Former World Champions in Action
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 1:18AM Garry Kasparov recently played (and defeated) Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in a two-game blitz match; now he's getting ready to face off against Nigel Short on this coming Sunday, October 9. According to Mark Crowther of TWIC, it will be an 8-game blitz match with a time control of five minutes per game (per player) with a two second increment after each move.
In his heyday, one of Kasparov's best and most impressive publicity stunts involved taking on national teams simultaneously. His most impressive such achievement was a two-day match against the Israeli national team back in 1998. Gelfand wasn't playing, but the remaining players were all very strong, clustered around 2600 when that was still an elite rating. The first day Kasparov won two games and drew two, and the second day he whitewashed the Israelis for an incredible 7-1 match victory.
Now Veselin Topalov has apparently given it a whirl, but against a significantly weaker Irish squad. Alexander Baburin (the El Jefe of Chess Today) is a strong if semi-retired GM, but the other three players were IMs with day jobs. Topalov drew the match 2-2, losing to Baburin, defeating Mark Quinn and drawing Sam Collins and Alex Lopez. (There was a problem with the match relay, but the games will apparently be posted here later.) Not exactly a Kasparovian performance, but these things do take practice. It would be interesting to see if Topalov (or some other elite GM) tried to make a habit of this as Kasparov once did. (And even if they do, it's unlikely that any of them will take such events anywhere near as seriously as Kasparov did!)
Reader Comments (4)
Topalov was just warming up ... I am sure he will do better in his next events: simuls on the channel islands of Jersey and Guernsey today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow (source: Whychess).
Makes me wonder if he will then play a blitz match against Kasparov on some Croatian island !? :)
Topalov's performance seems surprisingly poor, but then it's likely that in this, as in other things, Kasparov was truly one of a kind.
Didn't Kasparov also demolish the top Czech players in a simul? They were no slouches either.
[DM: He had many successes. However, not only Kasparov but Kramnik too in his one attempt at such a feat did well, in 2004 defeating a German national team comprised of Christopher Lutz, Rustam Dautov, Robert Huebner and Klaus Bischoff. (All four GMs, the first three generally over 2600.) Kramnik defeated Huebner and drew the rest.]
I think he made it difficult for himself by playing white in two and black in two... he should have just played white in all...
[DM: He was following the lead of Kasparov (and Kramnik - see previous comment) there.]
Before the match Topalov said that he would have been happy with a 2.5-1.5 score. After the match he said his main worry was how to manage his time (2 hours for all moves with no increments). He spent a lot of time in the game with Baburin often sitting at the board. In the other games he was 30 minutes or so up on the clock. Towards the end he start to speed up on boards 2 and 3 (Sam Collins and Alex Lopez) to his detriment. There were some giggles in the analysis room when Sam played 16. ... Nd8 and someone commented that at least his position was pretty with the rooks on a8 and b8, the knights on d8 and e8, and the bishops on d7 and e7. And after his 24th move he just needed to get his Queen to g8 to have all of his pieces on the back rank! Topalov of course missed an immediate win with 37. Bxa5 but he was playing fast at this point trying to spend as much time as possible on the Baburin game. After several blunders on both sides Sam force the draw from a better position but with very little time left.
Alex Lopez in his analysis after the game felt that Topalov missed an opportunity (16. ... Qf5 17. Qxd6 Nc2) when black wins the exchange for 2 pawns. Alex didn't seem to happy about playing the resulting position with his bishops defending the two doubled centre pawns.
Watching the Baburin game without the benefit of the computer I thought Topalov was worse with his Knight sitting on a5 for 29 moves. Rxe7 (ouch) did he not see the draw or was he looking to win? Nice game by Alex B.
After the games I spoke to Mark Quinn who said that the team strategy had been to try for unbalanced positions. It seemed to work and I'm sure the team were very happy with the 2-2 result.
Danailov and Topalov were in Dublin to speak with one of our Government Ministers about the Chess in Schools program. Chess has no status in Ireland as a sport or as an educational subject which means it receives no funding at all. It is surprising that we have any IMs at all. There have been several talented Irish players over the years any of whom could have become strong GMs if the funding had been there. Hopefully, our talented younger players will get the support they need.
Well done lads! And thanks Vaselin for very enjoyable match.
[DM: Thanks for the report! Had I been in Topalov's shoes I probably would have played for a draw with Black against Baburin so I could concentrate on wiping out the IMs. Even if he failed in that mission, it would have been good to train the heavy guns on the weaker players, aiming to (a) (hopefully) guarantee a winning match score and (b) finish them off soon enough to then put all his energy on Baburin.]