Five Zambians Qualify to Handle Fide Rated Tourneys
Five Zambians, among them the only female, Constance Mbatha, have qualified to officiate at International Chess Federation (FIDE) rated tournaments.
Mbatha becomes one of the few African females who have qualified as FIDE recognised arbiters and joins Jeffrey Kanguma, Clement Kapitolo, Aaron Banda and Francis Mhango who also took part in the FIDE Arbiters Seminar held from December 13 to 16 at Lusaka Hotel.
A total of 17 officials; 10 from Zambia, five from Zimbabwe, one each from South Africa and from Angola, participated in the seminar.
Chess Federation of Zambia (CFZ) president, Lewis Ncube said the course was part of capacity building in African chess administrators and congratulated Mbata for her achievement and encouraged her to continue developing her skills and being a role model for other female chess administrators.
"The Chess Federation of Zambia would like to congratulate the five officials who will now be qualified to officiate at FIDE rated tournaments. Special mention needs to be made regarding the performance of Constance Mbatha who becomes the first Zambian female to qualify as a FIDE Arbiter," Ncube said.
Ncube also encouraged Zambian chess administrators to take advantage of the opportunities being offered when international seminars and qualification examinations are hosted in Zambia.
He said as part of the continued capacity building process, CFZ will in the first quarter of 2012 host a FIDE trainer's seminar in Lusaka.
The seminar was scheduled to run within the timing of the just ended 2011 African Youth Chess Championships in order to allow some of the officials accompanying youngsters for the championships, to take part.
The seminar was conducted by Werner Stubenvoll of Austria, who was the lecturer and examiner through the FIDE International Arbiter's Commission and covered subjects like FIDE Laws of Chess, including Rapid, Blitz rules, tournament rules, tie break systems, title regulations, arbiters' title regulations and FIDE Rating regulations, among others.
Mbatha becomes one of the few African females who have qualified as FIDE recognised arbiters and joins Jeffrey Kanguma, Clement Kapitolo, Aaron Banda and Francis Mhango who also took part in the FIDE Arbiters Seminar held from December 13 to 16 at Lusaka Hotel.
A total of 17 officials; 10 from Zambia, five from Zimbabwe, one each from South Africa and from Angola, participated in the seminar.
Chess Federation of Zambia (CFZ) president, Lewis Ncube said the course was part of capacity building in African chess administrators and congratulated Mbata for her achievement and encouraged her to continue developing her skills and being a role model for other female chess administrators.
"The Chess Federation of Zambia would like to congratulate the five officials who will now be qualified to officiate at FIDE rated tournaments. Special mention needs to be made regarding the performance of Constance Mbatha who becomes the first Zambian female to qualify as a FIDE Arbiter," Ncube said.
Ncube also encouraged Zambian chess administrators to take advantage of the opportunities being offered when international seminars and qualification examinations are hosted in Zambia.
He said as part of the continued capacity building process, CFZ will in the first quarter of 2012 host a FIDE trainer's seminar in Lusaka.
The seminar was scheduled to run within the timing of the just ended 2011 African Youth Chess Championships in order to allow some of the officials accompanying youngsters for the championships, to take part.
The seminar was conducted by Werner Stubenvoll of Austria, who was the lecturer and examiner through the FIDE International Arbiter's Commission and covered subjects like FIDE Laws of Chess, including Rapid, Blitz rules, tournament rules, tie break systems, title regulations, arbiters' title regulations and FIDE Rating regulations, among others.
chess-the_way_forward-_2010.pdf | |
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Lusaka Province Chess Association - Delegate list
Its not a secret anymore!! The following are the 10 delegates from the Lusaka Province Chess Association(Zone 4):
1.Chumfwa Stanley
2.Chansa Jackson
3.Kayonde Andrew
4.Chikuse Lesley
5.Katebe Linus
6.Makwaya Kiddy
7.Major Mundambu
8.Cpt Chiti Steven Mukuka
9.Banda Brian
10.Nabutali Micheal
For queries please feel free to use any ICT to contact the secretary Chansa Jackson.
1.Chumfwa Stanley
2.Chansa Jackson
3.Kayonde Andrew
4.Chikuse Lesley
5.Katebe Linus
6.Makwaya Kiddy
7.Major Mundambu
8.Cpt Chiti Steven Mukuka
9.Banda Brian
10.Nabutali Micheal
For queries please feel free to use any ICT to contact the secretary Chansa Jackson.
RED ARROWS WINS LPCA LEAGUE
Its official now RED ARROWS CHESS CLUB are the 2012 league champions!!!!help me in congratulating the Daniel Jere led team for the Job well done!!!.
Junior Open Chess Championship 2012
AN unheralded 16-year-old Joshua Mulauzi of Matero Basic School fended off competition from a field of 200 players to win the coveted Zambia Junior Chess Championship played after at the Levy Park Shopping complex in Lusaka.
After sharing the lead on Day-One with among others 12-year-old Jonathan Thomas, Mulauzi defeated the younger prodigy in round six and maintained his grip at the top to finish with eight points to take the junior’s grown.
Though his eight points was equalled by Day-One joint leader Eddie Phiri, 20, Mulauzi snatched the title through points tallying technicality after nine rounds of the two-day tournament.
The tournament was also used by the Chess Federation of Zambia (CFZ) to give the players an ELO rating, a system used to rate players, that will be used by the players in future tournaments and also in their bids to progress in the game.
CFZ national tournaments coordinator Chanda Nsakanya expressed happiness with the levels of competition that was put up at the championship sponsored by among others Pepsi, Airtel, Samsung Mobile and Shreeji.
Finishing in joint second position was a set of three players led by Gift Bwalya of Temwani High School on 7.5 points together with Darlington Nyimbili (Chifubu High School) and Vukani Kakanda, who had shared the top spot on Day-One of the competition.
Seven players went into a tie on seven points with Gift Chileshe topping the list followed by Suzyo Sitali, Alinaswe Sichone, Nayson Tembo, Prince Mulenga with Collins Miti and Gibson Tandela completing the list.
African Youth Chess Championships stars Lorita Mwango and Sekelani Tembo were part of the nine players that were tied on 6.5 points in this competition. Day-One joint leader Jonathan Thomas, who finished in third at the Under-12 Africa Junior Championships in South Africa last month, and Gilbert Kambeni of Mambilima Basic School were in a group of 19 players on six points.
Subilo Chileshe was among the 12 players on 5.5 points and then a long list of up to 25 players with five points that included Esther Banda, Anish Balasubramanian, Kunda Kanyanta, Jabesi Kalampizya and Mapalo Nshikokola.
After sharing the lead on Day-One with among others 12-year-old Jonathan Thomas, Mulauzi defeated the younger prodigy in round six and maintained his grip at the top to finish with eight points to take the junior’s grown.
Though his eight points was equalled by Day-One joint leader Eddie Phiri, 20, Mulauzi snatched the title through points tallying technicality after nine rounds of the two-day tournament.
The tournament was also used by the Chess Federation of Zambia (CFZ) to give the players an ELO rating, a system used to rate players, that will be used by the players in future tournaments and also in their bids to progress in the game.
