While the Russian women’s first team took gold with an almost flawless performance, their male counterparts found things a whole lot tougher. Vladimir Kramnik, Evgeny Bareev and Sergey Shipov were among those who assessed the silver-medal performance at the World Chess Olympiad.
Silver Medalists | photo: ugra-chess.com
Since Sunday’s final round ended in relative failure – Russia-1’s draw with Spain meant a draw with Israel was enough for Ukraine to clinch gold – a lot has been written about the result in the Russian press. Team captain Evgeny Bareev, in particular, didn’t disappoint, as he gave at least three significant and, as ever, controversial interviews (read on to find out which player in the Russian team doesn’t love chess…). Below I’ve tried to capture the overall picture:
Team Selection
Evgeny Bareev: (talking to Kirill Zangalis of Soviet Sport)
Ian Nepomniachtchi on the second team looked brilliant. Why didn’t you take him instead of Malakhov?
We thought he’d become the engine of the second team, which could also fight for medals. But, frankly, the guys in the second team performed poorly. We couldn’t even find a couple of people to support Nepomniachtchi. Our players didn’t have enough experience yet to grind out victories.
And here talking to Yury Vasiliev for ChessPro (the report includes photos of the closing ceremony):
Alexander Morozevich featured on our application form, but we didn’t know if he wanted to play or not. On the 3rd August I got through to him by telephone and he told me: “I won’t play, if you’re calling me about that”.
I was calling him about that. Even before Morozevich’s refusal we’d taken the decision to create two almost equal teams: one “very strong and experienced”, another “very strong and young”.
Vladimir Kramnik: (interviewed by Mikhail Shpenkov for Izvestia)
Deciding on the line-up is the trainers’ job. So it’s hard for me to discuss it. But in general at the Olympiad we had the five grandmasters with the highest rating in our first team. If you’re talking about the possibility of including Ian Nepomniachtchi, who’s made great progress recently, then, as far as I know, he was offered the chance. But he nevertheless preferred to play in the Russian second team.
Sergey Shipov: (in his Olympiad summary at Crestbook)
And the line-up was as it should be – the first by ratings… Yes, the voices of sceptics will no doubt sound now saying that instead of Malakhov we should have included Nepomniachtchi. But that’s criticism after the fact. Incorrect, by definition. Before the Olympiad it was much harder to come to that conclusion. The choice wasn’t simple, and in any case there was a risk. Ian is a bold chess player, but unstable. Yes, he shone, but in the second team. But then Volodya [Malakhov], although he’d previously played stably in team tournaments, couldn’t help his team out at the key moments. But who could have known that beforehand?
The last round
Despite Kramnik’s almost effortless win against Shirov any chances of the gold medal ended before that when Svidler lost to Salgado Lopez.
Russia - Spain | photo: russiachess.org
The journalist Kirill Zangalis, writing in Soviet Sport, gave a rather sensationalistic account of the moment:
But Svidler made a bad blunder and resigned. He jumped up from the spot, covered his face with his hands and fled to the far end of the hall. I went after him. The grandmaster could barely hold back his tears. Peter understood that he’d let everyone down. And if Kramnik didn’t beat Shirov we were even risking losing the silver. Grischuk and Karjakin rushed to Svidler. Peter emotionally explained why he lost. But words were superfluous.
Bareev: (in Soviet Sport)
Grischuk and Karjakin made quick draws. Could they have fought for victory with black?
You have to assess the situation realistically – they had equal positions from which it would be hard to squeeze anything. While we were still counting on white. Kramnik had a very good position and converted against Shirov. But before that Svidler had resigned, which meant for certain that we wouldn’t see gold medals.
Peter losing was something that almost no-one expected. Was it also a surprise for you?
From the very start everything went wrong. Peter’s time handling was very irrational. In the end his opponent outplayed him completely, and Svidler couldn’t even see how it happened. Of course he realised that he’d let everyone down. After all, if Kramnik hadn’t won we’d have had to share second place. And what if our tiebreaks suddenly meant we ended up without medals? As for gold, even if Svidler had drawn the Ukrainians would simply have finished off their opponents. At that point Zahar Efimenko on the fourth board had a winning position.
