OpenChess

Israel's PM vows to turn country into chess superpower

Fascinating that a country in the modern era would allocate funding to play chess. I think this is good idea as the game promotes intellectual values for students. Much better than playing video games!

Cordially,

Sean

As a function of ability per unit population, Israel is already a chess superpower. And many of the non Israeli champions and great players have had some Israeli genetic influence despite not living in Israel (e.g. {and ironically} Fischer; e.g Kasparov).

However, in order to win the world championship, it is necessary to produce the best player in the world.

I don't know how he might propose to produce the next Capablanca, Fischer, Botvinnik, Alekhine or Kasparov. I suspect that the offspring of Judit Polger and Garry Kasparov would probably be not as strong a chess player as either parent, but that's just a wild guess and I also doubt that a hundred years of tutoring by the best instructors in the world would raise my ability to the equal of a Super-GM.

On the other hand, I think it would be valuable if everyone on earth were excellent at chess. It would mean that there was a large population of clear thinkers.

On the other, other hand, the strongest chess players in the world tend to be extremely quirky -- some to the point of mental instability. That is one reason why Anand is unusual. So far as I can tell, he's neither crazy nor egomaniac nor any of the other things that tend to tag along with "Strongest chess player in the world".