If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.
Policy / Politique
The fee for tournament organizers advertising on ChessTalk is $20/event or $100/yearly unlimited for the year.
Les frais d'inscription des organisateurs de tournoi sur ChessTalk sont de 20 $/événement ou de 100 $/année illimitée.
You can etransfer to Henry Lam at chesstalkforum at gmail dot com
Transfér à Henry Lam à chesstalkforum@gmail.com
Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
General Guidelines
---- Nous avons besoin d'un traduction français!
Some Basics
1. Under Board "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQs) there are 3 sections dealing with General Forum Usage, User Profile Features, and Reading and Posting Messages. These deal with everything from Avatars to Your Notifications. Most general technical questions are covered there. Here is a link to the FAQs. https://forum.chesstalk.com/help
2. Consider using the SEARCH button if you are looking for information. You may find your question has already been answered in a previous thread.
3. If you've looked for an answer to a question, and not found one, then you should consider asking your question in a new thread. For example, there have already been questions and discussion regarding: how to do chess diagrams (FENs); crosstables that line up properly; and the numerous little “glitches” that every new site will have.
4. Read pinned or sticky threads, like this one, if they look important. This applies especially to newcomers.
5. Read the thread you're posting in before you post. There are a variety of ways to look at a thread. These are covered under “Display Modes”.
6. Thread titles: please provide some details in your thread title. This is useful for a number of reasons. It helps ChessTalk members to quickly skim the threads. It prevents duplication of threads. And so on.
7. Unnecessary thread proliferation (e.g., deliberately creating a new thread that duplicates existing discussion) is discouraged. Look to see if a thread on your topic may have already been started and, if so, consider adding your contribution to the pre-existing thread. However, starting new threads to explore side-issues that are not relevant to the original subject is strongly encouraged. A single thread on the Canadian Open, with hundreds of posts on multiple sub-topics, is no better than a dozen threads on the Open covering only a few topics. Use your good judgment when starting a new thread.
8. If and/or when sub-forums are created, please make sure to create threads in the proper place.
Debate
9. Give an opinion and back it up with a reason. Throwaway comments such as "Game X pwnz because my friend and I think so!" could be considered pointless at best, and inflammatory at worst.
10. Try to give your own opinions, not simply those copied and pasted from reviews or opinions of your friends.
Unacceptable behavior and warnings
11. In registering here at ChessTalk please note that the same or similar rules apply here as applied at the previous Boardhost message board. In particular, the following content is not permitted to appear in any messages:
* Racism
* Hatred
* Harassment
* Adult content
* Obscene material
* Nudity or pornography
* Material that infringes intellectual property or other proprietary rights of any party
* Material the posting of which is tortious or violates a contractual or fiduciary obligation you or we owe to another party
* Piracy, hacking, viruses, worms, or warez
* Spam
* Any illegal content
* unapproved Commercial banner advertisements or revenue-generating links
* Any link to or any images from a site containing any material outlined in these restrictions
* Any material deemed offensive or inappropriate by the Board staff
12. Users are welcome to challenge other points of view and opinions, but should do so respectfully. Personal attacks on others will not be tolerated. Posts and threads with unacceptable content can be closed or deleted altogether. Furthermore, a range of sanctions are possible - from a simple warning to a temporary or even a permanent banning from ChessTalk.
Helping to Moderate
13. 'Report' links (an exclamation mark inside a triangle) can be found in many places throughout the board. These links allow users to alert the board staff to anything which is offensive, objectionable or illegal. Please consider using this feature if the need arises.
Advice for free
14. You should exercise the same caution with Private Messages as you would with any public posting.
Originally posted by Laurentiu GrigorescuView Post
The news of the day is that Andreikin and Karjakin are the Candidates, but the chess media focused on MVL's blunder and Tomashevski loss! As hard as it could be for these players to lose at this stage, the hero of the day is Andreikin, who qualified after tough matches, especially having eliminating Karjakin (!!) and Svidler.
As for the remaining two spots available, Mamediarov, Grischuck and Caruana have the best chances. I see Caruana being picked by FIDE, especially if he does well in the last Grand Prix.
Exciting time for chess!
FIDE doesn't have a pick, but the organizers of the Candidates do. The only two countries I've heard so far are Bulgaria and Russia. The nominated Candidate must have a FIDE rating of 2725+.
Mamedyarov probably has the best chance to take the second Grand Prix spot (after Topalov), but either Caruana or Grischuk will overtake him if they finish clear 1st at the final Grand Prix event, next month in France (SM has played his 4 events).
Last edited by Fred McKim; Thursday, 29th August, 2013, 09:48 AM.
This is not the Tom Sawyer-type fishing with a straw hat and a pole by the side of a pond but insulated suit with hood by a fjord. Can it be that cold in Tromso already? Why, we are still in August.
What is that they say? A bad day of fishing is better than a good day of work.
+++++++++++
And, The Deccan Chronicle reports that Susan has accepted the job of commentating on the World Championship Match:
Susan, a five-time Olympiad champion and a contemporary of Anand, said she has accepted the invitation to do commentary for the November 7-28 event in Chennai. “I am honoured to be present in India during the match between Vishy and Magnus, who are both well known to me,“ she added. The organising committee is trying to sign English GM Daniel King and one more international expert apart from a series of Indian GMs.