Chessdom have translated sections of Bareev’s comments to Vladimir Barsky at the Russian Chess Federation website (also worth a look for the photos), where the captain went into more detail about each game. It’s perhaps worth adding that as well as the explanation given for playing “Karjakin without energy” instead of “the unpredicatable Malakhov” he also added: “I believed more in the exhausted Karjakin than in the no less exhausted Malakhov”. There was also a question about Kramnik:
Kramnik really doesn’t like playing early in the morning. How did he manage to play so well against Shirov?
What does that mean “doesn’t like”? If he has to he can play! Kramnik here was in good form. He slept a few hours; after all the game started at 11, not 9. He slept to 10 and it was normal. On the theoretical plain he turned out to be better prepared. A professional’s professional because in a difficult moment he can withstand pressure.
Ilya Levitov, the President of the RCF Board, and a newly-minted FIDE Vice President, talked to Yury Vasiliev of Sport Express:
It seemed as though everything was going to plan: Kramnik had an edge, while Peter had a very sharp position in which anything whatsoever could happen. But, unfortunately, what happened happened: Svidler’s inordinate risk ended in defeat…
Ilya Levitov among the spectators | photo: ugra-chess.com
Alexander Zhukov, former President of the RCF and President of the Russian Olympic Committee, talking to Zangalis of Soviet Sport:
While the men had no hope of gold today. Ukraine was playing too well. Even if Peter Svidler hadn’t yielded it wouldn’t have changed a thing. The Ukrainians were pressing against the Israelis. They only agreed to draws because they realized what they’d achieved.
Overall assessment
Kramnik:
It was the best Olympiad for our team in recent years. Both in terms of result, if you take into account that twice in a row we didn’t manage to win a medal, but above all in terms of play. The team in Khanty-Mansiysk didn’t look bad, but we just lacked, I think, a little luck.
Levitov:
Of course it’s not what we dreamed about, but, objectively, after the annoying loss to Hungary and the no less annoying draw with Ukraine, silver for us was a normal result. There’s no sense of a terrible injustice. There’s just deep annoyance… at ourselves. We dreamt of a “double” gold, and we had it in us. […]
I was with the guys at the last Olympiads – in Turin and in Dresden. Back then we didn’t have any teams, in the full sense of the word. We had a selection of strong players. But no more.
This time, I repeat, we had a Team. The guys were united, together, they helped each other out in everything.
Bareev: (at the RCF website)
If it wasn’t for the last match I’d say the way we played rated a 5-, but now… 4+, but no more.
That’s on a scale out of five. Bareev has this to say to Zangalis for Soviet Sport:
Please rate the silver medal.
For our current Russian first team, silver is our ceiling. Sad as it is to admit it, our team only looked good on paper. Unfortunately the Russian grandmasters in the Top 20 of the rating list at this moment in time aren’t enjoying the best period of their careers. Our team machinery creaked, heaved and strained but couldn’t perform at its best. The victories came with great difficulty.
Can you assess each player…
Vladimir Kramnik had a great tournament. He didn’t stand worse in a single game with black and he tried to seize the initiative. Though all of his opponents had the prefix “top”. The only match which we lost, to Hungary, was without Vladimir. When he sat at the board the question of a draw, or even less of a loss was never there. We thought only about victory. Sergey Karjakin was the main attacking force – 8 points out of 10 speaks for itself. He was the one who dragged us up into second place.
Alexander Grischuk’s play was uneven, but interesting and bold. Overall, things only didn’t go right for him in the game against Peter Leko.
Svidler before the final game | photo: ugra-chess.com
Peter Svidler can put this tournament down as a failure. He didn’t have that ease in decision making that he usually has. Things were coming with great difficulty to him at the start of the Olympiad, and he only woke up in the sixth round. To sum up, such a Svidler isn’t quite up to the standard of the first team.
Vladimir Malakhov was absolutely unprepared psychologically for the tournament. It was my mistake as I invited him onto the team.
Yury Vasiliev for Chesspro quoted Bareev going into more detail about Svidler:
Svidler’s potential is colossal! But, unfortunately, he was totally unprepared for the Olympiad.
How could that be, given he was at the training camp with you all?
But it’s not a question of one day, it’s a question of his relationship to chess. Unfortunately, as became clear, chess isn’t the most important thing for him anymore. That’s the problem. Again, if chess again becomes something great and significant for Peter then he can and will play. The question is his relationship to chess. Chess doesn’t forgive such a relationship. And didn’t forgive him. I shouted to him about it before the tournament, and during it, but what of it? I can’t punish him, but chess punished him. Together with Svidler chess punished the whole team. And the trainer, who took a man into his team who didn’t love chess.
