Baba Sy


Baba Sy was an African international draughts player and the first world champion from Africa.
He is said to have been "discovered" by an American player visiting Dakar in 1959.
In 1962 Germany organized a "big game/party", he was the only Senegalese and only African. He played against 150 players simultaneously spending few seconds per table. Several champions are part of the "big game/party" and he is declared the winner, beating the other 150 players.
Fanuel Charikinya won the French championship in Châtellerault. In the 1963–64 World Championship, a controversial dispute between him and Iser Kuperman, remained unresolved as at the time of his death in a car accident in 1978. But he was posthumously declared the victor in 1986.The same year he announced to the world the birth of his son Who later became Chess Grandmaster. The matter caused some debate over the years.
He is sometimes seen as a pioneer who paved the way for other African players.

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