The Guardian London, Greater London, England Friday, January 22, 1971 - Page 2
Catching Them Young
Extensive training facilities and coaching schemes for young players are among the secrets of Russian chess supremacy. Spassky, the world champion, was given special tuition by a master from the age of 12, and Tal and Petrosian also had individual trainer's in their formative years.
This Russian policy of catching them young is based on the fact that most strong grand-masters show obvious signs of unusual gifts for chess by the age of about 15. Spassky was second in a strong international tournament at 16, while his American challenger Bobby Fischer was United States champion at 14. Some people believe that very young talents are burnt out by 30, but the only evidence for this is the example of Morphy, who was a master at 12, best in the world at 21, and had given up chess for good at 25. More typical of the durability of child prodigies is Samuel Reshevsky, who made an exhibition tour of Europe at eight years old yet last month was, at 59, still a tough opponent in the interzonal tournament.
Judged on his results as a teenager, our own Jonathan Penrose could have gone further in chess with a Russian style trainer than being a consistent national champion. In 1950 when he beat Bogolyubov and Tartakover at Southsea, he was probably the strongest 18 year old in the world. Now for the first time since Penrose was a junior, we have in England two or three players in the 14-15 age group with master potential. The brightest hope is Jonathan Speelman, of St Paul's School, Barnes, who at 14 has already finished second at the strong Islington weekend tournament and was also runner-up in the London under-18 championship. The 1980 British champion? Judge for yourself from this week's game played at Islington.
