After international win, grandmaster Alexander Shabalov quietly moves along
'Being that humble — being just like an absolutely normal person in everyday conversations — it's really what I was brought up with, and something that I really appreciate'
On a chess board there’s little room to hide. For one grandmaster, staying incognito is the best way to live.
Wilkinsburg resident Alexander Shabalov recently returned from Porto Santo, a Portuguese island in the North Atlantic Ocean. Shabalov visited the beach locale, long dubbed the “Golden Island,” for the FIDE (International Chess Federation) World Senior Chess Championship last month. Alongside 79 entrants, representing 34 nationalities, Shabalov, 57, competed in the Open 50+ section.
The 80-member group included 15 grandmasters, 13 international masters, 16 FIDE masters and one female FIDE master, according to the organization.
Shabalov, a grandmaster and four-time U.S. Chess Champion, took top prize.
The win was nice, but even better was watching someone else succeed 3,000 miles away, the Wilkinsburg resident told the Chronicle: “On the day when I won the world championship, one of my students from Pittsburgh got his first grandmaster norm.”
Becoming a grandmaster — the highest designation a chess player can receive apart from becoming world champion — requires three grandmaster norms.
For decades, Shabalov has been among the top U.S. chess players. Known for his thrilling style of play, the Jewish-born Latvian phenom moved to Pittsburgh in 1992 and won the U.S. national championships in 1993, 2000, 2003 and 2007.
Winning nets prestige and earnings — after taking top prize in Porto Santo, he received a trophy, gold medal and 3,000 euros (about $3,145). But making a living at this stage of his career requires supplementary income.
“It’s pretty typical for a lot of sports,” Shabalov said. Around the world, there are a few people in the top 10 who can get by on prizes, but “for the rest of us, we have to coach.”
The chess champion isn’t resentful. In fact, he beams when speaking about his students or even his own instructor.
“When I was a teenager my teacher was Mikhail Tal,” Shabalov said. “I just remember when he was involved in coaching me and when I started to win my first tournaments, I saw it in him, how proud he was.”
Tal, the Jewish Latvian-born world champion, is regarded as one of the greatest chess players of all time.
“The legacy goes on,” Shabalov said. “The students that work with me, they know that it’s not just me, that before me there was a Mikhail Tal.”
Shabalov, also Jewish and Latvian born, teaches students at Pittsburgh Chess Club as well as online.
“It’s not bad,” he said of the latter. “Online coaching is so developed right now. You can use so many different tools.”
Digital learning has changed chess and its landscape of talent.
“It’s not like it was 50 or 60 years ago,” he said. “You don’t have to be born in a country like Russia, or Israel or the United States to become a strong chess player. You can be in an absolutely remote part of the world and because of the internet get adequate training. And if you do have a talent, well, the sky’s the limit.”
Chess’s origins date back more than 1,500 years.
Shabalov told the Chronicle he’s happy to be a small piece of that history and enjoys watching others chart their own way.
On a near daily basis, the Wilkinsburg resident exercises at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. After entering the locker room, he’ll often see members sitting beside a chess board, swapping white pieces and black ones, engaging in banter and friendly competition.
In lieu of offering critique, Shabalov quietly keeps walking, he said.
“It’s like being a good tennis player who steps on the tennis court and sees people playing. You immediately see where they are doing something wrong, and it gives you that funny feeling, but you don’t want to reveal it; because it’s nice to go a little bit under the radar,” he said.
Shabalov’s tactic isn’t new.
“In my teenage years, my coach was the world champion, and he was the humblest person in the world. People knew who he was because it was the Soviet Union and if someone became a world champion, it would be in all the newspapers,” Shabalov said.
After a life in chess, the Wilkinsburg resident hasn’t only observed the world’s finest players. He’s understood a way to move.
“I’ve seen a lot of people who achieve success, and they just can’t stop mentioning it everywhere they go,” he said. “But being that humble — being just like an absolutely normal person in everyday conversations — it’s really what I was brought up with, and something that I really appreciate.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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