A drawing of lots for the final took place after the tiebreaks yesterday. In fact there were two different drawings: first, to see who will pick for colours. Kramnik picked the paper with Andreikin's name, and then Andreikin picked black for the first game.
Kramnik-Andreikin 1-0 63 moves
The endgame they were playing was Kramnik with two rooks and three pawns on the kingside and black with queen and three pawns facing them. White kept squeezing away, torturing black.
After five hours, Vladimir Kramnik won the game. An impressive piece of work, faultless technique by Vladimir. There were no obvious blunders in the game. Andreikin held his own into the middle game but then at some moment (the Q sacrifice on move 30?) things changed.
Vladimir comes into the press conference.
Dirk: That was a tough game. Did it change after you sacrificed the queen?
Vladimir: (goes through a mass of variations) I had the initiative here and then the queen sacrifice. I am almost winning. (more variations for eight minutes. He talks about zugzwang possibilities and a drawn pawn endgame if queen is exchanged for the two rooks.)
ChessBase: After 29... Re8, Kramnik sacrificed the queen for rook and bishop, and as well as a thorny passed c-pawn, a move he had planned upon playing 28. d5!. Dmitry had great difficulties coming up with a defensive plan, while little by little the former World Champion improved on his position.
The turning point was right after the time control, with 41. c7! forcing Black to enter a very difficult queen against two rooks endgame. Live commentator GM Nigel Short himself was unsure whether it could be won, though he did recall a similar situation in which Kramnik beat Leko. Kramnik in the post-mortem had no such doubts and said he felt it was winning and did not see what Black could do.
Nigel: You played well, in fact.
Vladimir: You would have to ask our silicon friend here.
The guys got a tweet supposedly from the Space Station, from a friend of Vladimir’s watching? But it turned out to be a hoax.
The pressure is on Dmitry Andreikin tomorrow and he will have to play attacking chess.
Nigel will play the guitar tomorrow. The twittersphere is holding its breath.
+++++++++++
- A very satisfying Karpovianesque squeeze that only a Russian could do.
- In fact it was Karpovianesqueishlike
++++++++++++
Dirk: The winner of the World Cup will get $120,000 minus the 20% FIDE tax for a net of $96,000. The runner up gets $80,000 with a $64,000 net.
Nigel: There is a question of your tax jurisdictions. If you are in France, you are giving 60% to Monsieur Hollande or if you are in Russia, you are giving 13%.
Dirk: You also have to pay all your own expenses.
+++++++
Nigel: A viewer from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the most important country, not a member of FIDE.
Nigel: I had an idea that some openings are incredibly dull like the Qe2 Petroff, so we would introduce a new system in which you can only play them if you pay a fine, with the money going to your opponent. It’s an apology for playing boring chess. 10% of the fine goes to FIDE.
Dirk: A tweet – Just wondering why none of the super GMs plays the Benoni as black because it is a winning opening. Is it refuted at top levels?
Nigel: Yes! It is. Topalov and Gashimov might disagree – they are diehards. Benoni is a city in South Africa.
[Note – Actress Charlize Theron grew up on a farm outside of Benoni, South Africa-WK]
On the subject of Benoni, I have the most obscure chess book, in Icelandic, on Benoni Benedictsa (?), a guy living on an island somewhere; he fished or caught birds, and developed all of his original ideas. He would fish and on his days off, play chess. I have this book with some of his weirder ideas.
++++++++
Dirk: Another question – who is your favorite chess player?
Dirk thinks Garry Kasparov is the greatest player of all time. He mentions that Boris Gelfand likes Akiba Rubenstein. Nigel likes Paul Morphy. Dirk in his chess collecting specializes in Paul Morphy. Bobby Fischer appreciated Paul Morphy.
Dirk: I was in Moscow last year and Grandmaster Vasiukov came in and said, “Look what someone gave me”. It was the book by Maroczy on Paul Morphy in Russian. The original was in German. 50 years ago a friend had borrowed the book and had, in fact, lost it. He had come across a new copy and gave back the book to Vasiukov.
Kramnik was there and looked through the book. He read through it with a view to a modern commentary but didn’t do it because the opponents played so badly.
Nigel: I like Mikhail Tal, everybody does. A very nice man and a brilliant player. I read Hans Rees' tribute to Tal and he said he got thrashed a few times by Tal, but nevertheless people loved him. His games were so outstanding. He was very funny.
Dirk: Tal had an aura about him. He visited a tournament in Tilburg and was analyzing one of the games and everyone was watching him. And then, at some point he left and for at least one hour, no one dared touch that board. People wanted to follow the games but not Mikhail’s board, it shouldn’t be touched. A sacred board.
+++++++++
Nigel: Am I allowed to be narcissistic? I was looking at my entry in Wikipedia this morning. It said that I had beaten nine World Champions but I have beaten twelve. Where did they go wrong?
