Kramnik on Chess, Anand, Topalov and His Future: Part 1

This interview is very much worth reading. Non-Russians may not be terribly interested in the conversation about the persistent failures of the Russian teams in recent years to win events like the Olympiad and the World Team Championship, but there are some interesting new bits about the match with Topalov. Most interesting of all are his remarks about Anand, which are enough by themselves to justify your taking the time to read it. Of course, he has some noteworthy and surprising things to say about his own chess, too, so have a look.

HT: Thomas

Comments

[CobraCommander]

Wow. I was taken aback at his comments on Anand. In a mental sport where ego is often part of the game, it's rare to hear someone sing such high praises for a contemporary colleague and competitor. I must say it was refreshing to read.

[estirodri]

And this is why I like Kramnik so much (even if he beat Kasparov). Thanks for sharing the link, Dennis.

[Chessfan]

Hi,

Thanks for posting the link of the article. It was a great read. Specially Kramnik's appreciation of Anand's talent and we can see there is lot of healthy mutual respect is there between Anand and Kramnik. I always found Kramnik to be very nice person and very humble one at that. Hope, Kramnik retains his World Championship title some day in the future, though for now and sometime to come it may rest with with his longtime rival and friend Vishy Anand:)

Thank you.

[Icepick]

Kramnik: Of course, Kasparov’s preparation couldn’t be compared to Anand’s – there’s no question Anand managed to do things much better, more intelligently and cunningly. Yes, he completely outthought me.

Wow. What a statement about the changing depth of preparation. I remember Kasparov making a similar comment back in 2004 or 2005, that the level of preparation by that point far exceeded what he had been doing around the time of the match with Kramnik. Given that Kasparov allegedly has been sitting on a wealth of novelties not yet played (and IIRC has occasionally rolled one or two out over time), how many unseen novelties are floating around in the DBs of the top players (and other specialists) waiting to be played?How many would make Informants list of most important novelties for the current issue, if played?

This also speaks to the great depth of the game overall, that so much work never even sees the light of day, but waits unused waiting for an opportunity. (See Kramnik's latter comment about how much of his opening preparation never gets used.) This richness is why I love the game.

[Icepick]

A weird bit from the interview:

<Blockquote>V.T.: But don’t you think that in order to get into optimum form you need to use some potent remedies?
V.K.: I don’t use them anymore. That was back in the 90s…

Anyone know what they're talking about? Surely they don't mean cigarettes, do they?

[DM: I believe he's referring to glug, glug.]