Visiting GM Trainers Get Notice
By Arvind Aaron

Indian players working with overseas trainers is not new. It happened first in 1991 when Viswanathan Anand worked with Mikhail Gurevich who was then out of the Soviet Union living in Belgium.

Presently there are two Indian players competing in the Velammal National 'A' Championship who have the private facility of an overseas grandmaster. Vidit Santosh Gujrathi comes from Nasik but has GM Alon Greenfeld of Israel as trainer. Alon said he is not in India first time and had come to Kolkata to play in the Grand

Master Open events over the years. He had worked with Vidit before and also over the Internet. Be believes that Vidit is a big talent, mature for his age and like most Indians he too is underrated.

The other Grand Master here is Elizbar Ubilava of Georgia who lives in Madrid and also very close to Anand's house in Madrid. His first visit to India was a huge disaster for him when Anand lost to Kamsky after taking a two-point lead at one stage at Sanghinagar in 1994.

Ubilava had trained Karpov before and when Anand won the World Championship with him in Tehran 2000 the bitter memories of Sanghinagar went away. Ubilava had since worked with many Indians, namely, P.Harikrishna, Deepan Chakkravarthy and others. Here, he is training Parimarjan Negi of Delhi.

Ubilava's wife Nana who is a good cook is a skating teacher and they have two children. They are in Spain so long that the two children speak to each other in Spanish and their parents speak to each other in Georgian.

Ubilava had been trainer of the Indian Olympic team at Turin 2006 though it was not the most memorable performance by India in comparison to what we did at Calvia 2004 where too he was the coach.

"Mr Aaron, the arrangements are very good," commended Pune GM Abhijit Kunte after the inauguration on Feb 3. The venue is a large airconditioned hall and players also have an option to see the historic Chepauk Cricket ground on which many One-day and Test matches have taken place over the last four decades.

National 'A' has a record prize fund of Rs.4 lakhs and the first prize is Rs.100,000. It pays to play chess. Chess players have come to a stage to afford overseas trainers and also pay for their expenses to Indian national championships.

When I noticed some Indian players in Visakhapatnam in 2004 and realising that they are not playing I asked them what brings you here. No, I am working with this player and that player came the reply. Bringing trainers along had actually started long before. That the trainers are grandmasters and come from other countries is new.

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Published on 06^th  Feb, 2008