Iván Salgado López carries the Spanish sun in his smile. This is his second year as a student at the National Academy of Sports in Sofia. However, his chess tutor Radislav Atanasov says he is no ordinary student:

“He is a special guy – one of the top chess players worldwide. He has lived in Bulgaria for four years now, he already knows the language pretty well and likes this country more than we do.”

Iván doesn’t view himself as a star, nor is he obsessed by chess, despite his remarkable achievements. He is modest enough to say that it’s not about talent, but the ability to memorize info easily and to use it properly. However, his results speak for himself: he was the 2005 FIDE master, the 2007 International Master and as of 2008 – a Grandmaster.

Ivan tells us more on his choice to come to Bulgaria:

“I have traveled a lot. One often finds things that are not very likeable in his or her birthplace. We tend to think it’s better elsewhere, but it’s not always like that. I do like Bulgaria. There is a lot of freedom here, you can do basically whatever you want. Life is strictly scheduled in states like Germany or England. If you need time off for competitions, you face great difficulties there, while here all you have to do is to move the exam to another date. Bulgarians respect sport persons. You also have this marvelous nature – with sea and mountains, and everything. The relations between people are incredible too. I haven’t found this in other countries.”

Iván studies Bulgarian by everyday communication.

“I studied on my own. My Bulgarian girlfriend would help me a lot as well. At first I practiced with taxi drivers while using their services. At one point I decided to take up Bulgarian more seriously and I thought that the sports academy was the perfect spot,” the young grandmaster says and adds:

“Usually people study for the diploma. I don’t care – I am a chess player and a grandmaster. The typical retirement age for this sport is 45 and I am 25. I have a long career ahead and I won’t face troubles of that kind. I just want to develop my personality, learning new interesting things. The sports academy offers a lot: biochemistry, biomechanics, anatomy, psychology… My schedule is individual, for 2 months per year and sometimes it’s really tough. At first I didn’t know words like comma and brackets, since people don’t use them in the street and whenever a tutor said one of those, I carefully wrote down the whole word. When my girlfriend took a look at my notes, we laughed a lot…”

Iván says he had worthy partners in chess in Bulgaria as well:

“I usually train with Ivan Cheparinov – he is a really strong grandmaster and I am pleased to have him by my side. I don’t have such partners in Spain.”

The two have been practicing together for three years now and the Spanish Iván says he still finds it really interesting to play chess with the Bulgarian Ivan…

English version: Zhivko Stanchev