The following are excerpts from the Sunday Telegraph column by Grandmasters
Nigel Short and David Norwood. The link at the bottom leads you to the full
story, each of which contains a game annotated by the author. Note that you
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Nigel Short
Nigel Short, Telegraph chess columnist
14/11/2004 – At 39, I am beginning to find myself the
oldest participant in tournaments with disturbing frequency. I have even started
losing to players who are the same age as my children. I can see myself in
the years to come wearing my flat cap, sitting in the front of the fire, reminiscing
to my grandson:
"Aye lad. It were different in my day. A grandmaster was a grandmaster,
not a bloody nobody! You see, son, it all began to go downhill when them folks
at FIDE decided that every federation, no matter how weak, should have its
own GM. Even Equatorial Guinea had one after that Mark Thatcher got his norms
in Alushta."
"But Grandad, wasn't he English?"
"Aye, son – but FIDE weren't too particular with matters of citizenship
or residency or the like. Any sort of connection at all, even the ability to
find the place on the map, was good enough for them. You see, lad, FIDE were
in the business of spreading happiness - or at least that is what they said.
The more grandmasters the merrier. Some cynical folk said it had more to do
with the money they collected each time they distributed a certificate than
anything else. In fact, it is a surprise they didn't award the title to everyone
everywhere - regardless of whether they could play chess or not. Well they
didn't quite do that, but in no time at all there were more grandmasters than
there were Turkish liras to the pound."
07/11/2004 – Whereas the England team has been universally
and, for the most part, justly censured for its abysmal performance in the
36th Chess Olympiad in Calvia, Spain (30th place, our lowest ever), the precise
remedy for the malaise remains in dispute. John Saunders, editor of the British
Chess Magazine, suggested that, because of the absurdly fast time controls
in vogue in FIDE events, we ought to select a younger team.
An eminently sensible idea, but just who exactly did he have in mind, I wondered?
After all, the arid desert of the British tournament scene of the last two
decades has hardly been the ideal environment for new talent. At last a name
emerged from Mr Saunders, that of Thomas Rendle. While I congratulate the young
gentleman on the progress he has shown recently, I would just like to comment
that it is perfectly possible for a prospective England team to finish a lot
lower than 30th.
31/10/2004 – The team spirit is palpably present, but
the points are sadly absent. Alas, the Olympiad in Calvia, Spain, will not
go down in chess history as one of England's finest performances. By way of
consolation though, the women are doing rather well; I hope to cover their
sterling efforts next week.
Some weeks ago, I wrote in this column that I hoped for a top ten finish for
England. No sooner had the ink dried than I realised this was a stiff task;
I subsequently confided my anxieties in an email to (non-playing) team captain
Allan Beardsworth, a tax partner at our sponsors, Deloitte. However, with only
one round to go, even a very modest top 30 finish is not certain.
24/10/2004 – What a relief! I no longer have to write
about the didymous duo of Leko and Kramnik – conjoined at the hip. Neither
of these two Titans deserved to win the World Championship, so it is most appropriate
that neither of them did. We will not be fooled into believing that this was
an interesting match just because the last two games were exciting. No, the
overriding impression was of a turgid and dreary affair.
Once upon a time they would have got away with it. When chess fans received
their monthly magazine with carefully distilled highlights, the dross was discreetly
hidden away. Now, in the age of live internet broadcasts, there is no “junk
game filter”. The rubbish is clearly visible. People will not be fobbed
off with heavy theory, a novelty, a 40-minute think and then a draw offer,
with happy smiles all round as the hands are shaken. The crowd, quite rightly,
want blood. At least they are getting plenty of it at the small Essent Tournament
in Hoogeveen in The Netherlands.
17/10/2004 – I have started to worry for Garry. It
was not just his truly woeful result at the European Club Cup in Turkey last
week. Accidents have befallen Kasparov before (admittedly very rarely) but
this time, outwardly at least, he did not seem to mind that much. He chatted
so affably, and not only to your columnist, that it was impossible to discern
that he had fallen below the magical 2800 rating barrier for the first time
in an aeon. I am sure inwardly he was still none too pleased at his own performance,
but gone were the dark, brooding, snarling, seething moods to which we have
long grown accustomed. Even a sworn enemy such as Alexei Shirov conceded that
Kasparov is much more human these days, but humanity is not what made him great.
Indeed the qualities of forbearance and clemency are a distinct liability on
the chequered board.
One senses that the tectonic plates of the chess hierarchy are finally shifting.
The topography has been unchanged for so long, with Kasparov, Kramnik and Anand
occupying the top spots in some order, that it is easy to forget that the alignment
is only temporary and not permanent.
