A while back I wrote about a big Petrosian Memorial event to be held in June this year. (Not the controversially located one held in March in Stepanakert. Nor the one scheduled for Armenia in November.) Amazingly, nothing more has been heard about it. Even more amazingly, it's still on! I got the scoop from Kasparov last night.
It's in Moscow from June 9-15. It's a Scheveningen-format team tournament, classical chess (yay). Each of the six players on the "Petrosian team" will play each member of the "World team." The Petrosian team is Kasparov (half Armenian), Gelfand (Petrosian's top student), Leko (married to a Petrosian. His father-in-law Arshak will be the team's coach) and the top Armenian players Akopian, Lputian, and Vaganian. The World team is Anand, Svidler, Adams, Vallejo, van Wely, and Bacrot.
Great event, despite the lack of rest days due to the FIDE WCh starting in Libya on the 18th. It's going to be at the Hyatt Ararat hotel, bonus points if you know why that's fitting. It was to have finished on June 17, which would have been Petrosian's 75th birthday. He died in 1984.
Why bonus points, Mig? Mount Ararat is what all Armenians believe should be part of Armenia and can be seen easily from the capital, Yerevan. It was the symbol of the 1996 Chess Olympiad.
"Why bonus points, Mig? Mount Ararat is what all Armenians believe should be part of Armenia and can be seen easily from the capital, Yerevan. It was the symbol of the 1996 Chess Olympiad. "
You can actually say this for ALL Armenians? Then, tell me what am I thinking of right now!
LT
hope the games are not all drawn. only kidding, looking for some great games to play over from some of the top grandmasters! petrosian games are also a joy replaying! best wishes to all!
is there any web-site for this event? The only source for the info I've found so far is the TWIC site;
P.S. btw, love the site, Mig!
Hello Dima, thanks for the kind words! No official site that I have seen or heard of. We will be covering it daily at http://www.chessbase.com. I'm not 100% sure, but http://www.worldchessrating.ru will probably have some stuff in Russian and maybe English at the .com version.
Mig, do the worldchessrating sites even exist any more? I haven't been able to access either the Russian or English (which latter hadn't been updated for months, iirc) pages recently.
Hmm, good point! I thought the Russian site was still updated on occasion and the English during a few big events. But I can't reach them either. I know the guys who ran the place so I'll find out.
But I still haven't heard anything about any official site for the Petrosian event.
Hi, Mig and all those who are interested in a bad-fated WorldChessRating site. It was closed on May 6 never to return on-line. The investors (FIDE-related structures) were not able to pay for the office, Internet-connection etc. leave alone employers' salaries.
In fact most of the staff had already found some other job before the Final Countdown began...
Best regards,
Ilya Gorodetsky