July 2005 Archives

A nice David Brooks piece in the NY Times on the benefits of very competitive youth baseball. We've discussed one tendency of some scholastic chess programs to follow the spirit of the Special Olympics and make "everyone a winner."

Competition is good, especially in teams. I'd love to see more scholastic team events. How many are out there? Why not an international youth olympiad? You could have the same players, one board for each age category with a few reserves.

The potential knicker-twist about the US Chess Federation building a new office in Crossville, Tennessee has come to pass with no delay. A new executive board majority was just elected, but they don't come into power formally for another week or two. The four incoming board members, plus one current member, quickly (July 26) dashed off an open letter to USCF president Beatriz Marinello asking her to hold off on signing the deal to break ground. A day later, a letter was sent out saying that the resolution to do so had been passed on July 20.

All the correspondence is included below. Lame duck decisions are always debatable, but since the move was part of the old board's agenda why wouldn't they follow through on it before leaving? It's not as if the 7% of USCF members who voted did so to repudiate build vs buy in Crossville.

International chess politics has gotten even uglier lately. Anatoly Karpov has been considering a run for the FIDE presidency, which I tipped back in March. His occasionally scurrilous interview set the bar very low, but FIDE looks up to the challenge with replies from Azmaiparashvili and Makropoulos. Both FIDE honchos have histories of browbeating and double-dealing, while Karpov has rarely seen a back he wouldn't stick a knife into, several times switching sides so quickly it was hard to tell who he betrayed first.

Then we have Ilyumzhinov, an autocrat's autocrat, who, it must be said, seems to have finally come around to a classical cycle after eight years of trying to destroy 100 years of tradition, assuaged somewhat by plowing millions of dollars into the game himself. Quite a merry crew, although I think Ilyumzhinov means well, albeit in a kill-the-patient sort of way. I'm so happy about San Luis and the proposed cycle to follow that I could head-butt a cop or two myself.

Karpov is a chess legend and is a big enough name to make a dent in Ilyumzhinov's lock on power in FIDE, if only because he'd almost certainly have the support of the Russian federation. Karpov has been on every side of the world championship discussion over the years, changing as it suited him best. It sounds like he'd make a deal with Kramnik as FIDE prez.

The miracle would be to hear a concrete platform from anyone instead of everyone waiting for a deal to come along. On the other hand, Ilyumzhinov had ideas, just bad ones. The Daily Dirt platform: WCh cycle with long match final, a more dynamic rating formula, elimination of drug testing (national federations can do as they like; some need it for funding), classical time control for Olympiads and other FIDE events, fiscal transparency and active development of regional and global corporate sponsorship (priority to title sponsors for the WCh and the rating list), raising the rating requirement for the GM title to 2600, elimination of women's titles, trial adoption of a version of the Corsica/Sofia rules against short draws, health care and/or retirement fund for lifelong professional players, free beer and pizza for the press at all events. What did I leave out?

More from my photo archives. (The others can be found by searching for pics 01.) Viktor Korchnoi cools his heels in front of the metal detector as the security staff goes through his bag at the 2001 FIDE KO in Moscow. That's Lev Psakhis in the background. Bonus points for you if you recognize the man on the left in the blue tie in the larger version.

Larger version here. (183kb)

The World Youth Championships are nearing conclusion in Belfort, France. The site is nice, although I understand that it wasn't ready in time for the start of the event. As expected, there are Russian and Indian players near the top of almost every age group. Actually, the Russians are almost a surprise considering the relative drought of top talent from Russia in recent years. Poland is also well represented.

The World Junior title is still good for a few invitations, but since Fischer's day there have always been many strong eligible players who don't bother with these age-restricted events. But they are for the kids, who usually have a great time.

There have been problems this year in France, however. One national federation president wrote me to say that some parents have been in tears over "the appalling conditions, arrogance of the French, and the awful hotels and places they had been put in (for lots of money, mind you)." Of course the parents and coaches always complain more than the kids.

Everybody keeps writing me about the recently held elections for the board of the United States Chess Federation. Fewer than 10% of eligible voters cast their ballots. The four spots were easily won by the hard-campaigning ticket composed of Goichberg, Tanner, Channing, and Greg Shahade (apparently not really part of the ticket, but endorsed by them). Several are friends, and good luck to all.

