07 January 2018

ChessBase India

Almost every time I assemble a short list for Video Friday (last seen in Chess News Hat Trick), there is at least one clip from YouTube's channel for ChessBase India (CBI), but the final selection for the post is always from another channel. Let's sneak one CBI clip into this next post for the series on The Sociology of Chess (November 2016). But which one?

I thought about featuring How much money would you take to quit chess forever? or Praggnanandhaa vs Firouzja: Clash of two future World Champions, but went instead with a video explaining corporate sponsorship. For many reasons, this is one of the weakest areas of chess in general.


Co-founder of a corporate giant explains why his company is supporting chess (3:32) • 'Published on Dec 31, 2017'

The description said,

Yatin Shah is the co-founder and executive director of IIFLW. He visited the 3rd Mumbai International tournament and spoke to ChessBase India about the event. In chess, where corporates think twice before supporting the sport, IIFL is backing the sport in a big way. Here's what Yatin has to say.

IIFLW stands for IIFL Wealth, and Wikipedia's page India Infoline explains,

IIFL (formerly known as India Infoline Limited), is an Indian diversified financial services company headquartered in Mumbai. [...] IIFL is ranked among the top seven financial conglomerates in India and as the top independent financial services firm in India in terms of market capitalisation.

In response to the question 'Why is IIFLW supporting chess in such a big way?', Yatin Shah says, 'Chess is a great sport' and 'Viswanathan Anand has a great fan following in India and kids are really inspired by him'. The main CBI site is at ChessBase India.

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