Friday
Mar092012
Giri: Russia's Loss
Friday, March 9, 2012 at 11:59PM
Here in the U.S. we let Fabiano Caruana get away, to Italy's joy, and in Russia their big loss (to the Netherlands) was Anish Giri. Maybe because of the family's work they would have left anyway, but as you can read here the Russian Chess Federation didn't do themselves any favors.
[Lots more blogging to come the next several days!]
tagged Anish Giri
Reader Comments (5)
Well, that's welcome news for the Netherlands. I was under the impression that he switched from the Netherlands to Russia. Clearly I have no idea what is going on, but considering Russia got Karjakin from Ukraine, I'd say they can suck it up.
[DM: So it looks like the Netherlands owe the Ukranians one, and then they're all square. Meanwhile, Italy, you owe us big time!]
In a Dutch newspaper interview a bit more than a year ago (during Wijk aan Zee 2011), Giri stated that "St. Petersburg still feels most like home" and hinted (at least between the lines) that he might return to Russia. On the other hand, he gratefully acknowledged that chesswise he owes a lot to the Netherlands.
Caruana certainly owes a bit to ... maybe not Italy but at least Europe. He and his parents left the USA when he was 12 years old to move first to Spain, then to Hungary. At that time his rating was about 2200 - not at all bad for his age, but not exceptional either. Would he reach the world top if he had stayed in the USA? Maybe at a higher age (like Nakamura), maybe not at all, who knows?
The overall balance is certainly negative for Russia and other ex-Soviet countries, and positive for the USA but also (at least) Israel and Germany. The USA got Kamsky in 1989 when he was 15 years old and had already won the Soviet U20 championship twice, and also got a number of "subtop players".
[DM: Caruana was well-known in the U.S. at the time of his departure, and his pace was similar to Nakamura's. We knew that he was extremely talented, though whether he would just be a very strong GM or a potential #1 is another story - I'll admit to thinking that he was too mild-mannered to become an absolute top player!]
In a recent interview Caruana said that he and his parents live in Switzerland now. Maybe Kortchnoi will get him to move over to that Federation.
@Thomas
according to the USCF website Caruana was 2485 when he left the US.
One cannot compare Soviet escapees from the 80s&90s with players of today.
@Daniel: One cannot compare USCF and FIDE ratings, that's for sure - USCF ratings tend to be 'inflated', young Caruana seems to be an extreme case. And only Elo is globally comparable.
[DM: Of course one can compare them - you yourself do when you say that USCF ratings tend to be inflated. What you mean is that you can't equate them. That's true, but the difference tends to be around 50-75 points, not 250 or thereabouts.]
Whether current players can be compared to Soviet escapees or not is debatable. There are many reasons for leaving one's home country - voluntarily or not or half - to move elsewhere: private (love and marriage), professional (better chances as a professional chess player or - Giri's case - new job for his father), political, religious (all those moving to Israel), what else? The decision by Caruana and/or his parents to move to Europe certainly wasn't wrong for his chess development, and Italy may have just been the country most willing to receive him even if he doesn't live there (for two obvious reasons). Actually they cannot even "send him back", only Caruana himself could go back - like Shirov did, returning to Latvia first physically (again living in Riga), then officially (federation change).
BTW, several young German GMs are or will be studying at US universities with a chess scholarship: Kritz, Meier, Huschenbeth is next. This doesn't (yet) imply a federation change, but it could be a longer-term consequence or follow-up. No one in the German chess scene blames the USA [DM: I don't understand this - who is blaming Italy for Caruana's departure?], even if some blame the German federation for not making more of an effort or being - supposedly - unwilling or unable to keep them. Well, some people blame their federation for anything, maybe even for the weather ... .
[DM: If it's any consolation, I strongly dislike these American universities offering scholarships to foreign players when there are so few Americans getting chess scholarships. As usual, the U.S. only cares about its chess players when they're young; once they're college-aged or older, they're irrelevant or worse - at least until they have scholastic players of their own.]