First of all, I beat Petrosian in a simul. Maybe that shouldn’t count but nevertheless, it is a victory. I beat Spassky in rapid chess; it is a win. Now they are deciding World Championship finals today with rapid chess. I beat the other ten in classical chess.
I had a secret match against Ruslan Ponomariov in preparation for this match against Garry Kasparov, which never took place. We played the training match in Yalta. I can speak about it now. I lost the match 4.5-4.5, seven decisive results. It was a wonderful experience playing, not generally known. I will write about it some day. I hope that somebody is updating Wikipedia at this moment.
++++++++
Dirk: That anecdote, I related a few days ago. I corrected it by saying that Kramnik with a slight hangover asked, “Who am I playing?” He was told it was Anand with black and he said, “What could be better – Anand with black”. I spoke to Vladimir and he said that it sounds better than it was. What I actually meant was that I had been preparing for Anand and for Short. My preparation for Short was not yet done and the one for Anand was, so I was relieved it was Anand.
Nigel: This is what he said and I took him up on this on the fishing trip yesterday. I discovered that this was not correct. I had played him before he played Anand and had beaten him. He had gone on the town as a consequence of that heavy defeat. In fact, in the last two games he had played black against Anand and white against Jeroen Piket.
The other little detail I would like to add, is that during that game he was doing quite well and was starting to get outplayed. His position went downhill. I made an exchange sacrifice and he resigned but I didn’t understand why. I went back to my room and analyzed for quite some time on my own. I still couldn’t understand why he had resigned. The next day we discussed it and there were long variations and perhaps white was winning with super accuracy but it wasn’t quite clear.
[This had been a very long anecdote and still not altogether clear. Some readers may want to look at the games discussed. They can be found at
The event was the Amsterdam VSB 1993 – the Seventh Max Euwe Memorial Chess Tournament.
In the Fourth Round, Short played Kramnik, a Sicilian, which Nigel won in 41 moves. See what your analytical engine says at move 41.
In the Fifth Round, Kramnik played Anand as black and there was a draw after 27 moves.
In the Sixth and last round, Kramnik beat Piket.
At the final, three of the four participants - Short, Anand and Kramnik shared first place with 3.5/6. And that is all I want to say on the Seventh Max Euwe Memorial]
++++++++
This post is getting over long, so I will split it into two parts.
(to be continued)
Last edited by Wayne Komer; Saturday, 31st August, 2013, 02:59 AM.
To see how far abroad the viewership is for these matches, the guys ask people to tweet in. The first two replies are from Venezuela and Singapore. Then the Philippines, Turkey, Qatar, Russia and China. They do not give the name of the Chinese viewer because he says, “Live coverage not available here unless you get around The Great Firewall”. There is also El Salvador (John van der Wiel got married there). Messages come in from New Hampshire and Peru. From Canada, Gilles Jobin, who says that Nigel crushed him in the first round (of the Canadian Open 2013). Bonjour Gilles, Nigel says, “I think he is from Gatineau”.
++++++++
The guys are asked about the upcoming World Championships and both think that Carlsen is the favorite.
Nigel: Anand is one of the great players of all time. I don’t put him in the Fischer/Kasparov category, but he is one of the giants of the game.
A viewer asks about a favorite book called the Pleasures of Chess by Assiac. He likes the chapter titles and asks who this secret author is?
Nigel: I know the book. Heinrich Fraenkel, born in Poland, lived and worked in England. He sent me a copy.
[Heinrich Fraenkel (28 September 1897 – May 1986) was an author, most notable for his biographies of Nazi war criminals published in the 1960s and 1970s. Under the pseudonym Assiac, Fraenkel edited a chess column in the New Statesman and published several chess books, among them Adventures in Chess (1951, the American edition was published as The Pleasures of Chess).]
Dirk: In the same email, the viewer mentions he has a novel of around 500 pages called The Chess Players (1960), about Morphy, by Frances Parkinson Keyes. I have French and Russian translations of it.
A thin booklet by the niece of Morphy, Regina Voitier, was written in the 20s.
[Life of Paul Morphy in the Vieux Carre of New Orleans and abroad by Regina Morphy Voitier (Pamphlet - 1926) This has the anecdote about the shoes..]
+++++++
Dirk: A question from Rome: Why isn’t there a match for third and fourth place in this tournament?
In the World Cup Football such matches were very boring and there was a lack of interest.
++++++++
Dirk: A comment that came in earlier today. Why don’t we just let the players play a new game after a short draw, same colours with the times that are left and the previous game doesn’t count. This way the players get to play and the spectators get something to watch.
Nigel: They did this in London 1887. Interesting though but difficult to implement.
++++++++
Dirk: Are players allowed to roam anywhere they want on the premises during the play? Are they allowed to talk to others?
No talking and no roaming. The toilets are inside the official area. You can’t go out of the area. Much to the regret of many players. Aronian simply loves to talk and you make him unhappy if you make him stop.
Nigel: In an unofficial tournament, things are more relaxed. I played a tournament in Malmo not long ago and the players were all chatting during the game and the arbiters didn’t mind since they weren’t discussing the games.
