October 2007 Archives

Yowza, they might just revoke Hikaru Nakamura's visa to the EU if he keeps this up. (And if Americans needed visas.) With all the attention on mammoth Americans going to Europe to play American football in London last weekend, a smaller Yank sneaked through the lines to batter the Old World's chessplayers. It might not be the biggest such invasion since Morphy, but maybe since Normandy. Nakamura, fresh from a full-point victory at the Casino de Barcelona tournament, just won the powerful Corsica Masters rapid tournament (10'+3").

The only American in the field took clear first in the preliminary swiss event with 8/10, a half-point ahead of van Wely and Mchedlishvili. (Fittingly, the French call such results tables "grille américaine.") Then in the final KO phase Nakamura beat van Wely in the quarters (avenging a loss to the Dutchman in the swiss), Bareev in the semi-finals, and defending champion Kasimjanov in the final match. The French site says it was 2-0 but the final game is listed as a draw in a lost position for Kasimjanov in the game replay applet. So either he resigned or it was a courtesy draw to seal the match. There don't seem to be many details or games available yet. The French federation site has the most I've found here, including a full table of the swiss. The brief notes, written in the middle of the event, mention Nakamura as a "surprise attendee." Surprise! And what better place to work on a Napoleon complex?

Yes it's rapid and yes most of the world's top players are at the Euro Team Ch right now. But you can't fault a guy for winning, especially such a tough event and in such style. Truly some razor-sharp stuff. You can replay many of the games here, including all from the KO section.

Watching the odd and wonderful 1946 David Niven movie "A Matter of Life and Death." It has a surprising amount of chess. Niven was an aficionado, as various anecdotes attest. In this film he plays a few moves with the love interest, but later it gets geekier. The French "conductor" ghost in charge of taking Niven off to the next world (long story) appears and picks up Niven's copy of Alekhine's "My Best Games of Chess - 1924-1937." When Niven comes in the Frenchman says the book is quite good, and then tries to convince Niven to come along quietly by saying he often spends time playing against Philidor, "the greatest chessplayer of all time. A Frenchman, of course." The French reaper even steals the Alekhine book when he pops off again. Niven complains about this to the doctor, who assumes he's hallucinating.

Later, the doctor dies and meets the Frenchman in the next world (they never really say "Heaven") and the Frenchman gives him the Alekhine book (Niven had told him it belonged to the doctor). The book makes another appearance at the very end of the movie. The French ghost tosses it to them as they retreat back to the living world. Then it magically appears in Niven's overcoat pocket to serve the "was it a hallucination or did it really happen?" motif of the film. A close-up of the cover (white with red lettering and a red knight on the cover, don't see it online (link below, ht r) is one of the last shots of the film.

This film isn't listed at the Chess in the Cinema site [It's there, just listed under its alternate title, "Stairway to Heaven," though they don't 'mention the book. ht Sara], which is one of the better ones out there. Lots of chess in movies past and present, but I can't recall another prominent appearance of a real chess book. Plus, I'm a sucker for any sighting of a camera obscura.

Nerves, schmerves. Ivanchuk came very close to folding against Leko in their 12-game rapid match in Mukachevo, Ukraine. Ivanchuk dominated play on the first day but only came away with one win. He was under more pressure on the second day but still came away with another win to head into the final brace of four games with a two-point lead. The momentum completed its turn away from him on the final day when he couldn't hold Leko with black. He went to the well one too many times by playing my dear Accelerated Dragon for the fourth time in the match in game nine. Leko finally figured it out and won nicely. Needing a draw to hold his one-point lead against Leko's final white in game 11, Ivanchuk finally abandoned the Sicilian. But instead of a Petroff or Caro or Ruy or something else solid, he aimed Alekhine's Gun at his foot and pulled the trigger, just like he did against the same opponent in the final of the ACP Rapid Cup last January. The result was also the same: 1-0. That Rapid Cup game, also in Ukraine, cost Ivanchuk the final. This loss only sent the match into a blitz playoff. Leko held the first game with black with precise defense. In the second, Ivanchuk went with the Scheveningen and quickly benefited from Leko's overly conservative play. Black made it to a winning endgame in which his pawns and minor piece were much better. The new world #2 pushed through to victory without needing any help from his king.

Okay, it was blitz, but justice was served considering the pair of wins Ivanchuk let slip away earlier in the match. Plus, it was a win for the old guy, my fellow 1969er taking out the 1979er Leko. Ivanchuk now hustles to Greece to join his mates at the Euro Team Championship, where they could only draw with Spain in the second round despite a win by Karjakin over Shirov. Leko isn't joining him, which is no surprise. He hasn't played on the Hungarian national team since the 2002 Olympiad, skipping two Euro Team events and two Olympiads. Has he talked about this boycott? I assume it's a simple lack of funding, considering how many other top Hungarian players have been absent from team events in recent years.

The mighty Euro Team Championship is underway. Top seed Russia beat Sweden 3.5-0.5 and third seed Azerbaijan beat Turkey 4-0. 2nd seed Ukraine's win over Bosnia-Herzegovina was also 4-0 and it took them a lot less work. The Bosnians didn't show up at all, for reasons unknown. They shouldn't bother showing up now, as the organizers say they won't be allowed to continue at this point.

Plenty of excitement this week and the next. Hikaru Nakamura slipped but didn't fall at the Casino de Barcelona tournament. He lost to the lowest seed to put his big lead at risk but then won his two last games to deliver a full-point victory over Cuba's Lenier Dominguez. It's worth noting that the local player he lost to, Oms Pallise, also beat Vaganian and Krasenkow. Dominguez drew early in the last round, so a draw with black would have sealed the tournament win for Nakamura, but he got into a sharp fight with another local, Narciso Dublan. Nakamura's characteristic aggression, speed, and precision in complications paid off and he earned a superior endgame, which he converted. He ended up with 7/9 and a performance rating well over 2800.

