April 2005 Archives

Not Fischering this time. Actual, honest to goodness fishing for fish. My dad has organized an excursion to the Sea of Cortez with a group of friends and I'll be at a remote spot in Baja Mexico for the next few days. I used to hunt and fish all the time, but haven't done much of it since I left California 15 years ago. I'm hoping not to embarrass myself by being pulled in by a roosterfish or worse. (Roosterfish?!)

Imagine, days and nights without internet! Somebody hold me! A friend will be taking care of my apartment and cats, but unfortunately she's not exactly qualified to run a chess blog. I didn't have time to set up a guest blogger this time around. Next time, who should it be? Nominations for guest and vacation bloggers, please!

Meanwhile, behave yourselves. I just might find an internet kiosk in a palapa hut down there and check in. If I'm eaten by a 600 lb marlin, please remember me kindly until the servers are shut off.

In an earlier thread Vlad posted a link to an interesting interview of Boris Gelfand on the ACP site. His remarks about Nakamura's concrete style of play being of "another dimension" jibe with Nakamura's own comments about his play being different and computer-like.

It's hard for those below the master level, perhaps even the GM level, to understand the underpinnings of such discussions of style. Good moves just look like good moves and most fans need computers to sort those out anyway. So it's interesting to get the opinion of someone of Gelfand's playing level and erudition.

It seems natural for the US to produce the first world-class player of this new generation. There is no classical tradition of trainers working with the sacred texts. Players immediately enter the cauldron of open competition where only results matter. The prevalence of computer training and constant online play emphasize objectivity over general principles.

I just posted an interesting item on the recent 100-board Estonia - Latvia match. It was sent in by a Latvian chess journalist and also goes into the 30-year history of these matches. Such big events, where amateurs get to play alongside top stars, are great for the sport. Club matches are also excellent for this. I used to play for the Club Argentino in matches that went to 30 or more boards including sections for juniors. Great fun, especially if your game goes long in a tight match and you have a crowd of GMs milling around you down on board 11, as happened to me once.

A city/club chess league in the US would be a great way to popularize the game and also provide a platform for true professionalism in US chess. A steady per-game paycheck is very different from hoping you finish in the money so you can pay the rent. Of course travel is a problem in such a large country, which is where the internet comes in. I talked about this years ago, but perhaps it's time to get more serious. Greg Shahade is actually forming teams across the country, but I'm not sure he wants publicity for this project just yet, so you didn't hear it from me.

Tony Mayo sends in this story from the Washington Times on drugs to boost concentration and other things that could aid chessplayers. Susan Polgar is interviewed. I excerpted a similar piece in the LA Times last December at ChessBase. Jeremy Silman has an epic compendium of thoughts on the subject here. Some USCF discussion record is here. Larry Parr might have some content hidden somewhere in here. The most sensible take on the topic is here.

I've long maintained that it's wrong to assume that some drugs cannot help some people play chess better just because there is no universal Elo pill. Caffeine is an obvious one that we all know staves off feelings of tiredness. (How it works was recently in the news). There is also a problem separating drugs from supplements and even food. Scarfing a lot of ginseng has strong effects on some people, for example.

The prevailing sentiment is to discard the invasive and insulting practice of drug testing until something is conclusively proven to improve performance and/or do harm. It's the harm part that led to things being banned in most sports. If something makes you perform better and has no harmful effects, it's hard to say what's wrong with it. Is it any more an unfair advantage than eating better food or having a personal trainer or a better bike? Perhaps.

What does seem silly is testing chessplayers for the same things as weight lifters and cyclists. This was/is necessary to comply with the IOC rules and qualify chess as a sport, which helped some federations get state funding. But drug testing is not cheap.

The Argentine papers are following up on the announcement that the FIDE world championship will be held there. A few mention that the event is a "life-long dream" of San Luis governor Alberto Rodriguez Saa. (Not to be confused with his brother, Adolfo, who was President for a week during the turmoil of 2001.) This Clarin report says he is a long-time fan of the game and that he brought IM Jaime Emma to San Luis. (If Emma's name rings a bell it might be for the famous double-blunder game against Stein in Mar del Plata, 1966.)