Dirk: In Olympiads you don’t want team members discussing the games among themselves.
Nigel: I have played in every Olympiad since 1984. They take place every two years in a wide variety of places. Next year they are in Tromso.
+++++++
In response to a question, Nigel says that he doesn’t foresee an African World Champion in the near future. He says one of the problems in Sub-Saharan African is the cost of the transportation. It is very expensive to fly from one country to the next. It is far more expensive than travelling in Europe. There have to be economic changes there first.
Chess was first played in Europe and the Americas. These were the great centres of the game. In recent decades we have seen an enormous explosion of chess in Asia – in India, in China and Viet Nam - these have all become real powerhouses now. It is a continuing development.
+++++++
Dirk: A question from Mendoza, Argentina. The Livestream audience (as posted on the web page) rarely passes 15,000. How can it reach a wider audience?
[A city in western Argentina, in the desert Cuyo region, Mendoza is the center of the Argentinian wine industry, for which it is world renowned]
Dirk: This is just one way people are following it – the live commentary with webcast. Chess fans are following it on the Internet chess clubs – lots of website. You are talking about 15,000 people at any time. During the course of several hours there many times that – between 100,000 and 200,000 watching.
Nigel: They are quite favorable compared to the London Candidates. The final just reached 20,000 viewers.
+++++++
Dirk: There is a message from Irina Kabina, whom we both know. She was the organizer of the legendary Novgorod tournaments of the 90s.
Nigel: Vlad and I were the only two players to play in all the Novgorod events. They were great events and all sorts of things happened there. I was bitten by a dog there I called Kasparov’s dog.
It was the only time I have played chess and have been bleeding at the board. My bandages were soaked.
Time for another tournament, Irina!
(I wrote this anecdote up back in March. If you wish to read it, simply search ChessTalk for Nigel Short or Dangerous Chess. Since then I have found a list of ten bad things that have happened to chess players at tournament. There is even supposedly a photo of the dog that took a bite out of Nigel. Go to:
Dirk: A question from Uzbekistan.
Nigel: Not one of the 102 countries I have visited.
Dirk: Why isn’t Rustam Kasimdzhanov, a favorite son, in the tournament?
I don’t know, just hasn’t qualified, I guess.
Dirk: Greetings from Pakistan. Nigel, do you intend to come to Pakistan?
Nigel: Unfortunately not. No plans to return. It is much quieter country that you would expect from following the news on t.v.
Dirk: Greetings from Mexico and Morocco.
From Brazil – Who was the best player, Alekhine or Capablanca?
Nigel: Alekhine in the 30s was just awesome. San Remo, Bled and Zurich. And after all, he beat Capablanca in their match. They were bitter rivals.
+++++++++
Dirk: Miguel from Portugal: Wikipedia has been updated today about the right number of world champions that Nigel has beaten.
(The entry now reads: Short has defeated twelve World Champions (Smyslov, Tal, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand, Khalifman, Ponomariov, Kasimdzhanov, Topalov in classical chess; Spassky in rapid and Petrosian in a simultaneous exhibition).)
Nigel talks about his vanity.
+++++++++++
Dirk: Looking at the game again, Vladimir is pouring himself some of his magic potion and eats something from his magic bag.
Nigel: I am going to reveal something I learned on the fishing expedition yesterday. There were lots of things sausages and potatoes and bananas. And I said to Vlad, “Take a Norwegian banana (as a little joke)”. And he said to me, “I hate bananas.” His dietician said that he should eat bananas but in fact he can’t stand them at all.
Dirk: He’s making a big sacrifice now for the good of chess – eating a banana. When the Soviet Union fell apart, the most popular thing in the country was bananas. They never had them before. Maybe his hatred dates from then.
++++++++++
Nigel: Nimzowitsch was one of the greatest innovators of the first half of the twentieth century.
Dirk: Karlsbad 1929 was his finest victory.
Nigel: He was the one who said a passed pawn is a criminal, which must be kept under lock and key. Mild measures such as police surveillance are not sufficient.
The guys ask for the quote in German and it is eventually supplied by two viewers.
"Der Freibauer sei ein Verbrecher, der hinter Schloß und Riegel gehöre: milde Maßnahmen, wie polizeiliche Aufsicht seien nicht genügend!" Aron Nimzowitsch
++++++++++
Nigel: The Beatles have a song, The Night Before. It has this chessy line:
Were you telling lies, ah, the Nb4?
Speaking of music, Nigel asks,” If you would like me to play the guitar on tomorrow’s show, please send me in some messages of support. I am sure they have guitars in Tromso”.
++++++++
The guys do a lot of analysis. In between are these conversations, which it would be a pity not to record. They talk about Lasker and his bridge and his philosophy. Nigel talks about seeing Angela Merkel in Abuja, Nigeria and Dirk has an anecdote about Maxim Turov on a bike in Tromso. They ask where Valery Salov is today. Someone says that chessplayers don’t get Alzheimers because they usually die of cirrhosis of the liver first. There is a fake tweet of greetings from the International Space Station.
Fortunately we have dealt with the game in our first post of these two.
