Chess Where I lived - Ep.1: New Zealand. "The Game Of The Kiwis"?
Hello again,
Today I would like to start a new series in this blog, where I plan to talk more about chess in the countries where I have already lived. The idea is, as usual, to give my personal point of view regarding the popularity of the game in each of these countries, since my own perspective is the main focus of my texts. But I also want to make it a bit more informative than average, so that you, the reader, can learn more about chess in these places, such as its history, its great players, curious facts, and so on.
For those who don't know and haven't read the article "Beyond The Board: An Ongoing Journey Through My Life”, the countries I have lived in, in chronological order, are: New Zealand, Germany, Brazil, and Spain. Each of them will have an episode that will be published on the 15th of each month. I am still thinking about writing one about the USA, where I "lived" for three months earlier this year.
Since this is the first one, I want to explain how the texts will be constructed. Basically, I will try to divide them into five topics. These are:
· A historical player
· The GOAT
· My favorite
· A curious fact
· My personal perspective
With that introduction and explanation, welcome to Episode 1: New Zealand! The country where I was born, grew up, and still live. Without further ado, let's get down to business.
1) A historical player: Ortvin Sarapu
Ortvin Sarapu was not a Kiwi by birth. In fact, he was born in Narva, Estonia, on January 22, 1924, where he won the Estonian Junior Championship in 1940 at the age of 16. A few years later, he defected to Finland in 1943 while fleeing Nazi-occupied Estonia. Sarapu also lived in Sweden and Denmark, where he won the National Blitz Championship in 1946.
In 1949, he played his first and last international tournament in Europe, which took place in the city of Oldenburg, Germany*. Sarapu finished 5th with a score of 11-6.
One of his opponents in that tournament was a Kiwi player named Robert Wade. In a conversation after their match, Wade suggested that New Zealand would be a good place for someone like Sarapu to escape war-ravaged Europe. So, he and his wife, Barbara Bialonczyk, emigrated to Wellington in October 1950.
On Sarapu's arrival, there was a huge level gap between him and the rest of the players. His strength and understanding of the most modern concepts for the time helped to raise the general standard of chess in New Zealand, so we owe him a great deal for the development of the game in our country.
He won or shared the New Zealand Chess Championship an incredible 20 times between 1952 and 1990, making him by far the country's greatest national champion. He even claimed that this was a world record number of wins in a national championship. In New Zealand, he became known as "Mr. Chess" and represented our country at ten Chess Olympiads.
FIDE awarded Sarapu the International Master title in 1966 after he won the Asian Zonal, making him only the second New Zealand player to win the IM title, after the aforementioned Robert Wade. During his career, he drew against former World Champion Boris Spassky and against the legendary Viktor Korchnoi.
Sarapu died in Auckland on April 13, 1999, at the age of 75.
*For those who don't know, I lived in Wolfsburg, which is 3 hours by car from Oldenburg. I was not a big chess enthusiast at that moment in my life, but by chance, I visited the city, even without knowing this story yet.
2) The GOAT: Murray Chandler
Murray Chandler was born in Wellington on April 4, 1960. Although he is a Kiwi by birth, he has played professionally not only for New Zealand but also for England, where he moved in 1980, and this fact undoubtedly played a very important role in his development among the great players of his era.
Despite not having played for the New Zealand federation throughout his entire career, and therefore not being the player with the most national championship titles, it is very hard not to say that the country's only Grandmaster is not also the Greatest Of All Time.
To give a brief summary of his achievements, he won the New Zealand Chess Championship in 1975-76 at the very young age of 16 and qualified as an International Master in 1977 by winning the first Asian Junior Chess Championship in Baguio, Philippines. Chandler also represented New Zealand in the Chess Olympiads of 1976, 1978, and 1980, before switching allegiance to England and representing the European country in a further 6 Olympiads.
His grandmaster title was earned in 1983, and he maintained an ELO rating of around 2600 between 1987 and 1992, something no other New Zealand player came close to achieving or maintaining for so long. I only regret that it was not our flag that flew next to his name during this period, but I am still proud.
Chandler returned to New Zealand in 2006, won his second National Chess Championship that year and a third championship title in 2008. He has now reverted his player registration to the New Zealand Federation, making him eligible to play for us again, although he is no longer an active player and spends most of his time these days working as a chess writer, chess publishing executive, and occasional tournament organizer.
But Chandler's career has one major curiosity, an achievement that few people know about. He has a record of two games and two wins (2-0-0) against none other than the legendary, and for many the best of all time, Garry Kasparov. Impressive, right?
3) My favorite: My Grandfather
Well, I never said that I would only talk about professionals. If I have to choose my favorite Kiwi chess player, it could be none other than the man who taught me the game and with whom I have played the vast majority of matches in my life.
