Russian (Slavic?!) conspiracy against our Vishy?

[gansy]

lots of inaccuracies in that article PKB .. you are very knowledgable when it comes to Tennis, but I think you should desist from writing about Chess

I will try to write up something that is more correct

[jayakris]

I am of course one who thinks chess is only a game and not a sport.  So I know nothing about it.  You and PKB figure out what needs to be corrected and I can update the article...

Jay

[gansy]

I have just taken PKB's article and modified it -

India's Vishwanathan Anand won an emphatic victory in the prestigious Linares tournament last week. This is a Category-20 tournament that involved all the world's best chess players, including current world #1 (and former world champion) Veselin Topalov. It was played in two continents, in Mexico as well as Spain. At the end of the gruelling tournament, Vishy Anand emerged a clear victor -- a full point (ie, one full victory) ahead of the rest of the field. Anand’s openings were a little shaky (by his standards), but his tenacity and ability to pounce on every inaccuracy by his opponents allowed him to walk away with an easy victory. The tournament also saw an amazing performance from the 16 year old prodigy – Magnus Carlsen, who finished second. While Carlsen played very well against the other opponents, he couldn’t handle Anand and lost to him with both white and black pieces.

With Topalov finishing at the bottom of the table for the tournament, Anand's FIDE rating (2785) will be 13 points higher than Topalov when the next ratings are released in April 2007, making him the world's highest-rated chess grandmaster.  This is the first time he will be in sole possession of the world #1 ranking despite coming agonizingly close several times. As recently as last April, Anand was at his all time high rating of 2803, but was pipped at the post by Topalov’s 2804.

Anand has been the world's #2-rated chess player for most of the past 10 years. For much of that period, Garry Kasparov (who has officially retired now and gone into Russian politics) was the world's #1-rated player. Garry Kasparov split from the World Chess Body (FIDE) in 1993 and organized his own World Championship cycles in 1993, 1995 and 2000. Anand played against Kasparov for this title in 1995, but failed to capitalize on a good start and was soundly defeated. Finally, Kasparov was dethroned by Vladimir Kramnik (Anand was offered the title shot against Kasparov, but turned it down to participate in the championships organized by FIDE).  Vishy Anand did emerge victorious in the FIDE World Chess Championships in 2000 thrashing Alexi Shirov in the final.  Vishy lost in a subsequent edition of the FIDE World Chess Championship. A novel tournament format was introduced for the FIDE championships in 2005, and Topalov finished ahead of Anand to be crowned FIDE World Chess Champion (subsequently some cheating allegations have surfaced against Topalov .. so Anand may have have been unfairly deprived of the title). In 2006, Kramnik beat Topalov for the unified Chess title. He will be defending this title against Anand and 6 others in a tournament in Mexico later this year (September 2007). Armed with his first #1 ranking, Anand will be raring to have his first real shot at a unified World Chess Title.

There is a small chance that the April FIDE ratings will leave out the scores from the prestigious Linares tournament on a technicality – the tournament ended after the deadline for official scores to be sent to FIDE- so Anand may be deprived of the honour of being the sole world #1. However, it is not very likely since, in the past FIDE has included this tournament (which always finishes after the deadline).  Also, Anand (currently at 2785) is likely to get another 5 points from his exploits in the Bundesliga which will count only in the July list. That should take him to 2790 in the July list.. a full 18 points better than the #2 on the list, Veselin Topalov. Topalov does play in a tournament in May – the MTEL MASTERS .. so he can gain a few points, but one can safely say that he cant reach 2790. So I expect to see Vishy reign at the top for some time to come.

[Kumar]

Gansy, Impressive write up!!!

[gansy]

thanks Kumar .. of course most of the text is by PKB .. I just corrected the  errors like Fischer v. Korchnoi, Anand-Topalov being jt. first, the exact ratings etc. and removed the "slavic" conspiracy bit. PKB is right to the extent that Anand was left high and dry by the "Prague Agreement" which excluded him from having a title shot, but since that deal died a natural death and he did get a legit title shot in the World Championship Tournament in 2005, it is difficult to talk about a conspiracy.

One item that PKB (and I) didnt touch upon in the article is a new announcement by FIDE which does reek of a conspiracy. If Kramnik loses in the Mexico Tournament, he gets a title shot against the winner early next year. This does reek of trying to prop Kramnik up at all costs.