Andreikin Dmitry Andreikin played the 5.Bf4 variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined. With the moves 8.Qc2 and 9.Nxd4 he left the theoretical waters, and Kramnik's reaction 11...e5 was not great. After 12.Nc6 White is on top, but, perhaps by the speed with which Kramnik played 14...Bxa3, Andreikin got confused and missed the strongest continuation.
Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam and Nigel Short are the commentators
Dirk: We went to the reception chess of the hotel this morning and no guitar was delivered, Nigel will not be playing today. The good news is that in an hour, Garry Kasparov will talk to us via Skype from New York City. It is always interesting to hear Garry’s views.
Nigel: He’s always interesting – even when he is wrong.
Dirk: Wasn’t it Larry Evans who said about the Dutch Grandmaster Donner – always interesting, always wrong.
Garry has been following this competition closely.
++++++++
Nigel says that the state of the match is such that Andreikin is forced to play actively. Kramnik’s first priority is not to lose. The first idea of the Queen’s Gambit is to develop your pieces and set up a good position and then see how the game is going. Can I press for an advantage or do I try to equalize?
Nigel: Andreikin seemed to be almost offended the other day when he was said to play for Saratov.
Dirk: He is actually from Ryazan. This is 200 km south-east of Moscow. He is right to be proud of Ryazan. It has several famous former inhabitants – Alexander Solzhenitsyn was from Ryazan. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Konstantin Paustovsky was from there; wrote about life around the time of the Russian Revolution 1917. He was a candidate for the Literature prize but didn’t get it.
Mr. Pavlov of dog reaction fame was from Ryazan and got the Nobel Prize for Medicine.
Do you write the time you used on your score sheet?
Nigel: No, I don’t. Done it three times in my life and it consumed too much time.
Dirk: Maybe this practice vanished with the increments.
Nigel: It was never very common to jot down your times.
Nigel: When I look back at the times I used on moves (other people took the times), sometimes I am astonished at how long I took over pretty obvious moves.
+++++
Dirk: One of the rapid games played by Peter Svidler of K, B and N vs K against Quang Liem Le was quite impressive. He played it very quickly as if he had gone through it the evening before.
Nigel: Well, his opponent’s king was already trapped on that side of the board. But it was fast and impressive.
Dirk: He didn’t have to think twice.
+++++++
Dirk: They played blitz games on the eve of the Tal Memorial as a means of drawing lots.
Nigel: We drew lots at Skellefteå in Northern Sweden in 1989. We had to pick up gold bars and they had the numbers at the bottom. They were quite valuable – a long time ago but each was worth a quarter of a million dollars. What I do remember was going to choose. People would choose by grabbing hold with both hands. The bars were very heavy. The only person who succeeded in doing it with one hand was Lajos Portisch. He went with one hand, picked up the enormously heavy gold bar, held it up and showed the number.
Garry Kasparov went to do the same thing and couldn’t pick it up with one and had to do it with two.
Portisch worked out with weights at home. His wife said that he damaged the floor putting them down.
+++++++
Nigel: I played Reshevsky and Reshevsky beat Emanuel Lasker. So that is my connection to Lasker. I played someone who beat Lasker.
I was giving a simultaneous once and played someone, who had beaten Euwe, Bogolubov and Alekhine over the board. His name was Victor Buerger, not a very famous player. He was active in the 1920s – in the British Empire Club Tournament in 1927. He was a very nice man but very old at the time.
Wikipedia: In 1932, Buerger took 11th in London (Alekhine won). In 1937, he took 9th in an invitation-only Margate tournament that Fine and Keres won. He scored his most notable win at Margate, defeating Alexander Alekhine in a game marred by multiple mutual blunders in time pressure.
Dirk: What is your favorite chess book, Nigel?
Nigel: I like Edward Winter’s Compendium on Capablanca. It’s a jolly good book. I even took it to Angola and read it there. As for non-chess books, I read histories – Roy Jenkins’s book on Churchill and George Orwell – Animal Farm.
Dirk: I like Murray’s History of Chess and van der Linde’s Geschichte und Litteratur des Schachspiels. Both are incredible pieces of scholarship and it defies imagination how they wrote these books without a computer and the enormous knowledge they had and the languages they could read. I have already mentioned Karlsbad 1929 by Nimzowitsch and Tal’s book on his match with Botvinnik. Also, Kasparov’s book The Test of Time.
I like Kafka, Chekhov, Tolstoy and Thomas Mann outside of chess.
+++++++++
Kasparov comes into the room via Skype and talks non-stop for an hour. Though the game being played is discussed, it is virtually ignored.
If there is time, I may transcribe the Kasparov interview later.
