history

HISTORY AND ACTIVITIES OF THE CLUB

A few chess enthusiasts launched the club, housed in the famous Gorky Sadan, Kolkata courtesy the then Soviet Union, and named after the former world champion, Alexander Alekhine, on 26th February 1976. In 1976, the club started free coaching classes for beginners and organised tournaments for club members, where players including Dibyendu Barua, Neeraj Mishra and Niaz Murshed participated. The same year, they also began organising open State level tournaments.
A year later, the club started an All India Open Tournament - the Alekhine Memorial Chess Tournament where IMs Ravi Shekhar of Tamil Nadu and SC Sahu of Orissa went through their paces. But the club authorities had more ideas and in 1979 they organised the first International Alekhine Memorial Chess Tournament. 20 top men and three top women players from the country and two players each from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan took part in the event along with GM Ivor Giplis from Soviet Union. GM Giplis was the first grandmaster to participate in a tournament organised by the club.
In 1980, the club organised the All India Chess Tournament for Karpov Trophy. Thereafter, a number of workshops on chess and state level tournaments were organised and in 1983, a big move to popularise the game of chess was made. 12 year old Dibyendu Barua simultaneously played 50 people including 6 diplomats, 5 state ministers and luminaries like Satyajit Roy, Chuni Goswami, etc. This brought positive results and people started taking active interest in chess.
In 1983, a tournament for children upto 15 years of age was started and this encouraged some schools to organise some chess events where the club always extended its helping hand. This school level tournament later was converted to The Telegraph Schools Chess Championship and finally with the active support from All India Chess Federation, this event is now well known as the only Rating Chess Tournament of the country for school children. Many players came into prominence from this championship . To name a few : WGM Nisha Mohota, WIM Saheli Dhar, GM Surya Sekhra Ganguly, GM Neelotpal Das, GM Sandipan Chanda, Joydeb Saha, IM Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury, IM Saptarshi Roy, WIM Mary Ann Gomes, etc and also GM Ziaur Rahman and GM Reefat Bin Sattar from Bangladesh.
In the meantime, the coaching system at the club was overhauled. Several classes started to train up students from grass root level to advanced level and for this the club received co-operation from GM Edward Gufeld (Georgia) and IM Mikhail Davidiovich (Odessa). Eight coaches started looking after about 150 students. The classes were divided in different sections and the coaches, namely, Paritosh Bhattacharyya, Bipin Shenoy, Kenneth Sinha, Sudip Mallick, Rajendra Singh, Niladri Biswas, Abhijit Majumder and Shukla Chakraborty took the responsibilities for a particular class. The professioanl approach was adopted in the coaching system so that the students could receive maximum benefit out of the coaching.
At the same time, the club decided to organise GM level tournaments in the city to enable the players of the country to showcase their skill by playing with highly reputed foreign players and thereby to achieve international norms or titles or to increase their ELO Ratings.
But, Alekhine Chess Club, which till then, was a fledgling organisation of 10 years, had hardly much experience of organising international meets. An official of West Bengal Chess Association was sceptical "Where will you get the players?" he asked. Rightly so, for in those days it was difficult even to get a single GM for a simultaneous display ! And here, the club was planning a 14 player round robin GM tournament. But then, the club took the plunge. Tata Steel agreed to sponsor the event. All eyes were on Viswanathan Anand-who was 16 at that time- Dibyendu Barua and Niaz Murshed of Bangladesh who were the prodigies of the day. Niaz excelled in the tournament to score a 13 game GM norm. Niaz , who already had a 10-game GM norm, thus achieved two norms in 23 games. FIDE regulations stipulate norms should be made in 24games.But FIDE relaxed its regulations to award Niaz the GM title.
Encouraged by the success of our first GM tournament, the club made elaborate arrangements for the second GM meet in 1988. Club Vice-president, Mr N.K. Bose, a solicitor by profession and an ardent chess lover, took up all the responsibilities to procure funds for the tournament. The club then experienced the problem in receiving funds from the Govt. as Govt. of India at that time, black listed AICF. Then AICF was able to overcome the situation and AICF came forward to extend all possible help to enable the club to organise international tournaments and this helped Indian players to achieve norms and titles.
