2023-10-01 01:48:02
Every day, on the banks of the Bernesga River, in the historic heart of León, you can see a man walking next to a young man. If you observe the scene from the San Marcos bridge, the two shadows are reflected on the greenish water. Only then will they understand that they are teacher and disciple, like Aristotle and his philosophical circle, the peripatetic current that postulates that wandering helps one think. Thoreaulo wrote in his own way: “I believe that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.”
Something similar must be experienced by Marcelino Sión, the teacher, and Jaime Santos, his disciple, the great hope of Spanish chess, the boy prodigy who dreams of finding a place among the best players in the world. “You already have the space,” I hear Marcelino tell him. “Now you just have to take out your fang, fight to the end and become a true ‘killer’.” Jaime swallows. He wonders to what unsuspected extent he will be able to give way to his winning mentality. “As far as you want, Jaime,” I think from the bridge. “As far as you want.”
Jaime Santos was born in a sort of carambola, in July 1996. Like every summer, his parents traveled from León to Irún, his mother’s family birthplace. Margarita, Jaime’s mother, was pregnant and, since the closest hospital was San Sebastián, there she gave birth to her first-born. Jaime’s great-grandfather, Gabriel Eceizabarrena, was mayor of Irún. In his investiture speech he coined a motto, “Peace and work”, which could well define Jaime’s methodical and good-natured character, always polite.
Jaime’s great-uncle, a brother of his grandmother, was Luis María Eceizabarrena, one of the great forgotten figures of Spanish chess. His friend Ricardo Lamarca, another generational reference, wrote about his good friend Luis María: «This great Basque was champion of Guipúzcoa and played in the Spanish Championship Postcard […]”From his results I get the feeling that he was playing by touch, and this in laboratory chess is fatal.” Keep that skill to play Luis María’s touch, perhaps it is what gives meaning to this beautiful black and white story.
Alekhine y Pomar
“My great-uncle won a game against Alexander Alekhine, the world champion, or so I’ve been told,” Jaime remembers nostalgically. «He gave me many things, among them a notebook where he had written down with a pen, by hand, his analysis of the best games of the Austrian master Eliskases. I keep it with great affection. “We never played between us because when I met him he was already very old, but we did talk a lot about our passion for chess.”
In 1962, Arturo Pomar, the national chess genius during the Franco era, crossed the border through Irún to travel to Stockholm, where he would compete in the Interzonal and play, among others, against Bobby Fischer. Luis María Eceizabarrena met Pomar and, thanks to this meeting, we learned about the poor conditions of that adventure: «Pomar was the only one of the participants who traveled alone, without a coach, to face twenty-two very tough rivals, and with hardly any rest. He showed me the only support he had, a small book of openings by Julio Ganzo that was worth 15 pesetas.
Beyond Luis María’s prosapia, the real culprit for Jaime turning his talents to the board was his father, Felipe. At four years old, he taught him how to move the tools, although the boy, at first, did not pay much attention to him. «A few days later», Jaime himself confesses, «he saw me playing against myself. There he must have thought that things were serious. The image is so powerful, and moves me so much, that I contact Felipe. He also remembers those first plays of Jaime’s: «I asked my son to solve some exercises from ‘Chessmaster’, the chess program we had at home. The incredible thing was that, despite his age, he always found the solution. I remember one Saturday when Jaime, already six years old, did not leave his room, immersed in his problems, until nine at night. Then I thought: tomorrow we are going to Marcelino’s club.
In those years, Marcelino Sión, Spanish runner-up in 1990, taught young talents. Jaime was too young to enter the group of chosen ones and started at the chess school run, together, by Carlos Callejo and Manuel Morales. One day, Carlos told Marcelino: «I have a student that I want you to see as soon as possible. You will not believe it”. That’s how Jaime met his teacher. “Jaime was not a chess fan,” Sión points out. «However, when I went to work with him alone, I instantly realized what kind of prodigy I had in front of me. He was a very fast player, out of the ordinary. His father asked him to pause. On the other hand, I saw an extraordinary opportunity in this feature. “I was completely sure that that boy was going to be a great teacher.”
Marcelino would sit Jaime in front of a position on the board and ask him to say out loud what move came to mind. After two or three seconds, Jaime issued his verdict: “Hache four”, for example. Marcelino reproached him: “Come on, you can’t sing the first one that comes to mind, you have to think a little more, evaluate what the candidate moves are,” things like that. Jaime nodded, remained very serious and looked again at the configuration of the pieces. Until Marcelino asked: “So what, what’s the move?” “Hache four, the move is still hache four,” Jaime responded with a shrug of his shoulders. “And the truth is that it was very strange that he didn’t get it right, he had a gift,” Marcelino admits today, proudly.