Chris Rice on the EC Forum gave his recollections of the interview:
He was on for about an hour and there was some fascinating stuff. From what I can remember he talked about:
- the plusses and minuses of age in chess;
- that the Elo system should be unified i.e. rapid, blitz and classical grades should be blended into one rating, though the rapid and blitz graded games should be weighted so they don't count as much as classical games. It seemed Nigel Short completely disagreed with him on that point;
- previous world champions & matches. He reckoned we would never know why the Karpov match was stopped as Campo has never said a word about it;
- there is no one single greatest player, you can't compare past champions (how do you compare Petrosian against anyone else?), you can perhaps compare players that competed against each other but even then that is difficult, Lasker played Steinitz when Steinitz was 58 for example;
- from what I gathered he thought Andreikin had done well to get this far but it was mainly due to his rapid/blitz prowess and I got the distinct impression that Kasparov didn't think he was in Kramnik's class;
- doubts Anish Giri is a serious contender for the World Championship at the moment as he is not emotionally mature enough, too rash and inconsistent;
- he thought Kramnik was unlucky not to qualify in London but has used the experience to strengthen his play;
- Dirk Jan asked him who he thought the best woman player was. He said for a brief time recently Hou Yifan looked like she might be another Judit Polgar but that never came to be, otherwise he didn't want to be drawn on that question saying he's had a hard enough time as it is keeping up with male chess.
- Carlsen has breathed new life back into chess much like Fischer;
- Anand-Carlsen match, it’s Carlsen's to lose, unknown how much of a factor Anand's home advantage will be, Carlsen has shown that he is affected by pressure as witnessed in the London Candidates and Anand has massive experience. Anand will like being the underdog.
Much better from Short this time. Having Kasparov commenting is always interesting due to his legendary status.
Yes, it is difficult to compare players from different areas, but one criteria to look at it should be how difficult the conditions were for a player to achieve the status of being Wiorld Champion. Here Alekhine, Fischer and Anand should score the highest, as they were "self-made" men, without a system to support them. The chess before Alekhine was - compared to recent times - "amatorisch".
A brief game, which just lasted two hours. Not very much happened. The players have been told that they have to attend the press conference after because they missed it yesterday or be fined 10% of their winnings.
Dirk: We feel that at some point in the game that you went slightly astray? Somewhere around 12. Qxd8…?
Vladimir: I was slightly annoyed because my original intention was bxc4 and instead took Qxd8 and it looks like I was trying for a draw.
(gives various lines for five minutes)
12.Qxd8
[12.bxc4!? might be objectively better, leading to an interesting and complicated structure. The open b-file, and activity of pieces trade off the weakened structure.]
12...Rxd8 Around this point Kramnik looked rather annoyed with himself, and for good reason. From an extremely solid, possibly slightly better position, he has allowed himself to suddenly face actual dangers - the rook jump to d2 needs to be urgently dealt with! 13.Bxc4 After a long think Andreikin decides that the very tempting b5, followed by Rd2 doesn't actually promise him anything. Instead he continues to develop, hoping to utilise the awkward placement of White's pieces along the c-file in the future.
[13.bxc4 Rd2! Suddenly White is forced to play Bd1, and his position doesn't look impregnable anymore.] 13...Nc6
[13...b5 14.Be2 Rd2 looks extremely worrying. Bd1 appears to be the only move, when Black has clearly taken the initiative. But 15.Rac1! is the nice little tactic that White found. He utilises Black's unprotected Bc8 to save his piece.Bxc3 16.Bxc3 Rxe2 17.Bxf6 gxf6 18.Bd4! A nice touch!]
Dirk: It was a good result for Dmitri today.
Vladimir: There was nothing I could really do today and so must get ready for the game tomorrow, which will be more tense.
Dirk: Dmitri Andreikin will have to win tomorrow or Vladimir will get the cup.
++++++++++
Nigel: I played someone in the Canadian Open who absolutely stank of stale cigarette smoke. When I started in chess, you were allowed to smoke at the board. So Donner and Tal were puffing away in front of you. I am thankful to the late FIDE President Florencio Campomanes for banning cigarettes at the board in about 1986. That was a step toward enlightenment.
+++++++++
Nigel: Question – How does marriage impact on a player’s shape? Some say that marriage knocks 50 points off your rating. In my case, I got married in 1987, it was one of my best years. I won Wijk aan Zee, Reykavik, the English Championship etc, very positive. The best year of my career was 1991 where I won two matches with Speelman and Gelfand, won the English Championship – all when my daughter was born. And I had a later good year in 1998, when I won five consecutive tournaments, not on the same level, when my son was born. So my problem in my chess career is that I should have many more wives and many more children. I would have been a great player if I had done that.
[Kyveli Aliki (b. 7 July 1991) and Nicholas Darwin (b. 18 December 1998).]
I can explain this because you feel much more responsibility when you have children. It works on an unconscious level. You don’t say I need to win to get more euros but you are just more focused.
+++++++++++
Nigel: There are some players who do not get up from the board very much during the game.
Dirk: It is part of the Bulgarian School. Veselin Topalov doesn’t get up. When his manager and friend Sylvio Danailov was working on how to make Topalov better, they asked themselves who the best player of all times was – Bobby Fischer. Topalov would fashion himself after Bobby. Thus, he stayed at the board, concentrated and never offered draws – the Sofia Rules were influenced by Bobby Fischer.
++++++++
Dirk: An Austrian points out to us with some schadenfreude that there were no German grandmasters in the World Cup but the Austrians had Markus Ragger.
