Mark his words: Chess is the Weise way

NEW DELHI: What makes a hockey coach wily and wise? It could well be the 64-square board. Markus Weise, 47, the coach of Germany at the World Cup has a passion for chess and studying the game plans of Grand Masters.

You get the impression the two go together for Weise. The Germans out-thought the Spaniards in the 2008 Olympic final where Weise guided the men’s team to the gold medal at Beijing. Four years earlier he did the same at Athens, this time with the women’s team. Weise is the only coach to achieve glory with both men’s and women’s teams at the Olympics. “I was delighted to see chess shown on television the other night. It’s very rarely that it happens,” he said.

I was a member of the Hamburg chess club and the game gives me much happiness but also suffering,” he said. To Weise, chess brings both pleasure and pain. “You work hard on the moves and if you’re wrong, there’s much pain,” he elaborated. “Something like hockey,” he added.

Weise sees a strong connection between the games. “Hockey utilises tactics, chess focuses on strategies. To me, both have to work for success,”said Weise. “Strategy concerns what you have to do. Tactics is how you do it. If you don’t know what to do, how are you going to do it?” he asked.

“Take the Netherlands: they are strong on penalty corners and aim to earn as many as they can to score. So they frame their tactics to earn such awards, be it playing an attacking game to match and have players in the right positions to earn them,” he said.

“In chess, it’s the opening games, the build up, the middle game – translated to hockey terms you have the midfield build up and circle penetrations to earn penalty corners, then goals,” he added.