However, by now it does not take a seismologist to notice that Vladimir Kramnik
has been edging steadily downwards for at least the past couple of years. In
a deft exploitation of the elo rating system, which contains too great a historical
bias, he has massaged and manipulated his own slow descent by the frugality
of his appearances (indeed virtually not playing at all in 2002). Put another
way, he has parsimoniously expended the vast accumulated capital of his match
with Kasparov. Being so highly an accomplished player, he will not necessarily
lose his World Championship title to Peter Leko (the outcome is still too close
to call) but he will certainly have to rekindle his vigour to avoid it. Should
he succumb (a distinct possibility) he will slither to fifth or sixth place,
behind Morozevich, Topalov and perhaps Leko.
David Norwood
On the long and winding road to a reunified world championship
13/11/2004 – With the deathly dull Kramnik-Leko match
now safely behind us, it was interesting to read Vladimir Kramnik's recent
interview on the reunification process. Most of us thought that the match in
Switzerland was the first stage to a unified title. Alas, we should have known
better- the chess world is never so simple. Things now seem to be in more disarray
than they were before.
Vlad says that he doesn't recognize the forthcoming Kasparov-Kasimdzhanov
match as having anything to do with the World Championship situation. Instead,
he proposes a tournament between Anand, Ponomariov, Kasimdzhanov and Kasparov
– a wonderfully random gambit destined to complicate matters further.
Anybody playing such boring chess has no right to an opinion and Kramnik knew
from the start that the whole process depended on the reunification. Even for
a chess player, his behaviour is disgraceful.
Meanwhile the sponsors of the Kasparov match say that it is going ahead anyway.
Good luck to them. The winner should play Kramnik. And if Vlad won't play,
just default him and ban him from every future tournament. That might even
get the public interested in watching chess again.
Who's wearing the trousers in English chess today
06/11/2004 – It used to be something of a tradition
that the England men's team won the medals and the women came along for morale
support. However, in these dark days of political correctness, the women have
become upwardly mobile while the men bumble around like limp-wristed house
husbands. In short, the women now wear the trousers and the likes of Speelman,
Short, Hebden and Wells wear frocks. If you don't believe this role reversal,
just look at the statistics. The women were seeded 27th and finished a very
creditable 8th. The blokes were ranked 6th and finished 30th! It makes one
ashamed to be English and a man.
So what is the way forward for Englishmen's chess? Select a team which is
a mix of golden oldies and talented youngsters coming through. Otherwise, we
should just focus on providing morale support to the women…
On England's Olympians and the lack of talented youngsters
30/10/2004 – The most challenging thing about being
captain of the England chess team was trying to impress girls in the pub, without
giving away the fact that I was a non-playing captain. But chess isn't a sport,
is it? "Oh yes," I would counter, trying to pull in my stomach and
recalling the occasion when a young Joel Lautier refused a glass of champagne
with a Gallic sneer, "No, I am a sportsman."
Oh, so you are off to Syndey in 2000? "Well, no actually, I'm off to
Kalmykia this year (1998)." There would then begin a long explanation
as to why (even though chess was a sport) we didn't go to the Olympics but
played our own, usually in some unheard of place. Every two years rather than
every four. By then the girl in question would have lost interest.
This year's venue, Majorca, everyone will at least have heard of. But how
many know that England, once the second greatest chess nation on the planet,
is currently battling away at the Chess Olympics. Last Sunday I logged onto
the official site to follow our heroes. Sadly, they were so far down the table
that their games weren't even listed. How the mighty have fallen.
Match report underladen with superlatives
23/10/2004 – This is the first time that I've had to
totally re-write my introduction to this chess column. Until a few hours ago
it read something like this: 'Vladimir Kramnik has become a slug who not only
will never win another game of chess, but seems to have forgotten that trying
to defeat your opponent is a primary objective of the royal game.'
Now I need to use phrases like 'sensational comeback', 'dramatic finale' or
'Kramnik's brilliant resourcefulness'. But I'm not going to. The fact remains
that Kramnik won the first game and the last game and played like a traumatized
tortoise in the middle. That middle consisted of twelve games in which Kramnik
lost two, won none and drew the rest. Much of the time he was happy to agree
a draw before he had left his home preparation; ie, before he even had to think
about moves for himself. This match took the emerging concept of non-chess
to a whole new level. Now Vlad is the Champion, retaining the title because
the match was drawn, which is somehow wonderfully appropriate. What must the
sponsors think? Not that chess players worry much about sponsorship -- until
it all disappears. During this match, for the first time in my life, I began
to feel happy that chess is not a televised sport. The Kramnik-Leko charade
has done for chess what the Ice Age did for dinosaurs.