Diego Ibáñez had barely turned four when he discovered, at his uncle’s house, a board and some cards that strongly called his attention. Sixteen white, sixteen black and a checkered board. That was his first contact with Chess. In less than a year he would already be playing his first games with the school group. Last weekend, about to turn eleven, he won the Galician U-12 Championship and it is also his second Galician title in just one year: in the 2021 edition he won the title of Galician U-12 champion. -10.
His father, Jorge Ibáñez, cannot hide his pride How do you feel when you talk about your child? “Diego is a simple and humble boy, no chulito. She has lived through it with a lot of nerves, but now she has the satisfaction of having achieved it”. And it is that, contrary to what one might think from the outside, this last championship, held in Padrón last weekend, has been a physical and mental test for him. For three days, sixty-six young people from all over Galicia fought over eight games: “It is absolutely marathon”, explains his teacher Roberto Páramos, “there are people who think that this sport is light, but the highest level players lose up to five kilos in the big championships”, he adds. This weekend’s victory also had an extra nerve.
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In the last of eight rounds, young Diego had it all with him. There was a tie between the top two players and if he won the game he was playing, he would overtake both of them. “He had it won, but I don’t know if his nerves were able to do it, the fact is that they ended up agreeing a draw”, explains his father. It was then that there was a triple tie. So, the organization had to apply the Buchholz system, a scoring method that is currently used to break ties in tournaments. “As if it were the goalscoring in football.” Diego and his mother, Natalia, couldn’t stand their nerves, so they went to the car to vent – they believed he wouldn’t win – and a few minutes later they saw on their mobile that Diego had won.
The Lucena Chess Club
His teacher, Roberto Páramos, does not hide his illusion either. And is not for less. Diego receives his classes two days a week at Xadrez Galego, the place run by Páramos and the official headquarters of the Lucena Chess Club, to which they both belong. The club is also a reference in Galicia and also in the State. “We are 160 active players, which makes us one of the biggest clubs in Spain. We have players from four to 82 years old”, celebrates Páramos. And it is that Vigo has a solid pool of chess players: Antonio Gude, chess master, journalist and author of more than 30 chess books; Manuel Pena, the only chess Grand Master from Galicia; or Roberto himself, winner of seven titles and author of eleven books on chess and pedagogy, are just some of the many names that have come out of the city.