For a little perspective, this was a category 15 tournament (2606 avg). Recent events of the same strength and format were won by Roiz and Atalik with 6.5 at Gorenje 07, Ivanchuk with 7.5 at Havana 07, Eljanov with 7 at Montreal 06, Shirov with 7.5 at Sarajevo 04, and Sokolov and Nikolic with 7 at Selfoss 03. In other words, impressive company. Nakamura's exciting games also deserve attention. In the first round he ran his white king to h6 against a dangerous piece sac by Fluvia. In the second he played the 21..Qxf2+! shot that Krasenkow will have burned into his retina for years. Nakamura also played the King's Indian twice: once for a win against Vaganian and the other the loss to Oms that contained a faulty sac. Then he got all Kramnik on Illescas with a Catalan for a win.

All in all, very impressive stuff. Combined with Kamsky's maintaining a top-20 level and Onischuk's tying for first in Biel, it's been a minor Renaissance year for Americans on the international circuit. Who will be the next to join those three in the top 100?

The 2007 Euro Team Championship starts in Crete on the 28th. Don't confuse this with the Euro Club championship or the chess Olympiad. These are the national teams and is a way of getting together without having to worry about the medals going to China, India, and the USA. Netherlands was the surprise winner of the last event in 2005, in Sweden, followed by Israel and France. If your memory goes back that far, you'll remember the biggest story was top seed Russia's 14th-place finish.

The 2007 field is an impressive one. Seven top ten players are there, including Ivanchuk, Topalov, Morozevich, and Aronian. Will be good to see Topalov in action for the first time since May. There are 14 players rated over 2700 and five of them are the Russian team, so they're the heavy statistical favorites again despite the absence of Kramnik. The usual powers Ukraine, Armenia, and Azerbaijan are also near full strength. Or you can play the over-under for Cyprus victories. Last year the entire team won three games. Let's root for four!

Hikaru Nakamura has been a bit overlooked in the last year or so. Kamsky charged into the candidates matches and has maintained an elite rating despite (because?) doing criminally ugly things with the Slav. Onischuk has been accumulating high-class invitations and rating points. In May Nakamura surprisingly failed to finish in the top group at the US championship and so missed out on the World Cup, the first step in FIDE's world championship cycle. But so far this week he's reminding people that he's still a world-class talent and still just 19 years old. He just added to his lead at the Casino de Barcelona tournament by beating last year's winner Lenier Dominguez to move his score up to an amazing 5/6 with a 2900+ performance rating. Cuba's Dominguez is in =2-4 with Beliavsky and Gashimov. Nakamura faces three of the lowest-rated players in the field in the final three rounds, so barring an epic collapse this will be a tremendous result.

The reports on the official site are in Catalan, which is mostly comprehensible if you have a romance language handy. Apparently Nakamura used less than an hour on his clock to win the game against top seed Dominguez, who until today was his closest pursuer. First prize is 1500 euros, which by the end of the event should be around twenty thousand dollars. Plus, you get to be in beautiful Barcelona.

A quick hollaback from New Orleans, where Kasparov is addressing an investment conference tomorrow for Jefferson Financial. Nice to be able to work Morphy into a speech! He's opening with, "I feel right at home here. I'm also from the deep South, right next to Georgia." Then a slide appears with a map of the USSR with Baku and Georgia highlighted. Zing! Plus, I might have the chance to kick Ann Coulter in her bony shins. Not much time for anything else, we're back to NYC tomorrow afternoon. Don't worry, we'll be off these endless Kasparov/HLIC items after the 25th. I also plan on sleeping a bit.

Did Garry rock on Bill Maher or what? Damn, that kicked ass. And he was sitting in a room with an earpiece staring at a camera to do the satellite feed, so timing is very tough. I felt a little sorry for Maher, who is smart and probably thought he was asking tough questions when in fact he was walking right into two major refutations we'd been using for weeks. ("Putin is popular" and "the Russian soul can't handle democracy"). Garry's ad libs were also perfectly timed. Magic. The blogosphere really follows Maher, it seems, so it's being celebrated everywhere. And how giddy is Chris Matthews? He seemed ready to make Garry president of the US on the spot. I got an email saying someone said something along the lines of "if an Austrian body-builder can do it, why can't he?" referring to Schwarzenegger becoming governor of California, but I didn't notice that in the Maher show. Was it there and I missed it or somewhere else? Maher did say "why can't we get him at the Iowa caucuses," which amounts to the same thing. I don't think Garry will be running for governor of New Jersey anytime soon though, so rest easy.

It was either that or the Colbert Report appearance that must have led to Sunday's most amusing Garry public encounter ever. We were taking a quick walk around Bourbon Street when we passed by a group of well-lit college-age guys decked out in Saints gear and carrying cans of beer. Not that this was unusual since the Saints game had just ended and it seemed like everyone in the city was wearing a Saints jersey. (And had already consumed vast quantities of beer.) So these guys stumble past us when one of them double-takes and says, "Dude! It's, like, that Russian guy! I saw him on TV! He's like the best chess player ever!" He couldn't remember Garry's name, but he did remember he is "fighting for democracy or something" and he took a cell-phone picture with Garry, who was entirely bemused at this sudden expansion of his demographic to drunk American football fans from Baton Rouge. He's almost never recognized in the US other than by people from the former USSR. No longer!

The book signings have also gone very well and yes, I still owe y'all photos and more from most of them. It's a pity Garry doesn't have time for a full standard tour with a stop in Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, etc. How Life Imitates Chess is on the verge of cracking the top 100 bestsellers on Amazon, remarkably. Or maybe it already did and is on the way down? I haven't been checking. But it was around #1,500 a week ago and it's #103 as I type this. Not that I have any idea what this means in actual sales. (Please go buy three copies on Amazon just to see what effect it has.) On the other hand, Garry's also trying to do Russian politics at the same time. No, they aren't going to let him on the ballot, but building awareness inside Russia is of course more important than building it outside, if much harder.

