Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, the author of this book needs no introduction.  He is Editor-in-chief of New in Chess Magazine.  I made my first acquaintance with his writing when I read his book Finding Bobby Fischer (Interchess BV 1994), a collection of interviews with  celebrities of chess, which originally appeared in New in Chess magazine.  The interviewees included, among others, past legends like Botvinnik and Smyslov and members of  the  present generation  like Kasparov and Anand.

The book was a revelation, an extraordinary glimpse of the inner lives of chess masters.  Only the abortive interview with Fischer that came in the end was a bit of disappointment.  It was, nevertheless, worth the effort.  This book is a sequel and has a similar format.

If Fischer dominates the scene in the first book, it is Kasparov who dominates in the second.

As for the present day elite, the interviews with Leko, Ivanchuk and Judith Polgar are interesting.  So are the interviews with past masters, like Najdorf, Bronstein and Korchnoi.  But surely, we could have been spared  interviews with the likes of Ilyumzhinov, Azmaiparashvili and Norwood.

There are also notable omissions like Shirov, Topalov and Morozevich.  The omission of Shirov is all the more unfortunate as he is roundly criticized by both Kasparov and Kramnik in their interviews.  Shirov did not figure in the previous book of NiC interviews (Finding Bobby Fischer) either.  So it appears that there is no way of his countering the accusations leveled against him by Kasparov and Kramnik in New in Chess.

I found Kasparov’s interviews in the aftermath of his World Championship Matches with Anand and Kramnik revealing.  He is entirely unapologetic over his unsporting behaviour with Anand during the 1995 Match.  The way he gloats over his victory hardly shows him in favorable light.  In his interview Anand responds to Kasparov with dignity and grace.

Kasparov is entirely different in his interview taken immediately after the painful defeat in the hands of Kramnik.  He laments missed opportunities and also deplores the negative approach of Kramnik.  The latter is, of course, unrepentant over his match strategy.

Where did you follow this generally defensive strategy?

I follow ice hockey a bit, and the Czech national team has been winning everything the last couple of years.  The Olympics, championships, everything.  But they never score more than two goals.  Which is not normal for ice hockey.  They always win 2-0, 1-0, or 2-1,all the time.  They don’t show any brilliancy, but they win all the events.  The Russians may win their matches 8-1 or 10-2, but they will lose 0-1 against the Czechs in the final.  Then nobody cares any longer how much the Russians scored in previous matches because in he decisive match they are helpless.  The Czechs have a very solid defence….  Their strategy is clear.  They have been doing this for years and nobody can do anything.  I thought okay, it’s a different game but the approach is very interesting.  And that’s how I chose this defensive approach….

Kasparov calls you the champion of the new generation, a very pragmatic generation in pragmatic times.  He drew a parallel with the stock trade.  The quality of the product doesn’t matter too much as long as the result, the stock rates are okay.

No.  I think he confuses me with someone else… It has nothing to do with pragmatism….  You have known me for a long time and know that I have always cared for a lot about the level of my play.  The way I play.  There are chess players who don’t care about this at all and simply count their points.  That’s not me.  But this was the world championship match and I wanted to win it very much.  I simply had to forget about all this brilliance and win.  I was pragmatic in this match, but I am not very pragmatic in general, I just have a different approach to chess, different views.  I believe that chess is a defensive game in general.  If you defend well this is more effective than attacking all the time….  Perhaps this is why I make many draws.

All this is very reminiscent of the late world champion Tigran Petrosian.  He had adopted the same strategy against Botvinnik in their 1963 match.  Poor Botvinnik never recovered from the defeat.  This negative attitude is reflected in yet another interview:

What Kramnik says in effect is that an artist is a law unto himself.  There are no standards, save the ones set by him.  He has no responsibility towards the public and it has no right to ask him questions.

But, is he right?  All artists, be it painters, musicians or chess players are public performers.  If they do not care for public opinion, they can play in the privacy of their homes to their hearts’ content.  The public would not bother about them.  But once they enter the public domain, they are bound to follow norms and standards.  They can not get way with the kind of insolence shown by the likes of Kramnik.

I think Geuzendam treats the two Ks with deference they do not deserve.

Nevertheless, this book is a revelation of different kind.  In the first book Finding Bobby Fischer we were treated to interviews with dedicated world champions like Botvinnik and Smyslov and now we have Kasparov and Kramnik.  One believes that the chess public should exist only to extol his glory and the other thinks that it need not even exist.

Amen.

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