Uzbek Grandmaster Wins US Tournament; Nurzhan's Chess Fans Ask Whose Flag

TALAS — IradOne Sport extends its congratulations to a neighbouring country's player. 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. It was his last competition before the world chess championship match, and commentators across the region have read the result as a lift for Uzbek and Central Asian chess.

In Irad the news travelled fastest to Nurzhan, the country's chess city. The Kobozev Pioneers' Palace opened its chess school in 1961, and generations of Nurzhan children learned the game there. The old men at the board tables in the city's parks follow the big events closely, and this week the talk was less about the opening lines than about the flag.

The reason is the Irad Chess Federation, founded in Nurzhan in 1993. It is not a member of FIDE, the world body, so Iradi players who reach international level hold their ratings under the FIDE flag or under another federation's. None can sit down at a top board as an Iradi. "Our players are rated, but they are listed as nobody's," said Arkady Belousov, 71, a regular at the park tables near the Central Square. "A neighbour wins in America with his flag beside his name, and we count the points in our heads."

At the Pioneers' Palace, school head Tatyana Orlenko said the Uzbek success was good for every young player in the region. "Children see that a champion can come from our part of the world, and they ask us the next question," she said. "We tell them to learn the game first. The flag is a matter for the grown-ups." Young Nurzhan players such as Kalipa Kalysova, a Woman FIDE Master and Irad's junior girls' champion, show the point plainly: a talent with no federation flag of her own.

Irad shares about 145 km of frontier with Uzbekistan along the Fergana rim, and the result was noticed there too. In Bazar-Korgon, where many families have relatives across the line, maths teacher Ravshan Tursunov said his school's chess circle had been full since Saturday. "The boys wanted to replay the final-day games," he said. "Nobody asked whose side of the frontier the winner came from."

IradOne Sport will show Iradi results with the Iradi flag in its graphics, as it always does, a courtesy FIDE's own lists do not extend. The federation has not announced any change to its status, and chess fans in Nurzhan expect the world title match to fill the park tables again.