2024-09-25 08:19:27
The First Deputy President of the Federation Smbat Lputyan also spoke at the reporting-election conference of the Chess Federation of Armenia held today at the Chess House named after Tigran Petrosyan in Yerevan. He spoke about the multifaceted works of the federation, which he divided into 3 groups, as well as about the problems that, if solved, will make Armenian chess move forward.
“During the last 2 years, the Chess Federation of Armenia has carried out various activities. The first of them is mass. In the last 12 years, we were able to have new chess centers in the regions. Today, their number reaches 48 throughout Armenia, which is very important for popularizing chess.
We have something to be proud of, because Armenia was the first country that was able to include chess in schools as a compulsory subject. All schools have chess rooms, property, tables, many chess books have been published, etc. We have 1,900 teachers who continue to be trained.
Chess is a sport that helps the development of children’s thinking and logic.
In addition, when chess was included in schools as a main subject, it gave us the opportunity to hold school chess olympiads. We have been holding such events for half a year, in which about 15,000 schoolchildren participate. In the final of the last Olympiad held in Tsaghkadzor, Artashat High School celebrated a victory, and this speaks of the fact that chess is developing throughout the country,” said Lputyan.
Speaking about the activities carried out for the development of chess in the regions, Smbat Lputyan noted that Shirak, Lori and Kotayk are in the leading positions, and there are still some problems in other regions, which, if solved, will activate the masses there and they will be able to reach the leading regions.
Speaking about Artsakh, the first deputy president stated that in 2012 there too, chess has become a compulsory subject in schools and, to the joy of all of us, we already have one grandmaster from Artsakh, Hovik Hayrapetyan.
Smbat Lputyan also spoke about the problems in Armenian chess, the first of which is the flow of children to chess, which sometimes cannot be controlled due to the lack of qualified coaches, referees and teachers. It is necessary to have a center that will control all these works. Another problem is the lack of a chess magazine that will cover the victories of the Armenian national team and individual chess players.
“We have to solve these problems, and everything else is achievements in chess. During the last 2 years, we had 3 grandmasters: Hovhannes Gabuzyan, Karen Grigoryan and Hovik Hayrapetyan, 6 international masters, 13 FIDE masters, 6 FIDE coaches, 1 international referee and 1 FIDE referee, we held 11 international tournaments. The good thing is that the tournaments are organized outside of Yerevan, which contributes to the development of chess in the regions. And, of course, we have 2 wonderful victories, which were awarded to us by our boys’ team.
Individually we had more than 30 victories. I will single out the brilliant victories of Levon Aronian. I am also satisfied with the young chess players, we have team victories: 3 gold, 4, silver and 1 bronze. We can confidently say that the results are satisfactory,” Smbat Lputyan said.