The first time Swedish Grandmaster Pia Cramling Bellon took her daughter Anna to a chess match was when she was round three months of age. She had not competed for your complete length of her being pregnant and as quickly as she recovered, she returned to the acquainted tunes of the chess circuit. “Those were my active days and I desperately wanted to get back into the circuit,” Pia recollects.
There was nobody to baby-sit, aside from her father who needed to come from Sweden whereas they have been residing in Spain. “So I would take her to tournaments. She was a nice girl and would mostly sleep during my games,” she recollects.
When she acquired older, she would sit on her lap as Pia sat considering her strikes. Anna would peer curiously on the items. At the following stage, she would run throughout the venue along with her cartoon books. Years rolled on in a blur and Anna is now 21, however nonetheless accompanying her mom, now as a teammate although.
Pia successful a gold medal on board one made the Olympiad a memorable outing for the household. It was a future Anna couldn’t escape, not when your dad and mom are each grandmasters. Her father Juan Manuel Bellon Lopez, now the Swedish group captain, was one among Spain’s best gamers with a peak score of 2510. Add that to Pia’s peak of 2550 and Anna’s 2065, the Bellon family has a mixed ELO score of 7125 factors. Only the Polgar family might maybe come shut.
You might think about how their home might be —rating sheets flying round, thick chess books splattered round, the dad and mom and daughter debating the chances of a gap at teatime, dissecting video games for lunch, conversing in purely chess diction and sleeping with a chess board beside their pillow.
Anna bursts into peels of laughter: “No, no I know how you imagine it to be, how most imagine it to be. But it’s not like that. We are like any other normal family, doing things that a normal family would. At home, we barely discuss chess or our games. Not like we don’t speak chess at all, but mostly it’s other stuff, the routine household talks,” she says, nonetheless laughing.
The recreation, although, is the centre of the universe. When she was younger, Anna tried to flee chess, however merely couldn’t. “I never wanted to be a chess player. I learned the game when I was quite young, obviously, but did not set my eyes on becoming a competitive chess player then. Everything flowed organically. My parents never put any pressure on me. They simply let me be on my own,” she says.
But the world outdoors noticed her because the would-be Grandmaster of a Grandmaster couple. Sometimes, excellent strangers would cease her and ask whether or not she has develop into a Grandmaster or not. “It was more people from outside who thought that I should become a grandmaster because my parents too were. I understand that, doctor’s children are expected to be doctors, like that.” she says.
Even if Anna tried to flee chess, chess wouldn’t escape Anna. Often, she can be travelling with them in the course of the tournaments as a result of she didn’t like staying at dwelling alone, shifting round within the close-knit chess neighborhood and speaking to chess gamers, most of whom have been her dad and mom’ mates or like an prolonged household. “Most of my childhood memories are related to chess only, cities, hotels, venues, chess players,” Anna chimes in.
But the extra she performed and watched, the deeper she started to like the sport. And she conveyed it to her dad and mom. “She made all the choices on her own, though we were extremely happy when she developed the same passion as we have. All we did was we guided her, like the senior teammates would a youngster. We imposed no pressure at all, but somehow or other we knew that she would become a chess player. We could see that she was really enjoying the game, and we were clearly delighted,” Pia says.
She didn’t must browse for chess golf equipment or coaches. Whatever mentoring she wanted, she simply wanted to yell out papa or mama. Her type, Pia says, is nearer to her father. Free-spirited and aggressive. The openings are nearer to her mom, who’s extra of a positional participant. “She is not that tactical, but can be extremely good positionally,” Pia reckons.
These days, although they journey collectively, they’re in their very own world. Anna has carved a parallel profession as a chess streamer with hundreds of thousands of followers whereas her dad and mom are extra into teaching and guiding. They hardly stroll bunched collectively at a venue. But their universe nonetheless revolves round chess.