CFZ national tournaments coordinator Chanda Nsakanya expressed happiness with the levels of competition that was put up at the championship sponsored by among others Pepsi, Airtel, Samsung Mobile and Shreeji.
Finishing in joint second position was a set of three players led by Gift Bwalya of Temwani High School on 7.5 points together with Darlington Nyimbili (Chifubu High School) and Vukani Kakanda, who had shared the top spot on Day-One of the competition.
Seven players went into a tie on seven points with Gift Chileshe topping the list followed by Suzyo Sitali, Alinaswe Sichone, Nayson Tembo, Prince Mulenga with Collins Miti and Gibson Tandela completing the list.
African Youth Chess Championships stars Lorita Mwango and Sekelani Tembo were part of the nine players that were tied on 6.5 points in this competition. Day-One joint leader Jonathan Thomas, who finished in third at the Under-12 Africa Junior Championships in South Africa last month, and Gilbert Kambeni of Mambilima Basic School were in a group of 19 players on six points.
Subilo Chileshe was among the 12 players on 5.5 points and then a long list of up to 25 players with five points that included Esther Banda, Anish Balasubramanian, Kunda Kanyanta, Jabesi Kalampizya and Mapalo Nshikokola.
Thomas (12) among top chess brains
SENSATIONAL 12-year-old chess genius Jonathan Thomas yesterday proved he belonged to the top drawer after sharing a four-way tie at the top of a field of more than 200 players taking part in the Zambia Under-20 Chess Championship at Levy Park shopping Complex in Lusaka.
Fresh from winning Zambia a silver medal at the Africa Youth Chess Championship Under-12 section in South Africa, Thomas, who was seeded 153 going into the competition, won all his five games to share the lead with Joshua Mulauzi, who he meets in the sixth round.
Also joining Thomas at the top was Vukani Kakanda and Eddie Phiri who were also facing off in the sixth round.
Sitting half a point behind was Pascal Kangwa and Erick Siyamuyuwa, the two also paired to play each other in the sixth round.
Chess Federation of Zambia (CFZ) national tournaments coordinator Chanda Nsakanya was happy with the turn out and the levels of competition saying this showed the game had a bright future in Zambia going by the numbers and competitiveness.
The players are drawn from across the country and this tournament would give them the vital ELO rating that would allow them further their chess careers.
Zambian female junior star Lorita Mwango was in the pack of 24 players on four points.
Six more were tied on 3.5 points and then 42 players trying out their wits were on three points and just six players rooted to the bottom with no points to show for.
Fresh from winning Zambia a silver medal at the Africa Youth Chess Championship Under-12 section in South Africa, Thomas, who was seeded 153 going into the competition, won all his five games to share the lead with Joshua Mulauzi, who he meets in the sixth round.
Also joining Thomas at the top was Vukani Kakanda and Eddie Phiri who were also facing off in the sixth round.
Sitting half a point behind was Pascal Kangwa and Erick Siyamuyuwa, the two also paired to play each other in the sixth round.
Chess Federation of Zambia (CFZ) national tournaments coordinator Chanda Nsakanya was happy with the turn out and the levels of competition saying this showed the game had a bright future in Zambia going by the numbers and competitiveness.
The players are drawn from across the country and this tournament would give them the vital ELO rating that would allow them further their chess careers.
Zambian female junior star Lorita Mwango was in the pack of 24 players on four points.
Six more were tied on 3.5 points and then 42 players trying out their wits were on three points and just six players rooted to the bottom with no points to show for.
Articles about Zambian Chess
Daniel Jere - 2011 Zambian Sportsman of the Year
STANLEY CHUMFWA: The Eternal King of Zambian Chess
The Zambia Chess national team was the most overachieving team in the world at the recent 2010 Chess Olympiads, the world’s biggest international chess tournament. They were ranked 121st but managed to come out at position 47th (out of 148 countries) by the end of the tournament. The obvious reason for their poor ranking at the beginning of the tournament is that the members of the team are not known in the world, therefore they have very low chess ratings as individuals and collectively. And they are unrated because they have not participated in enough international tournaments to be fairly rated. Zambia is too poor to send its chess players to such tournaments. Or rather, all the money goes to the one team that underachieves consistently these days: the national soccer team.
And the most underrated chess player in the world has to be the Zambian team captain, Stanley Chumfwa. For many years, Chumfwa has been the most dreaded chess player in Zambia. At any local tournament, every player instantly loses heart upon learning that he has the misfortune of being paired against the unpredictable Chumfwa in the next round. Thus a game against Chumfwa is normally lost even before it starts! At the last tournament I saw him participate in, he had a Christian book on his table (written by classical evangelist Smith Wigglesworth) on how to pray for the sick or something, but this did not tame the merciless aggression with which he mutilated his opponents!
Despite this tough competitiveness on the board, Chumfwa is fondly liked by all the chess players in Zambia, because he is completely approachable and he characteristically respects every opponent he is playing against, always taking every game very seriously, no matter how lowly ranked his opponent is. He is also very liberal with offering his knowledge to the other upcoming players and he feels no need to make them acknowledge his superiority through endless boasting, as some lesser “masters” do. His own kid brother was thus so inspired by these lessons at home that he has managed to also make it into the envied Zambia national team of about half a dozen players. Almost every member of the national team is not ashamed to credit the development of their game to the critical advice given to them by their generous captain and the instructive games they have played against him over the years.
Chumfwa’s own style of play is distinctively intuitive, sometimes shockingly so. At the last Olympiads, for example, he played one particular [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1597194|game] against a grandmaster that confounded many chess analysts and was regarded as one of the best games of the tournament (which included all the best players in the world). Not even the grandmaster could see why Chumfwa suddenly started giving away his biggest pieces in this game as if he had gone mad; his plan was not foreseeable. It only became clear after the grandmaster found himself unable to continue play and resigned the game to the little known Zambian champion shortly afterwards. This unorthodox onslaught against such a strong opponent was so spectacular that not even Gary Kasparov could have saved the resulting position; it was partly reminiscent of the super-cryptic play of the great American genius Bobby Fischer, and partly like the overbearing strategic motions of Anatoly Karpov.
The strongest chess players in the world are known for their extraordinarily high intuition, although some rely on this mysterious part of human psychology more than others do. They have this innate ability to sort of just feel that a certain move is powerful without consciously knowing why at first. They just feel strongly driven to that move and they spend time trying to understand why the move is “calling” when all immediate evidence shows that the move could lose some important material or violate chess common sense, and yet it could possess the greatest ultimate strategic advantage for the player. The trick, of course, is to follow such a move with the most forceful logical moves or else it ends up being merely suicidal, which is why inexperienced players are advised never to try this at home! The current biggest sensation in the world of chess, 20 year old Magnus Carlsen of Norway whom many predict will become the greatest player in chess history, is also best known for his extremely intuitive style of play. According to his personal coach, former world champion Garry Kasparov, Carlsen plays like Kasparov’s former nemesis, Anatoly Karpov. Karpov was indeed known for his overpowering positional intuition that seemed to create new potential energy in his pieces as they found the precisely correct squares on the board, no matter how minor the pieces were; they magically sapped the life out of his opponents’ pieces just by their simple patterns, remotely incapacitating them slowly but surely until a final quick combination would put them out of their misery (he was thus nicknamed “the boa constrictor”).
