JOURNALIST:HOW THE FRAMEWORK AND TOPALOV ARE NOT SHAREDElista, according to Vysotsky, does not accept. The official version - the sky over the capital of Kalmykia is closed for reasons of safety of the participants in the match for the world title. According to rumors, the only runway of the Elistin airport is in such a dire situation that the license for takeoffs and landings is currently irrevocably selected. Ordinary mortals are forced to get to Volgograd, and from there - 300 kilometers by bus or car through the pitch steppe, above which smolder fist-sized stars. Only a select few sit in Elista: Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov with their retinues. On September 29, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, president of the Republic of Kalmykia, and part-time (although the devil knows what the presidency is for him part-time), FIDE president joined the clarifying grandmasters.
We enter Elista at the same time as the presidential motorcade. We arrived here to try to sort out the scandal that erupted. Ilyumzhinov arrived to resolve this scandal.
September 30, Saturday. Noon. A warm steppe wind walks through the deserted alleys of an administrative-territorial formation with a special status of City Chess. At this moment, the whole life of the deserted New Vasyukov as a whole is centered on a hundred-meter distance between the game room and house No. 16 with a gray tiled roof. In this house, from late Friday evening, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov painfully stuck in the mutual claims of the parties and tries to find a way out of this situation. A small flock of federal media journalists, rallied over the past few days, is trotting professionally from the City-Chess main building to House No. 16 and vice versa: are there any news? In the afternoon, the results of the first round of negotiations between Ilyumzhinov and representatives of both sides, Silvio Danailov and actually Vladimir Kramnik. Another important question is whether the game scheduled for Saturday will take place. The conflict, which put the match for the world title in jeopardy, turned out to be foul smelling in every sense. Manager Veselina Topalova Silvio Danailov, a man with a reputation as the gray cardinal of modern chess, accused Vladimir Kramnik of overly frequenting the rest room and, in particular, the toilet. In essence, Danailov accused Kramnik of using computer prompts with this statement. That is what Topalov is constantly accused of. The appeals committee decided to close both toilets in the restrooms and open another toilet, which will be accessible only to players. Kramnik’s manager Karsten Hensel reminded the appeal committee that Kramnik had been assigned a restroom and separate toilet under a contract with FIDE and that Vladimir would not play while the toilet was closed. As a result, the 5th game ended and never started: only Topalov appeared on it, Kramnik’s watch was turned on, and he was credited with a technical defeat. The score in the game was 3: 2, and the candidates for the joint chess crown finally entered the clinch. It was this Gordian knot that flew from Sochi to unravel Ilyumzhinov. It depends on his organizational efforts undertaken in the house with gray tiles, whether the match for the world title will continue. In the meantime, on the sultry City-Chess Square, Kramnik’s friend Joseph, who came specifically for support from Germany, against the backdrop of a large poster with the Dalai Lama in an emotional fervor, tells journalists: “I can go to the toilet as much as I want! And then - how many hints does a Volodya grandmaster need? Well, one or two per match! So what's the matter ?! ”Two jokes are particularly successful: about Kramnik running to the toilet to consult with Garry Kasparov sitting there, and especially the headline from Komsomolskaya Pravda,“ Kramnik and Topalov didn’t share a point. ” They say that Kramnik really liked this title. Suddenly at the end of the street the press secretary of Ilyumzhinov Buyancha Galzanov waved invitingly. Journalists with the agility of athletes, picking up tripods and notebooks, rushed to Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who was leaving the house No. 16.
Ilyumzhinov, who was obviously awake, with a gray face and a badly - excessively long - tied tie, squinting in the bright sunshine, with the soothing tone of the storyteller begins to mutter to the journalists: “Popularization of chess was dealt a serious blow ... So the children came to the international tournament to watch the game of great grandmasters, and here “To open one institution or not ... The world chess community wants to discuss the grace of endgames, and not the details of the toilet scandal.” By the end of Ilyumzhinov’s speech, it became clear that it was not possible to agree on anything: the party scheduled for Saturday was tentatively rescheduled for Sunday, on any of the points - the bill, the toilets, the apologies - no compromise was reached. The match is in jeopardy.
The next exit of Ilyumzhinov to the masses who are suffering news is scheduled for 3 hours. Ilyumzhinov goes to the journalists a little late, and by the confused face of the president twice it immediately becomes clear: none of the points have been resolved. Ilyumzhinov mutters protocol stupidities about the complexity of the negotiation process, however, having dissuaded his own, he remains among the journalists. Suddenly, Ilyumzhinov asked reporters: “What do you think about this?” - and so much despair is heard on this issue that it is not clear what is more about populism or confusion in this step. Ilyumzhinov himself no less than offered to put dry closets on stage; referee of the match - go to the toilet by the handle; Topalov - equip toilets with microphones. At some point, it begins to seem that all this is an areal conference, and not the reasoning of the FIDE president. “Yes, we got into zugzwang, - Ilyumzhinov clearly likes this word and, relishing it, he repeats it several times in a row, - one says: score 3: 2, toilets close; another insists: score 3: 1, toilets open. By the way, the guys are somewhat pleased. Kramnik says that with all these toilets we got to the front page of the New York Times. Campomanes even called me and said: come on, if anything, I’ll lie down and help. ” The absurdities of Ilyumzhinov’s speech are added by wedding cars, with a certain interval passing behind him: City Chess has long become a must-see point in any poor route. The next round of negotiations is scheduled for the evening.