Clarin also states that Polgar will play since Kasparov will not. According to FIDE's stated formula, this isn't the case; it would be Svidler (2731 average of July 04 and Jan. 05 lists over Polgar's 2728). If Kramnik doesn't play they would both get in. La Nacion mentions Ivanchuk, so they are probably looking at the current (April) list, which is irrelevant according to FIDE. It's an anti-Svidler conspiracy!

Also notable is that Argentine GM Miguel Quinteros was at the Saturday press conference with Rodriguez Saa and various cabinet members. Quinteros was a buddy of mine in Buenos Aires, and he was the main organizer behind Kasparov's three visits to Argentina. His record of involvement in organizing big events has been spotty. Fischer's 1996 visit ended in catastrophe, then there was the Ponomariov-Kasparov match that never happened. I'll get some details in coming days.

Ah, just as I was posting this Clarin has the first piece of actual reporting on the event and the deal. Much of the report is spent wondering if the event will actually happen. Quinteros represented FIDE in the negotiations. The article delves briefly into his recent failed attempts at organizing and the (successful) Kasparov visits. The financial guarantees ($200,000) have been signed, according to several reports (all quoting the same sources). That's certainly news.

Sosa, the local council president, is against San Luis hosting the event, saying the money should go to schools and "the other problems facing the province." Rodriguez Saa said they will sell tickets and use the event to promote tourism. Sosa replied that a recent local tournament attracted only 34 players and that there are only 25 first category (expert) players in the province.

Nicolas Barrera, president of the Argentine Chess Federation, said the event has the support of the national sports ministry and, somewhat surprisingly, the office of the President. (Rodriguez Saa is generally considered to be at odds with Argentine president Nestor Kirchner.)

Apparently another site considered was Linares, but they wouldn't change the dates of the annual supertournament. Many of the reports are full of errors big and small. Most are name and date mistakes (listing Kasparov as Azerbaijan), but this one makes the sensational statement that FIDE will try and get Kasparov (?!) to play the winner to "unify the crown." Which crown would that be? (Don't get excited, it's obviously just an error.)

I'm excited about the event, it's just hard to stop from wondering and wishing about what it will and will not be. If Kramnik doesn't play the schism is perpetuated. In these early days it's worth trying to see if FIDE and Kramnik can get to the table. Once it's clear one or both aren't interested, we can just enjoy the chess and the tournament like we would any other.

It's already taken over the below thread, so I'm taking it as a topic suggestion. US champion Hikaru Nakamura played 1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 against Krishnan Sasikiran in the Sigeman tournament today and lost in 87 moves. It was a critical game in standings. Nakamura was alone in second behind Timman, a place now occupied by Sasikiran while Nakamura is equal 3-4 with Hansen.

It won't surprise to learn that 2.Qh5 has never occurred in serious GM play. The Megabase turns up one game by Westernin from 1973, who was an IM then. Anyway, that's the only serious Master game I can find. Other than that you have the predictable U12 and open events.

It has caused some shock and horror among fans, but after a half-dozen moves the position was nothing special and White was doing fine. Later, Nakamura spurned exchanges and ended up in a worse position and a lost endgame. But don't blame the opening! Full game in PGN below.

Update: Toward the end of the nearly 200 comments, many from the originators of Qh5 in American Master chess, Hikaru Nakamura himself explains his rationale.

Not that I want to turn this into a forum for exhibitionist felines the world over, but in case you're sick of looking at my cats, here's my friend Anna's cat Sigfried. He's from Spain, now living in Brooklyn.

As usual, open thread, complaints, topic suggestions, rants, marriage proposals, whatever. But keep it happy; think of the kittens.