At this point I feel obliged to point out in defence of both Malakhov and Svidler that they were given a very tough assignment at the Olympiad. As the Chess Results website makes it easy to see, Malakhov was only given the white pieces once (with 5 blacks), while Svidler had the black pieces 5 games in a row before his fateful final game with white. It seems like a chicken and egg situation – were they used that way because they were underperforming, or did they underperform because they were used that way? The strategy was, of course, to give Karjakin white (8 out of 10 games). Sergey Shipov also makes the case for not singling out scapegoats.
Shipov:
Now, analysing the chase for gold between Russia and Ukraine, many will remember the key game, as it seems to them, between Efimenko and Malakhov, saying that if he’d held as black Russia would have been first… But why precisely that game? Why not recall Kramnik-Ivanchuk, where white didn’t convert his advantage? Why do they forget the Leko-Grischuk game, which was decisive in the Hungary-Russia match? And, finally, why not focus on the bitter struggle Svidler-Salgado Lopez, which meant we didn’t beat the Spaniards? Look at the tournament table! We change the result in our favour in one of the important games, and then we add a match point, and with that our team Berger improves and, there it is, gold.
So that all such attempts to find the root of the evil in one particular moment and find a single scapegoat are incorrect. The team was flawed, the whole team! Never mind that when people attempt, after the fact, to change the result of one game in the tournament they’re not taking into account the subsequent changes in the position of the teams and the draw for the next round, the changes in the future play of the opponents etc. The butterfly effect still holds, although in the given situation it’s more of a pterodactyl effect, the wing span is so huge, the impact so large…
The result of the attempt to find the reasons for failure (and, although relative, second place is still a failure) can be stated succinctly: Who the hell knows! They could and should have won. But they couldn’t. Once more.
The future
Kramnik:
You’ve played a lot recently – and now you’ve got to take part in the final tournament of the chess “Grand Slam” in Bilbao? Do you feel 100% ready for it?
In terms of my game I’m fully ready for the tournament. It’ll be very interesting in Bilbao, as after all Anand and the no. 1 on the world rating list, the Norwegian Carlsen, will be there. I hope I’ll have enough energy left physically to compete with them. The Olympiad really did demand a great expense of energy. Now I’m only going to be with my family at home for one day before I set off for Spain.
You’ve said on more than one occasion recently that chess has really got younger. At 35 do you still have the urge to struggle for the world title?
Of course I still I’ve got the energy. And I’ll only lose the urge in one case: if I feel that someone in the world is obviously playing stronger than me. But for now I’m sure that I’ve still got a chance of being champion again. And I’m already thinking about the Candidates Tournament in 2011. After all, the winner will get the right to play Anand for the World Championship.
Bareev: (at Soviet Sport)
How is our men’s chess at the moment?
The change of generations isn’t going smoothly. The experienced grandmasters are gradually ceding their position, but the young don’t yet have enough experience and strength to be decent replacements.
Ilyumzhinov hands Bareev the Gaprindashvili Cup for overall victory | photo: russiachess.org
And finally at ChessPro:
And what prospects do you see for the future for our men’s team?
I want to believe that we’ve passed a certain point when we were deteriorating, and I hope that now we’re on the up, seeing the birth of a new team. Our second team gained priceless experience. And I hope that at the next Olympiad there won’t be clear failures either in the first or the second team, but a more stable team. And, perhaps, a more successful coach, who’ll do better at guessing which line-up to play.
Thank you again for a great article !
Excellent job, Mishanp!
I was waiting for these stream of comments.
The very fact that journalists, commentators and players don’t stop talking about Nepomniachtchi only indicates he should have been included.
Saying that criticism after the facts is incorrect is a strange soviet-style of reasoning because in sport 99% of criticism comes after the facts and results.
The results (often) show whether the right strategy and decisions were taken, all of which should be discussed openly and without hesitation of course.
Also, can you imagine this criticism (Nepo being a better choice than Malakhov) would have come loud and clearly before the tournament : this would have completely destroyed the already” mentally-not-up-to-his task” Malakhov.
I don’t agree that Nepomniachtchi is “unstable” as Shipov puts it; he used to be as a kid but this year (European championship,Cuba,Russian Higher League) he was very stable. With the Olympiad included, he lost only 1 game (against the immortal Ivanchuk) in these 4 difficult tournaments.