After near-bankruptcy and various brushes with chaos in the past few years (some mentioned here and found by searching for USCF), it looks like yet another house-cleaning. Or, depending on how things go, out with the old dirt, in with the new. All the good intentions, experience, and expertise don't guarantee success when it comes to running a sprawling endeavor like a chess federation.

Setting priorities and establishing strategies to achieve them is something you would think would come naturally to chess people. It's that first part that causes the most trouble. You must balance professionals and scholastics, bring in new members while pleasing current ones, and run a magazine that, for years, has fulfilled the curse satisfying no one while trying to satisfy everyone.

A few items to start the discussion: 1) Make it easy to find and organize clubs and tournaments. People playing chess is what it's all about. A club with a TD on every corner and two pawns in every pot. 2) Find more ways to involve chess professionals and others with resources that can help the organization. There are countless people who would love to help in many ways if they knew how. 3) Engage professional sponsorship directly and also indirectly with groups like the AF4C. 4) Put as much content, interactivity, and PR as possible on the web. Not just magazine stuff. The USCF site has some useful material but has become a sprawling mess.

On a more Dirt front, things to look out for when the new administration takes over in a few weeks: 1) Staying in Tennessee or not? This still isn't signed, sealed and delivered, and the USCF office could end up elsewhere. 2) The contract for the catalog and online shop has been under scrutiny for a long time.

I'm still not clear on where this "Chess MasterMinds" event came from or where it's going, but it did happen and it will be shown. The "masterminds" title didn't appear in the latest press release I received, but it did include some tiny photos of the players. (Onischuk, Gulko, S. Polgar, Stripunsky vs Khalifman, Sakaev, Alekseev, Vitiugov.)

The online rapid match between teams from the USA and Russia will be shown online at www.martinbroadcasting.com at 12 noon NY time on Sunday, July 24. Inexplicably, the date wasn't given in the press release, sent to me yesterday by "Chess One," apparently Phil Innes, who is listed as a commentator. The date was given in a testy post here in an unrelated item by "J. Martin," apparently actually Paul Truong, who is also listed as an event commentator. So I'm assuming the date is correct, though the reason for the false name eludes me.

I finally tracked down some information at a hitherto unmentioned Flash site www.chessmasterminds.com. (It confirms the date and time.) They give some TV listings, although the web seems a better bet for most. (Actually, the Martin Broadcasting site seems inert, so cross your fingers or send a prayer request.) It seems an interesting project, much hampered by a decentralized PR effort. Looking forward to actually watching the thing at last. Let us know if you get the "click to view" link to work or see it on TV.

Srikanth sends a link to this meaty if unremarkable "Sportstar" interview with Viswanathan Anand. He comments on San Luis, sponsorship, and life without Kasparov.

He comments that Roger Federer could practically destroy tennis if he continues to dominate so easily, which is one side of the old dynasty argument. Some say super-teams like the NY Yankees baseball team used to be (various times) are great because fans love to love or to hate them. The Yankees aren't winning so much these days but they still sell out every stadium they go to and they broke the road attendance record last year. So favorites can sell tickets, but this means image as well as winning.

As for new rivalries in Kasparov's absence, he mentions Topalov. The streaky Bulgarian was showing his dark side in Dortmund until salvaging his tournament by winning his last two games. He still looks capable of dropping 30 or 40 points if he has a few off events. He and a few others may nip at Anand's heels for the next three years, but I'd put money on the consistent Indian leading a majority of the lists during that span. He had mediocre events in Linares and Sofia this year, but his mediocre means only losing a few points and he mixes these with big scores.

Speaking of prodigies and former prodigies, ChessNinja contributor US Champion Hikaru Nakamura is in clear first place in the Biel tournament at the half. He also has white against his two highest-rated competitors in the second half, Gelfand and Volokitin. He really made Pelletier look bad in a classic grind against the French in round five. Impressive stuff against a 2600.

