Dealings in Nigerian Chess

The above phrase or statement may sound strange to you if you are probably reading it for the first time or if you are not fully acquainted with the underground dealings that goes on in the Nigerian Chess Federation. Nowadays, nobody wants to be burden with the painstaking stress of sitting in front of a chessboard with the mindset that the game may turn out in a way that is not favourable to oneself. Also one might think that I cannot come all the way down to a new place or sometimes a faraway land just to play a tournament and go back with nothing to show for it. Yes, it might sound unprofessional but how can we blame people who travelling dinstances to play a chess tournament and go home empty-handed when there is an open opportunity for them to make out something for themselves. I would probably say no. With that being said, the situation of chess in Nigeria has been in a static position which makes it difficult for you to predict the winner or even winners of a tournament because you can’t fathom what happened or what will eventually happen until the last round has been played.

A typical example that can help buttress my point better is the just concluded Southwest Chess Tournament
where you will discover that the last two rounds which happened to be around 6 and 7 came after a rest day where there is a huge possibility that a lot of people have already had an under the table discussion on how the result of their games will play out. Before the previous rounds, rounds 1 to 5 where players are intellectually coerced to play good chess to gain early points before the underneath the table discussion begins.

After I conducted an underground investigation during the tournament, I came to the observation that stronger rated players, I’m talking about players with 2200+ were reluctant in engaging in the underneath table discussion because they were at the risk of losing something, which happened to be their precious FIDE Ratings. So I pondered to myself on the reason why and I tell it was a no brainer. Their reason for rejecting the deal is due to the upcoming Chess Olympiad which is scheduled to hold sometime this year. The qualification for Nigerian Chess players to attend such a prestigious chess event is solely based on ratings, which means the highest-rated players get the opportunity to grace this upcoming chess event. So this goes to prove why most 2200+ players at the SouthWest chess tournament were reluctant to deal. In other words, the stronger players could not afford to deal and risk the chance of being topped by other chess players following closely on the FIDE Chess Ranking for Nigerian Chess players, most especially the players in the cabal of the TOP FIVE on the list. In addition to this, the last round game between Oluwadurotimi Lapite and his opponent took quite a long time before it came to an end. This is because the stronger player refused to give his opponent the point which would have made the opponent the clear winner of the open section in the tournament. So they had to sit down and play chess by the rules.

This dealing in Nigerian Chess is not gender-sensitive or even sexist. It’s also being deployed in the Nigerian Chess female section. Thereby making it outrightly difficult to predict or even fathom who could be the clear winner for the female section and since there will be some nice cash incentive attached to being the female champion in a given tournament, the men do not find it a big deal to lose some points to a lady as long as they get rewarded for their shocking loss.

In conclusion, with all these permutations being present regularly, is dealings in Nigerian Chess possible to stop?
If I’m being honest which been since the beginning of this article, I would say I doubt that and with my years of playing chess in Nigeria, I can conclude that almost every Nigerian Chess player has a strong passion for the game and this goes way beyond just playing chess, they also have a strong passion for chess in life thereby making them to device a means to fuse in chess into their day to day life. So the best way to curb dealings in Nigerian Chess is by increasing the price, creating separate categories, abolish the idea of using the FIDE rating for the qualification to play in the olympiad which will also be a problem cause Player A who happens to be a female can come to a tournament and deal all her games and get a rating of 1900+, then top the female chess list and qualify for the olympiad but does that make her the strongest female chess player? Rather what will be better is to have a closed tournament for females whereby the winners will get the chance to represent the country, this way we will also be picking the strongest and also the players in form as well, also the same should be applied in the male section. In the end, it's my opinion and other opinions can be welcomed and debated.

What do you think about dealings in chess? How are players selected to play in the Olympiad in your country?

_{This article was written by @samostically on Hive. Feel free to contact me if you are interested in joining Hive.blog}

Images used in this article are mine.