Dear Editor,

Here I would like to respond to M.Krasenkow`s letter from 19.09.02 and his approach to rapid chess and shortening of the time control. In his letter Michal Krasenkow repeatedly calls chess being an art, although as a competition chess is certainly a sport as well. I understand his concern that shortening of the time control might spoil chess, I would say, however, that chess changed a lot anyway lately due to appearance of the computers and simply because its natural development. And for this reason I believe that we should think what`s best for chess and for us today. In all sports we highly appreciate the ability of the sportsmen to act quickly, to make up their mind fast, and for some reason only in chess many of us vote for the 7-hour time control! May I tell you: the same bad mistakes there are unavoidable anyway, does it mean that we shall play a 10-hour game? On the other hand, it`s remarkable that such a chess artist as Alexei Shirov is also in favour of shortening of the time control and I think that his unique ...Bh3 would also be possible in a rapid game and certainly in a 4-hour game. And if, let`s say, V.Anand is able to calculate the variations 5 times faster than his opponents, shouldn`t he get any advantage out of this in a way that his opponents will be forced to try to think faster instead of considering their next move for an hour?

The main problem of the 7-hour time control is that it`s very unattractive. And therefore, if there won`t be spectators at the chess tournaments, then there is no chance to bring the sponsors to chess either (which doesn`t mean, of course, that once you make the game shorter the sponsors will be there immediately). So, the conclusion we can make is that if there are no spectators at the tournaments - there is no money. In controversial, the rapid tournaments always attract many spectators, and sometimes it is difficult for them to find a seat, as it was on the rapid tournaments sponsored by Intel, the recent tournament in Prague etc.

Besides, as the tournament I have already mentioned plus the recent World Championship with its tie-breaks, the other rapid knock-out tournaments have shown, in most cases the stronger players go through, so we can`t really talk about the pure luck in rapid chess and certainly not in a 4-hour game. Personally I am against the independent rapid rating calculations, because, like A.Shirov, I think that rapid chess should be integrated into the same rating system as the other tournaments.

Sincerely, Vadim Milov

Biel, Switzerland 16th October 2002