Drum speaks with Maurice Ashley
GM Maurice Ashley (right) set to face FM Robert Lagerman at the 2012 Reykjavik Open. Ashley won in a crushing style. Photo by Hrafn Jökulsson.
The Chess Drum’s Daaim Shabazz was able to conduct an interview with GM Maurice Ashley and get an update on what the global icon has been doing in recent months. It has been awhile since Ashley has spoken to The Drum audience, but it was well worth the wait. The “brief” interview was 41.5 minutes. 😉
Ashley asked a number of questions about his recent trip to Reykjavik, Iceland, the Judit Polgar/Hou Yifan question, his current projects, his views on the upcoming World Championship in May, potential world champions, the problems in marketing chess and his views on playing for Jamaica in the Olympiad.
Many are questions never asked of him before. Great stuff!
Listen to interview with GM Ashley!
Thanks for this report. Interesting games.
Thanks for the fascinating interview with Maurice Ashley! I love his ideas about the promotion of chess. I think GM Ashley, GM Nakamura, and Rex Sinquefeld, and other like-minded individuals should get together and form a committee to present idea changes to the current “traditional” presentation of tournaments and the world championship. I think those changes need to be heard and then implemented.
I thought Maurice demonstrated really relevant concerns for the game which are quite damaging in the long term. Having observed the way top events are run at the London Chess Classic I have to say that a lot of drama is needed to make the game popular. Kasparov generated that and Carlsen and the others seem more absorbed by playing the tournaments but not the big picture. Kasparov and Ashley see the big picture for chess.
It was interesting to hear his thoughts on Jamaican chess.Hopefully the players will look at the big picture in terms of long term development and set realistic, measurable and achievable goals for the Olympiad.
That was a great interview in many respects and it left me thinking about the direction chess will take in the near future. I’m very optimistic about the game spreading beyond the chess players themselves and into the general public. As Maurice stated , I think the technological advances being made will enable us to convey the intricacies of chess in a more fundamental way while displaying the special effects of the game in order to keep everyone interested. It just seems to me that blitz and rapid chess seems to generate more interest by the general public more so than anything else. After all, we do live in a society that seeks instant gratification. The poker analogy makes my point.
Maurice Ashley mentioned something that I expected: Anand is playing …”on cruise control…” and that when he defends his title in May his “…claws will come out…” I think this is another problem unique to chess that we don’t see in sports or even in poker. The impulse to hide your preparation and not show show your bag of tricks is so strong in chess that a world champion can’t go out and kill his opponents like in other games. I think spectators prefer to see a champ crushing and dominant all year long; they want to see the Mike Tysons and the Peyton Mannings.
Chess isn’t a spectator sport, it won’t ever reach a mass market because in order to appreciate a great move or positional idea you need to be a chess player. Even then, club players still can’t follow a lot of high level games without some kind of real time commentary.
There are too many GM’s chasing too little money, there is an incredible disconnect between the 30 or so players who get invited to the top tournaments and are World Championship contenders and the players at the level just below who literally can’t make a living without getting coaching fees from wealthy amateurs. This has always been the case in the west, Reshevsky was an accountant, Kashdan sold insurance, many English GM’s just gave up and got real jobs..its a tough gig.
Similarly, coaching moves in spectator sports are the most appreciated by people who actually play or coach the sport. In fact the chess analogy is most often used when two great coaches in any sport lock horns. The commentators call it a “chess match” knowing that the spectators as a whole don’t understand the intricacies of what the coaches are actually doing–though the analysis would be still be less complex than real chess. But the commentators don’t have to explain what’s going on, they just call it a chess match and awe-inspire the watchers!! It looks like the only hope for real chess is somewhere in there.
One of the virtues of chess is patience. If we as chess players aim to demystify the game and take the game to the people our problems are solved. As a chess player if Anand-Gelfand match is to be aired on t.v im going to watch the whole 7hrs no doubt. If we do it the right way round get a chess set in every home people will follow the game.
Good stuff. Daaim you handled the interview like a true professional and asked thought provoking questions, thank you. Quite a quandary we have before us in the chess world- how to make chess more generally appealing without completely ostracizing current loyal followers?
It seems to me that the higher up in rating you go the slower the time controls get and the less generally appealing chess seems. My friends/gf cannot fathom me going to a tournament on the weekend from 10 a.m.-4 p.m., and that’s just a quick 1 day event not a major event that last multiple days and much longer time control!
If the time controls are greatly increased to say 30 minutes a side in big competitions moves will be made more often for the less analytically inclined to observe but would that actually win over my players? I’m not sure, I think certain types of people are drawn towards chess but it would catch the attention of more people. I think the difference in chess from say poker is that chess players can’t really show personality/don’t have personalities (sorry, fellow chess players :P…just look at Lenderman prototype of a chess player -snore-) because of rules no talking etc., so you don’t get the banter in the game like you do in poker between players. And in post game analysis players just nerd out lines w/ one another trying to prove stuff that most people can’t even recognize… We need chess players who are outspoken, humorous, and don’t come across as chess obsessed.