English Chess Forum

Here's a little mystery.

Looking for the Times chess column (yes, yes, I should have something better to do of a Friday evening) and finding that their online search, never good, is currently refusing to show me any of Ray's columns in the last four weeks, I nevertheless came across this article by Tom Kington, from 18 May, about a chap called Davide Casaleggio who apparently plays an important role in Italy's Five Star Movement. It's paywalled but the first paragraph reads as follows:

A publicity-shy internet expert and brilliant chess player who has English parentage is emerging as one of the most powerful men in Italy after controversially taking a senior role in the anti-establishment Five Star Movement.

Later it claims that Mr Cassaleggio was:

A chess prodigy at 12.

I've never heard of the chap - can anybody on here enlighten me? Sources for this claim in English seem non-existent and I don't have Italian, although I did find this, which says:

Nella sua gioventù si è sempre dedicato con entusiasmo agli sport acquatici e ha anche conquistato il titolo di Gran maestro degli scacchi. A soli 12 anni era tra i cinque migliori scacchisti del Bel Paese

which if Google Translate is any help seems to claim that Mr Cassaleggio obtained the GM title and was at one time among the top five players in the country. (Neither of these claims appear in the Times article.)

I'd be grateful if anybody could confirm my reading of the Italian piece and, just as much, if anybody could say whether they've heard of this apparent ex-prodigy and "brilliant chess player" or whether they think Mr Kington may have been taken for a ride.

Well, that's a shock.

http://www.ilpost.it/2016/04/26/davide-casaleggio/

A 12 anni è un bambino prodigio, classificato tra i primi cinque scacchisti under 16 d’Italia.

At 12 years old he was among the top five Italian chess players aged under 16. That was in 1989.

Michael Flatt wrote: At 12 years old he was among the top five Italian chess players aged under 16. That was in 1989.

That could be plausible, but checkable only with access to Italian rating or ranking lists of the period. Not quite Grandmaster at 12, but within reach of journalist exaggeration.

Different world in the 80s. Not sure what "top 5 Italian U16" would equate to today, but I'm sure that it is probably significantly stronger than it was back then.

The first Italian quotation only makes the claim for 'aged only 12, among the best five chess players of the 'fair country' (ie Italy)' (omitting the under 16 bit referred to later). The grandmaster bit isn't connected with age: 'from youth, enthusiastic about water sports and also obtained the title of grandmaster of chess' is a bit more vague on age, it not being quite clear whether the youthfulness carries over to chess from 'aquatics'.