Samarkand Chess Olympiad Hosts FIDE Election as Timur Turlov Outlines His Plans
The 46th FIDE Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, brings national teams together from September 15 to 27. Alongside the competition, delegates will elect the next leadership of FIDE, the International Chess Federation. Three presidential tickets have been approved for the September 26 election. Entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner, co-founder of Freestyle Chess with Magnus Carlsen, is running with Malcolm Pein for deputy president. WR Chess founder and WR Group chairman Wadim Rosenstein is standing with Gordon Tang. Freedom Holding Corp. founder and CEO Timur Turlov, who also heads the Kazakhstan Chess Federation, is running with Viswanathan Anand. The Times of Central Asia spoke with Turlov about his experience of chess within his family and his proposals for managing the international federation. TCA: Before we talk about professional chess and FIDE, let’s start at the beginning. What is your personal history with chess? Turlov: I learned to play chess as a kid; my grandfather taught me. He saw it as a parenting tool, and it just became part of the family. Over time I drifted away from the game, but I eventually came back. What brought me back wasn't nostalgia or any urge to win; it was my kids, and the sense that real relationships are built on substance, on actually connecting with and sharing with people. Having six children has been one of the great blessings of my life, and when they started playing and asked me to join them, I had good reason to pick the game back up, this time as a parent, and not as a student. It's a small thing, but it reminded me how much family life keeps you grounded, thinking about someone other than yourself. Chess is one way for people to develop relationships and grow in virtue. TCA: You describe chess as a parenting tool as much as a sport. How does that work in practice? Turlov: With six children, finding one consistent way to connect with all of them isn't easy. They're each unique, of different ages, and with different personalities. Chess turned out to be that common ground for us that could be cultivated year after year. Sitting across the board from your child is different from a conversation at dinner. It's slower, calmer, and it opens the door to talking about things that usually don't come up otherwise. Honestly, some of my favorite moments as a parent have happened over a chessboard, not in spite of the game but because of it. TCA: Can you give an example of what a chess game actually teaches a child that a normal conversation can't? Turlov: Beyond strategic thinking- call it looking ahead- there's something in chess that matters even more: learning how to win, and especially how to lose. Chess is one of the few structured experiences where a child loses clearly, sees exactly why, and has to sit with that calmly, without a tantrum, without blaming anyone else. As a parent, that's also a moment for reflection. You can talk through the...
