Peter Long on Chess

East Asia has enjoyed a few success stories with COVID-19, and Taiwan (or Chinese Taipei as some know it), was certainly among the leaders.I have visited this country many times and for me, besides the obvious beauty of this island nation, its  culture and wonderful food, and of course the always warm hospitality, what has always stood out was the discipline of its people as can be seen in a clarity of purpose coupled with strong sense of community. Given all these, it was unsurprising that the Chinese Taipei Chess Association was able to successfully organize the 2020 CTCA International Chess Open, which was, in this time of online chess, actually played over the board and also FIDE rated! Of course all the required protocols was observed and I congratulate the Chinese Taipei Chess Association for bringing a sense of normality not only to chess but to give us hope for a life that we have not experienced for some time now.   

https://trainers.fide.com/2020/07/07/professional-education-development-workshops-for-trainers/

We are proud of this very important initiative as we at the FIDE Trainers Commission move from just the certification, award and licensing of trainer titles, based on chess alone, to incorporating essential non chess skills such as teaching, and ultimately a universally recognised profession .

Like everything else today, chess is also subject to huge, even fundamental changes in how things work and are done, and the move online together with all that entails as necessitated by the current global COVID-19 global pandemic, is for many, a wake up call.

In chess, the impact of computers, databases, the Internet and engines, and now AI has been a constant game changer and so we have decided to start of with a series of workshops to help trainers (and players) learn or better learn how to use the tools that are now an essential part of the game.

Since April, the FIDE Trainers Commission has been organising online seminars, bringing much needed training and certification to trainers worldwide by targeting different regions and looking to accommodate different languages.
First was Europe from 3-5 April, then East Asia and Oceania 24-26 April followed by German language 1-3 May, Spanish Americas 22-4 May, and then both North America and Indian Sub-Continent 29-31 May.

Tomorrow starts ECU English 5-7 June.
We have, as today, in the seven seminars to date, a total 318 participants from as many as 61 countries, averaging 45 each seminar!
These seminars have collectively been facilitated by 21 lecturers, and in order of appearance, they are: Thomas Luther, Artur Yusupov, Vishal Sareen, Ramesh RB, Mykhaylo Oleksiyenko, Eugene Torre, Jayson Gonzales, Jacob Aagaard, Xie Jun, Yu Shaoteng, Uwe Boensch, Alonso Zapata, Pep Suarez, Meiliset Khachiyan, Gregory Kaidanov, John Donaldson, Dejan Bojkov, Ivan Sokolov, Sagar Shah, Alexander Motylev an…

By Peter LongToday's FIDE Trainers Commission is very different from what was seen for over a decade.What we have now - even though still a work in progress - is the implementation of the reform vision of FIDE Senior Trainer and Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard who was appointed the new FIDE Trainers Commission Chairman following the election of Arkady Dvorkovich as FIDE President at the FIDE Congress held concurrently with the Batumi Olympiad in 2018.It took us several months in the transition period to get on top of the issues but then it became very clear what was needed.1. First, the FIDE Trainers Commission never really evolved from the necessary first stage of the first few years which was to identify and certify leading trainers and to award them the appropriate trainer titles to build a base and credibility.2. Second was that instead of helping develop the skills of trainers attending seminars, what happened and actually took place was a largely abbreviated training for a player …

https://bangkokchess.com/20th-bcc-open-postponed/

Today I would have boarded my long ago booked flight to Bangkok...