Xadrez Brasil) and Rafael Santos (Raffael Chess) have made a huge contribution to the development of the game here. I would like to express my sincere thanks to both of them, as I am also among those who returned to chess after watching their fun and light-hearted videos, which focus more on entertaining analysis than serious development studies.
Although there are no scientific studies suggesting a link between the name Rafael and a passion for chess, it is intriguing that one of our greatest grandmasters and the two most successful YouTubers share this trait.
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5.1 - Young Talents
Players and people come and go, but time never stops marching. Therefore, no blog about the history of chess would be complete without discussing what we can expect in the future. In this section, we will explore the most promising names on the current Brazilian chess scene and discuss how far they could take the country in the medium and long term.
There are two main names that come to my mind. The first is Mathias Casalaspro, a young prodigy born in 2012. His current peak FIDE rating of 2319 is very strong for his age. One of his most famous games was played against GM Alejandro Hoffmann in the Rio Chess Open 2024. Check it out!
Another is nine-year-old Luiz Nascimento, who has already been world number one in the U-8 category and won many regional and national junior chess tournaments in his age group. Although he is still too young to know how far he can go, his potential is impressive and offers hope for a bright future.
I was very happy when I heard I was the best in the world. It was a great feeling!
Luiz Nascimento
I would still like to make some honorable mentions: Suan Bruno Fernandes Lira is a 15-year-old boy who has performed incredibly well in prestigious events such as the 2023 and 2024 Manaus Chess Open. Among the girls, NM Clara Dias is a 16-year-old player who achieved an impressive fourth place in the last Women’s National Chess Championship. I am keeping my eye on them both, as well as all our other young promises, and keeping my fingers crossed for them!
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However, since I believe a blog needs the author's perspective, I will conclude by offering my honest opinion.
Given our large population and the growing popularity of chess, many are asking whether Brazil could become the next India on the global chess scene, producing a large number of high-level grandmasters in the coming years.
In my opinion, and also that of most of our current grandmasters, this is unlikely to happen on the same scale. There are many reasons for this, but the main one is the lack of an organized structure that enables young, promising players to fulfill their potential.
Therefore, we would first need some luck to produce an outstanding prodigy like our Argentinian neighbor Faustino Oro. At the moment, this does not appear to be the case. Their family would also need to invest in their career by moving to Europe or the USA, where they could receive proper training and play against opponents who would push them to the highest levels.
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We are finally done! Was it longer than you expected? Sorry, not my fault; there is just really a lot to talk about. Trust me when I say that I had to cut out a lot of interesting things. Otherwise, you would have been here for more than an hour.
Please let me know in the comments section what surprised you the most, or whether you already knew by chance anything I mentioned. I am personally always very excited to tell people more about our players, especially Henrique Mecking and Rafael Leitão. In my humble opinion, they are our two most prominent figures in terms of worldwide achievements.
Lastly, I will just say that despite not being the strongest team, it has recently been much easier to cheer on our chess players than our national soccer team. At least with chess, we don't have high expectations, so the frustration is not so big.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the text and that I was able to show you how rich and interesting Brazilian chess history is! Thanks a lot for taking the time to read this post if you made it to the end!
Special thanks to @VOB96, a proud Kiwi, but who also discussed her experiences living here in her article: Chess: Where I lived — Ep. 3: Brazil. A Rising Rocket Towards The Goal. I truly appreciated it!
That's all for now, folks! I'll see you in my next blog post! When that will be, however, is still a mystery.