Towards evening, the negotiation process did not move one iota. Compared to the day, only the mise en scene of the square has changed: now Silvio Danailov flirts with the journalists. A modest Kalmyk pen worker asks: “What about Kramnik?” Danailov in response angrily characterizes the behavior of the Russian grandmaster: “What is Kramnik ?! He sat in this restroom and asked, like a boy, for a toy. By toy I mean the toilet. ”
October 1st. The meeting room of the Government of the Republic of Kalmykia in the center of Elista. Today, an examination of the toilet rooms should be held for the presence of secret equipment in them, allowing the use of computer prompts. At 12:10 to the porch of the conference room, where journalists were already crowding, in the midst of which Ilyumzhinov was standing in an equally ugly tie, with his hands behind his back, a Land Cruiser jeep drove up, from which Danailov quickly jumped, and grabbed Ilyumzhinov’s arm and rushed inside meeting room. Having risen onto the stage, Danailov with Ilyumzhinov for some reason begin to play blitz. After each opponent’s move, Danailov proclaims: “Fischer, natural Fisher!” Then, having left the game, Ilyumzhinov and Danailov, accompanied by representatives of technical services, go to the toilet of Vladimir Kramnik, which, by the way, was originally redone from the female. Returning to reporters, Ilyumzhinov finally voiced the first Sunday news, which at first sounds very encouraging: “We started to work. By 15:00 a detailed report on the toilets will be laid on my table, and we will return to discussing the issue of bills. ” The main gossip told while waiting for Danailov: Topalov and Kramnik flew to Elista on the same plane. Moreover, then together they were exhausted on a sightseeing tour of the city. Even then, Topalov’s management calculated: in 5 hours of living together Kramnik never went to the toilet.
3 p.m. In City Chess - frank calm. Despite the fact that no spy gadgets were found in the ruined toilet, right up to the tile, the parties failed to come to a decision on the issue of counting. The lack of result is not surprising: in this conflict everyone has their own truth.
This whole situation, when two chess players argue about the toilet, and the FIDE president tries to reconcile them, on the whole resembles a circus. To complete the picture, grandmasters should water each other with orange juice, and Ilyumzhinov should separate them. At the same time, a frank separation of roles is striking, which representatives of all three parties are happy to try on and behave in accordance with the chosen role: the role of a classic tragedy with resonators and others, and perhaps the role of a classic western. There is a Good - Vladimir "Clint Eastwood" Kramnik. There are Bad and Evil - Topalov with Danailov. The villains of the Bulgarian spill are, of course, too small for a spaghetti western, but this is the level of modern chess. The members of the Bulgarian team are confident in public, are active in communicating with reporters, speak in loud voices and laugh a lot. Ilyumzhinov with his retinue - a sheriff who is just as meaningless as a film prototype, is interested in maintaining the appearance of order and largely depends on the goodwill of the noble hero. And this fuss in the frame openly pushes chess to the background: what kind of chess is there, we are in makeup!
October 2, Monday. This day should be the last day of the Kalmyk "standing on the Ugra River." If the grandmasters do not sit at the board today, the match will be disrupted. In the morning, news is circulated on tapes: the match starts at 15:00, the score in the game is 3: 2. At least two of the parties came to this decision. Whether Kramnik came to this decision will become known at 15:00. After 14:00 in the meeting room a full house. Ilyumzhinov, Peter Svidler, who came from St. Petersburg to cheer, smart Topalov and the omnipresent Danailov. Only one of the participants is missing, but which one - Vladimir Kramnik has not yet reached the meeting room.
Danailov traditionally talks to journalists a lot: he walks around the press center, flirting with his leader. “You can post a press release: the Bulgarian team has already begun to write poems about Elista. Now, let me remember: "The good city of Elista / Kalmykia is a wonderland / I can’t get away from here." Who is author? Write - the head of the technical service of the Bulgarian team. " Behind this joker tone sounds sincere excitement. At times Danailov freezes in prostration. In this state, he is caught by the playful question of one of the journalists: “Will you play?” - “I don’t know. Mine is sitting here. And for all I do not answer. " - And such annoyance is heard in the voice of the manager of the Bulgarian grandmaster that in response he is tempted to write the word “bye”: “I do not answer yet.”