To show how tough it is to even get into the ring at the top level, Nakamura's two games against Gelfand at this event will almost double the number of games he's played against 2700-rated opponents in his career. Unless you are a local favorite, there just aren't many chances at invitations until you break into the top 20. How about a nice category 16 here in the US? With Kamsky, Nakamura, and Onischuk, the US could have three legit participants born since 1974.

I haven't found much about this event, but 13-year-old American Fabiano Caruana won the "Ciudad de Segovia" open rapid tournament in Spain with 7/8. He was the 7th highest-rated player in the event according to this brief news item. He finished a half-point ahead of an old blitz foe of mine from Buenos Aires, Javier Moreno, who moved to Spain to work on his chess a few years ago. The Caruanas have mostly been in Europe for the past year, but Fabiano has been playing here and there and got an IM norm a few months ago in Hungary. Would you bet against him being on the 2010 Olympiad team? 2008?!

Garry Kasparov just left New York City after a brief visit. Meetings with his publisher, Kasparov Chess Foundation sponsors, and other things were finished off by an unusual documentary interview today. A UK company is producing a documentary for the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death and wanted Kasparov to talk about Lennon's influence on him and in the USSR in general. The documentary will be on UK television next year, I believe.

A few years ago Misha Safonov wrote an article suggesting the Beatles had more influence on the break-up of the USSR than Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov. Kasparov's comments were in a similar vein, about how Lennon and the Beatles were known as symbols of freedom to the young long before most people could hear their music in the USSR.

They probably came to Kasparov because of a questionnaire answer he gave during a world championship match against Karpov in the 80's. To the "favorite composer" question, Kasparov gave Lennon. (Karpov, according to Safonov, gave "Alexander Pakhmutov, Laureate of the Lenin Komsomol award".) I remember this questionnaire and I know it's included in at least one of the 1000 chess books 20 feet from where I'm sitting, but I can't find it. I thought it was one of the 1985 match books. (I believe both gave Lermontov as favorite writer.)

Staying in America Latina, the 8th Magistral de la Republica Argentina is underway. Each year a top computer program participates in the round-robin, typically crushing the category 8 field. This year Shredder is in the lead again despite a bizarre blunder that lost a piece and a game to Lafuente in the third round. As operator Roberto Alvarez reports, this was apparently a one-in-a-million hash table error. Shredder simply didn't recapture a bishop after spending three minutes on the trivial move. Hard to know if it was a RAM glitch or a program glitch.

In some ways, having machines play in regular tournaments like this is more interesting than the high-profile matches. A quantity of games against a variety of opponents shows how even a relatively weak player (i.e., not 2700, or even 2500) can occasionally draw routinely against a top programs with early exchanges. If the human vs machine battle is to continue in the shadow of the Hydra-Adams demolition, humans had better better book up on this stuff. But such games are monotonous. Watching GMs grovel for draws in dry positions isn't chess and isn't interesting.

For you hispanoparlantes out there, Chilean GM Ivan Morovic has a varied and interesting website. Much of it focuses on business strategy and how it can be viewed through the lens of chess, something I'm increasingly familiar with now that I'm working with Kasparov on his book project. There's also a short interview with Morovic about his site. The affable Chilean was one of Karpov's trainers for ten years and he attempts to explicate insights gleaned from working with an intuitive player like the 12th world champion.

FIDE announced a women's world championship for next year in Ekaterinburg. We've been talking a lot about women's chess in the US and in general. A world championship only for women is the similar effects writ large around the world. It gives an incentive and generates interest, but unless Judit Polgar is playing, and she's not, an all-women tournament means nobody over 2600 and only a handful over 2500.

Of course most of these elite women play in open events much of the time, so a few ghetto events against the same players in the same range doesn't hurt development much. It's more a matter of whether or not they would have more incentive to excel if there weren't big paydays like this one for being 2500. Not that they are living easy, of course. But it's likely that with those extra two or three invitationals, the top women can earn as much as the second tier of men rated 2650-2700.

The Biel GM Tournament starts Sunday. It's the usual double round-robin with six players. Gelfand is the top seed and by far the veteran of a youth-skewed event. US Champion (and Black Belt contributor) Hikaru Nakamura isn't even the youngest player in the field, thanks to Magnus Carlsen. Volokitin, who just turned 19, is the second seed. (Bauer and Pelletier round out the field.)

