Azerbaijan

Submitted by mis3u on Thu, 05/07/2009 at 4:57pm.

There are 8 million people in Azerbaijan (like in New York City for example), they are 91st country by population in the world. Yet they are able to field a chess team for a "Azerbaijan vs. The Rest of The World" match. And that even without Kasparov or Sutovsky, who were born and learned chess there. Pretty impressive.

» posted in mis3u's Blog

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Comments:

by BrooklynFatso - 6 months ago
New York United States

Member Since: Sep 2008
Member Points: 47

It would be nice if USA could field a team comparable in strength with Azerbaijan. But American players do not play very often in strong tournaments overseas, except for Kamsky, Onischuk and rarely Nakamura. I don't think it happens due to lack of invitations: It is almost impossible to make a living as a professional chess player here. That's why most of them prefer coaching which is much more lucrative. While coaching kids is highly commendable, it doesn't really advance the GMs professionally.

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