Pia is moving back to Sweden
Hi Pia Cramling, I heard you were moving back to Sweden again after so many years in Spain. How come?
– I was homesick! When we talked about moving with Anna, she was so positive that we in our family quickly decided to give it a chance.
Will the move affect your playing? And if so, how?
– I will perhaps play less in the future. It may also be some sort of more permanent job but nothing is clear yet.
We hear about the strong chess culture in Spain. Can you tell us about the differences with Sweden?
– Spain is an enormous sportnation. The newspaper with the greatest issue is not surprising a clean sports magazine, Marca. Although chess is not a significant sport it has much more space in the media than for example in Sweden. I remember that Spain’s first major golf star Severiano Ballesteros once complained that chess appeared too much in television (and took place from golf). It’s quite a long time ago and he exaggerated, but still.
Major competitions or articles on the world’s top players is nothing unusual and it goes of course on the sports pages and with good space, as same as for any other sport.
Local player’s success can sometimes turn up big in the local media. Meanwhile, most newspapers, even local ones there are plenty of in each region, has pages including sudoko, crosswords and space for chess with a problem or a game and it is daily.
An organizer told – this is long before the crisis took off – that for him it was much easier to get sponsors for a simultaneous game with a big player such as Anatoly Karpov than for a game with a regular grandmaster who might cost a tenth. That is how Spain has worked – it was always easier to find resources to what is really grand.
For many years, organized the world’s strongest tournament in Linares. Many times without any Spanish participants since the tournament would then become the strongest. One day could Dos Hermanas beat Linares and make a stronger competition and they were extremely pleased.
This feeling of home and the pride has helped organizers across Spain to arrange events, and it can also be chess competitions, to prove themselves. Spain lacks its own world champion, its own Magnus, then chess would be in a huge boom.
Many communities has their own chess school. You’d think that chess is extremely good for the kids but unfortunately during the crisis has several chess schools disappeared including the municipal found in Fuengirola, where we lived. The difference in economy if you compare the Swedish national team with the Spanish is really big. Compensation for participation in team competitions is on a completely different level for the very best players in the country. If you win a medal in the Olympics or do some performance ranking you are also rewarded for it. But it’s probably in all sports in Spain completely different economic opportunities than in Sweden.
However, if we look at junior chess I think Sweden is still good compared to Spain. As I see it, there are more competitions here for the juniors. But in Spain, I see more girls competing. When Anna participated in Andalucia Youth Championship (U-8 and U10) it was approximately 70-80 participants, and of them it was over 20 percent girls. What makes the difference is one they crowns a girl champion in each age group and the top two among boys and girls (all the same age playing in the same group) are invited in for free to the Spanish championship, which has become a very popular competition.
Another big difference is that there have been many international competitions around in Spain. The conditions and prize money has been good and the tournaments become strong and the players have not to the same extent as in Sweden had to travel abroad to get face hard competition.
Now, unfortunately, a lot of competitions disappeared. Municipalities that have been previously sponsored obviously can not do it now when the country is on its knees.
Nonprofit work does not exist at all in the same way as in Sweden. In Spain, a player may substitute a much greater extent than in Sweden, for example to play for a team. He / she need not even be IM to be paid.
Many chess players giving private chess lessons and trying to make a living at it. It is very common to take private lessons in something you want to get better in. It can be math, English, but also in chess.
Club activities are not nearly as widespread as in Sweden – it’s a big difference there – but whether you belong to a club or not, almost all vying for playing license, which discussed a lot in Sweden and that includes the children. In Malaga there are some competitions for children where it is not needed, but there are only a few exceptions.
How does it work in a family where both parents are grandmasters? Do you have a checkerboard cloth on your kitchen table?
– No, not really but of cource the chessboard appears on the kitchen table many times.
And what says daughter Anna, which also started her chess path?
– Sometimes there is too much chess talk Anna tells us. The fact it sometimes becomes too much chess has got Anna to temporarily lose the desire to play. But now she thinks it’s fun again, in bite-sized doses.
Speaking of girls and chess – I looked at the world top 100 list for the ladies. You are currently in 14th place. Before you are two born in the 70′s, eight in the 80s and three in the 90s. How is it possible for you to keep as stable at the top level?
– I have always been a very consistent player, perhaps even to consistant. 1990, I went for the first time over 2500 (it was 2505) and since then I have not gone under 2500 so many times, although the last two years has been a slump. But unfortunately, I have not gone so far up the other way either, top elo is 2550th.
And at the top 50s is no more than you born in the 60s. Comment?
– The top women has become younger and it is not strange at all. The competition is much tougher now – and it’s just fun, I think – but for a woman it is difficult to engage in chess when you get a little older, start families and have children. There is no time for training or competitions in the same way as before and then you can not keep the same level.
But for me, chess has always been a matter of course – I love to play, it is my great passion in life. I am enjoying the competitions – if it is the European Chemapionship or a small one day competition somewhere. What counts and makes the difference for me now is the atmosphere during the competitions, I would also very much like when many girls / women are playing and the very best is when the three of us in the family traveling and playing together. But it is also tiring to travel a lot.
And we have to be self-critical when it comes to how we educate girls. How do you think we should work in Sweden?
– The first thing to do is probably to ask the girls themselves. They know what they want and what needs to change.
Female role models in all areas: as a coach, in the chess federations and in the clubs.