Jaime, the giant killer
At the age of seven, Jaime faced the Russian Sergei Kariakin in a simultaneous game. At the time, Kariakin was 13 years old and the youngest grandmaster in history. “He crushed me,” Jaime remembers. But that defeat helped him bring out the best in himself. In fact, Jaime dedicated himself to the speed of a meteor. At the age of nine, he became champion of Castilla y León and defeated Magnus Carlsen, current world number one and, for Jaime, “the best player in history.” “He was about 14 years old,” Jaime clarifies. «It happened in a simultaneous exhibition, in the Magistral de León, not in a classic game. At one point in the middle game, Magnus miscalculated and left a piece in one, I just had to take advantage of his mistake.
I ask Jaime to show me the game. It is a marvel, especially because one realizes, upon reviewing it, the immense prodigy of Jaime and how he was capable of punishing any inaccuracy. And because, in effect, Magnus left a piece hanging, a bishop, but what the hell, it wasn’t that obvious, you had to smell the dead man.
Shortly after that came many more exploits. Jaime was champion of Spain in all age categories, except youth. At 16 years old he already had a grandmaster level, although he had to wait until 2018 to achieve the title. At university age, Jaime chose to study Computer Engineering. It didn’t work. He changed and started Chemistry, this time at UNED, but it didn’t work out either. His formula and his reaction, his vital equation was on the board. “As a student he was always regular, we insisted on him doing something,” says his father. «But he was only happy if he played. From a very young age he was like that and, little by little, we accepted it.
This family trust undoubtedly helped Jaime establish himself as one of the strongest chess players on the international circuit. In 2022 he was proclaimed European rapid chess champion. “It was the best moment of my career,” Santos admits. “I’m also left with the joy I felt when I finally won the Magistral de León at home,” he adds. Winning the Magistral are big words. It is the Roland Garros of chess, a tournament with a unique quadrangular format, with very high-level participants. Jaime was crowned last July. Along the way, he defeated Nikita Vitiugov (25th in the world) and the Israeli Boris Gelfand (81st), a living legend of this sport. It is never easy to be a prophet in your land. And Jaime is.
“Flattery weakens”
Felipe, in his own way, tries to follow his son’s development very closely. “I can’t watch his games, I look like the father of a bullfighter,” he confesses. «Before each tournament I remind him that flattery weakens, that one cannot live from the past. And Jaime looks at me as if to say: my father’s trouble is here. I tell you an anecdote. The first time Jaime participated in the León Magistral, in 2017, Felipe was not convinced that his son could measure up. Jaime had to play against none other than Anand, five-time world champion.
«The night before that meeting», Marcelino remembers, «I went to dinner with Leontxo García, each with his wife, at a restaurant in León. When we arrived, we ran into Felipe and, in an aside, he told me: Tomorrow, four to zero for Anand. Hopefully, Jaime will be able to get some draws.” Marcelino insisted: “No, man, don’t say that, he will be quite even, you’ll see.” “Four to zero,” Felipe insisted. The next day, Jaime displayed spectacular chess and managed to draw 2-2 against Anand. Finally, he lost the battle in the tiebreaker, but he showed that he could fight face to face against anyone.
Jaime’s future is promising. In the next list published by FIDE he will appear in 92nd place in the world, although this is not his best record, he already reached 59th a year ago. So, if he maintains the excellent form of recent months, there is hope. «I don’t set limits. With work I think I can reach 2700 ELO », he declares. Achieving this ELO mark (individual ranking score) would put Jaime among the 35 best players in the world. Marcelino Sión agrees that this should be the goal: «On a planet of nine billion inhabitants, being among the hundred best is being a chess player of the highest level. But if you are in the 2700 group, then you are already top, a super elite. And Jaime can achieve it. He has never had a roof.
I ask Vishy Anand, someone who has been everything in the sixty-four square universe, for his opinion on Jaime. He answers me without a filter: «I have a very positive impression of his performances in León and in the World Cup. I think Jaime has not exploded yet, but he is on the right path. His words answer, in some way, the most important question, that of the walks along the Bernesga River: to what unsuspected extent will Jaime be able to give way to his winning mentality. “As far as you want, Jaime,” I imagine Vishy Anand shouts from the San Marcos Bridge. “As far as you want.”
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