Chess On The Net
Yeomen Service To Our Generation
By R.R.Vasudevan
The names Calcutta and Alekhine has a long standing association with chess, and with the international event of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) Open 2007 marching through, the time is right to look into this chess site from eastern part of India.
The homepage has an introduction of the Alekhine Chess Club along with a picture of the great world champion from the past. Established in 1976 and located in Gorky Sadan in the prime area of Calcutta, Alekhine Chess Club has been doing yeomen service to the game for the past three decades.
Also, M/S Goodricke Group Limited, a renowned Tea Producer in our country, has been sponsoring the Goodricke National Chess Academy run by the Alekhine Chess Club at Gorky Sadan. It was the place of action where the strongest Open in Asia was held for more than a decade during the 90’s.
And, it has been a platform through which a number of Indian and foreign players achieved their International Master and Grandmaster Norms. Some prodigies who made it big from here include Surya Sekhar Ganguly, Sandipan Chanda, Neelotpal Das, Nisha Mohota and Saheli Dhar Barua.
After the home page, the link of history of the Academy makes an interesting reading. Going into great details, the site has listed all who have touched upon the chess activities of the Academy for the last three decades. The history of the Academy is a connoisseur’s delight and should be saved for posterity. From Barua to Maya, Smyslov to Anand, Korchnoi to Kaidanov, the hoary past of the Academy has been the scene of action witnessing the best of chess world.
The tournament page link takes one the ongoing Kolkata Open with real time online games webcast through Monroi. The press release page has something interesting, where the newspaper clippings are scanned and posted, giving the reports a live look.
The Academy can look back with pride the list of achievements that it had bestowed upon chess for the past three decades. And the site fulfils the need of the hour keeping abreast of technology, that can keep Alekhine Chess Academy right up there.
(Arvind Aaron adds: The author, a Chennai based banker was privileged to officiate as Arbiter at the Goodricke International Open at Gorky Sadan during 1997-1999. Alexander Alekhine had actually visited Calcutta with his family for a holiday in 1930s and his son also called Alexander Alekhine Jr told me at Dortmund a few years back that they came by ship. Alekhine was thus the first world champion to visit India.)