Jacob Aagaard and the Asian adventure! Part I

Most of the photos by Amruta Mokal

Jacob Aagaard's trip to India was well chronicled on the ChessBase India newspage. He visited five cities - Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. In case you have missed any of those articles, the links have been provided below:

Jacob Aagaard and the magic of Mumbai

Aagaard and the amazing Ahmedabad

Delhi and 48 hours of fun with Jacob

Jacob and joy in the city of joy

Why Chennai is the chess capital of India

Malaysia, 6th-7th of April

Malaysian chess scene is not exactly booming at the moment. The country has always had some strong chess players, but is still searching for its first grandmaster. All hopes are pinned on the 17-year-old talent Yeoh Li Tian who has a rating of 2470. Naturally, such sessions by a world renowned trainer like Jacob can do a world of good to the players of the country. However, no titled players attended the lecture. While players like Adhiban, Ganguly, Diptayan Ghosh, Aravindh Chithambaram, Murali Karthikeyan etc. all around 2600 and more attended the lectures in India and learnt a lot from Jacob, it remains a question to me as to why the top guys of Malaysian chess didn't take this opportunity to learn and grow better.

If you have been following Jacob's journey you would already know what the three questions are. For those who do not know, or have a poor memory, these three questions help you to quickly acquaint yourself with the position and find the right idea.

1. Where are the weaknesses?

2. What is my opponent's idea?

3. Which are the worst places pieces?

Hong Kong, 8th April

After Malaysia, four of us (Jacob, Peter, Amruta and Sagar) flew to the next destination Hong Kong. Hong Kong literally has no chess culture. A simple search on the FIDE website shows that the country has only five players above the rating of 2000. Peter Long had included this country in the Asia tour to give us an idea of how the game of chess features no where in the priority list of the people of a country. As Indians it is easy to believe that the game of chess is popular all over world, especially because there is such an upward trend in India. 

However, for people in Hong Kong the cost of living is just so high that it is impossible to make a living out of the game of chess. Just to give you an idea, the rent that you would pay for a 85 sq.mtr (900 sq.feet) apartment in a normal area for a month is nearly Rs.2,00,000 (USD 3,300). It doesn't come as a surprise that the only way to survive in Hong Kong is to study hard, make it to a good university and then find a well paying job! Some people say that the entire country is involved in a rat race. Well, rat race or not I do not know. All I could understand from the 24 hours that I spent in that country is that it is a near to impossible task to popularize the game of chess in Hong Kong.

Jacob can start playing blitz just about anywhere. Before the lecture was about to begin, we had a few minutes and he challenged Peter Long to a game of blitz. Peter was going to play his first blitz game in nearly five years! But none of the rustiness showed as he was almost able to beat Jacob. In the end the Aagaard had to use all the tricks in his book to score the full point. Have a look at this interesting game.

The story behind the analysis of Xiong and So game is very interesting. When we left from the hotel in Kuala Lumpur to the airport it was four in the morning. We had hardly slept all night, so sleeping in the cab would have been the logical thing to do. But Jacob was interested to check what was going on at the US Championships. We opened the Follow chess app and checked all the games. Xiong versus Wesley So caught our attention, and the next one hour was all about analyzing the variations. All three of us tried very hard to analyze the complicated game blindfolded. By the time we reached the airport Wesley had almost played the way we had anticipated and had won the game! That one hour of intensive blindfold training was one of the best I had ever done in recent times! That's the thing with Jacob, you learn about chess all the time!

I realized that chess learning need not always be done in a quiet place, behind closed doors. It could happen at the weirdest of places, all you need to do is keep your eyes and ears open and have a free mind that is eager to learn.

Physical fitness is important!

Bangkok, Thailand, 9th-10th April

Jacob's third lecture in the Asia trip was to be held at Hotel Cha-am Regency in Hua Hin in Thailand. This year the Bangkok Open was not held in the city. Cha-am is 173 kilometres away from Bangkok. Of course it was an excellent idea to hold the lecture while the Bangkok Open was in progress. This meant that players from many countries could be a part of the training and learn from the lectures.

ChessBase India shop open for seven countries

Did you know the nearly 60% discounted prices on ChessBase products for Indians is now available to players of seven countries - Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh.