Wednesday
Sep122012
Karjakin Interview
Wednesday, September 12, 2012 at 11:59AM
Always near the top and still very young, Sergey Karjakin is a potential world champion* - certainly he hopes to be, as you can see in this longish interview. It's worth a quick read, as Karjakin is relatively under-pressed (to coin a term) in the West.
* Meaning, of course, a world champion in classical chess. He just won the world rapid championship about a month ago.
tagged Sergey Karjakin
Reader Comments (3)
Carlsen & Karjakin - their trajectories have been interesting, at one point both were level or Karjakin slightly ahead, and then Carlsen was far in the lead, in terms of results and rating. Now Sergey seems to be doggedly closing the distance.
Karjakin (much like Kramnik) seems to contradict himself every second sentence...
First he goes on about how he only plays against pieces and objective moves are all that counts...
2 paragraphs later, he is talking about the importance of psychology, crushing tail enders, understanding your opponent.
[DM: I'm not sure about the gratuitous shot at Kramnik, though it's likely that if any of us talk long enough we'll make a statement that's inconsistent at some level with another statement. So let's leave him alone until it's relevant to a particular post, and look at what Karjakin said. You might be right, but I'm not sure. For instance, he said that in some tournament he played more boldly, but there was no differentiation - it wasn't that he played boldly against the lower-rated players but solidly against his peers.
He also says that "in modern chess it’s very important to be a good psychologist and have a feel for your opponent – to sense that sometimes it’s better to go for what perhaps isn’t objectively a very good variation… but is one your opponent will find very unpleasant and won’t expect from you, rather than to get a better position where he’ll feel like a fish in water." That certainly sounds like a contradiction, or at least against the spirit of playing the board and not the man. But then in the very next sentence, there's this: "In my view too much now depends on the opening and on taking an individual approach to each of your opponents." That sounds like a repudiation of the foregoing - the whole thing can be interpreted as a factual statement about the modern ethos and not what he himself does. (Indeed, his opening repertoire has always struck me as pretty consistent.)
One could also suggest that while there is some "playing the man" in his prep, the earlier comment about playing the position had to do with the situation at the board - in the battle, not in prep. That was the context of the example he provided, the game with Meier.
Alright, one more passage: he says that "crushing the tail" (i.e. the tailenders, lower-rated players) is important, a "sign of mastery". But this doesn't seem to contradict the "play the board" ethos either, unless he's suggesting that tail-crushing involves "tricks". He doesn't really specify what it means, except perhaps that one puts more energy into games against the tail than against one's peers. There's at least a hint that that's what he means. That is playing the man, in a sense, but not really the sense in which that's usually meant, or more modestly, the way I've understood the expression.]
I didnt mean either as shots, I really like both these guys and Kramnik is my favourite player..
The only reason I point it out is the curiosity for me, that these guys are so clear, logical at the board playing chess, but when they pull back and make philosophical points about chess they contradict themselves.
For some Kramnik example...
[DM: As I recall, I wrote "So let's leave him alone until it's relevant to a particular post, and look at what Karjakin said". I'm not a fan of having my posts hijacked, sorry! But I don't see the contradiction in what you supplied - saying he likes positional play and playable endings is very, very far from a "full breakdown" of his chess. Nor is there a contradiction between handling "playable endings" well and often botching "won endings" - the first is referring to ordinary positions where you can plan and maneuver, and he often succeeds in outplaying opponents there. The problem is that once he outplays his opponents, things go wrong more often than they do for other elite players in similar circumstances.]
http://whychess.com/en/node/1605
1) Positional play is a very complex matter. I’ve often noticed that it’s strung together from short-range calculation. When Karpov [this is also Kramniks style so its relevant] began to weaken it wasn’t that he’d stopped understanding, but simply that he’d begun to miscalculate short variations. When he’d make one move in one direction and then go off course on the next you might get the wrong impression.When I’m in bad form I also understand chess badly, while in good form everything seems to be fine. But overall, positional play is my strong point, as are playable endgames. [Later....] No, I’ve always played won endgames poorly and couldn’t even tell you why myself. [you can explain it to us though Vlady! :)] Perhaps I relax too soon. It’s when the evaluation isn’t yet clear, += or =+, that I play well and turn those endings into won ones, which I then sometimes make a mess of, just as I did in my younger years. [perfect]
The very next sentence, I kid you not:
2) "To be honest, I’ve never particularly stopped to think about the features of my own style, while I could give you a full breakdown on Anand.