Be'er Sheva, Israel's chess capital, hosts world championships

When Israel was chosen to host the World Team Chess Championships, it was only natural that Be'er Sheva be the host city. Jerusalem and Ashdod tried to get in on the action, but in the end everyone understood that just as Tel Aviv hosts basketball championships, so Be'er Sheva should host chess championships.

The best chess teams in the world will compete in the tournament, which starts Tuesday, including Ukraine, Russia, Armenia, the U.S., Cuba, the Republic of Georgia, China ( with men's and women's teams) and Israel. The African representative in the competition - Egypt - cancelled its participation. The Israel Chess Federation called the cancellation political.

The Israeli national team, which recently won two consecutive second-place titles in European championship competitions, is currently ranked fifth in the world.

Each national team includes six players and a captain. The competition involves nine rounds in which four players from each team compete. The winner is declared world champion.

Chess is a source of great pride in Be'er Sheva. The city has two teams in the premier league and Be'er Sheva A is the almost undisputed champion. Other Be'er Sheva teams dominate the minor leagues. Veteran members of the city's chess club like to reminisce about the 2000 championships when the Rishon Letzion club enlisted the Galacticos team that included world champion Gary Kasparov. It didn't help, and Be'er Sheva took the crown nonetheless.

The club's packed trophy cabinet in the city's cultural hall holds first-place trophies in the world championship for pensioners and third-place trophies in the European team championship, 15 Israeli championships, 12 state cups and countless youth cups. Four members of the club have been Israeli champions. "Every year, I have to order a new trophy cabinet," says club manager Eliahu Levant.

Be'er Sheva also has the most grandmasters relative to its size, with eight grandmasters from the Negev city. Two of them will play on the Israeli national team this week.

Mayor Yaakov Turner and others believe Levant is the main reason for Be'er Sheva's unprecedented success in the game of kings. Levant immigrated in 1972 from Leningrad, where he was the secretary of the city's largest chess club. A year later, he settled in Be'er Sheva and started the club.

"I went from school to school, and every place I played against 30 students simultaneously. Of the 2,000 opponents, I chose the hundred best players and started training them," Levant says. Those kids became the basis of a prosperous club that now has 421 card-carrying, dues-paying members.

There are 38 active teams. Ilana David, the club's training coordinator has been running a special program to teach the game to 4- to 6-year-olds over the past few years. "In order to maintain our advantage over the years, we have started teaching chess in pre-schools," Turner says. This year it will be taught in 20 pre-schools.

According to Levant, the favorite in this week's competition is Russia, but the local team, he says, has a strong chance to finish on the podium. The question is is there a home-court advantage in chess. Levant believes there may be a slight edge. "The tournament lasts 10 days, there is a slight advantage for those with family close by," he says.

The chief of the Israel Chess Federation and a former close aide to Benjamin Netanyahu, Aviv Bushinsky, thinks home court may be a disadvantage. "There are great expectations and pressure from family and friends," he says. "There is no advantage from cheering, as the audience must be silent during games."

Bushinsky hopes the competition will raise interest and maybe budgets for local chess. "We have made great achievements but Israel doesn't recognize them. The entire federation budget is NIS 250,000, the salary for soccer's national team coach."

In the meantime, the heads of the federation and the Be'er Sheva municipality had to recruit a long list of sponsors to cover the cost of the competition - NIS 1.1 million.

	Eliahu Levant (Alberto Denkberg)