So how's the chess world? Sorry to see Andriasian land a successful Quarter Moreau in Essent, but after you've lost five in a row you may as well go all the way so you can say you have something in common with Taimanov and Larsen. Mamedyarov took first. Hikaru Nakamura is reminding the world he's alive and well and very much a force to be reckoned with in Spain. He's leading the Casino de Barcelona event with a 3.5/4 score that includes a spectacular queen sac win over Krasenkow. Wow! Cuba's Dominguez is in second. Hikaru has white against Beliavsky and Dominguez in the next two rounds. Bu Xianzhi won the blindfold event in Bilbao. Carlsen and Karjakin tied for 2-3 on points but the "3 points for a win" system gave second to Karjakin, which is reasonable. As a tiebreak it functions the same as "most wins," which is a good round-robin tiebreak anyway. Topalov had a terrible -3 showing, but I'm not apt to give much relevance to blindfold results. When is Topalov's next real event?

Not really an alert since they re-air the Real Time with Bill Maher show throughout the week. Garry Kasparov is going to appear on the popular HBO political comedy/discussion show tonight via satellite from NYC. It's a quick disembodied Q&A, probably 4-5 minutes, surely about politics, no doubt to elicit any possible criticism of the Bush administration. (Maher is very sharp and often funny, but he's become such a one-note basher of Bush that he often prefers that route instead of being funny, but doesn't seem to notice the difference.) I'm sure Garry will oblige, at least when it comes to how Bush has totally been outplayed by Putin. Should be interesting. It airs at 11pm but check your local listings.

Philly signing went well today. Thanks to all the Dirt readers who came by and said hello. Will post more from Philly including pics and more from the NYC events later. So. Very. Tired.

Egypt's Ahmed Adly wasn't going to let himself be buried alive at the World Junior Championship in Armenia. The early leader lost two in a row to the favorites and looked to be out of the running with three rounds to go. But instead of crying to mummy he got incensed and dug his way out of the tomb with three straight wins. His final 10/13 score was a half point ahead of Russia's Ivan Popov. I wouldn't know how to search Egyptian news if I could find it and the only English news so far is the People's Daily in China, although the Indian papers should weigh in soon enough. Is this big news in Egypt? They don't have a lot of global sports successes to my knowledge, though an Egyptian wrestler took a gold in 2004.

Mamedyarov leads Essent after three rounds with 2.5/3. As expected, Andriasian has lost all of his games so far so Mamedyarov's win over van Wely in the first round is the only thing tilting the balance. L'Ami and Postny lead the open event.

A bunch of big names are wasting their time -- but filling their pockets one hopes -- playing blindfold rapid chess in Bilbao this week. Would blindfolding Formula One drivers in hopes of more crashes be fun? An extra ring has been added to the circus with a scoring system that gives three points for a win and one for a draw. This is always the first suggestion of well-meaning but ignorant folks who want more decisive games, as opposed to fewer short agreed draws. (The first time they use this at the top level in classical play and someone like Moro goes -2 but finishes "ahead" of someone who scored +1 people will wake up about how silly this would be.) Topalov, Carlsen, Polgar, Karjakin, and Harikrishna all trail Bu Xiangzhi after four rounds.

Two presidential candidates, two best-selling authors, two guys who like to think with their guts, two fast talkers who aren't used to listening. That was the scene of the interview segment at today's taping of The Colbert Report. Garry Kasparov appeared on the famous Comedy Central show today and we just got back from the taping an hour ago. It airs tonight at 11:30 across the US. Garry was pretty exhausted since we flew in from DC this morning and he had to take a long detour to the financial district for a quickie interview with Maria Bartiromo on CNBC's Closing Bell. (For every five minutes of television you're on the air, there's at least an hour of time at the studio, plus transportation to and from.)

I'm a big Colbert fan and was really looking forward to this appearance. Not just because we met him before and after the show and got tickets for my wife and our friend Anna, who is a true Colbert fanatic. The interview segment flew by, feeling even shorter than the brief 4-5 minutes it is on the air. Garry was probably a little over-prepared. He has taken that chess diligence into everything else and we had worked out a few Colbert-specific soundbites that we thought would entertain the Colbert faithful. That was true enough but it didn't feel natural and Garry's always best when he's ad libbing or riffing on prepared themes. (The DC book signing talk last night was a great example of this. Just a few notes and he was in great form.) It was still funny, although I guess you never know how it's going to look on TV.

Colbert introduced him with "My guest tonight is Grandmaster Garry Kasparov. Finally, someone else who sees things in black and white!" It started out, as I suspected it might, with a chessboard on the table between them. Garry got a good crowd "ooooh" for saying, "You haven't read my book! You have broken the first rule by picking a battle you cannot win!" Colbert made one move and offered a draw, which was eventually accepted -- after Garry asked him if he had Deep Blue under the table and Colbert responded that he had Deep Red White and Blue under the table.

It was interesting to see how Colbert reacted to someone who was as used to being in charge as the character Colbert plays on his show. It almost seemed tense for a few moments because Colbert, who is trying to make his guests look good, tried to figure Garry out. Of course Garry knew the whole thing is an act; we'd looked at some shows and talked about it. But he still wasn't going to give an inch, which gave it a different feel from most Colbert interviews. Garry made a joke about the book being about "self-awareness and not wrist awareness," based on Colbert's jokey campaign to give out red "wrist strong" bracelets after he broke his wrist before a show a few months ago. Colbert took his off to offer it to Garry and he turned it down, saying he already had a watch. Garry didn't know it was an indication that "you're more famous than I am," as the tradition off the bracelets demands. [Hmm, they cut that! Wow, they cut a lot. Edited well together, but missing one good joke. When Stephen holds up the "Colbert - Putin 08" bumper sticker Garry said, "But if you win and Putin is your vice-president, make sure you buy lots of life insurance!"]