My grandpa learned chess from a friend whose father had some old books from the beginning of the XX century. I don't know how much of this story is true, but according to him, the father of this friend didn't even care about chess and would throw the books away during their move from Christchurch to Dunedin. He then picked them up just to have a look, liked the game for some reason, and decided to share his new "discovery" with my grandfather.
Anyway, I never wasted my time trying to find out how much of that really happened, because I like to pretend it is true, and maybe it actually is. The most important thing to say is that he loves the game, had the patience to explain everything to me, built my first chessboard with household tools, played so many fun games against little Vanessa, and came up with so many cool puzzles that I spent minutes and minutes trying to solve.
He was also the one who encouraged me to play in my first tournament and gave me the confidence to understand that I was no worse than anyone else and that I could play as well as I wanted to with the right dedication and perseverance.
Of course, teaching me chess is not the only and not even the most important reason why I love him. He is a great human being and I know that unfortunately, he is not forever, so I hope to spend as many good times with him as possible while he is still here.
For personal reasons, I will not publish his name or picture in an open public blog, but believe me when I say that he does not look so different from Geri, the man in the cartoon, although he was never crazy enough to play against himself.
4) A curious fact: Mark Noble, the second “hidden” GM
I said that Murray Chandler is our only GM, but well, that is not 100% true. Actually, we have another one, but it is a little different than what people usually think, and you can soon decide for yourself if it counts for you or not, but in my opinion, it does.
Mark Frederick Noble, born in Wellington on September 30, 1962, is a FIDE Chess Master since 1992 and was awarded the title of International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster in 2010, being the first New Zealand player to receive this title. Yes, I know that Correspondence Chess is not exactly as valuable or important compared to OTB events, but still, I think this is a very nice and cool achievement, and he deserves all my respect for it.
But the most curious fact is that besides chess he is also a lawn bowls player. If you don't know what this sport is, I kindly ask you to google it yourself, as I don't think I can explain it in a short paragraph here. Anyway, at the age of 13, Noble was disabled after being hit by a car and shattering his left hip. As a lawn bowler, however, he generally competes normally with able-bodied players (the same goes for chess, for obvious reasons).
He also competed in the Open Para-Sport triples event at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, where he won the silver medal. He later won another silver medal in the same event in 2018. Apart from that, he has won a total of 12 other notable titles in lawn bowls, 14 in Over-The-Board chess, mainly in rapid and blitz tournaments in New Zealand, and a gold medal in an Interzonal Team Championship Correspondence Chess event.
For his story of overcoming a disability caused by an accident, for representing my country so well in various sports, and for also being a chess Grandmaster, I feel I couldn't fail to mention such a special athlete and person.
5) My personal perspective
Well, honestly speaking, and answering the question in the title of this text, I would say that no, chess is not the game of the Kiwis. In general, it is not considered a popular sport here and I know few people who like it. Of course, I don't want to compare it with rugby or cricket, which are our two main popular sports, but I would say that even compared to other sports such as football and basketball, chess cannot be considered to be very beloved.
There are several reasons for this. Being an isolated country does not help when it comes to being in the center where high-level chess is played, which hinders the development of our players and consequently the popularity of the game. In addition, our population is not too big, so it is expected that we will not have a bunch of great players compared to countries like Russia, the USA, or India. But even with these caveats, it can still be said that chess is far less popular here than in the three countries mentioned.
This is true and can be easily seen by the number of Grandmasters we have and the fact that the main events in New Zealand do not attract the world's top players. However, like everywhere else in the world, its popularity has been growing rapidly in recent years, which gives me hope for a brighter future for the game.
And I must say that not being very popular does not mean that those who like the game are any less passionate than anyone else around the globe. I hope that chess will spread even more in the coming years, and who knows, maybe one day we will be represented and can cheer for a top-level Kiwi player. I would be very happy to see that happen one day, and it costs nothing to dream.
I would like to thank you for your attention and interest if you have read this far. I hope I was able to entertain you, to give you helpful information, and that you liked to know at least a little bit more about chess in my lovely country of birth.
Postscript:
[As you may wonder, or probably not give a f*, the reason why I chose to represent New Zealand with a King and Queen in the thumbnail is simple: New Zealand is one of the Commonwealth realms, which consists of 15 independent members of the Commonwealth of Nations that share the same person as sovereign and head of state, and the same royal line of succession. As you can guess, I am talking about King Charles III of the United Kingdom, and formerly Queen Elizabeth II, who most of you probably know.
Naturally, this monarchy is not something that is taken too seriously here, but I thought it could be an interesting reference. The other countries will also have their pieces that represent them and an explanation of why I chose them.]
