The representatives of Kazakhstan showed very good results in the children’s Moscow Open tournament: they won two gold and one silver medal.  Erzhan Shakenov, the head coach of Astana and coach of the National Union of Chess Players Chess Academy, told us about the development of the children’s chess in the Republic. Young athletes also took part in the conversation.

- Erzhan, tell us about your school, please. How many students and coaches do you have?

- Erzhan Shakenov: Our chess school is called the National Union of Chess Players Chess Academy. We have the official astanachess.kaz website, where you can find the information on all our achievements, tasks. The Academy has existed for four years already. Over the course of this period our prize winners of the World and Asian Championships have appeared.

We have around ten coaches, from first category to grandmaster. Our system has a character similar to  a conveyer belt: every coach knows every kid.

At the moment, we have three branch offices in Astana, however, we have already received some proposals to open branches in the other cities of Kazakhstan, much will depend on the financial part. Our school is private: we rent the facilities, pay coaching fees, organize trips at the expense of parents. In this environment our coaches are doing everything possible to make kids show high results.

- How many kids have you brought to the Moscow Open?

ES: Our school is represented by 6 people and 10 in Astana in all together. There are both medalists of the World Championships as well as winners and medalists of the Asian Championships.

- It looks like Kazakhstan has sent the biggest delegation to our tournament.

ES: Yes, I think it’s true. Our chess players often come to the Moscow Open and the Aeroflot Open to practice before the Children’s Championship of Kazakhstan, which will be held in March. We can say these are preparation tournaments to the national championship.
- Chess players from Astana have won two gold medals and one silver medal in the children’s tournament, Amina Kairbekova won all 9 games at that.

ES: Yes, Amina already taken second in the U7 School World Championship held in Greece. She also won the silver medal in the U8 Championship of Asia. She wasn’t able to play well for her last games of the World Championship in Durban, that’s why she was out of the competitions. And really, she was competing for the highest places.

- Amina, what was this tournament like for you?

Amina Kairbekova: Everything is good. My opponents were strong. It was hard for me to play against them.

- So how did you manage to outwit them all?

AK: Sometimes they committed mistakes, and some I just outplayed.

- The winner of the U11 Boys’ Tournament Kazybek Nogerbek is also with us. What’s your impression of the tournament?

Kazybek Nogerbek: It was very hard for me, too. I drew two games - in the first and in the last rounds. In the first round my opponent was very strong. He won my pawn, and then he had a chance to beat me, but I managed to find a draw in the end.

Some of my games lasted for 3-3.5 hours. It was very hard, but I managed to outplay my opponents.

- Exactly like Magnus Carlsen! Were you thinking of only first place?

KN: Yes, my coaches set a task to win first place.

ES:  Before each trip we set minimum and maximum goals. If the minimum task provides the qualification to the best ten chess players, the maximum one means struggle for the first place, of course. In most of the cases, our kids managed to fulfill the minimum goal, as for the maximum task, we still have to keep working at it.

- Satbek Ahmetdinov won second place in the U9 Boys’ tournament. What can you tell us about him?

ES: Satbek is the U8 Champion of Asia, a very talented boy. In our city he is usually playing in the older age category, but as we knew the World Champion Ilya Makoveev would be playing here, we wanted to compete against him. Satbek was ill at the World Championship and couldn’t perform to his best, though he still finished among the best ten players.

Unfortunately, his personal coach couldn’t come here, and it was certainly a disadvantage as it’s very important for the student to feel the support of the teacher. But as I have already mentioned, Satbek is very talented and independent. He was leading over the course of the whole tournament, and in the decisive game of the Round 9 he lost to Ilya Makoveev and remained behind with half a point less.

We have another talented boy Aldiyar Ansat, who won fourth place in the U9 tournament though he’s just 6 years old. We can say Aldiyar is our future hope; even now the level of his game is higher than the one demonstrated by a first category chess player. Now we place the emphasis on Aldiyar: coaches brought him here to give him enough practice before the start of the National Championship of Kazakhstan, as well as before the School World Championship in Thailand and the Championship of Asia in Korea.

- What can you tell about the organization of the Tournament?

ES: It’s one of the best tournaments from the organizational point of view. I was talking to many coaches, the chess culture is really very developed in Russia. We try to learn from you how to organize and run tournaments, and even to understand the relations between parents, kids and coaches. It’s nice to play here. Everything is at the highest level. Everything is thought over down to the smallest details: meals, accommodation.

It’s very important that the organizers provide foreign participants with good discounts. For many foreign chess players this tournament is a true festival.

- Erzhan, thank you for the interview and good luck!

- Thank you.

Interview by Eteri Kublashvili and Eldar Mukhametov