“I think Topalov and Danailov believed in their own advertising,” says Peter Svidler after the sixth installment. - They really thought that Topalov could beat Kramnik. And when the match began to take shape not as wanted, it became clear to them - it was time to change something. Not at the board, so about. Of course, stupidity is not among the qualities of Mr. Danailov. And, of course, he did not think that someone was helping Kramnik. It was just necessary to knock Kramnik out of the game tone: after all, on the part of Topalov Danailov took part in the negotiations. Topalov himself, in fact, rested. ” In parting, I ask Svidler the question that somehow faded into the background in the bustle of these busy days: what did Kramnik do in the toilet? 50 times per match? Svidler replies unexpectedly violently: “First of all, I’ll ask you not to replicate the frankly invented figure, which even the Prodanail Appeal Committee has recognized at least twice as high. As a chess player, I can tell you: this is quite understandable from the point of view of physiology and psychology. Of course, no one there handed a tip to Vladimir Morzyanka, and how many times he goes to the toilet is his personal business. Another question is much more important, and I would like it to appear more often on the print pages: how did the record from the rest room, bypassing all the rules and regulations, as a result of monstrous procedural violations, get at the disposal of the Bulgarian team ?! This is the most interesting question. ”
At 15:00, a message spreads through the forest fire: Kramnik arrived. Kalmyk chess veterans take their places in the lobby. The match for the world title continues.
CHESS:
HOW TO PROPORT ACCUSED OF DISCHARGE MATCHThe flight to Volgograd is delayed, and I called the organizers to warn about the delay.
- Is this the same Barsky whom Silvio Danailov asks not to accredit for the match? - rang out in a tube. - Nothing, come, we are waiting for you!
It turns out that when the toilet battles died down, Topalov’s manager, with a blue eye, said that he had only taken retaliatory measures against the “large-scale anti-Palopal campaign in the Russian media” that was launched by my article “The Great Combinator” (PROport No. 12). Perhaps he knows better from Bulgaria, I didn’t notice any anti- or Protopalov’s campaign, and in general the Russian media paid very little attention to the upcoming match for the crown. And in the article in PROport various opinions were given on the question of whether Topalov uses computer prompts; regardless of the will of the author and the editors, there are opposing views, and it is not clear why this problem cannot be brought up for discussion by the general public.
By the way, at the very end of that publication, I mentioned a glass partition that was installed during the 1980 candidates ’match between Korchnoi and Polugaevsky. And now, on the stage of the Elistin Government House, probably, at our prompting, a similar structure appeared. Before the start of the game, the glass is transparent in both directions, but when the lights go out in the hall, a special illumination is turned on and the partition becomes opaque for the champions, while the spectators perfectly see the whole action.
The first on the scene are the judges, representatives of both players and a policeman with a mine detector. This black device with a thick handle and a cylindrical working part surprisingly resembles a plumber's plumber. A group of respectable men in suits with ties “plunger” at the ready solemnly walks around the toilet rooms of the participants. Mines were not found, and the main characters go on the stage. Looking off to the side, they shake hands; the one who came earlier and has already lowered himself into a chair does not rise for a handshake.
Then comes the five-minute period of the photographers: a little fuss, rushing from place to place in the struggle for a better angle, flickering flashes. During the game, no electronic devices can be brought into the hall, including mobile phones, and a few more pictures of the players can be taken only at a press conference at the end of the game. By the way, the champions come to the meeting with journalists separately: contrary to the regulations, Topalov refused to answer questions simultaneously with Kramnik.
There are not too many spectators in the hall, after all, Elista is a small city. Kalmyks, most of the retirement age, come to the Government House ahead of time, in formal suits, attaching their awards to the lapels of their jackets, and do not go further than the foyer. Here for them the grandmasters comment on the games - in the first half of the match the Elistinist Ernesto Inarkiev, in the second - Muscovite Vladimir Belov. Viewers bombard commentators with questions. Probably only every fifth of them knows chess notation, but phrases like “And if you go with that pawn, but not this one, the other, the one closer to the king?” You hear constantly. In the hall it’s boring for them, there you have to silently look at the champions in the Sphinxes pose, standing still, and in the lobby you can argue and pamper. People leave, they are replaced by others - a few hundred Kalmyk chess fans come to the match a day, admission is free.
There are few elite grandmasters and professionals at the match, because the main habitat for chess fans today is the Internet. It is much more convenient to follow the comments of 4–5 grandmasters at different sites without leaving your home, chat with other viewers and at the same time continue to do your own thing. Every day, over 500,000 visitors visited the official site - less, of course, than the viewers at the Champions League final, but still very good. This is due to the press service, which quickly supplied the site with a variety of information in Russian and English, and, of course, the players themselves. The shortest draw was recorded on move 31, when all the resources of the struggle were expended. For comparison: in the Kramnik - Leko match (14 games, 2004) you can find draws in 16, 17, 18, 20, 21 and 23 moves. In 2000, Kasparov, losing two points to Kramnik, in the penultimate “white” game offered himself a draw on the 14th (!) Move. Obviously, he did not like how he played the opening, but there were still many pieces on the board - play, look for your chances, fight!
There were still draws in that small (15 games) match in 25, 24 and even 11 moves. , 1978 – . 1972 – , . , , , , .
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But in a year a new match-tournament for the world championship should take place; take place, if not - neither Buddha nor Ilyumzhinov knows.