Today FIDE announced they have found a site and sponsor for the 2005 FIDE world championship tournament we were discussing here a few days ago. It's the Argentine province of San Luis, rural domain of one of the country's political dynasties, the scandal-ridden Saa family. (This is one thing that hasn't changed much since I lived in Buenos Aires from 1992-99.)

The announced prize fund is everyone's favorite big round number, one million dollars. The dates are Sep. 17 - Oct. 16. It's a double round-robin with eight players. There's no mention of players and deadlines for deciding the field. (See below for the full press release text.)

Note that the tournament regulations say "The four top players of the WCCT will automatically qualify for the knock out matches of the next cycle." If the abysmal knock-out format is still FIDE's idea of a world championship, I hope Kramnik stays away from San Luis. This was supposed to be a unification event (the only point of it, really), but it seems FIDE just wants to absorb Kramnik's classical title in order to destroy it. Maybe Vlady can play hors concours? Or maybe the matches referred to could also be candidates matches?

I've been to San Luis (pop. 180,000) a few times and it doesn't give up much to Brissago when it comes to pastoral charm. Chess is quite popular in Argentina, and this is close enough to the second city of Cordoba to attract some spectators and local media. Still, it's wacky not to have it in Buenos Aires, a true chess capital. I'll certainly try to get down there, especially if I can wrangle conditions. But of course this is FIDE, so we shouldn't get our hopes up (or buy plane tickets) until the first pawn is pushed.

World Junior Champion Pentyala Harikrishna recently bemoaned his economic status. According to this note, he was granted five lakhs by the his regional government. (That's around 14,000 Tunisian dinars. But I think five lakhs beats a flush.)

He has now been "adopted" by Gas Authority of India Limited and hopes to work with Anand's long-time trainer Elizbar Ubilava. (Nigel Short is mentioned in another report.) There's more in the Hindu. Individual sponsorship is nothing new in chess, not even by large utility companies. Peter Leko has long been sponsored by RWE Gas in Dortmund.

The Swedish half of the Sigeman tournament is over and aging lion Jan Timman is leading with an impressive 4/5 score. Young tigers Nakamura, Sasikiran, and Iordachescu are a half-point behind. (Actual Tiger Hillarp Persson has 1.5.) The 53-year-old Timman didn't play at Corus this year for the first time in ages. Keeping up with the 2700's is no walk in the park and as the Dutch legend got older, the tournament got stronger, a bad combination.

His humble rating doesn't mean Timman isn't the class of the Sigeman field. Even should he eventually falter, he has forgotten more about chess than his pursuers could possibly know. Of course forgetting isn't exactly a good thing in chess, and energy level is critical. The intense preparation, lack of rest days, and faster games make it tough on the veterans. The chess world's obsession with youth is hardly new, but it has grown more acute. It almost makes you wish for a chess "senior tour" with slower time controls and more rest days. Just because greats like Timman, Karpov, Ljubojevic, and Portisch can't keep up with today's elite doesn't mean they don't still have a lot of great chess to offer.

FIDE is moving ahead with the latest brainstorm of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. Instead of a KO, this is an eight-player double round-robin scheduled for October. It's clearly intended as a unification event with Kramnik and Leko as special invitees.

The list: Kasimdzhanov, Adams, Kramnik, Leko, Kasparov, Anand, Topalov, Morozevich. Kasparov has retired, so they'd have to move down the rating list for a replacement. They're using an average of the July 2004 and the January 2005 list, so it's probably Svidler. The big question is whether or not Kramnik will play, and without saying his title isn't on the line.

Without Kramnik's participation this is another Linares (it's even classical chess, not the FIDE KO control) and does little toward unification. Kramnik should just put his diluted title on the line and get it over with, but I'd like to see some plans for the future from FIDE about what they plan to do with the title after this if Kramnik does play. A candidates tournament like this one isn't the worst thing in the world, but plans for a new cycle should be on the table beforehand. Kramnik should use any leverage he and the ACP have to get FIDE to lay out a cycle before this event takes place.