Focus on the social part, not only to compete or train chess together without doing other things. It can be crucial for many girls, if they continue with chess or not. For me it was not so when I was little. I was totally engrossed in the game and had no problems that it barely were other girls who played.
Girl Camps, Girl training and to gather a bunch of girls and taking them to a competition at home or abroad is obvious. It is positive if there are female trainers join the girls but they do not need to be strong players.
I think you also should give the girls double chances. A good example is the Swedish school-championship. The usual competition goes in the fall, but in January it has been a Girls Championship, which attracts much more girls. In this way, the girls who want to can participate in both competitions. If you have many girls it is easier to attract more compared with if you have only a few.
The Swedish trainer Robert Danielsson told me once that he had long ago a group of more girls than boys, and what happened was the guys dropped …
When the Swedish Championship now has divided the younger players into more groups with a Minior, a Kadett, and a Benjamin-group, it is also beneficial for the girls, I think it will attract more players of both sexes. What I do not understand is that they not crowns a girls’ champion of all children and youth groups. A simple way of getting more girls to participate and to give them something to play for. Many may now find that they are not talented enough to win the competition, but with a few girls prizes would things be different.
I think it would also be good in the juniorleage to let the team play with at least one girl. In France they control a lot of the team play, both that there will be players of all ages and youth girls. It has also been introduced in the team series (the three top divisions) that the team should have a French woman in one of the eight tables. It was of course tough for the teams in the beginning, but it has an incredibly effect for France, which in 2003 won the team championship for women in competition with all the teams from the former Soviet. It was a real feat.
Mostly I like the approach of 4NCL (The Four Nations League) where the teams must have at least one man and one woman at one of the eight tables. But in Sweden, the opposition is too large to get into this rule at the top division and the other top divisions . Unfortunately, for it would give a great effect and it would be extremely positive for the Swedish women, who would suddenly be in demand. But you could try the ideas on a regional level.
Encourage organizers to have lower registration fees for women and to have girls and women prizes. A woman prize could for example be addressed to players up to maybe 2200, who we have more of. There is an awful lot that can be done and the best is enough to make many small steps.
How did you get your awesome hardness at the board and your competitive spirit?
– I’ve always been a competitive person and loved to win, at all when I was little. But the older I get, it has toned down. Maybe it’s because even though I make good results, it is not often I win competitions.
How do you rate your own performance? For example, the two European Championship victories?
– The Women’s European Championship has been extremely fun both times. 2003, I made a comeback after being away for ten months of competition games (my record) while I waited Anna. It was a reawakening. I hardly knew what the young girls name was in the Championship much less how they looked like. So I came back, was almost the oldest and won! 2010 was the competition harder and it was a tremendous great feeling to win the championship once again. When I got to the World Cup semifinals in Nalchik it was fantastic, of course, but I felt too lonely, I needed a secundant both mentally and chess vise to have a better chance against Alexandra Kosteniuk, who later won the World Cup. In the Swedish Championship 2000 in Örebro, I was so close to win but in the end I was second behind Tom Wedberg on tiebreak. The game Veterans against Women in Prague in 1995, which was by far my best result of the living legends. Judit Polgar and I became best point pickers and I played 1.5-0,5 with Victor Kortchnoi, 2-0 against Lajos Portisch, 1-1 against Spassky, 1.5 – 0.5 against Vassily Smyslov.I lost only against Vlastmir Hort with 0.5-1.5.
But the biggest thing for me has still been to become a Grandmaster. It has always been my dream more than to become world champion. I guess it’s the Swedish school – I always played with the boys and in younger days I was not particularly interested in women’s events.
And which game is the best you’ve done?
– It’s hard to say which game I most enjoy. But one of the most fascinating experiences I’ve had at the board was when I met Victor Kortchnoi at Lloyds bank in 1982, when Kortchnoi was one of the very best players in the world and only a year after the World Cup match in Merano. For the first time I met my, at that time, large idol. After only five moves in Centrum gambit in Spanish (I’m white) thinking Kortchnoi for over an hour. Afterwards, he said it was to avoid any draw variants. But the game was still a draw. In the following analysis found Michael Stean a win for me, I had math games, something both Kortchnoi and I had completely missed. But I was of course happy anyway. Afterwards I played against Kortchnoi many times but this first one was very special.
What are your strengths as a player and how have you developed them?
– I guess my smoothness is both a strength and a weakness. My games are often long so some perseverance, I have enough. Maybe the concentration is my greatest strength. During the games I do not know what’s going on around me – I’m in my bubble. It’s probably just my way of being.
The Swedish Championship is approaching in Örebro, what are your expectations for the competition?
– I is always low, and has no great expectations, although of course I hope to do a good result. It will be a tough competition and a good workout how it goes.
And what are your plans for the rest of the season?
– After the Swedish Championship I have a week off and then it’s off to the women’s European Championships in Belgrade. Later this fall, I play in the European Cup for club teams in Monaco. It is not to bad to play in a “dream team” with Hou Yifan, Humphy Koneru and Anna Muzychuk!
But before you should give a simultaneous against women only during the Visma Chess in Växjö. We hope that there will a number of girls / women / ladies of all ages, both active and who played before. It sounds like a nice activity, right?
– Absolutely it will all become fun!
Finally, very welcome back to Sweden and to Visma Chess starting on Wednesday.
Source: http://www.vismachess.com
Good move!