I was lucky to be invited to the
Italian Open and to be a witness of the great checkers-draughts events. What I saw impressed me very much. It was a complete contrast to what I watched in
Great Britain and
Ireland before, where I met mostly the seniors. The
Italian Open in English Checkers coincided in time and in place with the final tournaments of the
National School Games in Italian and International (10 by 10) draughts -
“Scudetto Scolastico” in
Castiglione della Pescaia. In the final competition of these games took part 55 teams with almost 200 kids representing all Italian schools that qualified through various selections involving 50 thousand pupils. The two events had huge public interest and were detailed covered in the press and television. The Games were opened by the Mayor of
Castiglione,
Giancarlo Farnetani who played the symbolic
„first move” in both events.
Only 8 players took part in the
Italian Open but of the highest quality with 3 actual World Champions:
Michele Borghetti,
Sergio Scarpetta and
Nadja Chyzhevska. I remember that
Alex Moiseyev when I met him on the
1st World Mind Sport Games in
Beijing in 2008 told me that he came to win the tournament and the 2nd place will be a big fiasco for him. And he really confidently took his 1st place, nobody could make him a worthy concurrence. But now the times have changed and the 3rd place in such
Italian Open could be quite a proper result and success for
Alex if he would have played here (just before
Micky!). As you still know the Italian championship finished with a big sensational victory of
Matteo Bernini. Now
Italy has 3 strong players of the same heaviest caliber and I think that they will dominate in the Checkers world in the next years. They will get all places - the World Champion as well as his Challenger in both versions:
GAYP and
3-move. For all other Checkers players there will remain the only possibility to watch their high level internecine struggle.
As for me I played bad in the tournament, made a lot of mistakes and took the 5th place but even if I had played well, all the same I could not jump higher than the 4th place…
On the closing ceremony with participation of the local authorities, representatives of the
Olympic Committee and the
Ministry of Education the
Bishop of Grossoto father Rodolfo celebrated the solemn Mass. The best players of all tournaments were awarded with cups, medals and diplomas. In the evening the old city of
Castiglione della Pescaia turned into draughts-checkers
Mekka. On the main street there were covered tables with draughts-boards and organized the simultaneous games against kids, local people and tourists. Our World Champions
Michele Borghetti and
Sergio Scarpetta played “blind” with the local authorities. It was a great holiday of draughts and checkers! Both championships were perfectly organized. The all staff of
FID led by their tireless President
Carlo Bordini made a great job! I enjoyed the nice friendly atmosphere around the games. It was very interesting to be among Italians and to feel their southern temperament.
I want to use this opportunity to share some my thoughts about the future of Checkers. I don’t want to criticize anybody but I find that our
WCDF is very passive and conservative. Recently the
Asian championship took place in
Tashkent (Uzbekistan). They played 3 kinds of draughts –
international 10 by 10,
Russian-Brazilian and even
Turkish.
WCDF lost contact to
Turkmenia and did not make the connection to
China. There is no Checkers in the huge
Asia region at all. It is a big pity.
Checkers has very few tournaments but we have 3 actual World Champions. It is very irritating. One World Champion is enough, isn’t it? I think that it came time to join all of them in one. We can change the system of Drawing Cards and to expand the 156 Openings of
3-move with separately each
GAYP-Openings, as well as to add
11-Ballot Openings – all in one deck. Or another idea – with two draws. First to select a version which to play:
GAYP,
3-move or
11-ballot and then to choose the Opening. In the future it is possible to make even one more step forward, just like Russian draughts had done some years ago – so called
“jumping men” when both sides are doing impossible first moves, for example:
1.05-20 32-05; but it is really too complicate…
To make Checkers more attractive for more players there is a sense to change the system and the cycle of the definition of the World Champion – once to hold the World Championship in
Robin system with 16 – 20 players and once to organize a qualifying tournament with a following match: the Challenger against the actual World Champion.
I have one more idea-desire-request which concerns more to
British – Irish federations. And namely – to create the calendar of their tournaments so that one competition follows another with one week interval, for example: first tourney takes place on
Saturday – Sunday – Monday and the next on
Friday – Saturday – Sunday. So the players could take part in the first tournament, later on to relax two days and finally to go to the second one. It may be very useful for the participation of foreign players and to reduce their travel costs. In this case the ideas of the European and the World Cups can work much better.
One suggestion also to our
WCDF: it would be useful to have nice certificates for the grandmasters and the international masters. It may motivate many players of the highest as well as of the middle level to take part in the more international tournaments.
Of course
WCDF does not need to do necessarily any changes. I have no doubts that it does not play a big role which system and openings will be used – the winner will be the same – the strongest one… But the changes can make the competition more interesting, exciting and attractive.
I understand that the main problem of Checkers is financial but here I can only dream and beg. I am not a businessman, I am a romantic and a dreamer…
I also used my trip to visit
Rome,
Vatican and
Florence. It is unforgettable!
Viva Italia!
PS For more results and pictures you can visit my Checkers Homepage:
http://home.arcor.de/checkers64/index.html
