USA gets revenge on Italy
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Vasilisa Filaretova, left, of Team USA, and Mario Maiello, of Team Italy, engage in a serious game of checkers.
Vasilisa Filaretova, left, of Team USA, and Mario Maiello, of Team Italy, engage in a serious game of checkers.
Team USA waited four years to get revenge on Team Italy with a 208-192 win at the 2024 3-Move Checkers Second International Team Match held July 1-5 inside the Vidor City Hall Council Chambers. The feat took five days and 200 games to secure.
“This is an international match between the United States and Italy, and the winner gets bragging rights,” said organizer Watson Franks. “We played them four years ago in Italy and they beat us by one point after we went ahead by four.”
According to Franks, director for District 8 of the United States Checkers Federation, Vidor Checkers USA has been hosting the tournaments since 2017. Last year, the city hosted the 2023 World Checkers Championship in June.
“The city has backed and promoted many district and state tournaments, nationals, world-qualifying tournaments, Blitz and world championship over the last 10 years,” stated Franks, who also serves as a host and referee. “We started hosting the U.S. National, then we got the World Qualifying Tournament where the winner would play in the world championships.”
He said players came from Africa, England, Barbados and other countries. Franks noted that checkers, known as draughts in Europe and other countries, has become popular in Italy, Kenya and South Africa.
“Everybody plays and some of the countries have big organizations,” he said. “In the U.S., we are trying to build the popularity back up.”
The USA vs. Italy team match of 2024 consisted of 10-player teams (including one youth and one woman), along with two alternates. Each round is three hours and 30 minutes with two rounds each day for a total of 10. The rounds consist of two games, 45 minutes for each game, plus 15 seconds earned with each press of the clock. Each team gets two points for win and one for a draw in every game of the match.
Frank noted that two games of each round were live streamed on the Internet. He and Gaetano Mazzilli played an exhibition round before the tournament began. According to Franks, the youngest player was 13-year-old Vasilisa Filaretova and the oldest was 94-year-old Mazzilli.
Filaretova, a member of Team USA, started playing checkers at age 7 in St. Petersburg, Russia, and participated in regional and All-Russian competitions as part of the national team from St. Petersburg.
After moving to the U.S., she played checkers in Missouri and took first place among juniors, third place among women, and fourth among adults.
Mazzilli, who is an alternate on Team Italy, was a medical surgeon and formerly head orthopedist at North Hospital in Taranto, his hometown. He has held leadership roles in both the Italian and World Draughts Federation.
Also, participating in this year’s tournament were world champions Alex Moiseyev (USA) and Sergio Scarpetta (Italy).
Awards were presented after the final two rounds July 5. Moiseyev won the point contest with 29 points (nine wins and 11 draws) and was the only person not to lose a game. Matteo Bernini (Italy) was second with 28 points.
Team USA’s Alex Holmes, who finished with 27 points, was the only player to win 10 games. For Italy, Scarpetta and Luciano Negrone each finished with 26 points. Filaretov’s collected 6 points for Team USA.