We haven't seen much from Carlsen since he exploded onto the scene by winning the Corus C group in 2004. 2550-rated 14-year-olds seem like old news these days.

I have an ever-increasing collection of found chess in advertising and other forms of media. Apart from the usual references and metaphors, the visual element is also appreciated by the marketing types. Here are two I saw in the last few weeks, a Citibank ad tile at the NY Times (where is that white pawn going?) and a sexy/sexist vertical banner ad for the adult-themed (!) site Nerve (where is that white queen going?!).

If your first instinct was to look closer and try to figure out the position on the woman's lap, you are a hopeless chess geek. Yeah, I did it too.

Ninja message board mod Rondino is regaling us with his tales from the Canadian Open, including his simul games against Ivanchuk and Bologan. (Post the scores, man!)

Organizer Adrien Regimbald responded to my questions about their practice of bringing in a few world-class players with appearance fees. The main reason was unexpected: they can't use some of the funds for prizes! But from my experiences and comments from fans, including Rondino's, it's a good way to attract more fans. From Mr. Regimbald:

After five rounds the Dortmund crosstable is almost comically balanced. Only one point separates all ten players! +2 looks certain to mean a share of first. The big four of Topalov, Leko, Kramnik, and Adams has a combined even score. (Adams is currently lower rated than Svidler and Bacrot, but in my book he's top ten emeritus until he comes back.)

Kramnik is on an even score after Sutovsky refuted the entire Berlin Defense on move four. He has the lowest-rated opposition in the final four rounds, however. Dortmund livened things up this year by including more outsiders and changing to a round-robin. Usually this has the effect of creating more exciting chess and more decisive results at the cost of a two-tiered crosstable. The chess has been exciting, but parity reigns this year.

The first three places won't be decided until the final round. It ain't gonna be Leko-Naiditsch-van Wely at the end. DDirt posters Sutovsky and Nielsen started strong but have faded a bit. Root for the home team!

Has anyone been watching the ChessBase videos? What do you think?

I just posted the latest update to the US Championship website to include the World Open results. Qualifiers included Joel Benjamin, who will be at his 23rd consecutive championship. If he sticks around a while longer he can pull a Walter Browne and get in by winning the Senior Championship.

Other news includes the expected change in the qualification guidelines (#8) to prevent people from getting in by just paying the fee. A minimum 50% score will now be required to qualify, effective starting with the next event (the US Open). It covers all qualifiers, but is will only likely be a factor for the women's spots.

This is a reaction to what happened at the National Open, when only one woman (Kelly Finegold) paid the fee and so qualified automatically. This situation which was almost duplicated at the World Open. We've had long, interesting discussions of this crisis and related women's chess issues here and here.

This change patches a hole so qualifiers will have to at least earn their spots with a decent performance even if they don't have any competition. The larger issue is what to do with the women's championship if so many of the women don't want to play. Getting tossed to the lions might be an honor once, but we saw many women this year playing in the class sections instead of going for qualification. The carrot of playing in the championship clearly isn't enough for everyone.

Let's hear your suggestions. Back to a round-robin with the women fighting it out amongst themselves? One "ghetto" event per year might not hurt anything, although it seems a shame for them to miss norm chances and playing top competition. Eliminate the women's title entirely? The AF4C is listening...

This tidbit in on the wires.

Hmm, and I thought it was annoying having to be questioned every time I come back to the US because I lost a passport six years ago. Exact same name and birth date? That has to be rare, even in countries with relatively few family names. (E.g. almost 30% of the Korean population has Kim, Lee, or Park for a last name.)

I received a few messages about this at the time and then another follow-up a week ago. In the final round of the giant HB Challenge in Minneapolis, a player in the under-2000 section by the name of Alexandre Mirtchouk was suspected of receiving assistance. This fascinating scenario was painted by ace TD Carol Jarecki when I contacted her about the matter:

Wow, hot pursuit! But officially nothing has happened, although a complaint has been filed. His results have been clipped from the crosstable at the HB event site, which seems odd if nothing has been officially decided. His last round opponent was given a bye, apparently good enough for a few thousand dollars.