Stanley Chumfwa is also in this league. In the past he did not have as much confidence as he presently does whenever he played in the few international tournaments Zambia participated in. The fact that the team played so few games against people from foreign nations must have contributed to his low psychological preparation in those days, not knowing what to expect from these highly acclaimed experienced players. But with time, he seems to have built the self-confidence required to show his superior abilities to the world, particularly as the internet now enables anyone to see the games of all the great players around the world. A web site like chessgames.com records just about every game played by any strong player in every major international tournament. As he has looked at the games of other great players, he has slowly begun to realize that there is really no one who is necessarily at a level that is higher than him. Like Neo in The Matrix, he now finally believes he is at least as “chosen” as the most elite grandmasters out there.
And this is the truth. At the Olympiads, Chumfwa did not lose a single game, which is a feat that is only typical of the top grandmasters of the world. They can draw some games, but they don’t easily lose because they have the ability to find a drawing combination even when they are in trouble, especially when playing against lesser talents. The fact that he was on the top board for the Zambian team means that he kept meeting the strongest players from the opposing national teams.
What makes his achievement even more remarkable is that he is able to do this without committing himself fully to the game. Again because of the Zambian economy, it is practically impossible for a Zambian to become a full-time professional chess player, spending his day studying the latest ideas in chess theory and examining the games of his likely opponents, as professional players in other countries do. Chumfwa can only do this in the little spare time he finds after work at an insurance company. Like Karpov, he went to university to study mathematics (at the University of Zambia) some years ago and he managed to graduate in this impossibly tough course despite committing most of his time to chess.
The Zambian grandmaster, Amon Simutowe, whose own style was partly shaped by the older Chumfwa, has had to suffer some steep financial strain because he took it upon himself to raise his chess rating in the world by going to tournaments with his own personal savings. That’s how he reached the grandmaster ranking. But this has cost him so much financially that the other players dare not try to emulate him. Simutowe did not even play in the team that came 47th in the world (and joint first in Africa – with Egypt), because he wanted a discussion opened on the possibility of the Chess Federation of Zambia helping him recoup even a fraction of the money he has spent in the past, his logic being that his achievements have already brought some glory to his nation. Unfortunately, the discussion ended in a stalemate at the opening stage. It is quite sad that Zambia would rather put all the money into soccer when the probability that the soccer team will achieve any meaningful glory any time soon is now officially zero. Faithfully following the Einsteinian definition of insanity, they keep pouring more and more money into that game, each time hoping that the result will be different.
One cannot help but wonder what would happen if just 1 percent of the money that is put into soccer was put into chess instead. Just one percent. And by that I specifically mean sending the top players to tournaments where they can showcase their talents. It doesn’t have to start with the whole team, they can just send two players for now. Or they can even just hire a national chess coach – some semi-retired grandmaster like Anatoly Karpov (for much less than they pay the pointless Zambia soccer coaches).
The simple effort that Simutowe put into raising his ratings resulted in a historical achievement: he became the first person in sub-saharan Africa to become a grandmaster and only the third black human being in history. There was a time when the irrational white supremacists were rhetorically using the failure of black chess players to achieve such high levels in chess as empirical evidence of black mental inferiority from birth. The achievement of Zambian-born Amon Simutowe, and before him, Jamaican-born African American Maurice Ashley, and Colombian-born Pontus Carlsson of Sweden, put an end to this selective fallacy. What they are now learning is that the grandmasters are already there in Africa, but they simply cannot afford to travel to places that grant this title.
Thus when the dynamic Amon Simutowe last played in a local tournament some years ago, after getting a couple of grandmaster norms from his self-sponsored foreign travels, he could still not crack the intractable Stanley Chumfwa and he ceded the Zambian crown back to him, as the perennial defending champion remained indomitable at both classical and speed chess (blitz). Grandmaster Simutowe was joint second or third with about six other unheard-of, unrated Zambian players. This simply shows how strong the game is in Zambia, for whatever historical or anthropological reasons. And yet Stanley Chumfwa is officially not a grandmaster and not even the lower rank of International Master, merely because he can’t afford the plane ticket to these rating tournaments.
What we need to have is a private fund that is dedicated to producing Zambian grandmasters. People like Chumfwa are already in the class of elite grandmasters. The man has so much talent that he can even play simultaneously against a couple of other good players while he is blindfolded (Magnus Carlsen also does this). But without the money, this amazing talent remains hidden from the world. He is like our world champion female boxer, Esther Phiri, before National Milling Corporation decided to put a bit of money into her dreams. She already had world champion talent in her, but she needed someone to just help her travel to places where the wrong women were keeping her belt!
See the full game mentioned in article: [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1597194]
Other games by Stanley Chumfwa: [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=79461]
”Author is founder and president of Zambia Online (www.zambia.co.zm). He can be emailed at [email protected]. Please contact the author if you wish to help the most promising Zambian chess players achieve the Grandmaster rank.”__
The Zambia Chess national team was the most overachieving team in the world at the recent 2010 Chess Olympiads, the world’s biggest international chess tournament. They were ranked 121st but managed to come out at position 47th (out of 148 countries) by the end of the tournament. The obvious reason for their poor ranking at the beginning of the tournament is that the members of the team are not known in the world, therefore they have very low chess ratings as individuals and collectively. And they are unrated because they have not participated in enough international tournaments to be fairly rated. Zambia is too poor to send its chess players to such tournaments. Or rather, all the money goes to the one team that underachieves consistently these days: the national soccer team.
And the most underrated chess player in the world has to be the Zambian team captain, Stanley Chumfwa. For many years, Chumfwa has been the most dreaded chess player in Zambia. At any local tournament, every player instantly loses heart upon learning that he has the misfortune of being paired against the unpredictable Chumfwa in the next round. Thus a game against Chumfwa is normally lost even before it starts! At the last tournament I saw him participate in, he had a Christian book on his table (written by classical evangelist Smith Wigglesworth) on how to pray for the sick or something, but this did not tame the merciless aggression with which he mutilated his opponents!
Despite this tough competitiveness on the board, Chumfwa is fondly liked by all the chess players in Zambia, because he is completely approachable and he characteristically respects every opponent he is playing against, always taking every game very seriously, no matter how lowly ranked his opponent is. He is also very liberal with offering his knowledge to the other upcoming players and he feels no need to make them acknowledge his superiority through endless boasting, as some lesser “masters” do. His own kid brother was thus so inspired by these lessons at home that he has managed to also make it into the envied Zambia national team of about half a dozen players. Almost every member of the national team is not ashamed to credit the development of their game to the critical advice given to them by their generous captain and the instructive games they have played against him over the years.
Chumfwa’s own style of play is distinctively intuitive, sometimes shockingly so. At the last Olympiads, for example, he played one particular [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1597194|game] against a grandmaster that confounded many chess analysts and was regarded as one of the best games of the tournament (which included all the best players in the world). Not even the grandmaster could see why Chumfwa suddenly started giving away his biggest pieces in this game as if he had gone mad; his plan was not foreseeable. It only became clear after the grandmaster found himself unable to continue play and resigned the game to the little known Zambian champion shortly afterwards. This unorthodox onslaught against such a strong opponent was so spectacular that not even Gary Kasparov could have saved the resulting position; it was partly reminiscent of the super-cryptic play of the great American genius Bobby Fischer, and partly like the overbearing strategic motions of Anatoly Karpov.
