04-05-2014, 06:50 PM
France is a big country but yeah that is amazing. Am in France atm and they do have a good chess culture. Chess gets funding from a lot of the councils (according to the organiser of the tournament I played in last week) given to chess clubs to coach in school clubs etc. Was in Paris for a few days and have to admit I spent a lot of the time playing blitz in the Jardins de Luxembourg, they have 150 players or so who play 3 min blitz there regularly, I played one of the weakest players on their ladder competition (which is where I get the 150 players number from) and he seemed to be about 1700, some of the stronger guys were definitely better than me. I didn't plan to be playing chess there, I just was wandering about and saw some guys playing blitz. Think Scotland is doing some steps in right direction with online coaching but we need more programmes like David Leslie's - not a coincidence that 10 years after that programme in Aberdeen Bon Accord wins the Richardson for first time ever, it's a numbers game at least to a certain extent.