As Jarecki points out, there is an interesting epilogue:

HB Challenge organizer GM Maurice Ashley added, "I, in fact, was looking forward to busting someone so that it sends a clear message that we are deadly serious about removing any person who dares to stain our royal game."

The ACP has been good about pushing for more anti-electronics measures instead of idiotic drug testing. I don't know about metal detectors in the U2000, but this sort of thing, whether or not it happened this time, is a clear and present danger.

The Canadian Open Championship starts today in Edmonton, a great summer town known for hockey, rodeo, and its Klondike Days festival.

The prize fund is modest by the standards of massive opens today, so the top talent on display is noteworthy. I'd rather see Ivanchuk and Shirov (and Bologan!) in Dortmund, but since it appears the German supertournament is plenty exciting without them, we get the bonus of seeing them in action elsewhere at the same time.

I've written to the Open organizers to ask about their success in bringing elite players, apparently with appearance fees instead of a huge prize fund. A lecture by a top star like Shirov (or, as in the National Open, a simul by the Polgar sisters), can attract more paying customers, the amateurs who pay $100-300 to play. They have many such special events on the first four days.

Pros making money from exhibitions instead of prizes at big events means guaranteed income, although it also means PR and name recognition can earn more than results, which is already true in some cases in chess and very true in many other sports where endorsements pay far more than salary.

The Dortmund supertournament starts today. They have already made news by canceling live internet broadcasting of the games. Chess fans have been spoiled by free live broadcasts at a wide variety of locations for years. Far more people watch rebroadcasts at Playchess.com and the ICC than at the official sites. It would almost be nice if they could reserve rights to the broadcast of moves and use these for sponsorship, but they can't.

Free broadcasts provide general PR for the event, but little or nothing for the sponsors of the event, unless, as in Linares and Dortmund, the town itself is one of the sponsors and name recognition is a factor. Two-thirds of international news entries containing "Dortmund" are about the big Borussia Dortmund football team. And only bullfight fanatics knew about Linares.

Unless the organizers feel they are gaining something from a live broadcast, why pay for one? Well, the costs are minimal (zero, since Playchess would do it) and goodwill in the chess community is a pretty good reason, you would think. The reason they gave for the cancelation, to attract more visitors to the tournament, sounds ridiculous. The games are available online right after the round. Do they think people are so excited at the prospect of watching live chess they will leave their homes and go to Dortmund when they can't watch live online? Maybe a few dozen people who live in the area would do this, tops. Nobody is coming from abroad based on this change, especially since they announced it just days before the first round.

The rest of the world will be annoyed, and will realize that waiting a few hours to see the games isn't a tragedy. Most fans never watch live anyway, but they are the most dedicated, passionate group around. You want to keep them happy and leverage that passion, not flush it. It would be nice to see a flood of spectators at any chess event, of course. But throwing away a live online crowd of five to ten thousand people so casually is foolish.

To think "other sites steal the broadcast so we'll pack up our pieces and go home" is small-minded. But if you're not interested in goodwill and PR, it's not at all clear why you should pay for a broadcast. And nobody else will pay real money for the rights since other sites will just take the moves you show for free. Adding value with commentary and multimedia will attract viewers to your broadcast, but then it starts to cost real money. Of course the ICC and Playchess should still be happy to show the games at their own expense, so the Dortmund folks may actually be serious about believing this will increase tourism.

So, coming around to explaining the question mark in the title, why SHOULD Dortmund have a live broadcast? Are 10 more spectators in the tournament hall worth more than 10,000 online? Remember that most of them aren't watching at the Dortmund website.

A few days ago this press release appeared all over the chess place. It's an internet rapid match over four boards between US and Russian GMs. As presented, the big deal is that it's being produced for TV by "Nashville International Studios" and "will be aired Sunday, July 24th, 2005."

But nothing says where it will be aired. Nashville International Studios doesn't appear to have existed prior to this event. I tracked down their site www.nashvillefilmstudio.com, which mentions the event and little else. The domain was registered two months ago. Weird. I hope someone can enlighten us as to where the match can be viewed.