The strongest chess players in the world are known for their extraordinarily high intuition, although some rely on this mysterious part of human psychology more than others do. They have this innate ability to sort of just feel that a certain move is powerful without consciously knowing why at first. They just feel strongly driven to that move and they spend time trying to understand why the move is “calling” when all immediate evidence shows that the move could lose some important material or violate chess common sense, and yet it could possess the greatest ultimate strategic advantage for the player. The trick, of course, is to follow such a move with the most forceful logical moves or else it ends up being merely suicidal, which is why inexperienced players are advised never to try this at home! The current biggest sensation in the world of chess, 20 year old Magnus Carlsen of Norway whom many predict will become the greatest player in chess history, is also best known for his extremely intuitive style of play. According to his personal coach, former world champion Garry Kasparov, Carlsen plays like Kasparov’s former nemesis, Anatoly Karpov. Karpov was indeed known for his overpowering positional intuition that seemed to create new potential energy in his pieces as they found the precisely correct squares on the board, no matter how minor the pieces were; they magically sapped the life out of his opponents’ pieces just by their simple patterns, remotely incapacitating them slowly but surely until a final quick combination would put them out of their misery (he was thus nicknamed “the boa constrictor”).
Stanley Chumfwa is also in this league. In the past he did not have as much confidence as he presently does whenever he played in the few international tournaments Zambia participated in. The fact that the team played so few games against people from foreign nations must have contributed to his low psychological preparation in those days, not knowing what to expect from these highly acclaimed experienced players. But with time, he seems to have built the self-confidence required to show his superior abilities to the world, particularly as the internet now enables anyone to see the games of all the great players around the world. A web site like chessgames.com records just about every game played by any strong player in every major international tournament. As he has looked at the games of other great players, he has slowly begun to realize that there is really no one who is necessarily at a level that is higher than him. Like Neo in The Matrix, he now finally believes he is at least as “chosen” as the most elite grandmasters out there.
And this is the truth. At the Olympiads, Chumfwa did not lose a single game, which is a feat that is only typical of the top grandmasters of the world. They can draw some games, but they don’t easily lose because they have the ability to find a drawing combination even when they are in trouble, especially when playing against lesser talents. The fact that he was on the top board for the Zambian team means that he kept meeting the strongest players from the opposing national teams.
What makes his achievement even more remarkable is that he is able to do this without committing himself fully to the game. Again because of the Zambian economy, it is practically impossible for a Zambian to become a full-time professional chess player, spending his day studying the latest ideas in chess theory and examining the games of his likely opponents, as professional players in other countries do. Chumfwa can only do this in the little spare time he finds after work at an insurance company. Like Karpov, he went to university to study mathematics (at the University of Zambia) some years ago and he managed to graduate in this impossibly tough course despite committing most of his time to chess.
The Zambian grandmaster, Amon Simutowe, whose own style was partly shaped by the older Chumfwa, has had to suffer some steep financial strain because he took it upon himself to raise his chess rating in the world by going to tournaments with his own personal savings. That’s how he reached the grandmaster ranking. But this has cost him so much financially that the other players dare not try to emulate him. Simutowe did not even play in the team that came 47th in the world (and joint first in Africa – with Egypt), because he wanted a discussion opened on the possibility of the Chess Federation of Zambia helping him recoup even a fraction of the money he has spent in the past, his logic being that his achievements have already brought some glory to his nation. Unfortunately, the discussion ended in a stalemate at the opening stage. It is quite sad that Zambia would rather put all the money into soccer when the probability that the soccer team will achieve any meaningful glory any time soon is now officially zero. Faithfully following the Einsteinian definition of insanity, they keep pouring more and more money into that game, each time hoping that the result will be different.
One cannot help but wonder what would happen if just 1 percent of the money that is put into soccer was put into chess instead. Just one percent. And by that I specifically mean sending the top players to tournaments where they can showcase their talents. It doesn’t have to start with the whole team, they can just send two players for now. Or they can even just hire a national chess coach – some semi-retired grandmaster like Anatoly Karpov (for much less than they pay the pointless Zambia soccer coaches).
The simple effort that Simutowe put into raising his ratings resulted in a historical achievement: he became the first person in sub-saharan Africa to become a grandmaster and only the third black human being in history. There was a time when the irrational white supremacists were rhetorically using the failure of black chess players to achieve such high levels in chess as empirical evidence of black mental inferiority from birth. The achievement of Zambian-born Amon Simutowe, and before him, Jamaican-born African American Maurice Ashley, and Colombian-born Pontus Carlsson of Sweden, put an end to this selective fallacy. What they are now learning is that the grandmasters are already there in Africa, but they simply cannot afford to travel to places that grant this title.
Thus when the dynamic Amon Simutowe last played in a local tournament some years ago, after getting a couple of grandmaster norms from his self-sponsored foreign travels, he could still not crack the intractable Stanley Chumfwa and he ceded the Zambian crown back to him, as the perennial defending champion remained indomitable at both classical and speed chess (blitz). Grandmaster Simutowe was joint second or third with about six other unheard-of, unrated Zambian players. This simply shows how strong the game is in Zambia, for whatever historical or anthropological reasons. And yet Stanley Chumfwa is officially not a grandmaster and not even the lower rank of International Master, merely because he can’t afford the plane ticket to these rating tournaments.
What we need to have is a private fund that is dedicated to producing Zambian grandmasters. People like Chumfwa are already in the class of elite grandmasters. The man has so much talent that he can even play simultaneously against a couple of other good players while he is blindfolded (Magnus Carlsen also does this). But without the money, this amazing talent remains hidden from the world. He is like our world champion female boxer, Esther Phiri, before National Milling Corporation decided to put a bit of money into her dreams. She already had world champion talent in her, but she needed someone to just help her travel to places where the wrong women were keeping her belt!
--
See the full game mentioned in article: [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1597194]
Other games by Stanley Chumfwa: [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=79461]
--
__”Author is founder and president of Zambia Online (www.zambia.co.zm). He can be emailed at [email protected]. Please contact the author if you wish to help the most promising Zambian chess players achieve the Grandmaster rank.”__
By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA -
THE Chess Federation of Zambia (CFZ) has said 2011 Zambian sportswoman of the year Epah Tembo cannot quit international chess just yet as she was the anchor of the team the federation is putting up for next month’s Africa Junior Championship in Tunisia.
Speaking for the first time since the Grand Master Candidate angrily announced she was retiring for national duty citing lack of sponsorship, CFZ national tournaments co-ordinator Chanda Nsakanya said Tembo was a good chess player who had a bright future ahead of her.
Nsakanya said Tembo has not formerly told the federation of her retirement but insisted she would be in the Zambia team for the Africa Junior Championships slated for next year.
“She can’t retire just yet. She is young, good and has a bright and long future ahead of her. She is actually in our plans for next month’s Africa Junior chess championship in Tunisia next year,” Nsakanya said.
By YVONNE SAKALA -FORMER Chess Federation of Zambia (CFZ) Zone-Four chess tournament director Bwalya Chileya has been elected Zonal chairperson after beating Moses Ntemena in the elections held at the Russia Centre in Lusaka.
