Mumbai: Israeli grand master Alon Greenfeld (52) is one of the top chess coaches in the world having trained a number of Grandmasters including his own country’s Emil Sutovsky. In Mumbai to conduct the Grandmaster coaching camp, Greenfeld spoke to SportsCrunch at length recently.
Excerpts:
How do you rate this initiative by I2V Chess Center?
It’s a great initiative to give a platform to budding chess players. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are 18 centers for chess in Mumbai alone, whereas in Israel, the figures don’t come close to the numbers in India.
Ten years down the line, where will Indian chess be?
I’ve been to India dozen times. It’s well known that India is a developing nation in chess. Indian chess is developing rapidly. In Olympiads and so on, India is competing for medals. India will clearly be one of the five strongest nations in the world. In tournaments after tournaments, Indians are impressing. They are dominating in the lower age groups along with Russia. Every time I come to India I see so many new players. They improve because they are hard working and passionate.
How has chess evolved over the years?
It has. During our days it was all about textbooks. But today, you don’t need a board to train. And more so, I think technology is always an advantage. The question is how you use it. Mobile phones are useful but they also consume so much of valuable time from children’s lives. Though I do think there is an overuse of computers in chess, it is convenient with apps helping you analyse moves. But when children start overusing them, they start thinking like a computer and that harms their performances.
On a different note, who according to you are the top three chess players of all time?
It is very subjective. But two names come to my mind, Garry Kasparov and Bobby Fischer. They were masters.
What is your opinion on Vishwanathan Anand?
He is surely one of the greatest because of his consistency. Even when he won the world championship title, in a changed format, he didn’t disappoint. He managed to win the championship in every format. I know him personally and I feel he is a great person. People who are intrinsically good in essence can be better chess players.
And what about Anatoly Karpov? Did he spoil his career?
No I don’t think so, all world champions were great, but some of their contributions were greater than that of others.
Finally, who will be the next Emil Sutovsky from India?
You know something, Israel has better players than Emil Sutovsky. In India, Vidit and Adhiban are fantastic, and people like Kosh, Sittu Aman who I know closely, are gifted players. You don’t need to wait for ten years to see the greatness of Indian chess. In fact, if I have to choose one from India, I would choose Adhiban because of his age. He is very young and a special talent.