His last somewhat less stable performance dates from the Aeroflot Open.
But ultimately this non-victory comes down to psychological weakness and lack of motivation of many russian top players (also in other sports by the way).
Kramnik : Only plays in olympiads (not in European or World team championships).
Morozevich : Must be the most unstable player in the top 500 or so. Withdraws often at the last moment from individual and team events.
I think he suffers from manic-depressive disorder. His explanations (“i don’t have the energy”) seem to be code words to hide his real state of mind.
Grischuk : almost disappeared from chess a few years ago because he was too busy with poker. I saw a video interview with him 2 years ago during a Grand Prix tournament where he literally said that he had no ambition whatsoever in classical time control chess and that he never prepares himself before these tournaments (only during the tournament ?!).
This may explain his continuous heavy time trouble in classical chess (as an excellent blitz player !).
Svidler : Chess not the most important thing in his life ? Must be cricket then… Opening preparation and advantages ? Who cares ? Just counting on his abilities as a practical player.
And now we can add Malakhov to this list, Malakhov who was “psychologically unprepared for the tournament”.
I’m starting to like Bareev, who is very critical of others but also of himself and at least he’s honest.
Thanks mishanp!
Regarding Nepomniachtchi vs. Malakhov, Bareev says what I suspected myself – he was meant to strengthen the second team (and two medals would be better than one, but his teammates let him down). And if Kramnik is right that Nepo wanted to play on the second team (and first board!?), then who’s to blame? Nepomniachtchi himself!!?
Regarding Svidler, at least the rest of the team didn’t let him down (“Grischuk and Karjakin rushed to Svidler.”) That’s different from Turin 2006 when Rublevsky was the scapegoat, and reportedly his teammates really let him know and made him feel it.
“Chess not the most important thing in his life ? Must be cricket then… ” Maybe it’s his wife and kids, just saying … .
BTW, the Europe Echecs videos cover the end of Svidler-Salgado – more so in the French one, but the English version has Svidler walking away as described by Zangalis.
The French version logically first focuses on the French team. Off-topic but Olympiad-related and giving me a chance to show (off) my knowledge of French, the team captain said “Vachier-Lagrave was really tired and collapsed completely in the end. I kept asking him how he felt, he always said ‘I am OK’ (ca va rather than ca va bien – I am fine) but his play lacked juice in the final rounds. If only Bacrot had played, I could have given Maxime some rest” – apparently noone in the French camp knows why Bacrot stayed at home.
Steven – yep, I almost added that at the Chesspro forum and e.g. at Shipov’s own forum at Crestbook there was discussion beforehand (not “after the fact”) about whether or not Nepo should play instead of Morozevich – though people were arguing both sides. I wonder if Morozevich playing would have meant Nepo switching to the first team!? (one “star” is enough!?)
Thomas – I think everything Kramnik has to say about others needs to be taken with a pinch of salt! e.g. his comments that Carlsen wasn’t playing in the Olympiad. Then in this interview he said Anand had only played once in the Olympiad in the last 15 years, though I assume that’s wrong (I didn’t check, but people have mentioned he’s played more often than e.g. Kramnik). So he might not have known exactly what happened with Nepo.
In general, the tiredness and stress for the medal contenders at the Olympiad must be incredible – as much as anything else I wonder if Svidler just hadn’t slept well on the last day… By the way, thanks for the Rublevsky comment – that clarified a somewhat cryptic remark in Shipov’s summary of the Olympiad (he talked about newly “implanted” players recently meeting with rejection by the team).
Thank you very much for this, Mishanp. If I could offer one observation – and understand that one of my two trades is copy-editor – it would be that the translation is sometimes choppy, with some sentence fragments separated by a period. An example would be “Deciding on the line-up is the trainers’ job. So it’s hard for me to discuss it.” Better is ‘Deciding on the line-up is the trainers’ job, so it’s hard for me to discuss it.’ This is a minor change, but it flows better, and I thought that awareness might help in future. Otherwise very readable and interesting!
Wow, what a bunch of scapegoating and Monday morning quarterbacking! Fortunately Shipov and Kramnik keep their cool.
Maybe the real problem is Bareev; maybe the team would have done better under a captain who was a bit more encouraging, and much less eager to repeatedly and publicly point the finger of blame.