+++++++
Dirk: You often sit on a plane for 15 hours to just play chess.
Nigel: I like chess, I really do. It is the right job for me.
Nigel: Garry Kasparov was very difficult to play against. I have a huge minus score against Vassily Ivanchuk. Our score is incredibly one-sided. Also, I have lost loads of games to Alexei Shirov.
+++++++++
I e-mailed this question to the guys:
Dirk Jan, Who is watching the shop while you are away. Would you give us a short history of NIC Magazine, how you and Jan Timman share editorial responsibilities and enough biographical information to fill out your meagre Wikipedia entry?
Dirk is rather secretive and I didn’t think he would answer the last part of the question. In fact, he just answered the first part to put in a plug for New in Chess:
Dirk: The shop is New in Chess. Well, don’t worry, there are many people watching the shop. They are used to this. The good thing about being an editor is that you can take your office with you – my laptop. One of our editors does the same – Nigel Short. We have a new issue out with Nigel’s recent trips to Canada in a column called Short Stories. There are many other things – reports from Dortmund and Vachier-Lagrave on Biel and Giri on Beijing. And we have the definite story on revolution in chess – Che Guevera and chess in Cuba.
++++++
Nigel: I am an olive farmer. Santorini is my favorite Greek Island. I have thirty-five trees. I now ask one of my neighbours to pick the olives. I used to do them myself. My brand of virgin Greek olive oil is Grandmaster Grove. Messenia is a good olive-producing region.
+++++++++
Dirk: Do you have a spare set of The British Chess Magazine from 1909 to 1980 for Owen in New Jersey?
Nigel: I have them 1919 to present but not a spare set. They are quite rare and valuable. You will have to wait until someone with them snuffs it and then pounce.
++++++++
Tweet: In pro chess history, has any player hit another when playing the game?
Nigel: I had the father of Gata Kamsky threatening to kill me during a match, which was very unpleasant. He has hit other people; he is a boxer. I know some chess players getting into fights at parties, but they shall be nameless.
Dirk: Tweet: Nigel, is it true that Vishy trained with you before your match with Karpov in 1991?
Nigel: That is correct and not generally known. He came to Athens for ten days and we did some good work. In fact, for the key game of the match we used an idea from the training session. I can’t say I owe my victory to Vishy, but he did contribute.
Dirk: A chap with a store with many guitars wants to send you one but the bad news is that he is living in Michigan in the United States.
Nigel: If he can FedEx one in time for tomorrow’s session, yes, but I don’t see this happening.
Dirk: We were talking about chess amateurs. Famous ones who were famous in another sphere but played chess with a passion were Marcel Duchamp and Stanley Kubrick.
There is a story about Marcel Duchamp’s wedding night, when he escaped from his bride and went to the chess club in Nice to have a game. When he got home and wanted to check an analysis of one of the games he had just played he got out his board and found that the pieces had been glued to the board!
Dirk: A tweet from the Faroe Islands.
Nigel: What famous grandmasters lived in the Faroes?
Dirk: Predrag Nikolić and Ivan Sokolov, who after the Manila Olympics, fled their country because of the war in Bosnia. They were working there as chess coaches.
(The Faroes are an island group under the sovereignty of Demark. They are situated halfway between Norway and Iceland. The people were mad on chess and B.H. Wood, the editor of CHESS, played in the occasional tournament there in the 60s.)
+++++++
Dirk: Tweet – Do top-level chess players analyze in their heads when they are walking around?
Nigel: Yes. The point is that it is very difficult to concentrate full-on for long periods of time. In cricket there are batsmen who bat for an entire day. And when asked, say that they are thinking of nothing between at-bats. In chess too you have to switch off, even briefly – walk and think.
Dirk: The very best players are analyzing when they are walking around and the analysis is just as accurate as sitting at the board. Vladimir Kramnik said it doesn’t make much difference to him if he sees the board or not.
Nigel: For him it makes not much difference but for other strong GMs, it does make some difference.
Dirk: Have you ever played GO?
Nigel: No, I played Chinese Chess. But I played against Robert Huebner. Even being German, he finished 35th in the World Championship. I played him in my first Chinese Chess game and was thumped.
Dirk: Tweet. Alekhine used to bring his cat to the chess table. Would that be allowed today?
Nigel: No. Some people are allergic to cats – like me. I am even more allergic to olive trees.
+++++++++
This is the 21st day of the contests and the 9th with Nigel and Dirk Jan. I thought it important to record the conversations of two cultured, well-travelled men who love chess, however trivial. Even so, I will be glad when it is all over.
Last edited by Wayne Komer; Sunday, 1st September, 2013, 10:36 PM.
At the press conference Vladimir dazzles with variations. Dmitry though was happy with his position when he played 24. Qf3. The computer gives black an advantage.
It is not absolutely clear to me who offered the draw at move 34 but the players shook hands, signed the score sheets and all was done.
Dirk: After 23 days of chess, how tired are you?
Vladimir: I had Dortmund, which finished only three days before this. I played 25 classical games and 6 rapid games in one month. Strangely enough I don’t feel exhausted. Tired, but not exhausted.