After only one woman entered to qualify for the US Championship at the National Open, automatically going to San Diego despite a negative score and a 1600 rating, it looks like something similar is afoot in Philly. There are two women's spots on offer and only three women paid the qualification fee. One is former qualifier Laura Ross, rated 2200. The other two are rated 1937 and 1837, both have 1/5, and one of them is guaranteed a place in San Diego.

The World Open came too quickly for changes to be made in the qualification rules. The AF4C would like to require at least an even score for future events. Last year's lowest-rated player, Vayserberg (2037), qualified at the Chicago Open with 4/7.

To pick out one item from the ACP/FIDE meeting and GM John Nunn's comments, let's take up the idea of losing rating points due to inactivity. I'm in favor of doing this in combination with other changes to make the list more dynamic. (Higher K factor, mostly, meaning bigger swings. Also emphasizing more recent events.)

This means redefining our concept of the rating list. Instead of being a long-view measure of a player's ability, as it is now, it becomes more of a performance rating. This turns the list into a more interesting subject for speculation. Using the list to encourage activity by dropping points for inactivity would be a small but fitting part of this.

The end result would be to make the list more interesting for fans and less relevant for things like invitations. If it changes all the time the players would be less obsessed with rating and more inclined to take risks. De-emphasizing the importance of rating is a worthy goal. It's not as if ratings are relevant across eras, due to inflation, and we could easily take averages to generate stable lists for the long view.

It's not about whether or not a player is actually weaker after being inactive for a while. Protesting on those grounds looks like a straw man. The point is to change the meaning of the list to who's playing well now, and playing at all is surely an important part of that. It shouldn't be extreme, but having a dynamic and varied top-20 puts the emphasis where it belongs: on exciting chess, tournament wins, and world championship stages and titles. (E.g. being a candidate should be more important than being a 2700.)

The much-anticipated list is out. Anand and Topalov are tied for 2-3, the Bulgarian's highest placing ever. It was a big story when the KKA triangle finally broke down after seven years. Now with Kasparov's retirement and Kramnik's drop, their long dominance is long forgotten. The predicted period of inter pares is well underway.

The consistent Anand has outlasted Kramnik at the top and could have been expected to rule the roost after Kasparov's retirement. It's interesting that Topalov's surge came exactly at this time. Apparently the rating list abhors a vaccuum.

Ivanchuk leapt up to #5, although he's been there various times before since 1989. There is news in the continued presence of Bacrot and the addition of Aronian to the top ten. (The highest-placed Armenian since Petrosian? [Several people have pointed out here or by email that I forgot Vaganian, who was up to #3 in the mid-80s.]) It's been a very stable stable of players for many years, with only Grischuk and Ponomariov breaking in (and now out). The amazingly consistent Adams dropped out, joined by the amazingly inconsistent Morozevich. Both will be back. Korchnoi peeps back into the top 100. Other interesting tidbits?

I don't know if I opened the can of worms or just spread the worms around, but the US Chess Federation event sponsored by herbal supplement maker Natrol disappeared and has since become a hot potato in US chess politics and has been followed up around the world. I first wrote about it on June 7. The names of the company and their product have been the most searched for items here for several weeks. (Topping "Finegold", "Kosteniuk", and "Hydra".) The original press release I linked to at the USCF site is long gone, but you can still read the press release here. The special event vanished, but representatives of the company were at the National Open in June.

It's board election time for the USCF and the other day I received a piece of direct mail campaigning that used this debacle to bash the current administration. (Speaking of, I bumped into current president Beatriz Marinello in the street near NYU last night. You can go YEARS without bumping into someone you know in NY.) By the way, here's a pic of the new USCF home in Tennessee.

The latest giant American swiss system torture test tournament is underway in Philadelphia. Right now it's just the long schedule; the big crowd of top players comes in on July 2. As the official site points out, that's the same day the giant Philly "Live 8" concert takes place, so traffic and hotels will be a nightmare.

My mom is in town this week so I'm not going to make the trip. If you are attending and can send in notes and epecially photos, we'll put them up in a ChessBase report. Make sure to include a photo of yourself!