The motto of FIDE, the world chess federation, is gens una sumus, famously translated from the Latin by Sister Sledge for the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates as We Are Family.
Aside from the descendants of the Potawotami, everyone in Chicagoland is from somewhere else. But our Chicago Chess Center events have drawn visitors from all over the world.
I thought it would be fun to make a partial list of the FIDE federations of our players. Of course, there’s not a perfect correspondence between the nation one represents for FIDE and one’s place of residence. IM Angelo Young, for example, lived in Chicago for many years and played in several of our events, all while representing the Philippines.
It goes the other way, too. We’ve had immigrants and dual citizens who have chosen to represent the USA in FIDE, from GM Dmitry Gurevich to GM Yaro Zherebukh.They are Americans now and are counted as such.
And we’ve had foreign tourists who have never played in a FIDE event and don’t have an established rating with their national federation. I doubt I captured all those players (it would feel weird to scan a list of our players like a TSA agent eyeballing a passenger manifest). So I’m probably undercounting several nations—I find it hard to believe that we haven’t had players from Nigeria, China, or Bosnia yet, as I’ve played more than one master from each of these nations in other Chicago-area events.
So here’s an incomplete list of foreign FIDE federations that have been represented by players in our events.
Albania
Argentina
Belguim
Bulgaria (2)
Canada (4)
Colombia
Croatia
Czech Republic
Ecuador
France (4)
Germany
Greece
India (7)
Israel
South Korea
Saudi Arabia
Mexico (3)
Mongolia (3)
North Macedonia (2)
Myanmar
Nicaragua
Pakistan
Peru
The Philippines
Poland
Russia (3)
Turkey
Ukraine
Uzbekistan
Venezuela
Former CCC president Will Gane is a citizen of the UK. CCC Advisory Board member Mesgen Amanov has lived on the North Shore for what seems like forever, but still represents Turkmenistan for FIDE purposes. We don’t get credit for them until they play.
States of the union, you ask? We are still missing quite a few states & territories on our bingo card, but here are the ones we have so far. I’ve noted the states who have sent more than ten unique players to our events. While several of Wisconsin’s top players are regulars in our events, Indiana has sent more players than Wisconsin.
Of course, some of the out-of-staters are living here for college or work, but most of these players were either visiting Chicago or had made a special trip just to play in one of our events. Thank you all!
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
California (11)
Colorado
Florida
Georgia
Illinois (1,125 of you so far)
Indiana (42)
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan (20)
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri (16)
Nevada
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia (Anya Ellis is also a TD for us!)
Wyoming
Wisconsin (38)