Well, sort of. I told him that the story going round is that Kramnik had prepared this for blitz against him. His answer, "Funny, but for me to play ..e5 first Kramnik would have to play e4!" Good point. If Kramnik had prepared this for Kasparov, why didn't he ever play e4? How well grounded is this story? Perhaps Vlady was pulling Short's leg?
Garry didn't comment on the legitimacy of 2.Qh5, not unexpectedly. But he did say he was recently shocked to see Nakamura on Playchess.com playing dozens of 1 0 games against a computer! Not exactly the Botvinnik school, I suppose, but it's hard to argue with results.
Who cares. There are real chess games being played. Real stories out there. Please. Why comment on a move in one game. Why not write about Timman's amazing result?
Mig:
"Garry didn't comment on the legitimacy of 2.Qh5...". Did you ask him what he thinks of that move? Nakamura says he might play it again, so maybe it isn't all that bad.
Who--
From the length of the 1. Qh5 thread it seems that lots of people care. Why not treat us to your observations and insights about Timman's performance?
Kasparov shocked? Well I'm shocked, outraged AND appalled to hear that Mr. Democracy is watching dozens of ICC games while Putin and his henchmen are devoting their spare moments to destroying Western Civilization.
We definitely have entered a new era of chess learning. The youth now have a totally definitely way of learning... everything is accelerated these days and there is a shying away from methodical, linear learning methods.
Hikaru may be the first player of note to take on a decidedly different learning approach to chess, but we will see more like him... and they will shun "traditional" methods of study and of play.
I posted about Timman here:
http://www.chessninja.com/dailydirt/archives/lion_bites.htm
Naka seems to be a fine example of the "open minded" school of contemporary GM's alluded to in John Watson's "chess strategy in action". There's no reference to him in the book (which was published in 2003) but he seems to confirm some of Watson's theory's...at least to my limited understanding. I'm curious as to what some of you masters out there who are familiar with the book think.
I also remember seeing Nakamura going at it with Comp Quark on playchess, but I don't remember Kasparov being there to watch it. Is he using some special name?
Yes, his secret handle is MigGreengard :)