Astana, 22 October. Timur Turlov, president of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) and the Kazakhstan Chess Federation, named getting chess into the Olympic programme and attracting sustainable funding as the organisation's main tasks, and said Kazakhstan could join the world's top ten chess nations within four years, Kazinform reported.
Turlov was speaking on the Bugin.Live programme on Jibek Joly TV. Another FIDE priority is to make the game more spectacular, including with artificial intelligence, which can show viewers the logic of grandmasters' decisions. In his words, despite hundreds of millions of players worldwide, the audience for chess broadcasts is much smaller than the number of people who play, and the task is to turn chess into a fully fledged commercial industry.
On Kazakhstan, Turlov said almost 2,500 chess schools have opened in the country over the past three years, and the federation pays for dozens of promising players to travel to tournaments at home and abroad, since training costs tens of thousands of dollars a year. "I have no doubt that we will be not only in the top 100 but in the top 10 within the next four years," he said. In his view, the men's team will compete for Olympiad medals. Chess is being introduced in schools as an optional subject.
What it means: The head of world chess aims to take the game to the Olympic Games and make it commercially attractive, and to put Kazakhstan among the top ten chess nations in four years.
Who benefits: Chess federations and players, who would gain money and Olympic status if successful; Kazakh children, who get access to chess schools.
Background: In the same interview Turlov said he would like to play a game with his father, who went missing when Timur was three or four years old.
List of sources used: Kazinform
Artificial intelligence was used in preparing this material.