They ended the segment with a quick game of Rock'em, Sock'em Robots. Silly, but typical of the Colbert insanity. The show isn't the sort of thing Garry would usually do but it was a concession for the book tour and I think he had fun with it at the time. Afterwards he felt it was a little too much of a stunt for someone with such serious goals, but that's the strange thing about mixing his chess past with his politics and now a book tour. Going from an impassioned plea at a House Committee for Human Rights discussion to swapping jokes on a talk show is bound to mess with your head.

We'll it's on in 20 minutes so I'll probably update this item after having a chance to see it without being terribly nervous. Garry's staying up to watch it too and I hope he feels good about it.

The DC (Bethesda, actually) signing went great last night. The talk was very good and sold out of books and there was a humorous sequence with people sprinting over a nearby Barnes & Noble in search of copies and coming back winded. B&N had a few but soon sold out, so around a dozen people were left bookless. (One guy offered me $50 for one but unfortunately I didn't have one with me.) I suppose being out of books is the best problem to have. Again great to meet some Dirt folks, and I have some pics and names to dig out and put up after I get some sleep. WaPo chess columnist GM Lubosh Kavalek and his wife came by.

Garry will be signing here in NY at Barnes & Noble tomorrow at 12:30pm. 555 5th Ave (46th St.) It's a bit of a squeeze for time and space they say, so unless attendance is lower than expected they probably won't allow for signing anything other than HLIC. That's the first thing to go in a time crunch. Next to go is dedications, so if there are a lot of people it will be signature and date only. So if you really want it with your name, being early isn't a bad idea. We'll see how it goes. See you there! There's also a long talk with Leonard Lopate tomorrow evening at the famous 92nd St. Y. Details on that and all remaining appearances here.

A quick note from Boston as we pack up and head to Washington DC. My banana-pecan pancakes have just arrived. I don't usually eat breakfast but room service is hard to resist for someone who does all the cooking at home. The Kasparov Book March is underway! Last night was a "reading" and signing at the famous Harvard Book Store, an event held at the First Parish Church. When we got there we came in the back and the place looked empty. As we walked back to a little office to wait for the 7pm start time, we passed a smallish, very empty room where a woman was setting out folding chairs. None of us (Garry's wife is on the road too) said anything at the time but we admitted later that we all privately thought, "holy crap, it's empty!" Then Mike Campbell, the organizer, said, "it's a sold-out event, around 600 people." Wrong room! Whew.

Garry's got a cold and had to do his speaking with a good size frog in his throat but muddled through. He'd never heard of people going out and just reading their books to audiences! I go to readings all the time in NY and it never occurred to me that this might just sound boring and lame to someone who doesn't. So all the excerpts I'd prepared were left in a stack and he mostly ad libbed through remarks on the book and his transition to a political career, though he did include a few anecdotes from the book. It went pretty well but we'll be better prepared for DC tonight. He asked me to go out and give a few introductory remarks on my involvement and the history of the book project. That was fun and a little nerve-wracking. Being a natural loudmouth I don't have the standard fear of public speaking, but it still went by in a blur. I introduced myself as "the "with" on the title page." I said I'd been working with Garry since back in the days when all he had to worry about was Karpov, Anand, and Kramnik and now it's also the KGB and everyone else with a book on the "new non-fiction" table. I introduced Garry as "the Bill Belichick of chess," for the New England locals who know how the Patriots coach is always being called a master strategist and the "Garry Kasparov of football." Garry opened by thanking everyone for missing the Red Sox game, which started at the same time. (Not as bad as his game with Deep Junior in 2003 being scheduled for Super Bowl Sunday.)

The signing was amazing. The line went all the way around the church and out the back. Of course only half of the things Garry signed were new copies How Life Imitates Chess. People showed up with everything from battered old chessboards to Russian copies of My Great Predecessors to dusty copies of Garry's original English game collection The Test of Time (This means you, Goldowsky!) But despite those cheapskates fans, the Harvard Book Store people said we probably broke the record for book sales at these events, with around a quarter of the attendees buying the book (usually it's around 10%). The Q&A was less chess than politics, which is notable. Only one Deep Blue question! I recorded the whole thing and will try to get it out when we get back to NY tomorrow, along with some pics. Photogs who were there with good gear, please send me a few good shots.

Thanks to all the Dirt readers who came up and said hello to me. Good to see former colleague Rob Huntington, who used to to chess for AP. Good to meet Mark Donlan of Chess Horizons as well. Natasha Christiansen came by and kindly suggested Garry come back to her and Larry's house for some tea to soothe his sore throat. (It was 10pm when we finally got out of there and we went just went back to the hotel and crashed.) A few people even asked me to sign the book too, which I did while warning them that it was destroying its Ebay value. (Of course I signed "with Mig Greengard" under Garry's signature.)

Heading to the airport in a few minutes. Garry's on NPR today at 12:45pm -- WAMU FM "Kojo Nnamdi Show (DC). Then the next speaking/signing event: 7pm, Wash DC. Politics & Prose Bookstore @ Round House Theatre. 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda.

Just tossing in a few quickies together. New world champion Viswanathan Anand got a hero's welcome and then some when he finally arrived on native soil, according to this report (ht jaideepblue)

Nothing worse than hackling! Sounds like Vishy may need as many bodyguards as the subject of the next item.

