Jerald Times arrives in South Africa!
Dear Everyone:
I wanted to share this newspaper clip from Cape Town. My days have been really busy. They start at 8 in the morning and end at 12 at night. No joke!
They have welcomed my presence and consider my ideas fresh.
Next week I will be…
Meeting the students at iKamva Labantu (townships)
- Training these students
- Training more advanced students in the Western Province region of Cape Town
- Meeting with journalists who want to hear more about this project
- Observing SAJC 2010 (South African Junior Chess Championship)
- Playing in a Blitz chess tournament (They told me they will be coming after the American…I told them Good Luck)
- Saturday I fly to Johannesburg for the National Championships
Talk to you soon!
JERALD TIMES
Below you will find the newspaper article which featured Jerald Times in Cape Town. We welcome your feedback. Please feel free to send us your comments by clicking the “Leave a Comment” link above each article on our website. Check back soon for more updates from South Africa!
Cape Town 12.04.2010 – CHESS by Nick Barnett
JERALD TIMES of New York, one of the US’s leading chess coaches, is to be based in Cape Town for the next year or two, coaching children at some of the city’s poorest schools.
The man behind this move is David MacEnulty, a frequent visitor to Cape Town, and around whose own coaching achievements the Knights of the South Bronx was made.
New York Out and About reports: “Since 1991, when Times’s predecessor, Maurice Ashley, the first and still the only African-American to attain the rank of grandmaster, started the programme, Mott Hall (primary school in Manhattan) has been considered (to have) one of the top public school chess programmes not only in New York but in the entire country.”
From 1997 to 2001, with Times as coach, Mott Hall won three national championships.
“Back then, the school was an obligatory stop on the value-of-chess-in-the-schools tour. Bill Gates came uptown, declaring chess excellent for raising standardised test scores. Prince Andrew arrived in a limo. New Yorker editor David Remnick was principal for a day, which he spent getting checkmated by sixth-graders before refusing to play a fourth-grader because enough was enough.”
Now comes the bit that is all too familiar in South Africa – a funding crisis. In 2004, for the first time, there were no funds to send the team to the national championships, and the prospects for the team to compete in the 2005 Super Nationals, to be held in Nashville, appeared equally bleak.
“Back in Harlem, Times had said there would come ‘a moment of truth when dreams and fantasies would live or die’. Now, that time had arrived.”
And a new sponsor appeared.
“This is how it is with Jerald Times, a genuine post-Harlem Renaissance Bohemian-intellectual of the self-made variety.”
For him, everything is related to chess. For instance: “If I was going to characterise African-American chess-playing style, it is a highly tactical game, as opposed to strategic. The African-American player is an attacking player. Prison chess is an exaggeration of this. You’re locked up, doing 10 to 20, but you’re not thinking long-term. The African-American can never play for time. It is summed up in the first rule of chess: white always goes first.”
- The Women’s World Cup begins today in Turkey. South Africa is represented by WGM Melissa Greeff, 16. The Cape Town youngster faces GM Humpy Koneru of India, the top rated player in the 64-woman knockout. They play a two-game mini match to advance to the group of 32.
A problem from one of South Africa’s greatest problemists. By GF Anderson, Good Companions, 1919. This should not take long to solve, you simply have to find a subtle point.
Solution: 1. Ra3 the only square for the rook, if for instance 1. Ra7 Na4 2. Kd2+ Kxa2 and there is no mate in two.
1. …Rxa2 2. Bxc3 mate or 1. …Nxa2+ 2. Kd2 mate.
Thanks David MacEnulty for giving the children of South Africa the opportunity to interact with NM Times. They will surely learn a great deal from Jerald. He is a superior chess coach, scholar and poet. Mr. MacEnulty, this was a very big move your organization made and it will help those most in need of help. Thank you AGAIN!
As a parent of chess playing South African children, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your involvement in sending Jerald Times to assist with the improvement of Chess in South Africa.Every minute spent on coaching children or players in South Africa also benefits the country in the long term.