‘We use chess as a spine’: the Corsican movement teaching children moves beyond the board
Island’s streetwise, improvisational style is about more than creating championsThe contrast couldn’t be more black and white: inside the competition room at the Corsica Chess Club in Bastia, a handful of players are locked in monastic silence and iron-clad concentration over the boards. Outside in the waiting room on a Sunday in early February, 15 or so young faces are squashed against the glass of the partition doors, with dozens more children and parents behind them; they’re yakking, laughing, mucking about, but above all, they are desperate to get back into the room for the next round and play more chess.The clamour is proof of what amounts to a Corsican chess revolution. There are now almost 7,000 licensed chess players on the island with a population of 340,000; more than 25 times the rate in mainland France. Corsica welcomed its first international master, Michaël Massoni, in 2013, and first grandmaster, Marc’Andria Maurizzi – France’s youngest ever at 14 years old – in 2021. Continue reading…
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