CHESS CHILD: The story of Ray Robson, America’s Youngest Grandmaster
Author: Gary Robson
Nipa Hut Press (2010)
281 pages
$16.00
Reviewed by John Donaldson
CHESS CHILD by Gary Robson may initially remind many of Fred Waitzkin’s SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER. Both are great father-son stories and each traces the development of a young boy from a chess novice to strong player. Along the way each family is forced to make sacrifices and find their own way with no guarantees as to how things will end. Both fathers start out with no knowledge of the chess world and have to figure things out along the way with no maps or books to guide them.
While there are similarities between the two stories, there are also important differences. One major one is that the Robson family lives near Tampa, a semi-desert for chess compared to the Waitzkins who were based in Manhattan. While Josh had the advantage of living in the center of American chess near both the Marshall and Manhattan Chess clubs, Ray’s club was the Internet. Despite all his hard work and gift for the game, it is unlikely that a player the strength of Ray would have emerged from Central Florida 20 years ago.
Not only were all the opportunities that the Internet allows not available then, nor where ChessBase and Rybka/Fritz not to mention strong coaches. The latter was a key in Ray’s development. Gary Robson writes movingly of the difficulties of finding the right person to help his son at the right time. This coach not only has to possess the necessary chess information and be ability to communicate it but also achieve the right rapport with young Ray.
Finding one coach is not enough. One of the more painful passages in CHESS CHILD deals with one of Ray’s first teacher, a Florida expert who has a been a good teacher and friend but who is unable to recognize that he has no more knowledge to offer. As Ray climbs up the ladder this need for stronger and stronger teachers doesn’t go away.
A gifted young player and his parents in the Soviet Union didn’t have to make this sort of choice nor worry how the lessons, tournament entry fees, hotels and airline tickets would be paid for. There were many (!) problems in the old communist states but for chess most of them got it right. Think of the amount of state support that was allocated to Karpov and Kasparov to name but two prominent examples. A reoccurring theme throughout CHESS CHILD is the sacrifices the Robson family (Gary, Yee-chen and Ray) make. There can’t be too many families in Florida that have spent several summers without air-conditioning! Giving a young talent a chance to thrive is not cheap. At one point the Robson’s are spending $25,000 a year out of pocket and they are not materially wealthy people.
Faced with a similar situation the family of Fabiano Caruana moved to Europe where strong coaching and tournament opportunities abound and he has thrived. The savings on travel have to be huge and the avoidance of jet-lag a blessing but this solution may not be a template for others as the Caruanas have dual citizenship and the Italians have provided generous sponsorship. The Samford family has provided something similar in the United States with its two-year stipend of $76,000 and Gary Robson is quick to praise the Fellowship for the good as it has done enabling Ray to work with Alex Onischuk on a regular basis supplemented with sessions with Jaan Ehlvest, Yury Shulman and Varuzhan Akobian. The work they did with Ray in 2009 quickly yielded good results as he made his last norms soon after and broke Bobby Fischer’s record as the youngest American Grandmaster ever.
Ray is a strong Grandmaster nearing 2600 FIDE as the book ends at the end of 2009. He has accomplished a great deal in chess, more than his parents could have ever expected, but what will the future hold? Ray clearly loves chess and has parents who realize that material success doesn’t mean everything, but few players below the elite (2750 on up) are able to support themselves by tournament winnings alone. Coaching, commenting and writing are all honorable ways to make ends meet but they take away from playing and many strong Grandmasters do them not out of pleasure but because they must. For many that is why they call earning a living “work” and leads to questions of why if one is going to “work” doesn’t it make sense to seek something that pays better. Still one does well to remember the words of the Canadian-American Grandmaster Peter Biyiasas who once said that a chess professional should never trade his freedom for a 9 to 5 job unless he doubled his pay!
One might think that Gary Robson would be bitter should his son choose to follow a different path than chess down the road. Think of all the sacrifices the family has made from sleeping on kind strangers’ couches, taking flights with multi-layovers to get the cheapest ticket to driving clunkers and more. But he wouldn’t be. He writes at the end of CHESS CHILD that it has all been worth it. The family has traveled all over the world from the Galapagos Islands to the far north of Norway from Brazilian beaches to bathing in thermal pools in Iceland and their son has been able follow his dream. That doesn’t sound bad.
CHESS CHILD will be an interesting read for a wide audience, particularly parents of young chess talents looking for guidance.
