Chessville Editorials - Interview with Dr. Mikhail Korenman, 2007 Candidate for USCF Board

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The Parrot Interviews...
2007 USCF Executive Board Candidate
Dr. Mikhail Korenman

In part one of the interview series, each candidate was asked the same questions about their vision for chess in the USA and how they would go about achieving it, if elected. In part two Chessville asks each candidate board member individualized questions.

Question for Dr. Mikhail Korenman:

1) I (Stephen Moss of The Guardian) ask Kasparov recently whether he thinks chess really can reach inner-city areas.

"In America it already is," he says. "Look at the national schools championship. Kids arrive in buses from downtown Detroit or Chicago, and others are flown by their parents in the family jet. Chess is probably the only game that goes beyond social status, race, education and physical ability. Chess is bringing kids from the streets to a more civilized environment; it channels their aggression."

What are your own views on this issue of chess in the culture? Your have very strong experience to address this issue as head of the Karpov Chess School in the US, and also from your experiences in perhaps the strongest chess country of all, Russia. Do you agree with Gospodin Kasparov, and are their any fundamental reasons why chess cannot be embraced in American culture as it has elsewhere?

Dr. Korenman: During the last Super-Nationals in Nashville I helped the organizers to host GM Karpov for 2 days. He was really impressed with more than 5,000 kids playing chess under one roof. SuperNational is definitely one of the largest scholastic chess events in a World. The number of kids participating at the USCF National Scholastic events is growing. The good for the USCF that the gross of scholastic membership is at the large urban cites and rural communities, as well. Has scholastic chess become part of the American culture? – I truly believe so. Especially now with a growth of on-line chess activities when kids can play chess unlimited on-line at any time. There are some good examples around the World with growth of scholastic chess. Turkey is one of the examples. Chess becoming part of the regular school curricular at most of the Turkish schools. In Russia chess is part of the regular curriculum as well as after school programs. They have many chess schools. I can see big advantages of having chess clubs or chess schools as a separate educational institutions. You can concentrate strong pull of coaches to provide quality of instructions to many kids. This part of chess culture is still missing in the US. I hope to see more chess centers in large urban cites in US. This should help kids to continue their chess education.

2) Recently I inquired of USCF what progress had been made in working with main-stream education in the USA. The result was to learn of only four districts in the entire country, and their stage of relationship was 'perfunctory'. What is it going to take, in your opinion, to do better than this, especially if you have the opportunity to direct the 30-person USCF Staff's attention in this direction? Why do you think young players do not continue with the game, and why are scholastic numbers static and not growing?

Dr. Korenman: Good point. And a huge problem. There are great examples of chess curriculum that become available recently. AF4C, SPF, KCF all have great and very valuable sets of chess curriculum. If elected, I would strongly recommend USCF to start contacted all state educational agencies with the information about the available curriculum. I know that AF4C is going very aggressively to promote their curriculum. USCF should use their national organization status to help to promote all available materials. Letters of information should be sending to all 50 states department of educations. USCF representatives, including volunteers, should participate at the National educational conferences. USCF should try to apply to National foundations for grant support of the curriculum activities around the country. National conference of chess education should be organized. The results should come up. The most important factor is to concentrate on a positive promotion of chess and benefits the game brings to kids.

3) You and I once had a conversation for an hour before breakfast [!] on what was lacking in the pedagogical approaches to chess in the USA. Would you like to take this opportunity to tell us the main heads of what is missing from chess courses generally, so that they would be both more pedagogically respectable in terms of chess art, and also in terms of academic acceptance?

Dr. Korenman: Yes, I remember our discussion in Tennessee. I am not sure that the chess teacher/coach should have a special pedagogical approach to teach kids chess and be successful. The problem I see is the following. To be a basketball or tennis coach at school (!) the instructor should have a valid teaching certificate. It means that these people took some educational classes and knows how to work with a group of students (elementary or secondary). To teach chess at schools (!) nobody needs any (!) certifications, credentials, etc. I do not want to say that we do not have great chess coaches. No, we do. But we should have many more! This why we are trying to implement the chess certification program to encourage coaches to use the best pedagogical approach to teach chess. We definitely would like kids to receive more than their first 15 lessons of chess to be successful. We would like kids compete more and win more, but to do so they have to learn! There are a few ideas I would like to bring to the table. First, use more productively the great potential of our Grandmasters and International Masters to provide advanced chess education. We would like to see more chess masters emerge before they complete high schools. Summer camps are great, but we should do something to utilize the great knowledge of top players and help younger players to succeed. Secondly, we can use more productive opportunities with on-line instructions. If we can accomplish at least these two ideas we may help hundreds of kids to receive advanced chess instructions.

4) The English player R.G. Wade is credited [by Ray Keene] with initiating much of the inter-club system in the UK based on Russian models. Typically UK players will conduct about 35 rated games per year, whereas I understand that of the 30,000 adults at USCF, half play no rated chess at all, and an estimate is that only 7,500 play 10+ rated games annually. The British & Russian systems provide large quantities, per capita, of native-born GMs. Can a similar team-chess system work here in the USA, perhaps utilizing the internet with TDs at each location? If not, is adult rated club chess dead, and does USCF need another focus?

Dr. Korenman: Not sure. While in Kansas, I organized international chess tournaments that never been hosted in a state. My idea was to provide opportunity for local players to observe life (!) Grandmasters games and learn from them. Not sure that many players took advantage of it. And it is not because of Kansas. I would say that is the chess culture in the US. Everyone with USCF rating 1200 would like to win $10,000 prizes … It is a great attitude, but for me, you have to study first before be successful and win such prizes. Maybe I am wrong. In Europe players are traveling from one country to another for a weekend and play chess. The cost is much lower than in the US. I think in the US is a huge break between the Bill Goichberg’s higher prized tournaments and local/state tournaments where players can spent less than $200 for a weekend of chess ($100 – entry fees, hotels and food). Many players do not realize that it costs much more to organizers to put local tournament for 50-70 players with entry fee around $50. The site fees are increasing significantly all the time. This why USCF should develop a system to support local organizers who put together x-number of USCF-rated events a year. This all goes back to the point that USCF should work more closely with local chess associations and clubs to promote more activities.

Internet chess is definitely on the increase and USCF should develop a system of cooperation with ICC and other internet-providers that will benefit all parties, including chess players!

5) Is there any issue not yet covered by a question where you think your own individual experience is valuable as a board member? What do you hope to be the impact of that experience to the chess public if you become a board member?

Dr. Korenman: I would like to see USCF EB as a group of 7 professionals. Everyone should have an expertise in some areas of chess “business”. With Bill Goichberg as the best tournament organizer in the US, Randy Hough as one of the best tournament directors in country, and Joe Channing with significant business experience our team will bring to the Board experience of professional chess player with world-wide best reputation (Susan), one of the best chess manager and PR expert (Paul), and a budget specialist with great chess experience (Randy). I hope my experience with scholastic chess will benefit the Board. When a team works together you can see the results. So, the first priority will be to build a team of professionals to manage the organization. Next, I would like to see the USCF accomplish at least two projects: a) to support scholastic chess nation-wide, promote chess curriculum, work with state educational agencies to help kids stay longer with the Federation; and b) to work aggressively with all state affiliates to help (!) them to organize more USCF-rated events and establish more USCF affiliates. The last but not least is to establish a group of professionals’ nation-wide to prepare and submit numerous grant proposals on behalf of the USCF. Hope these activities would benefit USCF and this why we asking to vote for our team.