Nigel: Maybe it was all those steaks you had for lunch.
Dirk: How was it for you, Dmitry?
Dmitri: After Dortmund and the other two tournaments I am playing in my worst shape. I didn’t do any preparation for this tournament. It is my third World Cup and I hope it is not my last. I didn’t take this tourney seriously. Against Dreev, I realized that my openings were not ready for this tournament that’s why I went for this strategy of drawing the classical games and going for the tiebreaks as quickly as possible
Dirk: This will change your life, qualifying for the Candidates. Did you have a second at home?
Dmitry: There was no team, that’s why I wasn’t ready in the openings.
Dirk: Vladimir, you were here alone for four weeks, what type of support did you have?
Vladimir: I talked to my wife at home every day. I had Zahar Efimenko working for me in the deep Ukrainian province. I would like to thank him for all the work he did even though none of it appeared on the board as always happened. Being alone, the solitude always helps me.
Andreikin fully deserves to be in the Candidates but he really should work on his openings. He is underrated and if he does, his rating will go up.
++++++++++++++
Egden Agdenstein had an interview via Skype with the guys.
He is Magnus Carlsen’s manager and the both of them and Magnus’ father spent three days in India. The main aim was to look at the venue and also to promote the match in India. It was their first time there. The hotel and venue looked fine. They wanted to check where one could walk in the evenings and to do some sports and practical things like that.
They brought along their own cook and he will be there in November. Even though the food in the hotel was excellent, they will still bring along their own cook because in a foreign environment one would rather be safe than sorry.
Magnus was on the front page of the newspapers there and went to a school where he gave a simul with the students and had a press conference.
A clause was put in the contract giving him a free day in case of his being ill. It was the same for both players. In fact, Nigel said, these conditions have been made in previous world chess championship contracts.
The team is not going back to Chennai. They are in communication with the organizers and FIDE and that is enough.
Magnus has a media day in Oslo coming up and also on Thursday he is going to St. Louis to play in the Sinquefield Cup (Sept. 9-15), a 4-player double round robin against Aronian, Nakamura and Kamsky.
Egden will not be going to St. Louis.
Magnus will probably acclimatize in a training camp in a similar time zone but not in India. Egden is not sure how many people will be in the training camp.
+++++++
Dirk and Nigel talk about novelties. There is no emphasis on novelties anymore. Players use Houdini to find them. Nigel says, “I am afraid that if someone steals my laptop, I will lose both of my novelties.”
++++++++
Nigel is asked about Mike Conroy, if he is still going. Nigel says that he wrote a history of Lancashire chess, a big thick update of the first edition.
I have a copy. They are relatively hard to get.
If you are writing a history of Toronto or Montreal chess, or of the Toronto Chess Club or anything like that, it is a model to follow.
The title is A History of Lancashire Chess From 1871 to 2011 by M.J. Conroy. It has 482 large pages (two columns) with crosstables, games, positions and group photos. The photos are clear and the positions large. Famous players like Fairhurst, Gordon Crown, Amos Burn, Broadbent, Mestel and Nigel Short have their own sections. My favorite is Alfred Milner, who died at age 93. He beat the pants off me in a club game when he was 79! We could do with more books like that.
++++++++++++
Dirk reveals that he has about 1000 chess books but he is thinning them out. Nigel has about 2500. They agree that for the beginner Judgement and Planning in Chess by Max Euwe is a very good book to start with.
It is apparent that we are almost at the end of the tournament. The guys ramble on about Duncan Suttles, the prize money, match play vs tournament play, Mickey Adams’ form, Marcel Duchamp, new books and Mexican salsa. All very diverting, but things now have come to an end and this will be my last post on the World Cup.
Last edited by Wayne Komer; Monday, 2nd September, 2013, 06:52 PM.
In the interview given to RCF GM Alexander Grischuk shared his impressions on the organization of the World Cup in Tromso, Norway:
"It seems to me that this was one of the worst organizations of the event in a long time. The place itself was of course very nice and I completely agree with Kramnik when he praises local climate, but everything else was bad. I guess if Russia or Turkey had organized the event like that, specific websites would already react on it, while strangely enough everyone is silent about Norway. Mediocre hotel, awful food. Well, one could stand the hotel, but food was just a disaster! Sometimes you came to the hotel and there was literally nothing to eat. No place to eat nearby too, only a few cafes located closely enough. Also, everything was insanely expensive, well, you could stand that too. The very same thing as at the Olympiad in Turkey has happened before the first round: checking with the metal detectors took too much time so the round started 15 minutes late. Still, there are thousands of players at the Olympiad and here there were only 128 participants! I think they could do it much quicker."
Thursday, 19.09. 2013
GM Fabiano Caruana's coach Vladimir Chuchelov agreed with Alexander Grischuk who criticized the organization of the World Cup in Tromso:
"Finally, at least someone said what most of the participants think about the World Cup organization in Tromso. Fabiano and I also agree with Alexander: it was too poor for the event of such level. These were the worst conditions I have experienced in last ten years! Andreikin's words put it quite clearly: "on weekends, the shop was closed..."
Tweet
Comment