The World Children's Winners Games are conducted in Russia each year to motivate children who survived cancer. A team from India also participated in this year's edition. The Checkmate blog interviews the coach, Kedar Palsule, for finding out more about this competition and the Indian team's results. 1. Can you please share some information on your background? How did you get involved with chess and then teaching it? I started coaching in the year 2000, when I was 16 years old. I used to teach in the Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan Mumbai Chaturang Chess Club formed by Mr Johny Shah. The basics of chess were taught to me by my father, Late Mr Prabhakar M Palsule and my sister, Prachee P Palsule. In the Chaturang Chess Club, I learnt my intermediate level of chess. From 2000 onward, I started coaching in the same institute and took my advanced level of coaching under Late Mr Malik sir. 2. What has been your experience so far in this training? Can you elaborate on your methodology? Teaching the cancer survivor kids at the Tata hospital is a great experience. The kids participate in World Children Winners Games held in Moscow, Russia. Here they compete in various sports like chess, swimming, rifle shooting, table tennis, etc. Most of the students have zero knowledge about chess. Introduction to piece movements, check checkmate, stalemate is done in the first month. Basic short games like fools mate, scholars mate, legals mate, Italian trap, etc are taught thereafter. More focus is given on basic end games (KQ vs K, KR vs K, KBB vs K and basic pawn endings). Simultaneously, different tactics are introduced (pinning, double attack, fork, discovered check, double check, skewer, decoy etc) with the help of many puzzles. 3. Can you please share some details about the recently concluded CanKids World Chess Championship? The Tenth Children Winners Games took place from July 4-7, 2019 in Moscow. The “Gift of Life Foundation”- founded by Russian actresses Chulpan Khamatova and Dina Korzun gives a great opportunity for the survivors of childhood cancer. This year, 16 countries had participated. Since 2014, the Tata hospital is invited to participate in The World Children Winners Games. All the 10 children from India participated in this event were sent through Tata Memorial Hospital, Parel, namely Nidhi Baipotu, Priti Nag, Devanshi Rawat, Anant Tiwari, Aronyatesh Ganguly, Atharva Deshmukh, Monish Joshi, Tanush Jain, Hritik Alamanda and Harsh Devgharkar. 4. The efforts of the players have attracted the interests of several prominent Indian personalities including Shah Rukh Khan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Can you share your thoughts on this and how it has helped, if at all, in boosting the children's spirits? It definitely helps the children a lot and boosts their morale, not only in these sporting activities, but also overall in their life. Grandmaster (GM) Pravin Thipsay also visits these kids every year and guides them for participating in chess competitions. 6. What are your own personal goals and where do you see yourself in the next few years? After my coaching experience of 19 years and having had many students achieving their international FIDE rating, I feel very happy and satisfied about my chess career's growth. My next goal is to become a FIDE trainer. 7. Finally, any concluding thoughts that you would like to share with us? I feel very happy and honoured to get the opportunity to teach in the Tata hospital. These kids are cancer survivors - they are already the winners. |