As usual, FIDE has announced this unilaterally without talking to the players first and without having any sponsorship. Kramnik is the only one with a conceivable reason not to play, but I'm not sure why splitting half a million (still imaginary) dollars between eight players is better than doing so among 64 or 128. At least the KO had the virtue of being democratic. Will people take the winner of a Linares-style tournament as a more credible world champion? Enough to force Kramnik to unite or be marginalized? Six players and four rounds would get closer to the sort of rigor you'd hope for.

I would have no problem using this event as a candidates tournament, winner to face Kramnik in a match in 2006 for the unified title. But that opens up another massive sponsorship and scheduling mess. It would also require Ilyumzhinov to admit a change of mind, which he seems physiologically incapable of doing. (Unknown is how the players would feel playing to qualify for a shot at a title they don't all believe in. Money might salve these wounds considerably.) I just want a unified title as quickly as possible, and Kramnik playing in this would do that, although it would be nice if there were more rounds.

Both sides of the title schism are so damaged and invalidated now that they should realize they need each other desperately and get together before they are both completely worthless. On Kramnik's side they have been unable to organize and provide democratic access to the title. On FIDE's side they don't seem to understand the term "credible world champion". So just maybe they can join the last vestiges of Kramnik's credibility - gained from beating Kasparov in 2000 - with a still-current democratically victorious FIDE champion, Kasimdzhanov. Toss in the rating favorites for good measure and it's not the worst thing that could happen for a quickie solution.

It's hard to beat Garry Kasparov at the chessboard, but today someone beat him WITH a chessboard. He has a bruised head, but is otherwise okay. This frightening incident is being tracked at ChessBase.com. Luckily he's hard-headed.

A Kasparov advisor on the scene was quick to place blame on the militant pro-Putin "Nashi" ("Ours") youth movement, which was mainly organized to deal with an anti-Putin youth group in St. Petersburg and which has been blamed for several violent incidents against anti-Putin groups. All the interview talk about Kasparov's physical safety doesn't seem so melodramatic anymore.

Update, 16.4.05, 16:00: I talked to Garry and he's doing fine, just a lump and a sore head. His exact quip right after it happened: "I'm lucky that chess, not baseball, was one of the most popular sports in the Soviet Union." He called this his official welcome to Russian politics. He also said they didn't call the police or do anything to the guy who did it, since that was clearly what the attack's organizers were hoping for. (The attacker was shouting "Go ahead, beat me, call the police, I don't care!") Not only that, but the guy came up later and apologized! Apparently the best way to refute a sacrifice is to decline it.

I just posted Part 2 of my interview with Garry Kasparov to ChessBase. This part focuses more on his play, with specific games, tournaments, and periods of peak performance. His choice of best performance ever might surprise you.

There's some rehash-and-bash of a few old political scores, but most of the comments about the future of chess and chess politics are intriguing. He endorses experimenting with shuffle chess and admits, "You have to sell a package where no player is more important than the system. That’s why I think that without me they have a chance. Maybe not a big one, but a chance."

I've spent a lot of time debating "chess evolution" with Kasparov. He gets into various aspects of this in My Great Predecessors. Sure players today are better than 80 years ago, but what about 40 years ago, or 20? Using the objectivity of Fritz to check a few hundred Tal and Smyslov games doesn't turn up more blunders than you see today, percentage-wise. Of course players aren't getting worse, but with faster time controls I don't think the games are getting any better. Maybe in 20 more years as players continue to absorb more and more patterns at a younger age?

Our discussion of Part 1 is here. There won't be such a long delay before Part 3, which is mostly about Russian politics.

An arbiter friend is looking for links to national rating lists. Some of them are hard to search for since the official sites are in various languages. And many links are out of date. Tops on the search list are Serbia & Montenegro, Philippines, and most Eastern European countries. If you have links, please post them. Links to link pages also welcome.

