Coming in September: The Botvinnik Memorial

This year is the centennial of Mikhail Botvinnik's birth, and it's appropriate that one of the seminal figures of 20th century chess would be commemorated on such an occasion. In September, in Moscow, there will be a three-day festival that will include rapid and blitz events, and the participation of the big four: Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian.

HT: Chess Today

Comments

[naisortep]

It is amusing that Botvinnik is commemorated with a tournament featuring blitz and rapid games. He was not a fan of fast chess.

[Jaideepblue]

a rapid/blitz event to commemorate Botvinnik? which genius came up with this?

[DM: Yes, it's ironic. But perhaps the explanation is financial: a classical tournament lasts longer and thus costs more in overhead. Further, if you want to have the big four you'd need to have another big six and thus more honoraria and prize money. Better a good event that occurs than a great event that doesn't.]

[drantos]

The big surprise is that there's supposed to be a veterans' tournament held at the same time with, among others, Boris Spassky.

[Thomas]

The issue of rapid/blitz to commemorate Botvinnik is actually discussed at the Russian source Dennis links to. Dvorkovich's Google-translated answer was "Our main goal - to draw attention to it - clearly explained Dvorkovich. - If we want to attract the attention of thousands of people can play in regular chess. If you want the attention of millions, you need to play fast." But I can't quite follow the rest, maybe someone fluent in Russian can help?

The Russian source states "early September" which apparently means that the event collides with the World Cup!? In the German magazine "Schach", IM Dirk Poldauf says that the World Cup will take place 26th August - 21st September (to avoid the Siberian winter and/or overlap with London?).

[DM: Would Anand, Kramnik, Carlsen or Aronian even need to go through the World Cup to make it to the next cycle? Anand as champ wouldn't play anyway, Carlsen presumably wouldn't play for the same reason he begged off the current cycle, and Kramnik and Aronian may well qualify on rating or on the basis of their achievements in the current cycle.]

[Thomas]

I guess it's OK to answer/comment on off-topic questions raised by the blog owner ,:) : While FIDE might change its mind, the current situation on the next WCh cycle was given by "man in charge of the Russian Chess Federation" and FIDE vice president Ilya Levitov in an interview (English version @ chessintranslation.com):
"If by 1 March nowhere has been found to hold the four Grand Prix tournaments [this deadline has passed without news], then the cycle will be as follows: the candidates matches [sic] will consist of three players from the World Cup, three based on ratings, the nominee of the organising country and the player who lost the World Championship match."
From the four players mentioned, only Anand would already be qualified for sure ("wouldn't play anyway" assumes that he will defend his title against whomever wherever). The other three would _currently_ be rating qualifiers - Kramnik or Aronian could also qualify by winning the candidates event (and losing the WCh match) - but ratingwise others (in alphabetic order Ivanchuk, Karjakin, Nakamura and/or Topalov?) could overtake them. Carlsen might change his mind if the candidates matches will be longer than 4-6 games (even if his wish or suggestion for a tournament rather than matches apparently isn't honored).

Regardless of such considerations:
1) Your suggestion to have a classical time control event with "another big six" seems off already for that reason. Anyway, this would "duplicate Tal Memorial", and a super-strong classical event with four players would more or less duplicate Bilbao.
2) It's a bit odd to concurrently have two major or high-profile chess events in the same country, albeit many miles apart from each other. Chess fans have to split their attention, you and others may not have time to provide detailed analyses on (key) games from Khanty-Mansiysk AND Moscow.

This obviously assumes that Poldauf is correct "to the best of his knowledge". I couldn't find confirmation for this print source anywhere on the Internet, certainly not at the FIDE homepage. But, at least within Germany, he is an experienced and rather respected journalist, why should he make such things up?

[DM: Thanks for the info, and sure, it was fine to add on to this off-topic point, though this off-topic jaunt was begun by you; all I did was take the bait!

One thing I'm not entirely happy about is your referring to "my" suggestion to have a classical event with six more players, when my earlier comment was in fact an argument against naisortep & Jdb's semi-implicit suggestion that it would have been a more appropriate way to commemorate the centennial of Botvinnik's birth.]