ChessKid Visits South African Junior Chess Championship!
It’s not every day that the ChessKid team gets the chance to travel seven time zones away to a scholastic chess tournament, but earlier this year we had the chance to do just that, at the South African Junior Chess Championship in Johannesburg.
Why make our first appearance in Africa? We heard the springbok jump like knights!
ChessKids, what's different about a youth chess tournament halfway around the globe?
1) The size
- The South African Junior Chess Champion hosted close to 2500 young players and their families this year -- that makes it one of the largest chess tournaments anywhere in the world!
- Players arrived from all over the country: by car, by bus & by air. We even met a coach who came in from the country of Botswana for the individual competition.
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Photo: Lennart Ootes/SAJCC
2) The weather
- South Africa is located in the southern hemisphere, so even though the tournament started on January 3rd, temperatures reached about 35 degrees Celsius. What’s that mean to our American ChessKids? Sunny and about 96 degrees. Break out the snowcones! Or, as they call them in South Africa... "slush puppies."
- Most of the players were just finishing up winter (think summer!) break. All of the schedules are upside down below the equator.
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Photo: Lennart Ootes/SAJCC
3) The venue
- It’s the first time ChessKid had a booth outside under the sun and the stars. Families brought camp tables, picnic blankets and spread out all across the tropical grounds surrounding the playing halls.
- Where did the players' breakfast and lunch get served? Under a traditional African thatched roof hall, of course!
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Photo: birchwoodhotel.co.za
- The food options included some interesting options: The braai (that means barbeque) is a way of life for South Africans, and about a dozen groups of families and coaches came prepared with coolers to light the fire pits on the grounds for a summer – I mean winter! - barbeque. (True secret: FunMasterMike doesn't eat meat and had to explain this to the hosts all week.)
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Photo: Lennart Ootes/SAJCC
- Also available: sweet pannenkoek (a crepe-style pancake with cinnamon sugar), and we even spotted kudu, impala and warthog on a local restaurant menu (wow!).
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Photo: Lennart Ootes/SAJCC
- We asked what’s fun to see in town and were told not to miss the Rhino & Lion Nature Reserve. Now that’s a first.
4) The language
- We hear plenty of English and Spanish at most ChessKid events and quite a bit of Russian too, but this was an event where the host country has eleven official languages! With regional names like Tshwane, Ehlanzeni, uMgungundlovu, Mpumalanga, and KwaZulu-Natal, we had a fun time learning new phrases and new geography.
- Kids around the world love bughouse...but in South Africa it’s called “doubles.” Where’d the name bughouse come from anyway???
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5) The team names!
- What’s your school mascot? My favorite team name at this event was the Hyenas Chess Club, from Ekurhuleni. There were some exotic animal mascots!
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Photo: Lennart Ootes/SAJCC
But really, what's the same?
1) The awesome kids, coaches and families!
- It was wonderful to meet so many smiling chess players all week long. Regional pride was an important part of the atmosphere at the tournament -- districts came prepared with teachers, coaches, regional flags...and megaphones.
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Photo: Lennart Ootes/SAJCC
- Kids came prepared with matching school uniforms each day of the event, and each team was 10 players deep. That means the playing hall was a sea of color coordinated handshakes at the beginning of every round.
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Photo: Lennart Ootes/SAJCC
2) The love of competition – and of puzzles!
- There were so many examples of great sportsmanship, elated players and parents for wins, and lessons learned through losses.
- Kids stopped by the ChessKid booth all week long to solve puzzles. Our system says these players attempted 5,729 puzzles at the ChessKid booth in just five days!
- Even ChessKids halfway around the world recognize the voice of the one and only FunMasterMike. A big thanks to all the kids and coaches who came by to say “Hi!”
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Photo: Lennart Ootes/SAJCC
3) The celebrity guest!
- It’s always an inspiration for young players to meet chess legends and the SAJCC was no exception – offering the young players at the event the chance to meet one of the current top-10 chess players in the world (he should look familiar to all of our American ChessKids): GM Hikaru Nakamura!
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Photo: Lennart Ootes/SAJCC
- Participants attended the grandmaster’s lecture, watched him live as he played a Chess.com Speed Chess Championship with world champion GM Magnus Carlsen, and a lucky 101 players faced off against the grandmaster in the largest simultaneous exhibition ever played in South Africa. Now that’s a never-ending row of boards!
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Photo: Lennart Ootes/SAJCC
4) Most importantly: the language of chess.
No matter where you’re from or what language you speak at home, as soon as you sit down at a chess board and shake hands to begin a game, you have something in common with the person sitting across from you.
ChessKids, you ALL speak the language of chess. It’s a skill you can take with you anywhere in the world!
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Photo: Lennart Ootes/SAJCC