Continuing to put up some of my photo archives. The 7th world champion, Vasily Smyslov, shakes the hand of the 14th champion, Vladimir Kramnik.
May 2005 Archives
The Russian town (pop 70,000) on the Black Sea now has at least two famous progeny. It provided us with Vladimir Kramnik and now with Miss Universe.
At long last FIDE has met with the Association of Chess Professionals in a formal encounter of board members. A summary of the meeting by GM Tregubov is here. Most of it seems to have been agreeing to talk about things later when a joint FIDE-ACP commission is formed.
The most popular article at NYTimes.com in the past week was a Tierney op-ed on an experiment that showed very different attitudes toward competition in men and women.
Since it's taking over the Mtel item, here's a bit on the Sport Express interview with Kramnik after the Mtel Masters tournament ended. There's really not much new, although it's good to have things in Kramnik's own words regarding reunification.
I heard about this a month ago but either forgot about it or preferred to wait until the event was closer. From June 21-26 English GM Mickey Adams will play a six-game match against the chess computer Hydra of the UAE in London.
Are you ready for San Diego? I just put the new site on the air at http://www.uschesschampionship.com. Pretty much bare bones for now, so people know the when and where and all about the qualifiers. But I thought you might like to poke around.
Bizarre finish to this amazing event. Veselin Topalov pleased the home crowd with a final-round win over Kramnik that gave him first place by a full point over Anand, who pressured but couldn't take out Polgar. Ponomariov-Adams was also drawn.
Another spectacular showing by Veselin Topalov at the Mtel Masters. His strong Linares showing had elements of luck, but in Sofia the hometown boy is looking like a combination of Boris Spassky and Vasil Levski.
All three games finished drawn. Topalov is a man on fire, unbelievable. His exchange sac against Polgar was sensational, but she held on and forced him to force her to force a draw.
Dave Arganian sends in this report from the HB Global Chess Challenge underway in Minneapolis. If someone also sends in some pictures you'll be famous in a ChessBase.com report. (To be rich you have to win the tournament, sorry.) Tourney hall, top players, inside and outside the building, the city, anything and everything would be great.
I'm putting his up early so people don't start freaking out in the r6 thread. Kramnik just lost in 20 moves to Anand in the same Petroff line he lost in to Adams.
The richest, and most expensive, open in history starts today in, of all places, Minneapolis, Minnesota. I'm sure it's lovely, but as many of the visiting GMs found out, it's not trivial to get there!
A day of incredible, mind-bending chess that won't soon be forgotten. Also a good day to remember to be really annoyed with people who watch live games online with Fritz & Co.
It's been a rough week for chessplayers with the Russian law. According to this report Max Dlugy, a top American GM in the 80's and former president of the USCF (90-93), has been arrested in Russia on a warrant regarding an embezzlement case and an investment fund he used to represent.
After the first half of the tournament Adams and Kramnik are tied for the lead at +1. As expected, it's an extremely tight and drawish crosstable. Half of the four decisive games came today.
From Igor Stein and a few others, Garry Kasparov was almost one of several arrested while protesting outside of the trial of Mikhail Khodorkhovsky today.
According to this FIDE communique (Word format), the field for the 2005 FIDE world championship in San Luis, Argentina (Sep.27-Oct.16) is complete. It came out the way we predicted it.
We had another quick repetition game that shows you can't legislate blood on the board. Polgar-Anand was amazing.
Part 3 of my March interview with Garry Kasparov is now up at ChessBase.com. It's all politics, but in more detail than you've seen in his WSJ or other interviews.
Some days you just seem to have a little angel on your shoulder. Today reminded me of that scene in Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" where they are in line at a movie arguing about Marshall McLuhan, and Allen produces McLuhan himself to step over and tell the other guy he knows nothing about his work. Then Allen, vindicated, says to the camera, "Boy, if life were only like this!"
The busy folks in the message boards recently completed a large online tournament and are currently taking sign-ups for the next. Kudos to the organizers and the winners.
A boring Petroff draw between Kramnik and Anand. (Yes, Kramnik won the draw and started with two whites.) They added little of interest to the stem game, so you have to wonder what Kramnik was thinking by playing this.
Ponomariov looked really bad today, or at least Kramnik made him look really bad. Terrible opening and then Black looked just helpless.
I'm going to start posting the occasional cool chess photo, with different sizes available for download in case you are a chess geek enough to put something like this up as wallpaper.
The year's strongest tournament starts Thursday in Sofia, Bulgaria. The Mtel Masters is the brainchild of Bulgaria's top player, Veselin Topalov, and his manager Silvio Danailov. The field of the double round-robin: Anand, Topalov, Kramnik, Adams, Polgar, Ponomariov.
As Sri posted in the message boards, Vishy Anand has confirmed to FIDE his participation in the San Luis world championship.
There is a new interview with Vladimir Kramnik by Dagobert Kohlmeyer up at ChessBase.com. Some items of interest about his personal opinions and life, not much in the way of news.
Well, sort of. I told him that the story going round is that Kramnik had prepared this for blitz against him.
In this week's issue of Black Belt, coming out Friday, US champion Hikaru Nakamura annotated his Sigeman loss to Sasikiran. His comment on 2.Qh5:
FIDE has gone sane. Hey, maybe the rumors that the DD is read in Kalmykia actually have some credence!? The international chess federation has announced an outline of a full 2005-2007 world championship cycle that includes candidates matches and a world championship match.
As expected, Vladimir Kramnik has declined his invitation to play in the FIDE world championship tournament scheduled for San Luis, Argentina in September. He says he still supports unification and so would be prepared to play the winner of the FIDE event.
Will someone please tell my keyboard to stop rocking back and forth? After spending so much time on a boat the world won't stop moving. Five days with no internet and no phones, just sea, sun, sand, and fish. Very...
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