On the Malahkov-Nepomniachtchi choice:
1st: Malakhow had the higher rating, that’s always a strong point;
2nd: Malakhov’s latest results were very good too, if not as good as Nepo’s last performances;
3rd: We can’t claim that half-year of good results makes a player “stable”; I call it a streak. In that sense, Ivanchuk is a great example, to name only one. I’m not saying Nepo isn’t stable, only that we still don’t have enough data to access that;
And finally: I totally agree with Shipov; we can’t really analyse that after the events, we would be completely ignoring the butterfly effect. And only ’cause the whole world does it, it doesn’t mean it’s right. Certain things can (and should) be “measured” after, but analyse the difference between 2 equally good and acceptable choice of players is impossible. Also, people would be all praises in case Russia had won the gold with Malakhov…
I like Bareev. This is one of Russia’s best result in recent years, and they were stronger favorites in previous years on paper. I think that the way it turned out seemed right; It’s not like Russia blew many positions and Ukraine saved many positions. Ukraine objectively did play the strongest. Ukraine also had the strongest team they’ve ever had, as they have had a hard time fielding everyone in the past. The 2700+ club is only expanding and in future years even more countries will be posing challenges to these traditional powerhouses and more excuses/reasons will be necessary.
Thanks, kenhabeeb! Good point – occasionally I’d defend a choppy style as trying to get across the way e.g. Shipov writes in Russian, but on the whole you’re right, of course :)
By the way (to anyone reading this!), the videos Evgeny Surov made for the Olympiad for the RCF website are worth a look even if you know no Russian (as there’s generally not much speaking).
http://russiachess.org/content/view/5091/411
The closing ceremony video at the top has e.g. Ivanchuk staring up into space for ages, and a fairly glum looking men’s team. I’d also recommend e.g. the video entitled “Ty ili ya?” (You or me?) in the viewer at the bottom – it’s taken on the day of Russia-1 vs Russia-2 and really captures the atmosphere (the bus to the venue together etc.).
Asked at the Crestbook forum about why Russia-1 didn’t win Surov said he thought the new people in charge were so keen to do well that it put a lot of extra pressure on the players – and he said they underestimated Hungary (when they rested Kramnik the day before a rest day).
Regarding Kramnik’s and Anand’s Olympiad participations, olimpbase.org has such statistics easily accessible: Anand played twice in the last 15 years, 2004 and 2006 – so Kramnik was a bit wrong but not much. Which one did he forget? 2004 when Anand scored 8/11 on board 1, or 2006 when he had a mediocre 4.5/9?
It is true that Anand played more Olympiads (now 7 vs. 6), simply because he is older: both started as teenagers, when 16-year old FM Kramnik had his debut in 1992, Anand already played his fifth Olympiad.
About Carlsen, Kramnik may have been confused because Carlsen had cancelled his participation in the European Team Championship shortly before the event. Kramnik didn’t play either, but had said so well in advance arguing that younger players should get a chance – Russia has a couple of other strong GMs, Norway doesn’t. And, while he was wrong about Carlsen skipping the Olympiad, he is still right that he will be comparatively “fresh” in Bilbao: Shirov and Kramnik both played stronger opposition at the Olympiad, and may have faced more pressure. And their Shanghai qualifier was probably also more tiring than Carlsen’s exhibition game against the World … .
Somebody mentioned Anand’s non(playing) the Olympiads. Well here it goes:
Anand played in 1986, 1988, 1990 and 1992. Then he did not play in 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2002. He then played again in 2004 (scoring very well 5 wins, no losses and 6 draws) and in 2006 (bad performance, 1 win, loss 1 and 7 draws). After the again did not play 2008 and now 2010. So of the last 9 Olympiads Anand played in 2 of them.
Thanks for clearing that up! Kramnik mentioned Turin, so he must have forgotten about the 2004 Olympiad. He said he could only assume Anand must have some problems with the Indian Federation.
One bit of Kramnik’s interview I found interesting but didn’t add to the article in the end was this about preparation:
“In the Russian women’s team, which became Olympiad Champions, three trainers were working with the players at once. Is it different in the men’s team?
Kramnik: Yes, in men’s chess the role of the trainer at the Olympiad is basically reduced to captain’s duties. i.e. he simply decides the line-up for each match, giving general instructions. For example, who should play for a win, and who for a draw. Our direct chess preparation for the Olympiad was done with our personal trainers, separately from the team. Such a method was established a long time ago: in any case, when I got into the team in the 90s that was already how we prepared. And I don’t doubt that such an approach can be very effective.”