The next big venture of the club was the Goodricke International Open, which began in 1990 and has grown in stature since then. The club decided on an open format to give maximum opportunity to talented Indian players to achieve IM and GM norms. The members of the club believe, they have been successful, in the mission, as countless number of Indians as well as foreigners has got their norms from this event. Not only it is the strongest Open in Asia, Grandmasters from all over the world look forward to playing in Goodricke Open. It features over a dozen grandmasters every year and has also brought some of the legends of chess to Calcutta. Former world champion V.Anand, Vasily Smyslov and former women’s world champion Maya Chiburdanidze have played in the meet, while other stalwarts have been former challengers to the world title V.Akopian, Nigel Short and Victor Korchnoi.
The Goodricke Open of 1992 was a special event for the club. Anand, had agreed to play in the tournament without any appearance money. It was a tough decision for him, but he had graciously agreed. Playing in an Open is always risky for high rated players as the rating difference between players is very high in the initial rounds, which brings the high rated player’s average down. Anand had come straight after winning the strongest ever tournament at that time, the Reggio Emilia, ahead of Kasparov and Karpov. Anand came 3rd in the meet, which was won by
GM Daniel King of England.
An excellent ambassador of chess he has given the impression of a calm and quiet person devoid of killer instinct. But you should see his games to see his unflagging, insatiable hunger for wins. Though his play is solid and stable, it is highly effective.
The club also runs the Goodricke National Chess Academy sponsored by M/S Goodricke Group Limited,whose students are a force to reckon with in National Chess. Periodically training camps were organised by visiting Grandmasters for the benefit of the students. The club also have five computers to help the advanced students in pursuit of excellence.But the students are discouraged from depending on computers as it hinders independent thinking and growth.
The club has unique distintion of holding maximum number of events in Asia under one roof over the past 25 years. To name a few : International Alekhine Memorial Chess Tournamnet, Karpov Trophy Chess Tournament, Tata Steel-Alekhine Grandmaster Chess Tournament, Duncan Grandmaster Chess Tournament, Goodricke International Chess Tournament (for thirteen years), Rapid (FIDE) Rating Chess Tournament, The Telegraph International Youth Chess Championship, The Telegraph Schools Chess Championship (annual event), Millenium International Open Rating Chess Tournament, Dhyanchand International Rating Chess Tournament, Kolkata Open International Chess Tournament Toppers Chess Tournament, Benefit Chess Tournaments for elderly and needy players, Blind Chess Tournaments, Weekend Rapid Chess Tournaments at regular intervals and various other tournaments including workshops, seminars, simultaneous chess, etc.
Many celebrities attended the club during the past 30 years of its existence and to name a few: Late Mother Teresa, Late Satyajit Roy, Mr. Sachin Tendulkar, Mr. Sunil Gavaskar, Mr. Kapil Dev, Mr. Sourav Ganguly, Mr. Jawagal Srinath, Mr. Anil Kumble, Mr. Bishen Singh Bedi, Mr.Ajit Wadekar,Mr. Naresh Kumar, Dr. Vece Paes, Mr. Viswanathan Anand, Mr. Vassily Smyslov (former world chess champion), Ms Maya Chiburdaneze (former womens' world chess champion) and many others.
In the last few years, the emergence of Viswanathan Anand as the World Champion has created a surge in popularity of the game in India. Besides a number of Indian Chess Players could become International Masters, Grand Masters, International Women Masters and International Women Grandmasters. The international elo ratings of several chess players in India also increased to a great extent and for all these reasons, the club always tries to organise international events for the development of chess not only in West Bengal but also in India.
The club currently has 300 students being coached by 14 coaches.
All the activities of the club would not have been possible without the active support that we have received from the Cultural Department of the Russian Federation in India for the last 30 years.