1st “Armaggedon” at African Chess Lounge
Approximately one year ago, The Chess Drum was introduced to the South Africa-based African Chess Lounge (ACL). At that time, they were holding qualifiers for a long-awaited television broadcast featuring blitz matches, news and interviews. That time has come as Reuben Salimu sent out a press release. National Master Jerald Times is commentating along with Nadia Russon.
Chess enjoys immense popular support in our community and is a great tool to build confidence in individuals and to improve mental abilities such as planning, logical thinking, mathematics and strategy.
This programme is aimed at potential and existing chess enthusiasts (young and old) and is aimed at promoting chess as a tool for youth and personal development.
The TV show is based on the popular and high impact version of the game called “Blitz” or “Speed Chess” which lends itself towards television as it is short and dramatic.
African Chess Lounge will select participants through different criteria which will also be featured on the show. The programme will be presented by a dynamic chess enthusiast and will consist of player profiles, two matches per episodes and an educational chess insert. Each week the winner of the match will qualify for a final showdown.
The programme will build dramatic tension by going “behind the scenes” including a glimpse into the lives of the contestants to build viewer loyalty to the players as “characters”.
Each show will feature a developmental focus by picking various local chess groups, clubs, schools and organizers and administrators behind them along with their motivations for starting these groups.
We will also show developmental activities that individuals, corporate, social groups and government are doing with chess in underprivileged communities.
~ Executive Producer – Reuben Salimu
You might want to show the actual board also.
Reuben is trying to get a DGT board to make displaying the board easier. That is a major drawback from the production.
get the guys from B-more on here!!
If they can afford to fly to South Africa, I’m sure Reuben would talk to them. 🙂
Which channel? What time? I have never seen this on TV.
Jerald is not bad. He invited Josh Colas to play kasparov in a simul few years back, I will never forget that, but I don’t really know him that well. However, he seems to be pretty good at what he does and seems to be one who is helping to spread chess to the African continent.
Met him at Wilbert Paige Memorial and at HB Global Challenge, but not much contact with his activities. Did a couple articles on his projects.
He got a good opportunity in South Africa. Not sure how much longer he has over there, but he seems to have some interesting projects. This project needs a bit of work and perhaps the quality of players, but it’s interesting. It looks a bit like “Xtreme Chess”.
Surprised he introduced himself as “former 5th highest-rated Black player in the world”.
Check out Kingsmen Chess Club on youtube, Plenty of great blitz games 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJrOofTPIdfHGJeNwr6p2bw?feature=watch
Plenty of blitz games all over, but I believe they are trying to popularize chess through blitz commentary. It’s very difficult to do with three-minute games. Too fast and easy to make mistakes in assessing what is going on.
do you think 5mins is too fast and mistakes are still made with high level players? If I had good communications skills and knew the game better I could do commentary, I think Maurice is the best at it.
Five minutes is very difficult commentary and mistakes are inevitable. Of course Ashley and Daniel King have done well. Here is how it is done.
great video, never seen that one!
Apologies for the late reply guys and thank you all for all your support.
Thank you Daaim and your team for everything you are doing for chess, its very much appreciated.
Just to answer a few questions and fill in a few gaps so you see where we are coming from and are trying to go.
First of all the internet is not really that easily accessible for the majority of the population here but with TV we can reach more people on the normal bands channels 32 and 67 (approx 1.2 million) and on DSTV 5-7 million that’s why we pushed for TV.
Now getting a shot on DSTV is an opportunity we could not pass that’s why we went ahead and shot the first couple of episodes without a DGT board. We knew it was not perfect but figured we needed to get something to show and improve on.
There is a few challenges to a project like this in our region. You must understand its not a major sport like soccer, cricket or rugby and corporates are reluctant until they see a positive interest in it. Something we have accomplished with the first few episodes.
We are busy negotiating possible partnerships with chess software companies, and other interested parties which will help us improve the show.
In the long run this show will easily introduce over a million kids to the noble game and that’s a goal we are determined to fulfill.
If you feel you can contribute please feel free to contact me directly and I will fill you in on areas you might have questions on.
Regards
Reuben