[Kumar]

Both yourself and PKB have done a exceptional job of covering Anand's achievement.

IMHO, Anand had innumerable opportunities to break the stranglehold that Kasparov had, but he  always came up  short. When Kasparov relinquished his number 1 position, Anand did not do enough to take over no.1.  so some blame for not being number 1 should fall on Anand's shoulders too.

[gansy]

Both yourself and PKB have done a exceptional job of covering Anand's achievement.

IMHO, Anand had innumerable opportunities to break the stranglehold that Kasparov had, but he  always came up  short. When Kasparov relinquished his number 1 position, Anand did not do enough to take over no.1.  so some blame for not being number 1 should fall on Anand's shoulders too.

I agree. Although if Topalov was really cheating, it puts a different spin on things. Anand would have been World Champ and been number 1 since April last year.

[PKBasu]

Yes, Kumar, I agree that about 60% of the blame for Anand not ever becoming undisputed world champion should lie with him. I have written earlier (quite a long time ago, admittedly!) about his lack of killer-instinct at key moments in his career -- the traditional bane of Indian sportspersons (quite beautifully explained in another context also by Jay's elegant thesis on "under-achievement" in a specialty while being a more well-rounded individual). Anand is simply not as obsessive about becoming world champion as Kasparov, Korchnoi (without genuine success!), Karpov, Petrosian, etc. were.
But that said, there is more than a hint of a Russian/Slavic conspiracy to deprive Anand of his right to challenge for the proper (undisputed) world championship more often. Kasparov definitely avoided playing Anand again after their one world championship by various ruses/manoeuvres. Had Anand had the ruthless streak of other past chess world champions, Garry Kasparov couldn't have got away with some of his stratagems. But Vishy is very much in the Ramesh Krishnan mould -- a quiet achiever, who doesn't trumpet his abilities or develop the ruthlessness that is usually required for supreme sporting achievement. That he has been #2 in the world of chess for so long despite these personality traits is actually quite remarkable -- and even more so that he is now about to climb to the #1 world rating.

[jaydeep]

Thanks gansy for excellent write up with PKB's article ...

[PKBasu]

Gansy, thanks for pointing out some of the inaccuracies in my frontispiece. I am certainly no chess expert, and wrote this up largely from memory. (the only person I beat regularly at chess is my 12 year old daughter, who will soon turn the tables on me, I'm sure!). 
The Russian/Slavic conspiracy is something that I've written of as a "suspicion", rather than asserting that it is necessarily 100% true. I enjoy spicing things up this way  , although I would be happy to correct any further inaccuracies that remain in the sequence of events that lead to a legitimate suspicion about a conspiracy. I have removed the reference to Fischer playing Korchnoi for a world title (he didn't; Korchnoi and Karpov played to determine who would challenge Fischer, but the latter refused to play the winner -- Karpov -- because he felt the FIDE was trying to make arrangements that would inevitably favour Karpov). On the matter of Anand and Topalev being joint #1 for awhile in 2005, I got that from the Telegraph story; if it is definitely not true (which would appear to contradict what Anand had said to that newspaper) I will amend that as well. 

[gansy]

Hi PKB, at least you took the initiative to write the key piece which lazy bums like me didnt .. that is worth a lot. Here are some other things you may want to correct:

Although Anand was joint #1 with Topalev for several months in 2005

Anand was never #1!! he was tied at 2788 with Topalov, but Kasparov was still #1 at 2812

Traditionally, the world's #1 and #2 ranked players have several opportunities to play each other in a Challenge series (involving 10-20 matches) for the title of world champion.

Not True. It was only true when Kasparov and Kramnik played and that too coincidentally. The challenger had to go through a set of candidate matches to beat the world champ. ELO rating had nothing to do with who played for the championship.

However, in all the time Anand has been world #2, he only had one opportunity to play Kasparov in a Challenge series - in which Anand narrowly lost

I am not sure Anand was #2 when he played Kasparov in 1995. He qualified through a set of candidate matches. Karpov probably was still #2. Also Anand lost soundly 1-4 .. though leading 1-0 after 9 games.