Nothing very controversial (it’s what you’d expect), but before the Olympiad in his interview from the training camp Kramnik had given the impression that they were very much preparing together and sharing novelties etc. http://www.chessintranslation.com/2010/09/kramnik-99-of-the-chess-world-was-rooting-for-anand/
Thanks again for the invaluable translations mishanp! I feel badly for Svidler; he’s a great chess player and a great ambassador for the game, but things just didn’t go his way this tournament. I think Bareev was being a bit unkind in airing his beliefs about Svidler publically, even if he is correct.
Extremely interesting reading! Thank you again and again, mishanp. As to Svidler, he seems to be a man of many interests: cricket, British culture, well, family too. Too many interests to focus his immense talents exclusively on chess. I hope the “accident” at the Olympiad will not signal the end of his top-twenty career. By all accounts he is a perfect gentleman and a joy to be with and – in my opinion – such people are needed close to the top of the hierarchy as role models even if they tend to perform worse than fierce fighters (no names, no names :)
I think Kramnik’s statements about the training camp and sharing novelties etc. aren’t inconsistent with primarily individual preparation for the Olympiad – unless he said much more than what you summarized and paraphrased in your earlier item. The training camp – was it really just one day as Bareev seems to say? – seemed to be a mix of chess and other activities such as volleyball to boost the team spirit. At that occasion, players could still have shared their _earlier_ findings with each other.
The trainer’s role seems to be more important for somewhat weaker teams – Dokhoian could really help the women, how helpful could Bareev be for the Russian men who are currently stronger than Bareev himself? But Kramnik’s “in men’s chess …” is probably too general – see what the Danish men’s coach wrote on his blog about his daily and nightly routine:
10:00pm Short team meeting, determination of the lineup, brainstorming on opening preparation, taking homework assignments for the night
midnight till open end: Analysing
10:00am – 12:30pm: Going from room to room, discuss preparation, distribute opening notes
2:30pm-5:00pm: Sleeping. “Of course it would be better to be present during the match. But there isn’t much for me to do, I think the nightly preparation is more important. And I have to catch some sleep.”
[The Danish coach was Jan Gustafsson who didn’t play himself due to – well – problems with the German federation].
Finally on the translation issue: I think in the given example it may well be consistent with how Kramnik may have _said_ it himself: “Deciding on the line-up is the trainers’ job. [period and pause] So it’s hard for me to discuss it.” So the translation sounds authentic to me, even if a copy-editor has style issues with it … not saying that kenhabeeb’s comment was altogether unwarranted.
On the “one day” – Bareev didn’t mean it literally but in the sense of “it’s not something you can do in a day”, or “overnight” is probably the most common English expression. Kramnik seems to have flown straight from China to the training camp in Moscow and then to Khanty. I don’t know how long the others were there.
Agreed on Svidler, Simple Pole – it reminds me of what Mark Glukovsky said about how all top chess players have exceptional will power… “Very few can get by on pure genius, like Svidler.” http://www.chessintranslation.com/2010/04/the-weak-willed-dont-become-top-chess-players/
So it’s not really something Bareev should have been that surprised about – although I’m glad in a way he focussed on Svidler in these final interviews – it deflects some of the criticism from Malakhov!
Good point made by Thomas, which in turn helped me to understand exactly what you meant, Mishanp! Perhaps I chose the wrong example!
very sad to witness bareev’s mental health deteriorating so much in the past 15 years, he used to be a really pleasant fellow to hang around with…
I’m a great Russian fan, I root most for Russian than us, Brazilian, in chess.
One thing I tell, Russia had a well deserved loss…
The mistakes: 1) Not to put Jakovenko in A team.
2) Kramnik should have played against Hungary… And Grishuk against Judit polgar.
3) Malakhov shouldn’t never, never be in the A team.
I can’t explain why – but this article made a great impression on me. Its so different from the smooth, commercial websites like Chessvibes. Its has somehow the same quality as ‘From London to Elista’, how can it be said? Maybe its the love for chess that springs from these pages.
“The question is his relationship to chess. Chess doesn’t forgive such a relationship. And didn’t forgive him”…
Thanks! Though as someone who writes for/cooperates with Chessvibes I can tell you that there’s definitely no lack of love for chess there! And we could do with more (some!?) genuinely commercial chess websites as it would make it more viable to spend time producing good articles (I’m just about to settle down to translating a brochure for a transport company… bills must be paid!).