As part of our attempts to make How Life Imitates Chess the best selling book by any chess champion since Bobby Fischer's anti-self-help tome How I Learned to Hate Everybody, Kasparov participated in what was for me an obscure feature on the Amazon.com website. They call it "Grown-up School" and invites authors to suggest other books in a theme of their choice. Instead of doing chess or business or cognitive science books, the latter two not being categories he's much interested in, Garry went with "books that inspired me." The list isn't under the Grown-up School area for some reason, took me a while to find it. Anyway, Garry's list is here. You expected Churchill, Alekhine, and perhaps Bulgakov. But how about Reagan and Saint-Exupéry? I'd never heard of this one but want to read it now. (I'm the one who gave Garry the Churchill/Lincoln speech book. Great for anyone doing public speaking.)

Speaking of chess and business, GM Joel Lautier, a friend and all-round good egg despite his occasionally suspect allegiances (that's a joke), has made The Moscow Times with a jump into Russian business. I hope he makes the right friends and realizes that getting out fast can be just as important as getting in fast!

Rumors of my evading the How Life Imitates Chess book tour were greatly exaggerated. I'm hitting the road with Garry Kasparov in a few hours. Garry's got a nasty cold so stand back if you come to a signing event! Please do say hello to me if you're a Dirt reader. Always nice to meet (sane) chess people. It's Boston today, Wash DC tomorrow, then back to NY for two days, and the train to Philly on the 19th. The full list of signings and media appearances with details is here. That page also has various links about the book.

Oct. 15 at 7pm, Boston. Harvard Bookstore @ 1st Parish Church. Tickets are $5.

Oct 16 at 7pm, Wash DC. Politics & Prose Bookstore @ Round House Theatre. 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda. Two tickets with purchase of book, or $6.

Speaking of travel plans, as I commented at the end of everyone's favorite Slime thread, Susan Polgar and I worked out the first useful fact to come out of the discussion. This is not directly related to the purported court case, but it is obviously related indirectly in a big way. We went over the list of spammed comments in that thread, standardized to a single poster ("Voice of Reason"). Susan pointed out that she and Paul Truong were on a plane from Lubbock to NYC at the time many of these comments appeared on the morning of the October 10th. (AA flights 3652 and 720) She took the time to send me documents and this fact has been verified to my satisfaction. No, I don't have security camera video of them entering the plane. But confirmed reservations and purchase receipts are good enough for me. I refuse to believe she is going to fabricate evidence or lie to my face about this. You're a sad person if you do.

So, what does this new fact mean? As I said before, it doesn't directly relate to the Usenet postings that are the focus of what may or may not be an actual lawsuit initiated by Sloan. But it does show that the wave of posts here supporting Polgar/Truong and attacking their critics were not made by them. Which means there is an industrious lunatic with way too much time on his hands out there. This could be a deranged fan or, less likely, someone trying to frame them in a rather sophisticated way (the "impersonating an impersonator" theory). I still have no wish to beat this into the ground further, at least not until something legal happens. But I'm very happy to learn this. Thanks to Susan and Paul for their cooperation and I apologize for the hassles. I wish them luck.

Please do not take this as a cue to resume grinding any ax you may in relation to this situation or these people. If it was already said in the Slime thread it doesn't need to be said again. Thanks much.

This year's Essent Crown Group got off to a fast start with wins from both the favorites. Last year's co-winner Mamedyarov beat van Wely and Ponomariov beat big underdog current world junior champ Andriasian. Werle and Simutowe are leading the open with 3/3.

I'm still not sure what to make of two-time world junior champion Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan. He can be a great attacking player, a sensationally creative defender, and he has an occasionally eclectic opening repertoire. Yet somehow he seems to draw an inordinately high percentage of his games against his fellow 2700's. He appeared in the top 10 suddenly last year and has shown even better rapid results. He's due for a big result in classical play. He tied for first at Essent last year with Judit Polgar. It was a strange event with an exhausted Topalov coming in from his match with Kramnik at Elista and a horrific 0.5/6 score from Sokolov. A week later Mamedyarov drew all nine of his games at the Tal Memorial, where he will also be appearing again this year.

In the first round at Essent he beat van Wely in a Semi-Slav the Dutchman must have worked on considerably with Kramnik prior to the Mexico City world championship tournament. It looked like Black had decent defensive chances even after White had two connected passers, but Mamedyarov whipped up an attack and van Wely fell apart in time trouble. Ponomariov rolled Andriasian off the board in impressive fashion. Speaking of Kramnik and van Wely, this game followed one between those two players at this year's Melody Amber tournament. 23.Re6 is a beauty. You often see moves like this that are only good if the defender accepts the sac. This shot can't be accepted and was winning either way. Pono finished precisely.

Ponomariov and Mamedyarov just drew against each other at the Euro Club Cup where both had excellent performances. Pono tied for second at the Tal Memorial last year but unlike Shak he won't be back this year. Ponomariov, born in 1983 (Mamedyarov 85), still has yet to recapture the magic that brought him the FIDE KO WCh title back in 01-02 and an impressive second place in Linares a few months later. Was that just a flash in the pan? As far as I can tell, he hasn't beaten a 2700+ player this year. A pretty weak stat, I admit. He's got another Russian KO coming up soon, the Khanty-Mansyisk World Cup, so maybe he's just saving his strength for another run to glory.

Ahmed Adly of Egypt was leading the World Junior championship in Yerevan by a full point after eight rounds with a very impressive 7/8 score. Two rounds later he's a half-point back and still on 7 points. Tut-tut! The new leaders with 7.5 are unheralded local boy IM Grigoryan, Russia's Popov, and top seed Wang Hao of China. The official site is here and there are even live games.

