Taking the MiQ

Times chess column March 20

You might get the impression from the above that when it hasn't been a free day, the Times chess column has been following the Candidates Tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk. Little could be further from the truth.

Ray hasn't been keeping up at all. He didn't annotate a single game from the tournament until his column on March 24, which was the rest day after the ninth round. He annotated Anand-Aronian, from round one.

Indeed it wasn't until the day after the fourteen-round tournament finished that Ray got as far as Mamedyarov-Andreikin from round four. Can this really be the man who was the acknowledged master of the instant tournament book?

So what's been distracting Ray from doing his day job properly? The answer is, the MiQ Leadership Program.

So what's the MiQ Leadership Program? And who's Raymond Gill Keene?

And who will be helping develop the powers of these global pioneers? Uniquely talented achievers and world-class experts, that's who.

The modern representative of Paul Cezanne? You learn something new every day. But that's what the MiQ Leadership Program is for, yes?

Now, noting the other names among the stellar cast - Tony Buzan (whose Mind Maps are "now used by 500 million people") and Deepak Chopra, well-known purveyor of junk science to the rich and famous,  you may be wondering how much this Leadership Program would have set you back. To find out, the web page invites us to open the PDF above (it's actually below) and if we locate it and scroll down, we find the eyewatering figures below.

Phew.

This may explain why Ray's role as a Leader Committed To Training

 

- one who (or, if you prefer, "it") "has won numerous awards in most major competitions in five continents" - might have taken over from his role as chess correspondent of the Times, which, sadly, has even been forgotten on his blurb.

Not that Ray is in it only for the money, mind. I imagine that his sessions

will have concentrated heavily on the key value if graduates of the Program are to "become renaissance agents for their organizations and the world" -

All this expensive charlatanry has been taking place in Mexico

which may also help explain why Ray sent in so many Times columns in advance rather than provide daily coverage of the biggest chess tournament of the year.

Anyway I seem to recall a similar event taking place last year, and no doubt there'll be another next year, so if you have twenty big ones to throw away on Ray and his chums you might like to contact the Centro Fox and book yourself in. You too could become renaissance agents for your organisations and the world.

Innovative, compassionate, flexible, holistic and - most of all - ethical.

[Thanks to Pablo Byrne]

[Ray Keene index]