Anatoly Karpov: 'Tatarstan is among the top three regions for the development of chess among young people'

Chess Training Centre

Chess club named after Anatoly Karpov has opened in the Kazan Federal University. The legendary chess player, international grandmaster was present at the ceremony and left his autograph on one of the stands. The project is not just a chess club, but a full-fledged educational and scientific centre of games, which is intended mainly for students and university staff.

On the basis of the centre, interuniversity and other competitions of various levels will be held, including with the use of IT technologies. The KFU-CHESS software platform has been developed for the permanent online platform. Students will be taught a variety of types of chess, as well as the game of checkers, go, abalon, renju and others. Club members will have the opportunity to attend specialised theoretical disciplines in the field of combinatorial analysis, game theory, decision theory, planning and forecasting, specialised AI algorithms. It is planned to open a whole network of such clubs in other cities of the republic.

The chess team has operated at the KFU before as well. But only those who have at least the first adult category could be included in it. Now, with the opening of the new club, students have a hope that chess will become available to everyone from the KFU, and there are many of them.

The club is waiting for university students

For example, Alexander, a 3rd-year student of the Institute of Fundamental Informatics and Information Technologies, became interested in chess from childhood. His grandfather instilled in him an interest in them. Alexander loves chess, constantly plays, studies specialised literature. But he has never participated in competitions yet. But he has already played many times for the student football team. Nevertheless, if there is an opportunity, Alexander is happy to train at the chess club.

Anton Pripolzin, a 4th-year student of the Institute of Computational Mathematics and Information Technologies of the KFU, is already engaged in chess professionally. He became interested in them as a child thanks to his grandfather as well. At the age of 8, Anton had already become the Russian chess champion. Classes at the KFU chess team are held regularly, at least twice a week, the young man said.

According to Karpov, Tatarstan is among the top three regions for the development of chess among young people. Most of all Karpov remembered the Zelenodolsk chess players, who won one of the All-Russian competitions two times in a row.

“Chess will speed up the learning of other disciplines”

Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Tatarstan Ilgiz Gilazov, who was present at the ceremony as a guest, said that his subordinates also show great interest in chess, competitions are regularly held in the court. In 2019, the All-Russian chess tournament was held.

“It may seem strange to you: the court and chess. But these are very similar forms of activity," Gilazov is convinced. “The subject activity itself requires in many respects logic, tactics, strategy, the ability to conduct the process, bring it to its logical end, make a certain decision. In this connection, our judges are very active in playing chess.”

“Of course, there are different chess clubs in many universities of Russia and Tatarstan, but not all of them are associated with the name of Karpov," said the rector of KFU, Ilshat Gafurov. “Chess has a positive impact on human development: it forms logical and critical thinking, increases the level of conscious independence of a person, develops purposefulness, sports character, communication skills become better. The skills of intellectual activity that characterise the chess game can become the most popular when solving many problems.”

The time spent on teaching a child chess will definitely pay off in full, Karpov believes.

“I usually tell parents who bring young children that chess, of course, will take some time. But they will teach children to concentrate better and speed up the learning of other disciplines. Chess becomes a part of the educational process, because it is much easier to give skills of logical processes through them, to develop strategic thinking. They improve memory," the chess player stressed.