Here's a diag from Adly's crushing win over Laznicka in round 8. White to play. A rather one-sided diagram I admit, but the finishing maneuver is cute in how totally helpless Black is to stop it. 26.Bf4! and other than losing half his material there is nothing Black can do to prevent Bd6 with Qf8+ (or Qg7+) and Nh6 mate. The game finished: 26..Rc8 (26..Ncd4 27.Nxd4 cxd4 28.Rxe6! fxe6 29.Qg5+ Kf8 30.Bd6+! Ouch.) 27.Bd6 Ncd4 28.Qg7+ 1-0. Unfortunately for Egypt's favorite sun (god), Adly lost to Wang Hao and Popov in the next two rounds.

This is a strong field for an event that has been on the wane over the years (Mamedyarov's curious devotion to the event notwithstanding.) Its age limit of 21 is woefully outdated and has been for over a decade. Few top juniors bother to show since these days they are often in the top 20 well before they reach 21. But the world junior title still means invitations and some prestige, apparently, because there are several strong GMs playing in Yerevan. Stellwagen, Wang Hao, and Laznicka are all over 2600. India's Negi has received a lot of attention and many prestigious invites but still made the trip. He currently has six points.

Yow, what a week. Hurricane Kasparov landed in NY a few days ago and I've only just now made it to the relative calm of the eye. (I suppose that old hurricane joke should be shelved for a while since he's speaking to a business audience in New Orleans next week.) I caught up on my sleep last night after Garry rocked the World Business Forum audience at Radio City Music Hall yesterday morning. Only the second time any speaker has received a standing ovation, according to the HSM director. Such a relief after we spent so much time and stress working on the speech and wondering how this US audience would be different from the European ones Garry usually speaks to. Plus the sheer size of the hall, which had over 4,000 people in it and three gigantic video screens the Rolling Stones would have been happy to have. Garry was in great form and everyone I met was thrilled. Wednesday was a more somber address at a panel convened by the House Committee on Human Rights in Washington DC to honor the anniversary of the murder of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Lots of media, also there to hear from Larisa Arap, an activist for the Other Russia who was kidnapped and held in a mental institution earlier this year.

After a brief pause it will be on to a mini book tour to promote How Life Imitates Chess in Boston, DC, NY, and Philadelphia. (Appearance schedule here.) I think I've managed to get out of going on the tour, but I'll be at the New York signing event on Oct 18 at 12:30pm, NYC. Barnes & Noble @ 555 5th Ave (46th St.) Someone told me there's already a big sign in the window for it. Yay. If you want to say hello, and please do, I'm the tall one.

The Kamsky-led Spanish team Linex Magic won the European Club Cup in Turkey. (I love a good turkey club myself. With bacon.) The official site and ChessBase have more. including a video with Anand. Since I've been away several in the commentariat have pointed out that the very active Turkish Chess Federation is suing the European Chess Union. The very long letter explaining ("explaining" since I'm not sure it really clears things up) all this from Ali Yazici delves into a variety of the closed-door bargaining, rule changing, and secret bidding that have blackened the name of FIDE and chess organizing in general for many, many years. Of course it's not public and transparent! That would make it much harder to STEAL STUFF. This is not rocket science. It's not even Chem 101. It's blatant cronyism and larceny and has been for a long time.

TWIC, via Sport Express, confirms the field for the Tal Memorial starting Nov. 9 in Moscow. Ivanchuk, Kramnik, Leko, Shirov, Mamedyarov, Gelfand, Carlsen, Kamsky, Alekseev, Jakovenko.

But Essent is first and the top Crown Group event gets underway on Oct 14. It's the usual double round-robin with four players. This year it's Mamedyarov, Ponomariov, van Wely, and world junior champion Andriasian of Armenia. They've always done world junior champ, Dutch champ, world champ, and a woman, inevitably Judit Polgar. But I guess she wasn't available this year. Mamedyarov was also a world junior champ -- twice. That official site link says there will be live games at 1400 local Dutch time. Probably here from what I can tell.

The field for Corus 2008 was announced last week. It will run from January 11-27. As usual it's a 14-player round-robin with a big slice of the top twenty plus a qualifier from this year's B Group plus Loek van Wely. The qualifier is Ukraine's Eljanov, who has been showing some good results and has been working as Gelfand's second lately.) The official site seems to be down right this second, but it should be coruschess.com as before.

Viswanathan Anand 2801
Vassily Ivanchuk 2787
Vladimir Kramnik 2785
Veselin Topalov 2769
Peter Leko 2755
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2752
Teimour Radjabov 2742
Levon Aronian 2741
Boris Gelfand 2736
Mickey Adams 2729
Magnus Carlsen 2714
Judit Polgar 2708
Pavel Eljanov 2681
Loek van Wely 2680

In the 2007 event Radjabov, Aronian, and Topalov shared first place on +4. Radjabov jumped out with 4.5/5 but only even after that. Topalov hasn't played classical chess since winning the MTel in May. The Tal Memorial starts November 10th in Moscow with Kramnik playing in what is billed as a category 20 field that I can't find details on. Anyone? Then most of the world's best heads for Khanty-Mansyisk for the World Cup that begins Nov. 22.

The mighty Euro Club Cup is well underway in Kemer-Antalya, Turkey. Here's the fine official site. The full list of teams and players is here. TWIC has speedy results and games. ChessBase just put up a report with lots of photos. There are plenty of stars in action, including Carlsen, Ivanchuk, Svidler, Kamsky, Grischuk, Akopian, Radjabov, Shirov, Morozevich, Mamedyarov, Adams, and even new world champion Vishy Anand, who appeared in round five for Baden-Baden to draw his first game as champ with Murtas Kazhgaleyev of the Cannes team. (There's a trivia quest for you. Results of champions' first games as title holder.)