In winning the two-year tenure of office, Chileya polled an overwhelming 33 votes against Ntemena’s paltry two votes.
CFZ treasurer Dennis Nyemba, who was the Retuning Officer, described the elections held at the weekend as being free and fair saying they were held under a conducive environment.
Chess national champion Stanley Chumfya is the vice-chairperson after polling 32 votes against six for Charles Mununkila with the position of secretary going to Lackson Chansa, who was unopposed.
Stanely Ngulube and Lesily Chikuse both went unopposed for the positions of tournament director and deputy respectively as former Copperbelt Closed champion Andrew Kayonde also went unopposed for the position of treasurer.
Committee members are Linus Katebe, Kiddy Makwaya and Women Fide Master (WFM) Lorita Mwango.
And Chileya in an interview following his victory promised to improve accountability in the administration of chess funds in the Zone besides embarking on a club recruitment drive for the league and also financially assist clubs which were failing to cope.
Chileya said that both the Government and private schools will be also encouraged to participate in chess activities to help with development of the sport in Zone Four region.
Outgoing Zonal chairperson Kennedy Phiri said good leadership skills should help take the Zone-Four chess to greater heights and also organise more chess tournaments to ensure the leagues was running smoothly.
Phiri pointed out that he had left a capable generation to take the chess in zone 4 to the top level and thanked the Russian Centre of Science for providing the venue for Zone-Four league games.
He, however, said it was unfortunate that the Zone-Four had been running without sponsorship from the corporate world and hoped that next season, the league will be able to attract sponsorship.
When asked if he had shortcomings during his tenure, Phiri said that he had no problems at Zonal level except the unfortunate events where he had unfinished issues with CFZ because the mother body failed to give an audience the Zone-Four.
Chess Stars Dominate Awards - By DIANA MUTAKAFIMBO
CHESS stars Daniel Jere and Epah Tembo were last night crowned 2011 sportsman and sportswoman-of-the-year, respectively at the National Sports Council of Zambia (NSCZ) Awards at Mulungushi International Conference Centre in Lusaka.
And Zambia Motor Sport Association president Marco Comana won the administrator of the year award while soccer trainer Keegan Mumba took the coach of the year award
Jere, who is an International Master, beat United States-based sprinter Gerald Phiri and reigning Mr Zambia bodybuilder Sylvester Mwila for the award.
Jere’s achievements in 2011 included a silver medal win in the individual category of the All-Africa Games in Maputo.
On the local scene, Jere was crowned Zambia Cosed champion.
Female ace, Tembo who is a Woman Candidate Master (WCM) scooped gold at the African Youth Chess Championship Zambia hosted last year.
The whiz kid who is only 18 years came on the scene at 11 years and has been consistent throughout her career.
Under-20 international Evans Kangwa who has since been elevated to the under-23 national soccer team scooped the junior sportsman of the year award, beating golfer Dayne Moore and rider Dima Firks from Motor Cross.
Kangwa who scooped the golden boot award during the 2011 Council of Southern Africa Football Association (COSAFA) Youth championship steered his team to defend their title for the third consecutive time.
Kangwa plies his trade with local club Nkana and has been outstanding both locally and internationally.
His under-20 national trainer Keegan Mumba won the best coach of the year award by beating Lloyd Kyusa from bodybuilding and netball national team coach Davis Twininge.
Mumba who is in Mali with the under-20 was the spotlight coach at 2011 COSAFA youth championship in Botswana where he tutored his side to victory.
On the local scene, Mumba last season steered Super Division side Konkola Blades from a middle of the road side to a respectable third-place finish.
The under-20 national soccer team also won the Youth Team Performance Award while the women’s rugby national team scooped the National Team Performance award.
Kyusa did not walk away empty handed as he was given a recognition award for contributing immensely to the sport by opening a gymnasium in Kanyama Township in Lusaka, using proceeds from his barbershop business.
The other recognition awards went to the Deaf Association of Zambia and Mudenda from Martial arts.
The junior sportswoman of the year is golfer Davinshi Naik who has been an outstanding junior golfer, playing out of Lusaka Golf Club.
Naik has won several local championships and participated in international championships. He beat Tojana Mudenda from the Zambia Martial Arts Federation and sportswoman of the year Tembo for the title.
To win the administrator of the year award, Comana bettered Lewis Ncube and Moono Mwila from the Chess Federation of Zambia and Zambia Ladies Golf Union, respectively.
The chairman’s award was posthumously awarded to the late veteran sports administrator David Phiri who chaired the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) and the Zambia Golf Union.
Phiri was FAZ chairman when the national team reached the quarter-finals at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.
The Zambia Chess national team was the most overachieving team in the world at the recent 2010 Chess Olympiads, the world’s biggest international chess tournament. They were ranked 121st but managed to come out at position 47th (out of 148 countries) by the end of the tournament. The obvious reason for their poor ranking at the beginning of the tournament is that the members of the team are not known in the world, therefore they have very low chess ratings as individuals and collectively. And they are unrated because they have not participated in enough international tournaments to be fairly rated. Zambia is too poor to send its chess players to such tournaments. Or rather, all the money goes to the one team that underachieves consistently these days: the national soccer team.
And the most underrated chess player in the world has to be the Zambian team captain, Stanley Chumfwa. For many years, Chumfwa has been the most dreaded chess player in Zambia. At any local tournament, every player instantly loses heart upon learning that he has the misfortune of being paired against the unpredictable Chumfwa in the next round. Thus a game against Chumfwa is normally lost even before it starts! At the last tournament I saw him participate in, he had a Christian book on his table (written by classical evangelist Smith Wigglesworth) on how to pray for the sick or something, but this did not tame the merciless aggression with which he mutilated his opponents!
Despite this tough competitiveness on the board, Chumfwa is fondly liked by all the chess players in Zambia, because he is completely approachable and he characteristically respects every opponent he is playing against, always taking every game very seriously, no matter how lowly ranked his opponent is. He is also very liberal with offering his knowledge to the other upcoming players and he feels no need to make them acknowledge his superiority through endless boasting, as some lesser “masters” do. His own kid brother was thus so inspired by these lessons at home that he has managed to also make it into the envied Zambia national team of about half a dozen players. Almost every member of the national team is not ashamed to credit the development of their game to the critical advice given to them by their generous captain and the instructive games they have played against him over the years.
Chumfwa’s own style of play is distinctively intuitive, sometimes shockingly so. At the last Olympiads, for example, he played one particular [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1597194|game] against a grandmaster that confounded many chess analysts and was regarded as one of the best games of the tournament (which included all the best players in the world). Not even the grandmaster could see why Chumfwa suddenly started giving away his biggest pieces in this game as if he had gone mad; his plan was not foreseeable. It only became clear after the grandmaster found himself unable to continue play and resigned the game to the little known Zambian champion shortly afterwards. This unorthodox onslaught against such a strong opponent was so spectacular that not even Gary Kasparov could have saved the resulting position; it was partly reminiscent of the super-cryptic play of the great American genius Bobby Fischer, and partly like the overbearing strategic motions of Anatoly Karpov.
