Mpene: From obscurity to chess stardom
Calistus Kolantsho | Friday May 24, 2019 11:34
One such player, who has emerged from what might be regarded as a ‘remote chess area’, is Thuto Mpene from Letlhakeng Primary School in the Kweneng District.
The 10-year-old Mpene will soon be flying to Uganda to compete in the African Schools Individual Chess Championships scheduled for June 26 to July 4, 2019. He was selected by the International Chess Federation (FIDE) to participate in the Uganda tournament.
It will be a self-sponsored trip after the Botswana Chess Federation (BCF) said it did not have the funds to sponsor the trip.
Mpene is fresh from an impressive outing at the 2018 Santiago World Cadet Chess Championships in Spain, where he finished third in the Africa category. Mpene’s coach, Opelo Maswabi started working with the player in 2018 when he was preparing for the World Cadet Championships.
He said BCF is not sending a team to Uganda as another team has just returned from Turkey and that has stretched the mother body’s finances.
“Mpene has also qualified for Africa Schools Championships to be held in Zimbabwe in December,” Maswabi said.
He described Mpene as a strategic and intelligent player. He said his age-mates have failed to beat him in all the local tournaments.
“He wins mostly by 61/2 out of 7 and 7 out of 7. He is too strong for them, when you teach him something, he is a fast learner and applies that on the board. He plays d4, the London system and with black, he plays Slav against d4 systems. The Slav defence is an opening that begins with the moves: d4-d5 and c4-c6. Against e4, he plays caro kann,” he said.
Maswabi said when he started with Mpene, the player was playing e4, which was an open move and gave everyone a chance to win.
“I had to change that move because he is a player who thinks a lot. I shifted him because he should play a move, which is closed because he can calculate. He plays closed systems,” he added.
Maswabi said he expects a lot from Mpene and the good thing is that they are travelling together to Uganda and they would be able to analyse the games. He said they are chasing a title from the championships and they expect him to be a Candidate Master (CM) when he returns.
Mpene started playing chess in 2014 at just four years of age.
“My mother is the one who introduced me to the sport. After that I never looked back. So far so good,” he said with a smile on his face.
Mpene said, at the beginning, he was always at the receiving end (of defeats) and he told himself that he should work hard to start winning. He said after a brief period, he started winning, with the BOPSSA Championships in Selebi-Phikwe breaking the duck. He then came to Gaborone where he qualified for the 2017 African Schools Individual Chess Championships in Port Elizabeth. By then Mpene was doing Standard Two.
The boy continued his winning streak, taking gold at the 2017 Debswana Re Ba Bona Ha Under-9, BOPSSA Championships and 2018 Limitless Academy Under-10, amongst others.
The player’s mother, Kelebogile described Mpene as a ‘special gift from God’. She said as a way of making sure that he continues growing as a player, she hired a coach.
“I managed to find him sponsorship from Desai Law Group and in some instances I pay from my pocket,” she said.