Three big powers are tied for first with nine match points after five rounds, with two more rounds to play. Kamsky has lost twice on board one for the Linex Magic team, but his teammates have picked him up. Adams and Cheparinov have 4/5 and Rublevsky and Sargissian have 3.5/5. But it's their 6th board Perez Candelario who is really rocking, with 4.5. Shirov has 4.5/5 for Ural Sverdlovskaya. Ivanchuk has turned in 4/5 for Bosna. Continuing our recent opening survey, 1..e5 is still beating the Sicilian two-to-one. Kudos to the Basque club Gros Xake Taldea for fielding this marvelously diverse squad: Netherlands, China, Switzerland, Morocco, France, Romania and two Spanish reserves. Baden-Baden has two players from the same country as well -- India.

As always seems to happen in these big team events there are some glitches with the scores. Try this gem, listed as Sutovsky-Vaganian from round 4: 1. e4 e6 2. d4 Bb4+ 3. Nc3 Bxc3+ 4. bxc3 Nc6 5. Bd2 f6 6. a4 a6 7. g3 Na7 8. Nf3 Qe7 9. Ke2 0-1

Alas, what happens on the Usenet doesn't stay on the Usenet. This New York Times article by chess columnist Dylan Loeb McClain covers a war of words and accusations involving several USCF board members past and present. Several people sent me emails about this latest scandal in the past week, but my keyboard tends to smell funny after writing about the USCF so I try to do it as rarely as possible. Plus, the Usenet groups have been a slime pit for so long that the only people still there are the ones who enjoy it.

The crux is a lawsuit by, you guessed it, Sam Sloan, who has spent years reaching new depths of loathsomeness, triumphantly capped by a disgraceful and brief appearance on the USCF board until being voted off this year in the same election that brought in Susan Polgar and her husband, Paul Truong. A USCF admin recently came forward and stated that many scurrilous and defamatory posts on the Usenet, as a "fake Sam Sloan" and other spurious names, had come from the same IP addresses and computer IDs as posts from Truong/Polgar in the USCF forums. The claims of the admin, Brian Mottershead, appeared on the Usenet here. Sloan has filed this rambling lawsuit in response, claiming, among other things, this alleged slander cost him reelection to the board. This could lead to requests (subpoenas if necessary) of USCF server logs and ISP data to attempt to conclusively prove these allegations.

It's sad, but it's hard not to think they all deserve each other. Sloan's sleazeball status is well-documented, mostly by his own words. As for the other parties, we have only claims of an admittedly disgruntled employee so far, but it's not as if this sort of thing hasn't happened before. Truong seems to have a nasty habit of "anonymous" internet attacks and habits can be hard to break. (As for a frame-up, spoofing your own IP is not rocket science. But consistently spoofing your IP and ID string to exactly imitate someone else's is not trivial.) Such bad judgment (never mind for now it being potentially illegal) over such small stakes is difficult to comprehend, but we've all seen enough of it on the internet not to be too surprised. That it is now being mixed directly into USCF politics isn't much of a shock either.

Mmm, the smell of burning tires. I swear I'm not touching this again until someone leaves office, enters office, or the result of a court case comes down. The moral? Something about glass houses and stones, no doubt. Or perhaps "beware the disgruntled webmaster." On a side note, it also illustrates the dangers of having a chess guy reporter at a major newspaper. Normally this would be great, and usually it is, but when so much of the news is like you almost wish for a return to obscurity. Cheating, toilets, lawsuits, and slander, oh my. Let's move on to the Euro Club Cup as quickly as we can.

Garry Kasparov will be blitzing the eastern USA this month. There are a few business or political events that I'm pretty sure aren't open to the general public so I won't list those. There's a speech at a big business forum on the 11th that's $2800 per ticket. But you also get Michael Eisner, Alan Greenspan, Jack Welch, etc. For just another $700 you can watch these guys eat lunch, too!

There are several signings for the US release of Kasparov's book How Life Imitates Chess, which I collaborated on. If there's space and time there's often some Q&A as well. Buy early and buy often! Please don't let my mother be the only buyer. There's also an interview with Garry on that Amazon.com page. A clip from that with a humorous twist on a typically inane attempt at a chess question:

There's a chessy excerpt from the book in BusinessWeek that's available online. It's an intimate description of the famous game 24 from the Seville 1987 match with Karpov.

Oct. 15 at 7pm, Boston. Harvard Bookstore @ 1st Parish Church. More info here. Tickets are $5.

Oct 16 at 7pm, Wash DC. Politics & Prose Bookstore @ Round House Theatre. 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda. Two tickets with purchase of book, or $6.

Oct 18 at 12:30pm, NYC. Barnes & Noble @ 555 5th Ave (46th St.)
Oct 18 at 8:15pm, NYC. 92nd Street Y with Leonard Lopate. More info.

Oct 19 at 13:30pm, Philadelphia. Free Library of Philadelphia. Free. More info.

Some of the media appearances. Not sure all are live.

Oct 15 2pm WBUR FM (NPR Boston) "On Point"
Oct 16 12:45pm WAMU FM "Kojo Nnamdi Show (DC)
Oct 17 4pm CNBC, Maria Bartiromo "Closing Bell"
Oct 17 11:30pm (airs) The Colbert Report (Comedy Central)
Oct 18 2:15pm WNYC (NPR) "Leonard Lopate Show

The dust has settled on Vishy Anand's new crown, at least everywhere except the comments around here. Here are a few of the better links to relive the glory. Most of the MSM articles contain the usual mistakes and inaccuracies, not to mention terminological butcheries (is "match" vs "game" really so hard to understand?). I suppose that's better than nothing at all, which is the norm. Many of the items in the Indian press jump the line into hagiography, but that's nothing new either. I recall that I got into the spirit myself nearly a decade ago when Anand was rooked out of an earlier title. This from a piece I wrote for the Indian magazine Outlook at the start of 1998:

That after Karpov's legal threats against FIDE got him out of the Groningen KO field and into a special final match in Lausanne, where he beat the exhausted KO winner Anand in rapid tiebreaks. The background for that text should be purple, not yellow. But hey, at least it was a decent prediction.