The strongest chess players in the world are known for their extraordinarily high intuition, although some rely on this mysterious part of human psychology more than others do. They have this innate ability to sort of just feel that a certain move is powerful without consciously knowing why at first. They just feel strongly driven to that move and they spend time trying to understand why the move is “calling” when all immediate evidence shows that the move could lose some important material or violate chess common sense, and yet it could possess the greatest ultimate strategic advantage for the player. The trick, of course, is to follow such a move with the most forceful logical moves or else it ends up being merely suicidal, which is why inexperienced players are advised never to try this at home! The current biggest sensation in the world of chess, 20 year old Magnus Carlsen of Norway whom many predict will become the greatest player in chess history, is also best known for his extremely intuitive style of play. According to his personal coach, former world champion Garry Kasparov, Carlsen plays like Kasparov’s former nemesis, Anatoly Karpov. Karpov was indeed known for his overpowering positional intuition that seemed to create new potential energy in his pieces as they found the precisely correct squares on the board, no matter how minor the pieces were; they magically sapped the life out of his opponents’ pieces just by their simple patterns, remotely incapacitating them slowly but surely until a final quick combination would put them out of their misery (he was thus nicknamed “the boa constrictor”).
Stanley Chumfwa is also in this league. In the past he did not have as much confidence as he presently does whenever he played in the few international tournaments Zambia participated in. The fact that the team played so few games against people from foreign nations must have contributed to his low psychological preparation in those days, not knowing what to expect from these highly acclaimed experienced players. But with time, he seems to have built the self-confidence required to show his superior abilities to the world, particularly as the internet now enables anyone to see the games of all the great players around the world. A web site like chessgames.com records just about every game played by any strong player in every major international tournament. As he has looked at the games of other great players, he has slowly begun to realize that there is really no one who is necessarily at a level that is higher than him. Like Neo in The Matrix, he now finally believes he is at least as “chosen” as the most elite grandmasters out there.
And this is the truth. At the Olympiads, Chumfwa did not lose a single game, which is a feat that is only typical of the top grandmasters of the world. They can draw some games, but they don’t easily lose because they have the ability to find a drawing combination even when they are in trouble, especially when playing against lesser talents. The fact that he was on the top board for the Zambian team means that he kept meeting the strongest players from the opposing national teams.
What makes his achievement even more remarkable is that he is able to do this without committing himself fully to the game. Again because of the Zambian economy, it is practically impossible for a Zambian to become a full-time professional chess player, spending his day studying the latest ideas in chess theory and examining the games of his likely opponents, as professional players in other countries do. Chumfwa can only do this in the little spare time he finds after work at an insurance company. Like Karpov, he went to university to study mathematics (at the University of Zambia) some years ago and he managed to graduate in this impossibly tough course despite committing most of his time to chess.
The Zambian grandmaster, Amon Simutowe, whose own style was partly shaped by the older Chumfwa, has had to suffer some steep financial strain because he took it upon himself to raise his chess rating in the world by going to tournaments with his own personal savings. That’s how he reached the grandmaster ranking. But this has cost him so much financially that the other players dare not try to emulate him. Simutowe did not even play in the team that came 47th in the world (and joint first in Africa – with Egypt), because he wanted a discussion opened on the possibility of the Chess Federation of Zambia helping him recoup even a fraction of the money he has spent in the past, his logic being that his achievements have already brought some glory to his nation. Unfortunately, the discussion ended in a stalemate at the opening stage. It is quite sad that Zambia would rather put all the money into soccer when the probability that the soccer team will achieve any meaningful glory any time soon is now officially zero. Faithfully following the Einsteinian definition of insanity, they keep pouring more and more money into that game, each time hoping that the result will be different.
One cannot help but wonder what would happen if just 1 percent of the money that is put into soccer was put into chess instead. Just one percent. And by that I specifically mean sending the top players to tournaments where they can showcase their talents. It doesn’t have to start with the whole team, they can just send two players for now. Or they can even just hire a national chess coach – some semi-retired grandmaster like Anatoly Karpov (for much less than they pay the pointless Zambia soccer coaches).
The simple effort that Simutowe put into raising his ratings resulted in a historical achievement: he became the first person in sub-saharan Africa to become a grandmaster and only the third black human being in history. There was a time when the irrational white supremacists were rhetorically using the failure of black chess players to achieve such high levels in chess as empirical evidence of black mental inferiority from birth. The achievement of Zambian-born Amon Simutowe, and before him, Jamaican-born African American Maurice Ashley, and Colombian-born Pontus Carlsson of Sweden, put an end to this selective fallacy. What they are now learning is that the grandmasters are already there in Africa, but they simply cannot afford to travel to places that grant this title.
Thus when the dynamic Amon Simutowe last played in a local tournament some years ago, after getting a couple of grandmaster norms from his self-sponsored foreign travels, he could still not crack the intractable Stanley Chumfwa and he ceded the Zambian crown back to him, as the perennial defending champion remained indomitable at both classical and speed chess (blitz). Grandmaster Simutowe was joint second or third with about six other unheard-of, unrated Zambian players. This simply shows how strong the game is in Zambia, for whatever historical or anthropological reasons. And yet Stanley Chumfwa is officially not a grandmaster and not even the lower rank of International Master, merely because he can’t afford the plane ticket to these rating tournaments.
What we need to have is a private fund that is dedicated to producing Zambian grandmasters. People like Chumfwa are already in the class of elite grandmasters. The man has so much talent that he can even play simultaneously against a couple of other good players while he is blindfolded (Magnus Carlsen also does this). But without the money, this amazing talent remains hidden from the world. He is like our world champion female boxer, Esther Phiri, before National Milling Corporation decided to put a bit of money into her dreams. She already had world champion talent in her, but she needed someone to just help her travel to places where the wrong women were keeping her belt!
See the full game mentioned in article: [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1597194]
Other games by Stanley Chumfwa: [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=79461]
”Author is founder and president of Zambia Online (www.zambia.co.zm). He can be emailed at [email protected]. Please contact the author if you wish to help the most promising Zambian chess players achieve the Grandmaster rank.”__
The Zambia Chess national team was the most overachieving team in the world at the recent 2010 Chess Olympiads, the world’s biggest international chess tournament. They were ranked 121st but managed to come out at position 47th (out of 148 countries) by the end of the tournament. The obvious reason for their poor ranking at the beginning of the tournament is that the members of the team are not known in the world, therefore they have very low chess ratings as individuals and collectively. And they are unrated because they have not participated in enough international tournaments to be fairly rated. Zambia is too poor to send its chess players to such tournaments. Or rather, all the money goes to the one team that underachieves consistently these days: the national soccer team.
And the most underrated chess player in the world has to be the Zambian team captain, Stanley Chumfwa. For many years, Chumfwa has been the most dreaded chess player in Zambia. At any local tournament, every player instantly loses heart upon learning that he has the misfortune of being paired against the unpredictable Chumfwa in the next round. Thus a game against Chumfwa is normally lost even before it starts! At the last tournament I saw him participate in, he had a Christian book on his table (written by classical evangelist Smith Wigglesworth) on how to pray for the sick or something, but this did not tame the merciless aggression with which he mutilated his opponents!
