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By Mahar Mangahas
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:28:00 05/30/2009

Filed Under: Chess, Opinion surveys, Sport, Games, Education, Agrarian Reform, Statistics

This piece is inspired by Florencio B. Campomanes, honorary president of the World Chess Federation, whom I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time a few days ago in Baguio City. We met through mutual friend Ed de Jesus, president of the University of the Cordilleras, who had invited me to lead a workshop with his faculty on the ABCs of survey research (which I will write on next time).

Despite his age, the maestro is well-recovered from a recent bad car accident, and his mind is as sharp as ever. Campo (as he likes being addressed) asked me if there is any survey on how many Filipinos play chess, and at what age do they begin. He believes that national excellence in chess comes from mass participation in it, if possible starting at the age of five.

Campo’s question can be answered, partially, from the national Survey of Leisure Time and Sports (LTS), done on March 30-April 2, 2008 for the International Social Survey Program, of which Social Weather Stations is a member. Such surveys only cover adults, which in the Philippines means people aged 18 and up.

The LTS survey has separate items on sports which are also physical activities (of which the most popular among Filipinos is, naturally, basketball) and those which are non-physical, called “games” instead. It asks: “Thinking about games rather than sports or physical activities, what type of game do you play most frequently?”

Chess is the No. 1 game. It turns out that chess is the Filipinos’ most popular game, meaning non-physical sport. Those citing it as the game they play most frequently are 15.6 percent in the country. This projects to 8.5 million adult chess players nationwide, based on a population of 54.1 million Filipino adults when the survey was done.

Chess is relatively more popular in Metro Manila, where it is cited by 20 percent, than in the rest of Luzon (18 percent), in Visayas, and in Mindanao (the last two both 12 percent).

Chess is much more a man’s game (26 percent) than a woman’s game (5 percent).

Chess gets less popular as people get older—with percentages of 21 in the 18-24 age group, 20 in the 25-34 group, 17 in the 35-44 group, 13 in the 45-54 group, and 5 among those of 55 and up.

The popularity of chess grows with education and socio-economic class. It is the favorite game of only 1 percent of those who didn’t finish elementary school, 10 percent of those with some high schooling, 20 percent of those with some college, and 26 percent of college graduates. Only 11 percent of class E adults, compared to 24 percent of class ABC adults, call chess their favorite game.

I certainly agree with Campo that children should play chess. I learned it at age seven (and am a low-grade player) and recall that almost all my relatives and friends of the same age could also play chess. But another survey is needed to get numbers on chess-playing among children of age 5 to 17.

Incidentally, another item of the LTS survey finds that 90 percent of Filipino adults agree, and only 5 percent disagree, that “Taking part in sports develops children’s character.”

Other popular games: The second most popular is card games (of all types). This was cited by 9.5 percent, which amounts to 5.1 million players.

Third are video games, a category including computer games, playstation, pinball etc., which was cited by 5.1 percent (2.7 million players).

Tied for fourth, at 4.0 percent (2.2 million players) each, are gambling games (lotto, jueteng, casino games, etc.) and board games (scrabble, monopoly, etc.) At sixth, with 2.2 percent (1.2 million players), is word/number games (crosswords, sudoku). Seventh is dominoes: 1.4 percent or 0.8 million. Eighth is mahjong: 1.2 percent or 0.7 million. Fifty-five percent said they do not play any game.

Sports and national pride. To the LTS question, “How proud are you when the Philippines does well in international sports or games competition,” 74 percent said very proud (talagang ipinagmamalaki) and 19 percent said somewhat proud (medyo ipinagmamalaki). Only 7 percent were either not very proud or not proud at all.

National pride in sports tends to rise with education—from 63 percent among elementary dropouts to 78 percent among college graduates.

On the statement “The Philippine government should spend more money on sports,” it turns out that opinions are divided—47 percent agreeing and 36 percent disagreeing. <It seems to me that the Philippines has achieved so much in four international sports—billiards, bowling, boxing and chess—even without much help from the government.>

Basketball is no doubt the most popular sport in the Philippines, if we include physical sports. I honestly do not think chess is that popular. Most people know it, but as a past time, not a competitive sport.

It's an interesting article though, considering that historical facts should have made chess a popular sport in the Philippines. When the Spanish conquistadores conquered Latin America and the 'Philippine Islands', they must have bought with them those two instruments of recreation that the Spaniards invented - the guitar and Western Chess. This means people in the Philippines have been playing chess (and the guitar) since the 16th century, far longer that in Russia, where chess became popular only in the 19th century. So as a competitive sport played by professionals, why is chess not popular in the Philippines?

I can think of two hypotheses:

1. Chess never developed into a professional competitive sports in the Philippines.

It's mostly just a past time until now. Certainly, some past players like IM Rodolfo Tan Cardoso who was Bobby Fischer's rival as a top junior were of GM caliber. (For ratings-obsessed kibitzers Cardoso's highest chessmetric's rating was 2531 and best individual performance was 2618.) So where have all our promising players gone? I believe that most simply chose a livelihood that is not chess-related. It's quite telling that even after all these years, only exactly one Filipino (Eugenio Torre) has made it to the Candidates.

This is ironic if you come to think that in 1888, the year Capablanca was born, most of South America, Cuba and 'Las Islas de Filipinas' were all provinces of Spain. Had Jose Capablanca of Cuba, Carlos Torre of Mexico, and Eugenio Torre of the Philippines been born in say 1870 and there was a chess Olympiad in 1895, all three would have been legally countrymen carrying the same Spanish passports, and probably playing Boards 1, 2, and 3 for the same team. (Nice to think that the great Capablanca was born legally of the same citizenship as your great-great grandfather.)

Let us take the strongest chess-playing country in the world as a contrast, namely Russia. Although chess arrived rather late in the Russian Empire, the Russian Czar, who represented their government in the 19th century, started sponsoring regular tournaments, which caused the creation of a caste of professional chess players, who depended on chess for their livelihood. By the 1910s, the Russian Empire had become the chess power of the world. Had there been an Olympiad in 1913, the Russian Empire team could have been a powerhouse, made of Alekhine, Rubinstein, Nimzovich, Bolgolyubov, Bernstein, Janowski, Tartakover, Levenfish, Dus-Chotimirsky, Znosko-Borovsky, etc..

Even earlier in the 19th century, the other European Empires (British, German, Hapsburg Empires) had started having the tradition of one-on-one matches for privately-backed stakes and eventually privately sponsored regular tournaments in the latter half of the 19th century, which also allowed the creation of caste of professional chess players. The arrival of the chess clock in Europe also helped in standardizing competitive chess conditions.

The solution is therefore to create conditions in which a caste of professional chess players can exist, but this is easier said than done.