The idea of fighting grandmaster draws two years ago was brought to life by coach and manager Topalova Silvio Danailov. With the support of a sponsor, the country's largest mobile operator, he invited elite players to Sofia and forced them to work hard. At competitions, chess players are forbidden to conduct peace negotiations with each other. In order to record “half” in the standings, you must appeal to the chief referee. The reason for such an appeal should be compelling: a triple repetition of a position, an eternal check or a theoretical draw standing on the board. When making a decision, the chief referee must consult with a strong grandmaster. This mission has been assigned to the FIDE Vice President Zurab Azmaiparashvili for several years. In other words, participants are forced to work their bread in full. And the fact that at M-Tel Masters 2007 out of 30 meetings 17 (more than fifty percent) ended in a draw should not upset the organizers. Opponents fought literally to the naked kings. And even if they went to the judges with the “white flag”, then no earlier than each side had a rook and a lonely pawn.
The formula of the tournament has not changed: six grandmasters held games with the classic time control in two circles. As in previous years, the level of competition was high - FIDE XX category. True, there was a clear shortage of sonorous names. Vladimir Kramnik, Vishvanatan Anand, Ruslan Ponomarev, Judit Polgar took part in the starting “round robin” in Sofia. A year ago, besides Anand and Ponomarev, Peter Svidler also played. Nowadays, the organizers invited the venerable Gatu Kamsky and Michael Adams and risked betting on “untwisted” chess players. Although how can I say ... Azerbaijani Shahriyar Mamedyarov is confidently moving towards the elite and today has the sixth rating in the world, Indian Krishnan Sashikiran in his country is the second number after Anand, and Romanian Liviu-Dieter Nisipyan, European champion 2005, also does not needs. Mamedyarov headed the table after the first round, Sashikiran distinguished himself in the second, leading up to the last round, so that the youth justified the advances.
Unlike previous tournaments, Danailov made sure that in Sofia the Russian spirit did not smell. Sashikiran’s trainer is Israel’s Lev Psakhis, a two-time USSR champion and lineman Boris Postovsky, who, like Gata Kamsky, is a US national, does not count. After a memorable match in the capital of Kalmykia, this is not surprising. A fresh example of escalating the situation: on the eve of the tournament, an interview with Kamsky appeared in the Bulgarian newspaper Trud. Gata comes to Sofia for the second time - in 2006, he became a silver medalist here, strengthening the fans' faith in his second coming to big chess. The questions asked by the Plenipotentiary of the "star-striped", the game concerned so far as. Did Kama feel provocations when 11 years ago, like Topalov, he played a match against Russian chess player Anatoly Karpov? Which side is he on in the “toilet war”? Why do so many Russian players leave their homeland? Is it fair that Topalov will not take part in the World Cup in Mexico? Kamsky tried to answer correctly: they say, ask the pope about the match, I can’t get into politics, I’ll soon have candidate contests in Elista. But at the end of the conversation, Gata made a bold attack, saying that he welcomed the ending of Kasparov and Karpov’s career: “This is the best they have done for chess.”
In the first half of the tournament, a native of Novokuznetsk did not shine: having received holes from Mamedyarov and Sashikiran, Gata had “minus two” to the equator. Kamsky simply didn’t leave his debut with the Azerbaijani chess player. He helped to eliminate the lag in knowledge of theory accumulated over a dozen years ... his own laptop, which he took and broke. In the second round, Ghat apparently stopped preparing for the parties and played in full force. He got even with his offenders and went to the "fifty dollars".
A similar tournament fate for the winner of the M-Tel Masters. Topalov, as usual (the "match-tournament of eight" in the Argentinean San Luis - an exception), began neither shakily nor swiftly. The Bulgarian lost one goal to Mamedyarov and Nisipyan and set off for the only day off, having a negative balance. A football shake helped Veselin - a meeting with FC Levski, conducted by the Chess United team. Two ten-minute halves were enough to score a lot of goals - the pros won 6: 4. Rushing about enough, the next day Topalov showed perseverance and in the deep endgame he finished the work of Nisipyan. The parties of the Bulgarian with Mamedyarov and Kamsky turned out to be very substantial, in which the attack balanced the defense. However, in all its splendor, the ex-world champion appeared in a final meeting with Sashikiran, sacrificing a figure out of the blue. And although the attack on the king was unsuccessful, the decisive word was said by the passing White. A pawn avalanche rushed to the cherished eighth horizontal, and it could not be stopped by the "walled up" black elephant that turned out to be superfluous. The power with which Veselin fought a decisive battle makes us forget about the previous defeats, and about the faded "plus one" - the price of first place. According to additional indicators, Mamedyarov and Sashikiran were among the winners.
Alexander BLANK