Despite this tough competitiveness on the board, Chumfwa is fondly liked by all the chess players in Zambia, because he is completely approachable and he characteristically respects every opponent he is playing against, always taking every game very seriously, no matter how lowly ranked his opponent is. He is also very liberal with offering his knowledge to the other upcoming players and he feels no need to make them acknowledge his superiority through endless boasting, as some lesser “masters” do. His own kid brother was thus so inspired by these lessons at home that he has managed to also make it into the envied Zambia national team of about half a dozen players. Almost every member of the national team is not ashamed to credit the development of their game to the critical advice given to them by their generous captain and the instructive games they have played against him over the years.
Chumfwa’s own style of play is distinctively intuitive, sometimes shockingly so. At the last Olympiads, for example, he played one particular [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1597194|game] against a grandmaster that confounded many chess analysts and was regarded as one of the best games of the tournament (which included all the best players in the world). Not even the grandmaster could see why Chumfwa suddenly started giving away his biggest pieces in this game as if he had gone mad; his plan was not foreseeable. It only became clear after the grandmaster found himself unable to continue play and resigned the game to the little known Zambian champion shortly afterwards. This unorthodox onslaught against such a strong opponent was so spectacular that not even Gary Kasparov could have saved the resulting position; it was partly reminiscent of the super-cryptic play of the great American genius Bobby Fischer, and partly like the overbearing strategic motions of Anatoly Karpov.
The strongest chess players in the world are known for their extraordinarily high intuition, although some rely on this mysterious part of human psychology more than others do. They have this innate ability to sort of just feel that a certain move is powerful without consciously knowing why at first. They just feel strongly driven to that move and they spend time trying to understand why the move is “calling” when all immediate evidence shows that the move could lose some important material or violate chess common sense, and yet it could possess the greatest ultimate strategic advantage for the player. The trick, of course, is to follow such a move with the most forceful logical moves or else it ends up being merely suicidal, which is why inexperienced players are advised never to try this at home! The current biggest sensation in the world of chess, 20 year old Magnus Carlsen of Norway whom many predict will become the greatest player in chess history, is also best known for his extremely intuitive style of play. According to his personal coach, former world champion Garry Kasparov, Carlsen plays like Kasparov’s former nemesis, Anatoly Karpov. Karpov was indeed known for his overpowering positional intuition that seemed to create new potential energy in his pieces as they found the precisely correct squares on the board, no matter how minor the pieces were; they magically sapped the life out of his opponents’ pieces just by their simple patterns, remotely incapacitating them slowly but surely until a final quick combination would put them out of their misery (he was thus nicknamed “the boa constrictor”).
Stanley Chumfwa is also in this league. In the past he did not have as much confidence as he presently does whenever he played in the few international tournaments Zambia participated in. The fact that the team played so few games against people from foreign nations must have contributed to his low psychological preparation in those days, not knowing what to expect from these highly acclaimed experienced players. But with time, he seems to have built the self-confidence required to show his superior abilities to the world, particularly as the internet now enables anyone to see the games of all the great players around the world. A web site like chessgames.com records just about every game played by any strong player in every major international tournament. As he has looked at the games of other great players, he has slowly begun to realize that there is really no one who is necessarily at a level that is higher than him. Like Neo in The Matrix, he now finally believes he is at least as “chosen” as the most elite grandmasters out there.
And this is the truth. At the Olympiads, Chumfwa did not lose a single game, which is a feat that is only typical of the top grandmasters of the world. They can draw some games, but they don’t easily lose because they have the ability to find a drawing combination even when they are in trouble, especially when playing against lesser talents. The fact that he was on the top board for the Zambian team means that he kept meeting the strongest players from the opposing national teams.
What makes his achievement even more remarkable is that he is able to do this without committing himself fully to the game. Again because of the Zambian economy, it is practically impossible for a Zambian to become a full-time professional chess player, spending his day studying the latest ideas in chess theory and examining the games of his likely opponents, as professional players in other countries do. Chumfwa can only do this in the little spare time he finds after work at an insurance company. Like Karpov, he went to university to study mathematics (at the University of Zambia) some years ago and he managed to graduate in this impossibly tough course despite committing most of his time to chess.
The Zambian grandmaster, Amon Simutowe, whose own style was partly shaped by the older Chumfwa, has had to suffer some steep financial strain because he took it upon himself to raise his chess rating in the world by going to tournaments with his own personal savings. That’s how he reached the grandmaster ranking. But this has cost him so much financially that the other players dare not try to emulate him. Simutowe did not even play in the team that came 47th in the world (and joint first in Africa – with Egypt), because he wanted a discussion opened on the possibility of the Chess Federation of Zambia helping him recoup even a fraction of the money he has spent in the past, his logic being that his achievements have already brought some glory to his nation. Unfortunately, the discussion ended in a stalemate at the opening stage. It is quite sad that Zambia would rather put all the money into soccer when the probability that the soccer team will achieve any meaningful glory any time soon is now officially zero. Faithfully following the Einsteinian definition of insanity, they keep pouring more and more money into that game, each time hoping that the result will be different.
One cannot help but wonder what would happen if just 1 percent of the money that is put into soccer was put into chess instead. Just one percent. And by that I specifically mean sending the top players to tournaments where they can showcase their talents. It doesn’t have to start with the whole team, they can just send two players for now. Or they can even just hire a national chess coach – some semi-retired grandmaster like Anatoly Karpov (for much less than they pay the pointless Zambia soccer coaches).
The simple effort that Simutowe put into raising his ratings resulted in a historical achievement: he became the first person in sub-saharan Africa to become a grandmaster and only the third black human being in history. There was a time when the irrational white supremacists were rhetorically using the failure of black chess players to achieve such high levels in chess as empirical evidence of black mental inferiority from birth. The achievement of Zambian-born Amon Simutowe, and before him, Jamaican-born African American Maurice Ashley, and Colombian-born Pontus Carlsson of Sweden, put an end to this selective fallacy. What they are now learning is that the grandmasters are already there in Africa, but they simply cannot afford to travel to places that grant this title.
Thus when the dynamic Amon Simutowe last played in a local tournament some years ago, after getting a couple of grandmaster norms from his self-sponsored foreign travels, he could still not crack the intractable Stanley Chumfwa and he ceded the Zambian crown back to him, as the perennial defending champion remained indomitable at both classical and speed chess (blitz). Grandmaster Simutowe was joint second or third with about six other unheard-of, unrated Zambian players. This simply shows how strong the game is in Zambia, for whatever historical or anthropological reasons. And yet Stanley Chumfwa is officially not a grandmaster and not even the lower rank of International Master, merely because he can’t afford the plane ticket to these rating tournaments.
What we need to have is a private fund that is dedicated to producing Zambian grandmasters. People like Chumfwa are already in the class of elite grandmasters. The man has so much talent that he can even play simultaneously against a couple of other good players while he is blindfolded (Magnus Carlsen also does this). But without the money, this amazing talent remains hidden from the world. He is like our world champion female boxer, Esther Phiri, before National Milling Corporation decided to put a bit of money into her dreams. She already had world champion talent in her, but she needed someone to just help her travel to places where the wrong women were keeping her belt!
