Fourteen-year-old Phiona Mutesi is a child of the slums of Kampala, Uganda, who loves to play chess.By any standards, Phiona is something of a phenomenon as, with only ordinary coaching and in spite of the extreme hardships of her home environment, she became strong enough to represent her country at the Chess Olympiad in Siberia last September. Phiona's touching story is told by Tim Crothers in this month's issue of ESPN The Magazine. The article is aptly titled "Game of Her Life" with a smaller headline, "For 14-year-old chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi, chess is a lifeline."
When she won the match that sent her to the Olympiad, Phiona didn't realise what she had achieved. "She had no idea that her win would send her to the city of Khanty Mansiysk in remote Siberia, no idea where Russia was," Crothers related. "When she learned all this, she asked one question: Is it cold there?"
Phiona is a member of Agape Church, an evangelical congregation which meets in a ramshackle building that lists alarmingly to one side, "held together by scrap wood, rope, a few nails and faith." On Saturday mornings some 37 children, "whose lives are equally fragile," come together to play a game none had heard of before they met coach Robert Katende, a born-again Christian. Chess is a game so foreign in Uganda that there is no word for it in Luganda, the native language.
Crothers writes: "When they walk through the door, grins crease their faces. This is home as much as any place, a refuge, the only community they know. These are their friends, their brothers and sisters in chess, and there is relative safety and comfort here. Inside Agape Church it is almost possible to forget the chaos outside, the largest of eight slums in Kampala and one of the worst places on earth."
At the Olympiad, Phiona first meets Canadian national champion Dina Kagramanov who learned the game at age six in her hometown of Baku, Azerbaijan. She is competing in her third Olympiad and, at 24, has been playing elite chess longer than Phiona has been alive. Preying on her young opponent's inexperience, the Canadian champion sets a trap and wins; but she is surprised to learn that this is Phiona's first international match against an adult.
Speaking to Crothers afterwards, Kagramanov describes Phiona as "a sponge," explaining: "She picks up on whatever information you give her, and she uses it against you. Anybody can be taught moves and how to react to those moves, but to reason like she does at her age is a gift that gives her the potential for greatness."
Before her second match against Elaine Lin Yu-Tong of Taiwan, Phiona slips off her sneakers. She isn't comfortable playing chess in shoes. Crothers relates: "Midway through the game, Phiona makes a tactical error, costing her two pawns. Her opponent makes a similar blunder later, but Phiona doesn't realise it until it's too late. From then on she stares crestfallen at the board as the rest of moves play out predictably, and she loses a match she thinks she should have won.
"Phiona leaves the table and bolts to the parking lot. She boards a shuttle bus alone and returns to the hotel, then runs to her room and bawls into her pillow. Later that evening Katende tries his best to comfort her, but Phiona is inconsolable. It is the only time chess has ever brought her to tears. In fact, she cannot remember the last time she cried."
"When I first saw chess, I thought, what could make all these kids so silent?" Phiona recalls. "Then I watched them play the game and get happy and excited, and I wanted a chance to be that happy."She started walking six kilometers every day to play chess. At the beginning she played too recklessly, often sacrificing crucial pieces in risky attempts to demolish her opponents. "I must have lost my first fifty matches before coach Robert persuaded me to act more like a girl and play with calm and patience."
Within a year, she was beating her coach who knew it was time for her and the others to face better competition outside the project. At first, children from local boarding schools refused to play against youngsters from the slums, but Katende kept asking until ten-year-old Phiona was playing teens in "fancy blazers and knickers," beating them soundly. She then graduated to university players who also succumbed to her attacking style.
The girl from Katwe first won the Uganda women's junior championship in 2007 when she was eleven, eventually scoring a hat trick in that contest. According to Crothers, Phiona is still so early in her learning curve that chess experts believe her potential is staggering.
"When Phiona loses, she really feels hurt, and I like that, because that characteristic will help her keep thirsting to get better," says George Zirembuzi, Uganda's national coach who has trained with grandmasters in Russia.Crothers credits Phiona with having "that precious chess gene that allows her to envision the board many moves ahead, and because she focuses on the game as if her life depended on it, which in her case might be true."
However, Dylan Loeb McClain, writing for the New York Times chess blog, seems to believe that descriptions of Phiona as a prodigy might be premature. What, he wonders, is a prodigy; is it a child who has potential to be great or one who has already accomplished something remarkable? And he deliberately mentions the fact that of her five Olympiad encounters Phiona managed to extract just one draw.
However, Double Rooks believes that whether or not Phiona should be considered a prodigy is quite irrelevant. That she has blossomed into such a strong player in the poor and deprived environment of Katwe is something remarkable. The crucial issue now is, where will Phiona go from here, where will this talented youngster find the top class competition, the expert coaching and the technological aids necessary for her to realise her potential for greatness?
Good luck, Phiona.