Two interesting tournaments are starting up now in the not-so-frozen tundra. 14-year-old Magnus Carlsen is playing in the Gausdal Classics in Norway. The Swedish-Danish Sigeman Tournament starts on the 15th with Nakamura and Sasikiran as top seeds. Of course Hikaru is a sentimental favorite around here since he's a contributor to the Black Belt newsletter. You can give your own opinion at the the poll to pick a winner in the Ninja message boards.

American GM, teacher, and organizer Maurice Ashley is the subject of the latest chess article on the homepage of the New York Times. That's three in a month, believe it or not. This one is a new class Ashley is teaching at City College in Harlem on using chess and chess metaphor to improve thinking and teaching methodology.

This is going to be an even bigger topic when Kasparov's When Life Imitates Chess comes out in the fall. Both chessplayers and non-players seem divided into two camps on such material. One says that it's contrived BS that could be done just as well with cycling or darts. The other says that since chess is itself a metaphor, and is a game of thinking and thinking about thinking, there are many useful parallels, especially in the business and teaching spheres.

I was somewhere in the middle for a while, but after working on speeches for business groups on chess and strategy, with asides on politics and the military, I realized there are many interesting and insightful analogies. Of course some of the examples are trite and others could be about anything, but concepts like material vs time, understanding your own weaknesses, the initiative, and strategy vs tactics are powerful in business contexts. Many aren't unique to chess, but the game provides a vivid metaphor with a rich history of examples and anecdotes, which makes for interesting listening and reading.

Chess stats man Jeff Sonas posted some these and other numbers from his ChessMetrics site to the Anand Oscar thread.

Top performers of 2004:

#1 Viswanathan Anand: 2829 performance: 28.5/43 (66%) vs 2691
#2 Alexander Morozevich: 2799 performance: 25.5/39 (65%) vs 2669
#3 Peter Leko: 2789 performance: 30.5/55 (55%) vs 2725
#4 Garry Kasparov: 2776 performance: 20.5/34 (60%) vs 2689
#5 Michael Adams: 2770 performance: 38/59 (64%) vs 2633
#6 Veselin Topalov: 2766 performance: 25/42 (60%) vs 2677
#7 Vladimir Kramnik: 2764 performance: 26.5/50 (53%) vs 2721
#8 Alexey Dreev: 2760 performance: 55/82 (67%) vs 2593
#9 Alexei Shirov: 2759 performance: 43.5/73 (60%) vs 2655
#10 Rafael Vaganian: 2754 performance: 24/35 (69%) vs 2601

We all love numbers, but their immutability is a danger. It would be sad to award the Oscar on performance rating since you would have someone like Leko, who didn't win a tournament, finishing ahead of Kramnik and Kasparov, who both won supertournaments. Morozevich did his usual job of pounding <2700 players and tanking in elite events (although he won Melody Amber).

Jeff also posts some of the top single event performances of recent years and the top performers going back ten years. There are several great statistical performances that were only good for second place, or even third. This leads me to a topic I've touched on before, great second-bests. How many players have had their best-ever performance and not won the event? Anand's phenomenal +6 at Corus 1999 comes to mind in modern chess.

So that everybody knows it's all Anand all the time around here, I'll give the link to a recent interview with him. There are links on the page to older interviews as well. As Jen Shahade said here a few days ago, Vishy rocks! How long will he be #1? Is it going to be a pack of equals with Topalov and Leko (and Kramnik if he wakes up in time) swapping the top spot for a while?

It was no contest. Vishy Anand won his second consecutive "Chess Oscar" as player of the year for 2004. The voting:

1) Anand (5205), 2) Kasparov (3664), 3) Leko (3485), 4) Kramnik (3344), 5) Kazimdzhanov (2088) , 6) Topalov, 7) Ivanchuk, 8) Adams, 9) Morozevich, 10) Grischuk

There was no clear second place in my opinion and I would have been happy just to send in a ballot with one name, but they insist on ten. I prefer to emphasize classical chess and tournament wins over rapid results and many "place or show" results. E.g., Leko had a good year, but didn't win anything. Only Anand won more than one big event, plus his great Olympiad performance.

