Second Coming to Elista...
Honestly, I never thought I ever would be missing Kalmykia
landscapes. But when the train was jolting me on the way to
Volgograd, and later, when I was peering into the endless plains,
vague but somehow very pleasant sights of the one-storeyed Elista
and of the desolate Chess town appeared in my memory
National championships, President and Russia Cups - why, it's
great that chess returns to it's alma mater at last after three
years of wanderings! So it may possibly reach its former level in
a year or two
Small towns like Elista are simply intended for big chess. Quiet
and still, they encahnt you with their slow rhythm, let you stop
and concentrate, dispose yourself to the fight without wasting
forces for unimportant things. Remember, Linares and Wijk aan See
are just villages, where the greatest chess events in the world
are held one year after another. But for its too remote location
on the Russian map Elista, the capital of Kalmykia, (its West
side, to be more precise) really might have become the national
Mecca of chess where inhabitants of overcrowded cities would move
eagerly. When the building of Ilyumzhinov's City Chess was still
at the height, he gave sites there to all the best players,
probably dreaming of Fisher's or Kasparov's houses, standing out
in the most picturesque surroundings... But now the town wakes up
from its lethargy no more than one or two times in the year.
Apart from these times only football players from the local team
Uralan, several residents of Elista who were reach enough to buy
cottages in City Chess, and two or three FIDE officials can be
met here.
But
as soon as the chess party lands, the good time comes.
Hopefully, the Russian Chess Federation won't strike up senseless
quarrels with Ilyumzhinov any more, trying to demonstrate its
non-existent power, which has not brought anything but problems
for the last several years! At last, but for the President's
compliance, we might have only a miserable qualification
tournament in Moscow, consisting of 7 rounds, whereas the
question about the national championship would recede into
darkness again
However, it turned out so that everybody is
content, and Kirsan Ilymzhinov maintains his reputation of the
eternal benefactor (or even saviour) of the Russian chess!
Of course, it was not like in the middle nineties this time. The
prize fund was $30.000 vs. $100.000 at that times, and
participants had to take care about their accomodation and board
themselves which cost some $15 per day for one person. Yet, on
the other hand, everybody was promised a prize, the minimal prize
sum being as much as $120 for the last place - probably enough to
cover the accomodation, but certainly not fare expences. So,
unlike in the previous years, many players preferred a train to
Volgograd to an aeroplane to Elista.
The special significance of this championship was quite important
for the attitudes of the participants: it was a qualification
event. However there were no passes to the World Championship
which used to cost $6000 at the least to their winners in the
previous years. Well, this is just for the better, since the
Russian Chess Federation allowed almost blackmail, forcing
participants to agree to any conditions
This time it was
the Europe Championship for which winners of this tournament were
to qualify. This is the only way to become the World
Championship's participant now, but, on the other hand, there are
many qualifying places there! It looked so simply: 20
participants from a country, yet the RCF managed to cheat and
evoke mass resentment even here. First question chess players
were asking was why there were as many places for Russia as for
small countries like Malta or Liechtenstein provided? And second,
why did the Federation contravene the sport principle again,
having released four members of the Olympic team (Dreev,
Rublevski, Sakaev and Zviagintsev) from the qualification by the
decision of the so called trainers' council?
There is no discussion about the worthiness of these players. But
then, why not include the Russia Champion 2000 Sergei Volkov in
this list or holders of high ELOs, such as Shipov, Charlov or
Lastin who had proved their strength more than once? Nobody can
tell
The situation looked still more strange since the
decision of the trainers' council should have been approved by
the executive committee, held just before the start of the
championship, quite naturally. All this time dismissed players
were on the anxious seat. Volkov tried to contact Selivanov, the
RCF head, with the help of the Mordovia President himself,
Kharlov and Shipov wrote open letters - but all this was in vain.
The functionaries won one more victory over the players without
fail.
