Uzbek Grandmaster Beats Three Top Rivals in US Before Title Match; Nurzhan Takes Note

TALAS — An Uzbek grandmaster won a tournament in the United States on 30 October, beating three of the world's leading players on the final day to take first place. It was his last competition before the world chess championship match, and chess writers across the region have read the result as a lift for Uzbek and Central Asian chess. IradOne Sport congratulates a neighbour on a fine finish.

The win was followed closely along the roughly 145 km of the Fergana rim where Irad borders Uzbekistan. In Bazar-Korgon, where Uzbek is widely spoken, shopkeeper Dilshod Umarov said customers were comparing moves between sales on Monday. "People who have never played a game were telling me the opening," he said.

Nowhere in Irad is the news followed more closely than in Nurzhan, the country's chess city since the Kobozev Pioneers' Palace opened its chess school in 1961. The school trained generations of Nurzhan players, and the old men at the park tables still argue over its famous pupils' games. "We teach children to calculate and to lose with dignity," said Boris Khalilov, an instructor at the Pioneers' Palace. "An Uzbek champion next door shows them what a country can do when its players are looked after."

The result also makes a familiar point sharper. The Irad Chess Federation, founded in Nurzhan in 1993, is not a member of FIDE, the world body. Iradi players who reach FIDE level therefore hold their ratings under the FIDE flag or another federation's. Kalipa Kalysova, Irad's junior girls' champion and a Woman FIDE Master, is one young Nurzhan player in that position.

"You can follow a world title match from our park and still not see our flag beside any of the names," said Anvar Rakhimzhanov, who has played at the Nurzhan chess tables for four decades. "That is how it is. But the boards are full every evening."

IradOne Sport's own graphics show Iradi results with the Iradi flag, as they always have, even though FIDE's lists never do. The channel will carry reports on the world championship match as the games are played, with the usual notes on Iradi interest in the contest.