Kasparov had the best single tournament of the year in Moscow so I put him second. Kramnik won a turgid Linares and came third. Both had otherwise mediocre results. Kramnik reached the Dortmund final by drawing all his games and Kasparov was tame-to-blah in his other classical events.

It's hard to decide to reward both or punish both Kramnik and Leko for their drawn match, but Leko deserved recognition for his achievement and his good Corus showing. Kasimdzhanov could have been as high as second in my book, even though he didn't win his classical games in Tripoli. It was an amazing tale of survival. It wouldn't be good for a first-place vote, but with Anand locking that up a shout-out to Kasim is deserved.

In Part 1 of my March interview with Garry Kasparov, he repeated his well-known suspicions and accusations about human interference in the 1997 match with Deep Blue. He repeated his demands for evidence that DB was "real." This business as usual was fresher because of his retirement and the recent distribution of the movie "Game Over: Kasparov vs the Machine," which focuses on these suspicions.

The refrain "why don't they release the logs?" was a significant part of the conspiracy battle cry. Kasparov asked for them during the match (which would have been anti-competitive, at least for him to have access instead of his technical advisor or arbiters). This was reiterated right after the match, when IBM team leader CJ Tan said the logs would be published "in the near future."

That turned out to be years later, although the precise date isn't clear. The earliest reference I can find to the game and log page at the IBM site is May 1, 2000 in a Usenet post from Taiwan. For something of such apparent importance, it received astonishingly little attention. There are only a handful of links to the page and the logs, but it seems clear that they were available by May 1, 2000, almost exactly three years after the match. [It now seems that March 2, 2000 is the earliest date tracked. See below.]

Deep Blue designer Feng-Hsiung Hsu said in a 2002 interview on the ICC (coinciding with the release of his book), that "Kasparov received all the relevant log [sic] he asked for right after the match." (More on that in the NY Times here).

Yesterday Kasparov said he had not been not aware that the logs were available until I told him and that he is eager see them analyzed and the evaluations compared with those of Deep Junior and Deep Fritz. His ignorance of the logs' availability would seem improbable, except that I didn't know about them either, at least not in such a complete form. (Some segments were given to the NY Times a while back.) This is more than a little embarrassing because it would have been nice to go through this with him while he was here. I also feel stupid "breaking" five-year-old news.

More bizarre is that as far as I recall, no mention of the log availability is made in "Game Over." (Amusingly, I wasn't sent a review copy of the US DVD release. I'm in the film, but am not a member of the "Chess Journalists of America," whose members got review copies. From all I've ever been able to tell, the CJA exists to give itself awards (a comical 40 categories) and, we can now add, get the occasional free DVD.) They talked with members of the IBM team, so why didn't this come up? Didn't Benjamin or someone else tell them the logs were available online? It's either a glaring error or an intentional omission so as not to deflate the conspiratorial tone of the film. I'll ask the director and maybe Joel can chip in here or by email.

You can't say "everybody knows" they are available because it's clear that's not true. The release of the logs received very little coverage, as Google attests. Feng-Hsiung Hsu says he wouldn't read the Khodarkovsky book on the match, so it's not surprising Kasparov doesn't read Hsu's stuff. Still, this is rather much considering the film and the jihad Kasparov has waged.

I hope this will finally put the nail in the human interference coffin for Kasparov. IBM behaved badly, possibly even with intent to provoke Kasparov's paranoia. But we can't confuse sharp practice with OTB cheating. The human interference angle has been dead to me for years since today's programs emulate Deep Blue's play, even the moves that in 1997 were acclaimed as human-like. DB was simply five or six years ahead, hardly a surprise.

Of course if you think IBM cheated at chess, doctoring the logs would be a relatively minor charge. Let's hope it doesn't go that far. I'd still like to know when they were first released, why it took so long, and who finally authorized it. Have they ever been comprehensively analyzed?

Bagley and Morrigan, my coworkers. Open thread. Topic suggestions, revisits, get your rant on. Play nice.