Let's get back to 2007. Similar Anand interview clips appeared in many places, including this AFP item.

The Indian magazine Business Standard encourages Indian companies to sponsor chess in this fact-mangled piece on their new champion. (Anand, the first non-European, non-USSR champion!)

GM Ian Rogers produced the best quick reports from Mexico and his wrap-up at CLO is no exception. Some interview clips with the champion:

Some might have it that finishing a full point ahead of you at the world championship tournament would have answered the "who is greater" question. But as we already knew, for Kramnik it's all about the match. I rather hope he said something more gracious about Anand's victory somewhere. It would have been interesting to know who the "many" were Rogers referred to. Was that about the fans posting here and pundits online or were there players in Mexico going on the record? I didn't see anything like that.

Author Jeremy Silman signs on to the "Anand still not #15" team in his review of Topalov's new book on the Elista match. (ht Brian) I agree on the #15 thing, but that's really a separate argument from Anand being world champion. There's the Steinitz line of match play that Anand hasn't had a chance at since 1995. Being #15 would be trivia except there's a match next year that will keep the line alive. Then there's winning the only game in town and being the unified world champion and sole claimant, which he is. As I said before, you'd have to be awfully selective to name him 15 anyway. If you count tournaments into the Steinitz line you'd include San Luis and Topalov, and perhaps the KO's as well. I'm sure there's a slice of people who don't count San Luis but who count Mexico because of the unification or Kramnik's participation. To me it's like any sport that changes its format. The records and champions before and after are split by a divide. E.g. baseball records now that there are three playoff series instead of one, or 162 regular season games instead of 154. If there were never another WCh match the Steinitz line would just be over, but it wouldn't mean the world wouldn't have a chess champion.

This long interview with Anand in Rediff (ht JaiDeepBlue) covers mostly familiar territory. It's hard to get beyond the "one game at a time" stuff when a player is talking about a tournament. There are some cute bits about post-event activities with the family. That $390,000 first prize might already be en prise.

This line from an early Sify interview: (ht argenine)

Hmm, and I thought he was getting her a necklace! This from the Times of India: (ht PircAlert)

Various outlets covered the news of Anand's win in India with comments from Indian politicians. Here's one.

Here's Vladimir Kramnik in Russia's Sport-Express (ht Vlad Kosulin also for translation),

No doubt there will be more. Also check out the cool video coverage at the ICC and Chessvibes. ChessBase has some nice pictures from the closing ceremony. I'm a little disappointed with ChessBase's web coverage during the event, if only because they regularly reach a higher standard and I was expecting new heights for such an important event. Don't get me started on the official site.

Apparently FIDE is planning another world blitz championship after the World Cup KO in Khanty-Mansyisk finishes in December. Big qualifier then a final, like the last one in Israel in 2006, won by Grischuk. Several top players were invited directly into the final, befitting the FIDE tradition of entirely gratuitous favoritism. Okay, not entirely gratuitous. They want to guarantee a few big names in the final. But surely the potential for exciting upsets is worth something. But we hear that reigning blitz champ Grischuk was told he would have to qualify with the rest of the rabble, a suggestion he responded to with several choice epithets we can't reproduce in a family blog. Understandable. Either everyone qualifies, as it should be, or the defending champ should be in the final.

Sounds like a fun event, let's hope everyone plays and that they preserve the games. It takes some work to cover blitz games but they should have enough people there to handle it if the digital boards can't. The players like to feel free to experiment in blitz and often don't want the scores published. Tough. If a millionaire wants to have a great artist paint his portrait in private and then keep it to himself forever, fine. But if FIDE is running the event it's public.

Also worth noting is that the ICC was a sponsor of the last event, sending two online qualifiers to Israel for the big show. This time around FIDE hasn't even contacted them about sponsoring again. Who needs commercial sponsors when you can just make deals in those famous smoke-filled rooms? Couldn't they at least pretend they care?

Just thought I'd put up an APB here in case the FIDE office doesn't get back to me with fingerprints and an alibi for the MIA FIDE prez. When Kirsan Ilyumzhinov didn't appear at the opening ceremony in Mexico a brief item went out saying he was ill. But when he didn't make the closing ceremony it passed without a word as far as I can tell. Now Marky Mark points out he didn't even show up for Tibetan Culture Week in Kalmykia, and you know you don't want to tick off the Tibetans unless you've got a pretty good reason. Ill? Political battles in Russia? It became clear early this year that he wasn't as involved as much as expected with Mexico.

UPDATE: The FIDE office says he's alive and well, just very busy in Russia. He was in Moscow for Putin's announcement that he'll be staying in power until the oil runs dry.

By the way, the new rating list is out. As expected Anand crossed 2800 again and sits atop the chess world with 2801. That gives him a 14-point lead over, drumroll please, Ivanchuk at 2787! Three cheers for my fellow 1969ers. Chukky's amazing results leapfrogged him past Kramnik (2785) and Topalov (2769). During the WCh I asked who the next player would be to cross 2800 for the first time. Only Kasparov, Kramnik, Topalov, and Anand have ever done it. Of course in five years there will be a dozen players over that mark, but who will do it first? Many said Radjabov or Carlsen. But now it's in reach of Ivanchuk, one of only four players in the top 40 born before 1970 (Anand, Gelfand, I. Sokolov). Will Ivanchuk's great recent results against mostly non-top-10 competition translate into supertournament success? More importantly, a victory at this year's World Cup in Khanty-Mansyisk? That would put him into a match with Topalov for the right to challenge the winner of the 2008 match between Anand and Kramnik.