06 Aug 2015

The Mobile Chess Club (MCC) says it is looking to develop players through its youth development programme.

Through the programme, the Gaborone-based club encouraged pupils to start playing chess from a young age.

It also offered them a platform for competition by holding an age based tournament yearly.

This past weekend, the club held a successful youth tournament at Ave Maria Pastoral Centre in Gaborone featuring Under 6, 8, and 10 age categories. There was also an open category for players aged between 11 and 18 years. 

The tournament managed to attract 20 kids in 5-6 years category, 31 in the 7-8 years category, and 38 in the 9-10 years age category. The 11-18 years category attracted the largest group of competitors.

The tournament organiser and highest ranked male player in Botswana, International Master (IM) Providence Oatlhotse said MCC wanted to contribute to the production of players with chess titles.

“Our objective is to make 20 young Candidate Masters by 2017. This will be achieved by volunteering to grow quality chess IQ’s in record time within local communities,” he said. 

The decorated chess star, who won numerous championships in the local chess arena, pointed out that the development initiative had been well received.

“It has been received well by the school heads who we thank  together with the parents for their commitment in joining their children with Chess in Schools which has a tremendous educational advantage to young children. Now Chess in Schools boasts of coaching just above 300 new chess players every three months by volunteering with its various mentoring policies and free demonstrations,” he explained. 

To demonstrate this commitment, he stated that 35 school clubs attended the weekend youth development tournament.

Oatlhotse said though they had not received any support in terms of sponsorship, they hope the club’s growing popularity of producing talent would help it gather support from local businesses and stakeholders to help it advance the Chess in Schools brand initiatives. Ends