LatestChess :- You have undoubtedly an important role to play in promoting chess as an icon in South Africa. What role do you see yourself playing in the future?
Mark Levitt :- ChessCube started in South Africa, but our focus is International. Interestingly, South African accounts for less than 3% of our player base - whereas India is our largest community, followed by the US, where we maintain our servers. Our involvement in events such as the SA Open has created a lot of interest though. I would like to think that ChessCube, being a free site, will encourage South Africans and Africans in general to play online more.

ChessCube will encourage South Africans and Africans ...

LatestChess :- How is the chess scenario in South Africa? What do you think to be done to make Chess more popular?
Mark Levitt :- There is enormous interest in chess in South Africa. Most of this goes undetected as it is at the school level and not at the top level or managed directly by the national body, Chessa. In my opinion national bodies would operate better if they were run like a business, with paid executives. That would attract a professional team that could focus all their time and attention to the betterment of chess. As it stands Chessa, like most of its counterparts, is run by dedicated part-timers - and that is their challenge.

national bodies would operate better if they are run like a business ...

Chessa has followed the lead of Turkey, by dropping membership fees this year - a move I applaud. Now they should be able to grow their memberships and attract far more government support. Once again a Free model! I would like to think they took their lead from ChessCube.

dropping membership fees is a good move ...

LatestChess :- Thanks Mark. It's been good talking to you. Could you share your blog url or email address with our readers?
Mark Levitt :- Thank you very much. It has been a pleasure.

My email address is mark@chesscube.com. I would be very interested to hear from tournament organisers, coaches and administrators who like to use our online services.

You can find my blog by logging into www.Chesscube.com!

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