(a) Kasparov was allowed to split the chess world by creating his own challenger to FIDE, which ran its own version of an alternative chess championship (in which Anand was never involved, although Anand was the world #2)

Anand played in the FIDE championship cycles in 1993, 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2005 and declined to take part even though he was invited in 1999 and 2004.

(b) when Anand became FIDE world champion in 2000-02, Kasparov was allowed to avoid all attempts to unify the two titles;

when Anand became World champ, Kramnik had already dethroned Kasparov two months before

(e) Kasparov lost to Kramnik in a Challenge series, at a time when Kramnik (a Russian) was clearly rated well below Anand.

Anand was given the first shot at the title. Anand preferred to take part in the FIDE cycle. Only after Anand turned down the offer did Kasparov turn to Kramnik.

the world championship reunification match was held between the Bulgarian Slav, Veselin Topalev, and the Russian Vladimir Kramnik. Clearly, a Slavic world champion is acceptable to the Russian establishment

If you want to talk about a conspiracy to spice it up, at least call it a “Russian” one .. not a “Slavic” one. There is no love lost between Topalov and FIDE. In fact, the former has been rebuffed a few times by FIDE. And nobody will say FIDE favored Topalov over Anand! Also please write about the fact that Kramnik is being given the right to challenge the winner of the World Championship tournament next year. This plan is very questionable since Kramnik, because of playing in the tournament, can influence who wins. If he is out of the race, he can lose to weaker players and play better against stronger ones like Anand thereby guaranteeing himself a weaker opponent. To my knowledge, this is unprecedented in sports (or to keep Jay happy, games)

btw, just to clarify - there was nothing personal at all in the earlier post when I corrected you... I guess somebody didnt like me correcting you (bcos my "karma" went down after I posted an alternative version - so that was good feedback) .. I guess I should have worded it differently. My apologies if it sounded rude

[jayakris]

Damn, like the money-focussed editors at newspapers, I was tickled by he spice in that word "Slavic conspiracy" in PKB's story.  Now you have gone and asked him to make it milder

(BTW, gansy, you men you look at that karma stuff?? )

Anyway, I will just wait for PKB to do whatever approrpriate changes according to your suggestions...

Jay

[gansy]

Damn, like the money-focussed editors at newspapers, I was tickled by he spice in that word "Slavic conspiracy" in PKB's story.  Now you have gone and asked him to make it milder

(BTW, gansy, you men you look at that karma stuff?? )

Anyway, I will just wait for PKB to do whatever approrpriate changes according to your suggestions...

Jay

I'm a Karma Yogi .. always mindful of my karma:)  Jokes aside, when I read my post again it did sound a lil supercilious so this karma thing is actually good .. can keep me more mindful of fellow posters

btw, here is an interview with Vishy's parents:

http://specials.rediff.com/sports/2007/mar/16sld1.htm

will also post it on the Vishy page

p.s. jay, I hear the National Enquirer has an opening for an Editor position .. do you want to apply?:)

[jayakris]

p.s. jay, I hear the National Enquirer has an opening for an Editor position .. do you want to apply?

I think I would do well as a sports editor there .. Imagine the headlines - "Elvis lives - in India, and he is the world chess #1 now!" .... "Michael Jordan found with corked tennis rackets!" ... "Agassi's child serves at 165 mph at age 7" ... "Sania Mirza is actually Sani Amir Zadeh from Iran disguised as a woman" ... "Two footballs found on Shakira" .. "Britney spears shaves hair to play football for India's Nayeemuddin" .... "Bo Jackson's lovechild plays cricket" ... "Michael Jordan is an Air Yoga instructor in Sri Lanka" ..

Man, I should talk to them.  That stuff may sell.

Sorry for going offtopic ..

Jay

[viji]

When I saw the creation of this thread and also PKB's comments in the writeup on Anand's Linares triumph, I thought he was going a bit overboard. Now that I see that FIDE just decided to ignore the Linares results, keeping Topalov at the top, I don't know what to think. FIDE will most probably use the pretext that it was too late despite the fact that during previous years, it included Linares results in its April 1st list.
http://www.fide.com/ratings/top.phtml?list=men
Is the official list going to be any different from what is on the website?

It seems to me that Topalov has a weaker field (Mamedyarov, Adams, Kamsky, Sasikiran, Nisipeanu) to face at M-Tel. Is Anand playing much classical chess before Dortmund (late June)?