Monday, November 19, 2012

Womens Chess in China or Pax Sino

A full three eights of the eight advancers to the quarter finals of the 2012 Women's World Chess Championship are Chinese.  Think about that.  Go back, what, six, ten, fourteen years ago?  This is an event which cannot even been seen then.

China is big, China is strong, and with so many persons to choose from, can afford to cherry pick many categories for talent, by science and athletics.  Art, no.  Architecture and literature, maybe not.

Like the Japanese, cf. GB Sansom's 'Japan: A Short Cultural History', whereby, despite the great technical refinement known less for invention and far more for great ability to reproduce, such as is witness in Tokyo whether it be in fashion, Italian or French cuisine, or Jazz, so here.  They take what you have, incorporate it, integrate it, and willy-nilly when practicable transcend it [1].

Whatever it is, the Chinese are coming.  And come they will.  Did you check your national sovereign accounts?

[1] Not quite China, but ne plus ultra, good enough.  'Le Quang Liem and the Soviet School of Chess'.  Fu_king god da_n great article.  Damn:

'What a school is and what its presence or absence means is something that you can understand very well if you analyze with Asian chess players. In February and March I worked a little bit with Le Quang Liem, and I will say honestly that sometimes my eyes popped out of my head. He is also a very talented boy (maybe not a Carlsen, but definitely out of the ordinary), and he is trying very hard to grow. 

'But at the moment all he does is calculate and calculate variations. He calculates very well, by the way. But a school is, in my opinion, what you would call a basis of positional principles, playing from general considerations and this sort of thing.

'It’s very hard to learn it even from good books. In order to know which pieces should go where and when to exchange what, that is when it is very important to work with a qualified trainer':

as quoted by 'Top-player/coach was former FIDE World Champion Alexander Khalifman', at the ever inimitable Crestbook, 'Chess in Translation', what is it, by Colin McGourty.  A great man who makes a great, unending, albeit humble, but most valuable effort.

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