There were some amazing affairs also before the start of the
Championship in Elista. The tournament suddenly lost several
participants, and then new people came. From the very begginning
it was well known that several players were not coming. Valery
Popov, having won the St.Petersburg Championship, went to
Budogosh and scored a success there
Sergei Ivanov who was
third at the same event stayed at home. Denis Evseev and Victor
Varavin won their zone tournaments but did not come to Elista,
Vaulin and Zaharevich came instead. Now Konstantin Landa, on the
contrary, left Dortmund only to play in the Championship (though
living in Germany, he is a Russian chess player, as well as
Epishin), but somehow he managed to be 15 minutes late for the
flight to Elista. Then, Piotr Kiriakov came to Elista in time,
but did not play a single game and flied away next day. Like in
an old play, Piotr came to Elista at the first round day and
appeared almost before the very start. The grandmaster from
Krasnoyarsk was welcome, and at first arbiters even included him
into the players list, but then they quickly stroke him off, and
there were no ways to persuade them to change this position. Many
participants must remember the scene when the main arbiter
Vasiliev and respected Postovski were staring at each other
silently
Well, Kiriakov, since he was guilty (his fount was
proclaimed that he had not called from Moscow to confirm his
participation) asked to let him play with a penalty of one ore
even two "zeros", yet nobody seemed to be sympathising
with him. He was refused firmly, although there was an
opportunity to include Panchenko in the tournament (he just was
having a session with his school in Elista). As the result, there
were as many as five local participants at the Championship (and
also Dju from Ufa who came at the first round day as well, by the
way), and grandmaster Kiriakov had to return to Krasnojarsk. So
who gained from this?
Meanwhile, the fixed idea about the Europe Championship
influenced the players' minds so strongly that three rounds
before finish none of the leaders said to me he would struggle
for the Russia Champion's title at any cost! This is how the
qualification possibility defeated ambitions. They figured out
that +2 would be enough and did not try to go for anything else
Later it was found out that instead of 16 there were 17 places
available because Dreev with his ELO 2680 proved to have a
personal right to play at the World Championship without any
council decisions. But this is not the end of the story. So,
Malakhov declared he would not go to Macedonia. First, he has his
examinations at the university, and second
it's quite
unsafe there, and anything may happen. So the number of vacant
places can grow, all the more that the trip costs some $1500
which is quite a large sum for Russian grandmasters.
The Championship was the first big trial of FIDE's new time
control, the players even were asked to state their opinions.
There were various points of view there
Older players were
particularly dissatisfied, though young ones suffered as well.
Evgueny Sveshnikov who performed unusually badly at the
tournament, did not claim to justify his result with the new
rules, yet he said, "First, they bereaved us of 20 minutes
before first control, and, second, after you make the 40th move
at last, you can't even leave the board for a short while, or you
simply lose on time!" Really, 30 seconds per move is quite a
short time
I saw many times players make a move with
shivering hands one or two seconds before time expired only to
repeat the same on the next move. Sometimes this excessive
nervousness burst out, and upset duellists swept electronic
pieces away from the board, to programmers' horror
There
was also an opposite attitude there. So Andrei Shariyazdanov,
brought up in tough Western tournaments, was not used to spending
over the board three hours only and felt ready to play two such
rounds at a day! For Denis Frolov the Elista control was almost
fun, "In the qualification tournament we played with
mechanic clocks, three hours per game, two rounds a day
"
So you can imagine this, considering that the qualification event
finished three days before the Championship's start...
By the way, the terms of the championship turned out an
unpleasant surprise for many of its participants. It had been
announced for a month only, so many players had to change all
their spring plans
For example, Rustemov had to refuse to
come to Bundesliga rounds, although his participation had been
agreed long before, whereas for Filippov the Championship was his
fourth tournament in series. Taking into account that it was
scheduled only three days after a large Swiss Open in Dubai, and
the Russia Team Championship in Tomsk started only four days
after its finish, an then (almost without pause) the Europe
Championship is going to start, you can easily guess what was the
mood of some players: it would be nice to survive! Perhaps this
was why tough failures of several favourites were, actually, not
absolutely unexpected
although Filippov's and Rustemov's
one point out of four at the start, as well as Sveshnikov's final
3.5 out of 9 points still look unbelievable. As a whole, the
favourites confirmed their class, and in the top twenty of the
Championship there are practically no new names. The list of
those who failed is much more impressive: Volkov, Aseev, Vaulin,
Shipov, Dvoyris, Balashov, Dolmatov, Yakovich, Shariyazdanov,
Ibragimov
A team which might perform excellently at the
highest level, yet they won't come to the Europe Championship.
On the other hand, young players were at the top: Najer,
Kobaliya, Galkin, Turov, Malakhov, Smirnov, and Lastin and
Motyliov as the winners. A 21 y. o. champion - this looks
symbolic. The point is not that young players find it easier than
middle-aged ones to keep up with the new conditions. The point is
that new strong players, real stars still appear in the poor
penniless Russia, abandoned by all the best specialists. So in a
year or two they may prove to be no worse than those who are 10
years older, and maybe they will even outdo them! Yet, when I
asked Motyliov, "What result would you have expected from
yourself if the championship started afresh now?", he
answered nothing