No less than six Asians are winners of the FIDE Trainer Awards 2021, dominating an awards recognising excellence in chess training n 2019 and 2020, and which has now expanded to nine categories.
China took the largest number of awards with three, Ye Jiangchuan receiving the Tigran Petrosian Award for Trainer Education, Xie Jun receiving the Yuri Razuvaev Award for Grassroots Development and Social Impact and Ni Hua receiving the Vakhtang Karseladze Award for best performance by a woman player or team.
Uzbekistan’s Rustam Kasimdzhanov received the Mikhail Botvinnik Award for best performance by an open player or team.
In two new categories, the Asia Chess Academy of Jordan’s Sami Khader received the Vassily Smyslov Award for best academy or chess school category and Kazakhstan’s Berik Akkozov received the Online Chess Training Award for his ABChess mobile App.
Ye, a former China No. 1 and current President of the Chinese Chess Association, is only second Head Coach of China (2000) after Liu Wenzhe, and instrumental in guiding the development of modern coaching in his country, culminating in their first ever Olympiad Gold (Open) in Tromso 2014,
Xie Jun is China’s first ever and four times World Champion, Vice President of the Capital University of Physical and Sports Education, Fellow, part-time professor of Beijing Normal University, Member of China Writers Association, and having completed more than 10 national, provincial and ministerial level projects, is currently responsible for the national key R & D Program “science and technology Winter Olympics” related to Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and the major entrusted projects of the National Social Science Foundation of China.
Her students have won World, Asian and National Championships many times, has won the honorary titles of “national March 8 red flag bearer”, “national top 10 Outstanding Youth” and many other honours for over the past 30 years, and continues to be active in work to promote the popularization and development of chess, presiding over and participating in forums, lectures, competitions, and guiding courses, while being engaged in youth education, serving also a Deputy to the Eighth National People’s Congress and member of the Eleventh National Committee of the Chinese people’s Political Consultative Conference.
Ni Hua was long a permanent member of the Chinese national team and a winner of many international tournaments, in recent years becoming a leading trainer, starting from his appointment as Chief Coach of the Shanghai team in 2013.
In 2016, he became the personal coach of current Women World Champion Ju Wenjun whom he guided to the title and then assisted in her successful 2020 defence against Russia’s Aleksandra Goryachkina.
Rustam Kasidzhanov, Grandmaster since 1997, World Champion 2004, Asian Games Gold Medallist 2010, was between 2008 and 2012 coach of Viswanathan Anand. He was also coach of the German team at 2011 and 2015 European championship, winning Gold in 2011.
A long-time coach of Harika Dronavalli, he has also since 2015 been trainer of World No. 2 Fabiano Caruana, the winner of Candidates 2018 who also shared first place in the Grand Swiss 2019 and the winner of Wijk aan Zee 2020. Between 2017 and 2020, Kasimdhanov also held several training sessions with Jorden van Forrest, who went on to win Wijk aan Zee 2021.
The Asia Chess Academy is the only FIDE Endorsed Academy in Asian given “regional” status and will qualify for Tier 1 in 2022 with the changes to the FIDE Trainer Commission regulations regarding academies which will then come in to force.
It plays an active role in chess development in the Middle East, going beyond successful training of young talents with the organising of official seminars, workshops and courses for FIDE, TRG, and ACF and support of social activities including programs like chess for refugees.
Berik Akkozov successfully launched in 2019, a WEB-based platform along with Android and iOS applications that offer a structured step-by-step program online and keep both beginner and advanced students engaged to have a faster learning progress.
The mobile app “ABCHESS – Personal Trainer ” is both in the Apple App store and Google Play store with 50,000 users
In 2020, the added functionality included collecting and tracks the learning progress of the users on the ABCHESS platform, adding gamification as a built-in system of appraisal for the learning progress, using AI to optimise use of 5,000 practical exercises and an interactive webinar tool for simultaneous solving of chess puzzles by hundreds of students during a live lesson.