Anatoly Karpov is in Baltimore for simuls and to train the champion UMBC university chess team. The Sun story on his simul is here, but the other one with Karpov's brief comments on Kasparov's retirement and political plans is free registration only. Thanks to Susan Grumer.

Karpov, apparently having watched a different Linares tournament than I did, credits Kasparov's decision with difficulties at the board. He had this to say on the politics:

I won't get into how close that last is to what the Soviet leaders said about Latvia, et al. Those pesky elections! Coincidentally, Kasparov announced the formation of a new party yesterday in Moscow. In recent interviews he has said he's going to tour the regions of Russia, and that the All-Russia Civil Congress he co-chairs will have its big meeting away from the capital.

It's interesting that both Karpov and Kasparov are/were very ambitious and often ruthless and unscrupulous in achieving their aims, but in very different ways. Karpov's method has been to ally himself with power, Kasparov's to go against it.

Several people have sent in reports of something that was rumored last week. Sean Evans sent in this this Russian report, which has the most details. A cleaned-up online translation:

Why Benko? Wasn't Lilienthal available? Will it be shuffle chess, aka Chess960, aka FischeRandom? Will Fischer declare himself world champion again when he wins? The 76-year-old Benko hasn't played more than a game or two per year in a decade.

As predicted, it hasn't taken long for the lawyers and others hanging around Fischer to try and make a buck. Playing senior citizens and old friends is one way. (Nothing wrong with it either, but I hope Fischer puts his cut in a safer bank this time.) On a less savory note, Sean also sent this item about the comical $200 million Fischer lawsuit against the US government. [In an amusing follow-up to that story on the lawyer Vattuone, Fischer apparently fired him over a week ago. [Vattuone posts below saying he is still on retainer, and that the lawsuit Fischer filed was dismissed by Fischer. He also says he never received the letter to him linked to above, which was posted at Fischer's semi-official website and is clearly in Fischer's hand.]]

Part 1 of my interview with Garry Kasparov is up here at ChessBase. All I have to say is thank god the typing is over. Seven hours of recording into twenty pages of interview, yeesh. Why didn't I just dump the entire thing into one MP3 file and get it over with? It's a lot tidier this way, since the conversations took place over a week. So I changed the order around in quite a few places.

Many of the pictures at his hotel room were taken by his 11-year-old daughter Polina and his slightly older fiancee, Dasha Tarasova. (Kidding, kidding. She's 23.) I just handed them my camera. There will be pics of them up with part two or three. It's a sort of double byline interview since much of the material comes from when I was present when Garry was being interviewed for the NY Times piece. They used maybe 3% of it and much of that focused on politics, which I've put into part three. With my own questions I wanted to concentrate on the chess questions the mainstream media aren't interested in.

In much of that I tried to pin him down on the theory of evolution, chess evolution. After his work on My Great Predecessors no one is better qualified on the topic, so I asked him a lot about whether, for example, today's top players are really better than he and Karpov were in the 80's. As for best games ever, we discussed different criteria. From Part 2:

He then talks about how the Predecessors series, now expanded to ten volumes, will include two on his own games with over 250 "best games"! That should make the selection a little easier.

The New York Times has a good profile and interview with 17-year-old US Champion GM Hikaru Nakamura. (He also holds the even higher title of ChessNinja.com Black Belt newsletter contributor. So much for the Times research staff.)

As predicted, Hikaru is #43 on the latest rating list. (The 20 points he just gained in Foxwoods would raise him another 16 spots.) The article selects the brashest and boldest of his comments, and I'll do the same.

Of course Gata Kamsky is American, hit #3 on the list, and played Karpov for the FIDE world championship in 1996, but the point of his perhaps not being "American enough" for the American media and chess public is not invalid. (Not to mention that Karpov wasn't "world champion enough" in 1996.) Even Nakamura's Japanese name will probably cost him PR points in the lowest-common-denominator-seeking US media.

