Nigeria parades a great number of Chess talents among African countries and in fact in the world. Chess is a gentle man's game, just as prestigious as the game of GOLF, it tends to improve a persons Cognitive and analytic capabilities in fact some great rulers were said to have used strategies akin to that gotten from the game of chess to rule great kingdoms and superior military officers in the strongest super powers in the world use chess strategies. Children who play chess has been proved to do better at mathematics and aptitude tests !! a 14 year old SAMUEL SEVIAN yesterday defeated the USA number two ranked Chess player and number eight in the world at the US chess championship!! so chess cuts across all ages !! Unfortunately Nigeria with all the chess talents and with a population of more than 150 million people is yet to produce a single Chess Grand master. International master Oladapo Adu (Nigeria) in March 2015 , Last month qualified for the CHESS WORLD cup in Russia later this year. He qualified by Winning the 2015 Zone 4.4 Individual Chess Championships - Open held in Togo a tournament featuring players from six countries , CM KIGIGHA Bomo who is the current national Champion came second at the event while the 17 year old Nigerian chess wizard Daniel Anwuli and CM UNWANA Eugene Ekpoikong Who is currently the Nigerian number one ranked chess player tied for third place.
South Africa got their First ever Grand Master less than six months ago . Grand Master Solomon Kenny, his rapid rise from aspiring talent to chess hero was fuelled by a sponsorship from a Company.
Solomon, 32, had approached many companies with requests for sponsorship, writing letters and meeting executives in an attempt to get funding to attend major chess tournaments, many of which take place in Europe.
A serendipitous meeting with a director of South African Bunkering and Trading through a friend and fellow chess player led to a low-key get-together over coffee in 2009, where Solomon was able to explain his goal of becoming a grand master.
Despite there being practically no overlap in fields — SABT is a marine fuel supplier, not a consumer brand — the company decided to sponsor Solomon fully for 2009. Solomon won the gold medal at the 2014 African Individual Chess Championship, held in Windhoek, Namibia, in December, to become South Africa’s first grandmaster.
It is very pertinent to note that CM Balogun, Oluwafemi who is currently number 12 ranked Nigerian chess player defeated GM Solomon Kenny at a major tournament at Gibraltar in January this year, this goes to buttress the point that Nigerian chess talents will become the pride of Africa if they are exposed to the kind of Corporate sponsorship GM kenny is getting ,see Picture of GM Solomon's having the crest of the Sponsoring Company on his shirt. The name of SABT is for ever written in Gold.[b] The 2015 African Individual Chess Championship [/b]will be coming up in may 2015 , in Egypt , Our Chess Talents sure needs corporate backing if they are to make Nigeria Proud and indeed take their rightful place as a WORLD power and the pride of Africa at the Royal Intellectual Game of Chess !!
Written by AKINOV
Akinov is a Chess promoter and Brand Marketer .
The Players if sponsored by a Company /corporate body will always wear the Company's Logo and are ready to teach young Children the beautiful game of Chess, free blindfold and simultaneous exhibition just to mention a few.

SOURCE - http://www.akinov.com/2015/04/need-for-corporate-sponsorship-for.html


CC; lalasticlala Please be part of the revolution. Nigeria has got great talents !!

CM UNWANA Eugene Ekpoikong MALE [i]Currently the Number one chess player in Nigeria [/i]at the moment at a rating of ELO 2321. he is fondly called THE WILD due to his unique attacking skills which is akin to that of the great Grand master Tal , he shot into the Nigerian Chess limelight when he won three competitive tournaments in a row within a period of less than two months !! His talent is rare and he is an exceptional player who has proved himself a genius both within Nigeria and recently in Togo, we sure need a player of his caliber at 2015 African Individual Chess Championship slated for Egypt one month from now.

CC:
@ joywendy
@ ibnquasale
@ crackdcode
@ prof800
@ sarutobie
@ raumdeuter
@ wman
Over to you guys

wow!!

chai all this young masters i dey fear.

Do you mean that this our players don't have sponsors?

what about the Nigerian breweries plc? or is it just it's tournament it sponsors?


cc:
kolooyinbo
jayriginal
Goofyone
saintneo
ToyinDipo
Haywhy28
lucario007

joywendy:
wow!!
chai all this young masters i dey fear.

Do you mean that this our players don't have sponsors?

what about the Nigerian breweries plc? or is it just it's tournament it sponsors?

cc:
kolooyinbo
jayriginal
Goofyone
saintneo
ToyinDipo
Haywhy28
lucario007

Sponsorship is harder to get for Chess because we are sadly seen as a minority sport. BUT with the right approach it CAN be done. The sponsor usually wants publicity.

MANY years ago (the year before the Korchnoi-Karpov World Championship) I organised a simultaneous tour of Ireland (Armagh, Newtownards and Dublin) for Korchnoi. Because of his newsworthiness as a Russian dissident and the impending world championship PLUS a lucky break of little news around at the time we got front page on some of the National Papers!

So do not despair. Remember the sponsor wants something in return so you need the right approach.

ALSO don't ask fo mickey mouse money. Ask for a reasonable sum for your project. Tell the sponsor what they will get in return - exposure, publicity, kudos for supporting Nigerian Chess etc.

Finally remember that publicity budgets are (at least in any sensibly run organisation) allocate on a yearly basis. You MUST apply MANY months in advance usually.

TV people will consider it as two intellectual people sitting quietly at a board for long periods with nothing happening. You need an angle for them - a chance to interview the youngest player to do .. or the fastest blitz.. or a blindfold game... etc etc etc.

For all Fischers faults he raised the profile of chess and for a while the worlds leading players earned nearly as much money as professional footballers.

Good luck with the fund raising!

Was it that 17 years old Daniel I saw on channelstv some time ago?
The guy is a wizard!

I want to ask... who sponsors the "Lagos Chess Classic"?

@joywendy
The NBPLC only sponsor the tournament
@ KoloOyinbo
Nice insight and angle to it, very useful, with the Number of Great Talents we have in Nigeria i think the country is too big not to have a chess player with who has attained the GRAND MASTER Status !
@ prof800 Lagos classics is mainly a Lagos state sponsored event and its has been a great development for Nigerian chess so far especially the presence of invited International masters from Egypt and Grand masters. Daniel Anwuli and Abimbola Osunfuyi are both great Talents who are still very young in age but very good at the game and i am pretty sure with the right support the sky is the limit.

Slowly but surely we shall get there. Thinking is very hard for most people, that is why the game of chess isn't very popular here in Nigeria. The game of chess is similar to Bekett's book: Waiting for Godot. The main action takes place inside the heads of the players several moves or (sic) plys before they materialize on the board!

FACT FILE- Daniel Anwuli is ranked Number two in the Continent of Africa (Among the active players) in the U-18 Rank** April FIDE ranking.

African individual chess championship 2015 is going on at the moment Nigeria's National Chess Champion CM Bomo drew with three strong African Grand Masters