--
See the full game mentioned in article: [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1597194]
Other games by Stanley Chumfwa: [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=79461]
--
__”Author is founder and president of Zambia Online (www.zambia.co.zm). He can be emailed at [email protected]. Please contact the author if you wish to help the most promising Zambian chess players achieve the Grandmaster rank.”__
By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA -
THE Chess Federation of Zambia (CFZ) has said 2011 Zambian sportswoman of the year Epah Tembo cannot quit international chess just yet as she was the anchor of the team the federation is putting up for next month’s Africa Junior Championship in Tunisia.
Speaking for the first time since the Grand Master Candidate angrily announced she was retiring for national duty citing lack of sponsorship, CFZ national tournaments co-ordinator Chanda Nsakanya said Tembo was a good chess player who had a bright future ahead of her.
Nsakanya said Tembo has not formerly told the federation of her retirement but insisted she would be in the Zambia team for the Africa Junior Championships slated for next year.
“She can’t retire just yet. She is young, good and has a bright and long future ahead of her. She is actually in our plans for next month’s Africa Junior chess championship in Tunisia next year,” Nsakanya said.
By YVONNE SAKALA -FORMER Chess Federation of Zambia (CFZ) Zone-Four chess tournament director Bwalya Chileya has been elected Zonal chairperson after beating Moses Ntemena in the elections held at the Russia Centre in Lusaka.
In winning the two-year tenure of office, Chileya polled an overwhelming 33 votes against Ntemena’s paltry two votes.
CFZ treasurer Dennis Nyemba, who was the Retuning Officer, described the elections held at the weekend as being free and fair saying they were held under a conducive environment.
Chess national champion Stanley Chumfya is the vice-chairperson after polling 32 votes against six for Charles Mununkila with the position of secretary going to Lackson Chansa, who was unopposed.
Stanely Ngulube and Lesily Chikuse both went unopposed for the positions of tournament director and deputy respectively as former Copperbelt Closed champion Andrew Kayonde also went unopposed for the position of treasurer.
Committee members are Linus Katebe, Kiddy Makwaya and Women Fide Master (WFM) Lorita Mwango.
And Chileya in an interview following his victory promised to improve accountability in the administration of chess funds in the Zone besides embarking on a club recruitment drive for the league and also financially assist clubs which were failing to cope.
Chileya said that both the Government and private schools will be also encouraged to participate in chess activities to help with development of the sport in Zone Four region.
Outgoing Zonal chairperson Kennedy Phiri said good leadership skills should help take the Zone-Four chess to greater heights and also organise more chess tournaments to ensure the leagues was running smoothly.
Phiri pointed out that he had left a capable generation to take the chess in zone 4 to the top level and thanked the Russian Centre of Science for providing the venue for Zone-Four league games.
He, however, said it was unfortunate that the Zone-Four had been running without sponsorship from the corporate world and hoped that next season, the league will be able to attract sponsorship.
When asked if he had shortcomings during his tenure, Phiri said that he had no problems at Zonal level except the unfortunate events where he had unfinished issues with CFZ because the mother body failed to give an audience the Zone-Four.
Chess Stars Dominate Awards - By DIANA MUTAKAFIMBO
CHESS stars Daniel Jere and Epah Tembo were last night crowned 2011 sportsman and sportswoman-of-the-year, respectively at the National Sports Council of Zambia (NSCZ) Awards at Mulungushi International Conference Centre in Lusaka.
And Zambia Motor Sport Association president Marco Comana won the administrator of the year award while soccer trainer Keegan Mumba took the coach of the year award
Jere, who is an International Master, beat United States-based sprinter Gerald Phiri and reigning Mr Zambia bodybuilder Sylvester Mwila for the award.
Jere’s achievements in 2011 included a silver medal win in the individual category of the All-Africa Games in Maputo.
On the local scene, Jere was crowned Zambia Cosed champion.
Female ace, Tembo who is a Woman Candidate Master (WCM) scooped gold at the African Youth Chess Championship Zambia hosted last year.
The whiz kid who is only 18 years came on the scene at 11 years and has been consistent throughout her career.
Under-20 international Evans Kangwa who has since been elevated to the under-23 national soccer team scooped the junior sportsman of the year award, beating golfer Dayne Moore and rider Dima Firks from Motor Cross.
Kangwa who scooped the golden boot award during the 2011 Council of Southern Africa Football Association (COSAFA) Youth championship steered his team to defend their title for the third consecutive time.
Kangwa plies his trade with local club Nkana and has been outstanding both locally and internationally.
His under-20 national trainer Keegan Mumba won the best coach of the year award by beating Lloyd Kyusa from bodybuilding and netball national team coach Davis Twininge.
Mumba who is in Mali with the under-20 was the spotlight coach at 2011 COSAFA youth championship in Botswana where he tutored his side to victory.
On the local scene, Mumba last season steered Super Division side Konkola Blades from a middle of the road side to a respectable third-place finish.
The under-20 national soccer team also won the Youth Team Performance Award while the women’s rugby national team scooped the National Team Performance award.
Kyusa did not walk away empty handed as he was given a recognition award for contributing immensely to the sport by opening a gymnasium in Kanyama Township in Lusaka, using proceeds from his barbershop business.
The other recognition awards went to the Deaf Association of Zambia and Mudenda from Martial arts.
The junior sportswoman of the year is golfer Davinshi Naik who has been an outstanding junior golfer, playing out of Lusaka Golf Club.
Naik has won several local championships and participated in international championships. He beat Tojana Mudenda from the Zambia Martial Arts Federation and sportswoman of the year Tembo for the title.
To win the administrator of the year award, Comana bettered Lewis Ncube and Moono Mwila from the Chess Federation of Zambia and Zambia Ladies Golf Union, respectively.
The chairman’s award was posthumously awarded to the late veteran sports administrator David Phiri who chaired the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) and the Zambia Golf Union.
Phiri was FAZ chairman when the national team reached the quarter-finals at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.
Epah Tembo still needed for chess Zambia
THE Chess Federation of Zambia (CFZ) has said 2011 Zambian sportswoman of the year Epah Tembo cannot quit international chess just yet as she was the anchor of the team the federation is putting up for next month’s Africa Junior Championship in Tunisia.
Speaking for the first time since the Grand Master Candidate angrily announced she was retiring for national duty citing lack of sponsorship, CFZ national tournaments co-ordinator Chanda Nsakanya said Tembo was a good chess player who had a bright future ahead of her.
Nsakanya said Tembo has not formerly told the federation of her retirement but insisted she would be in the Zambia team for the Africa Junior Championships slated for next year.
“She can’t retire just yet. She is young, good and has a bright and long future ahead of her. She is actually in our plans for next month’s Africa Junior chess championship in Tunisia next year,” Nsakanya said.
Speaking for the first time since the Grand Master Candidate angrily announced she was retiring for national duty citing lack of sponsorship, CFZ national tournaments co-ordinator Chanda Nsakanya said Tembo was a good chess player who had a bright future ahead of her.
Nsakanya said Tembo has not formerly told the federation of her retirement but insisted she would be in the Zambia team for the Africa Junior Championships slated for next year.
“She can’t retire just yet. She is young, good and has a bright and long future ahead of her. She is actually in our plans for next month’s Africa Junior chess championship in Tunisia next year,” Nsakanya said.