As for his style, few computers would take the risks Nakamura takes to win. He is the embodiment of the cliches "fortune favors the brave" and "good players make their own luck." It's well known that this generation of players (going back 10 years) are computer-trained to a large degree. They take material more readily and play without dogma. John Watson's acclaimed Modern Chess Strategy books elucidate this impression.

Either it's new or I missed it. (I think it's new because a lot of the dates are screwed up. But they don't call it the Grauniad for nothing.) You used to have to be sneaky to get Leonard Barden's chess column from the Guardian website, but now they have a nice chess section with recent columns. An added bonus is Jonathan Speelman's column. There isn't much non-UK news you don't get from ChessBase.com, but there is commentary and analysis, not to mention the inimitable Speelman punctuation, or lack thereof.

It would be nice if more papers had lobby areas for their chess columns for easy linking. The UK papers are predictably far better. The Telegraph has a nice one with Short, Pein, and Norwood. For example, Robert Byrne's column in the NY Times is available free for just a few days (currently here), so linking to it is a pain. Plus, if you notice the URL, it's under the crossword hierarchy. Ouch. This is only marginally acceptable because the Times crossword is something of a religion.)

Usually, when looking at the games of the top players, it is hard for me to find instructive games for my students. However, I’ve found many in this year's Melody Amber tourney. The blindfold and rapid format of Melody cause the top flight Grandmasters to make more mistakes, and also offer less positional resistance, creating more instructive and lucid games. Because no ratings points are on the line, they often play lines they are less familiar with, or take wild risks. For those who are enthralled by the careers of the world elite, but often find their games impenetrable, I highly recommend looking through the Amber games.

The instructional value of the Melody games seems to be based on their lower objective quality. This adds support to the idea that studying your own games and those of your peers promotes practical results more than studying the top players games. Chinese National coach Liu Wenzhe, in his book The Chinese School of Chess writes : "Most players keep their eye on the games of the World Champion and other top players in the World. They believe that the more they study the games of famous players, the more their own skills will improve. In fact, this has no scientific basis. It is a fallacy reflecting the obsession with celebrities."

I would differ with Wenzhe in that I think studying top players' games can inspire their fans to study and play harder, even if they don’t always know what’s going on. For chess players to all follow the same games and players also strengthens the chess culture. In that vein, I should mention that Vishy rules!

[2002 and 2004 US women's champion Jennifer Shahade of Brooklyn contributes monthly to the Black Belt newsletter, from which this is an excerpt.]

The student paper at Drexel University reports:

It's pretty much downhill from there. At least we don't resort to such transparent and silly April Fool's jokes around here.

Saying "it is clear the chess world still needs me", Garry Kasparov today announced his return to professional chess. It remains to be seen if Kasparov can shake off the rust and be competitive again at his age.

Of course Kasparov's name hasn't been forgotten during his retirement, although he is now better known for his political activities and books. The chess world is very different from the way it was back in Kasparov's era. The game has moved on; will Kasparov be able to cope with the modern style?

He says yes: "It won't be easy, but I think I can come back to teach these young guys a thing or two. I didn't leave chess entirely and I watched the latest games. My skills and preparation will take some time to recover from retirement, and my physical condition isn't what it was back in my playing days. [His weight has ballooned from 180 to 183 pounds. -ed.] But I've missed the game so much that I just have to give it my best shot."

The precedents are unclear. Retiree Emanuel Lasker returned at the age of 66 after a nine year absence from serious play and had very credible results. Iceland's Bobby Fischer came back after 20 years to beat the semi-retired Boris Spassky. Simon and Garfunkel came back after 25 years and really sucked.

There are also new challenges for Kasparov to face. Players like Karjakin and Carlsen were just youngsters when Kasparov retired. Nakamura has joined the world elite. This new generation is unlikely to show much respect for Kasparov's gray hair. "Of course I've seen his games in the databases and he was great back in his day," said Hikaru Nakamura, "but it's hard to imagine him coming back to play after so long. Chess is much more sophisticated now."