Rising from the depths of poverty

A chess champion rises from depths of poverty
Monday, January 7, 2008

Coming from a shanty home, 16-year-old chess player Kübra Öztürk asserts that achievement in sports is about enthusiasm, not about opportunities and two back-to-back titles at the European Championships are proving her right

NURAN ÇAKMAKÇI
ISTANBUL – Hürriyet

Gülizar Öztürk was convinced that she should not have a third baby when she was pregnant with Kübra. Just on the road to the doctor to get abortion, she and her husband Durak had a change of heart. They got out of the minibus and returned to their single-room house, the house that Kübra was brought up in.

Kübra Öztürk’s life changed drastically in 1998 when she was in the second grade in Ankara’s Kayaş Elementary School. After the foundation of a chess club in the area, chess teacher İslam Osmanoğlu scouted for talent in schools, and that was when Kübra was marked for her talent. Eight months after she started playing, Osmanoğlu took her to her first tournament, the World Championship in Spain, where Kübra finished 44th.

“When I took the 44th spot, I felt that there was something weird,” recalled Öztürk. “I was an eight-year-old playing with 10-year-olds!”

It became “weirder” when she finished third in age-10 category in the Turkey championship the following year, when she was nine. After 1999, she clinched six titles in Turkey, and in the last two years, she has won two European titles.

“When I first started I did not know that chess was a branch of sport, all of the classroom was playing then,” said Öztürk. “But all of them quit playing when they got bored, it was only me that kept on playing.”

The main reason why many of them quit playing may be boredom, but obviously, some of them had to stop playing due to economic reasons. Despite coming from a family battling the hardest conditions, Kübra, now 16, kept on going. No wonder her family deserves credit for their patience.

“Sometimes I go to tournaments with her, and nobody believes that she is living in such conditions,” says Gülizar. “I would have liked to buy her presents when she was successful, but I just could hug her, saying ‘Congratulations.’”

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