Kamsky Conundrum

So Gata Kamsky is back at the public chessboard. I wish him the best and very much hope his off-the-board combativeness has mellowed after eight years in the normal world away from the spotlight. (Apart from a three-day appearance at the Vegas KO in 1999.) It's easy to forget how young Kamsky was when he played Karpov for the FIDE world championship in 1996, having turned 22 the week before the match started.

Those who have become chess fans in the past eight years won't remember what controversial figures he and his father Rustam were. I'm all for new beginnings and whether he comes back to chess full-time, part-time, or not at all, Kamsky deserves to start again with a clean slate. Focused on his climb to the world title he wasn't involved much with American chess in his final years of activity. (Nor was I, of course, since I was living out of the country. I met Kamsky and his father in my old home of Buenos Aires during the Polugaevsky Sicilian Thematic in 1994.) Perhaps the newly lucrative US Championship has attracted his interest.

Kamsky, who once reached #4 on the rating list (behind Kasparov, Kramnik, and Karpov), is probably the second-highest rated chess drop-out ever, after Fischer of course. Many other strong US players young and old have left the game, but none were forces on the world stage at the time. Morphy should also be mentioned. Is this a uniquely American disease?