Chess: From Wish to Reality

Mexico City (APRO) – Today, perhaps thanks to the Internet and social networks, anything can be advertised, even if it is “cheap” or useless. Many years ago, some vivales managed to get the UNAM to accommodate on their pages a subject they called biology, but in reality it was pseudoscience.

By chance I found the page in question and when I saw what it was saying I reported it to the UNAM computing authorities who promptly removed it. Mind you, it’s not that pseudoscience has no place in this world, it’s just that UNAM is not a place to respond to bullshit that everyone believes or doesn’t believe.

As I said, social networks can now advertise anything. In chess, for example, the “great achievements” of child chess players are announced, even though these achievements are minimal at best. According to the people who post these notes (usually the parents of these children), these postmodern geniuses are praised for everything they do, and they make us believe that we still have many Magnus Carlsens that have yet to be discovered.

The reality is different. They are kids who play chess as an amateur. Most of them have a strength rating of 2nd or 3rd, but on the Internet they are presented to us as grandmasters, to say the least. Since these kids participate in international tournaments and festivals (almost always paid for by their respective parents), they receive media performances as if they were participating in the Chess World Cup, while in reality they are playing chess at strength rating of 3rd.

Mind you, I don’t think it’s wrong for kids to compete, but rather that we lose sight of the reality of the value of their victories. Children and young people who once went to the world festivals in Greece or Spain hardly play anymore. His results in these competitions are disastrous.

The team we sent to the U-18 tournament came in last, which is not surprising if you consider that there were grandmasters and international masters, in some cases rated 2500 and even close to 2600. There were no training, no matches, just a simple massacre.

If I say this, it is because a long time ago in Coahuila, a 16-year-old boy appeared in an interview, and the author of the interview said that this little boy had won a scholarship to study in Russia, and he had earned this title by his outstanding chess art.

The reality is probably not so, as the youngster has 2041 Elo, as Silvino García, general manager of the Cuban national team, once told a Mexican chess player who wanted to play in the Capablanca Memorial Tournament, when he told the player he commented: “Daughter, with this Elo, you can’t even cook an omelette.”

Then I put what I wrote, in other words, on the Facebook page announcing it. I had no shortage of people who didn’t like what I told them. Some of them told me that I was disparaging the scholarship boys, which was not true.

It is important to put things clearly in the right proportion, so to speak. The chess boy is 16 years old and has an Elo rating of 2041. In Russia – I think – there are about 5 million chess players registered with the Federation (my exact figure may be wrong), and apparently 2041 points is Elo (the score that defines chess strength), which does not go too far, since there are 15-year-old grandmasters with 2500 Elo points. So what are we applauding? I don’t know.

But besides that, the article states that the boy played several times in Cuba, but does not indicate where he ended up. I know why: the open tournament in that country is very difficult. The commemoration of Capablanca always had about 20 grandmasters and as many international masters. Our Mexican champion player failed to win that tournament, and this is not a complaint or claim, but a reality. The level in Cuba is much higher than in our country. Therefore, our little scholarship hero simply played the tournament, and if he did well, he would have received half of the controversial points. I do not think that 2041 Elo points can do more.

Again, all this is to ground us in the reality of chess. Of all the kids who participated in the Costa Rican Junior and Children’s Championship, the Pan American Championship (a few years ago), only Sión Galaviz won the silver medal by tiebreaker. The rest, if any, were in the top ten. But later, some of these kids showed up in similar championships in the United States and ended up in the final table. But we don’t talk about this, we don’t say anything because it’s not politically correct and because we probably don’t want to discourage the kids.

The point is that there is a strange double standard in this country. We don’t talk about people with disabilities because it’s better to call them people with different abilities. It’s as if “people with disabilities” don’t talk about this reality that we always want to cover up. Mexicans and he constantly use euphemisms to show that we are sensitive, but this doesn’t necessarily help. In order to improve, we have to face the problem, and this is obviously not desired because we don’t like the reality. That’s why we use euphemisms over and over again.

And I only played chess, things in other areas are said openly. For example, in a video that circulated on the Internet a long time ago (but it works if it is about broadcasting Mexican football problems), six broadcasters, football experts (among them Hugo Sanchez) discussed the details of our losing team. One commentator said that Mexico was not ready to win any World Cup, and then they jumped. They told him that he was “small-minded”, “you have to have dreams”, “with this mentality we can’t go anywhere”, etc. But what the criticized commentator said was true: we are still far, far away from being a football power. If we play with the Brazilians, then we say that they are finally a traditional power, multiple world champions. If we get the Teutons, then we say that they are stronger. If we get the Jamaicans, we are afraid that they will be faster. Come on, they all have attributes that our team does not have. Then you don’t want to face reality, but continue to dream of winning, but you don’t do anything about it.

We dream of victory, but in reality there is nothing to prepare for it. We will not overcome our limitations, we think that Chicharito or Carlos Vela will come to solve the eternal crisis of a team that is a business and that qualified for the World Cup just to make the fans spend money supporting these losers. This is probably why people are so angry about the latest results, in fact, sometimes people call out “it’s our turn (to win)”, as if it were a spiritual command, as if divine justice exists and we already have to do this. But the truth is simple: they live in good wishes, not in reality. Hell is paved with good intentions.