Is There A Chess Conspiracy Theory?
Chess is more than just a game, at least for chess aficionados.
As proof of this statement we like to mention that since the dawn of the computer age, our beloved game has been the main test of computers' ability to "think."
Also, don't forget one of Kasparov's best-selling books is aptly named How Life Imitates Chess.
With such a royal status for chess, it would be strange if there were no conspiracy theory about chess players controlling the world. After all, there are many people who believe that reptilians are behind all the major world events. Are we worse than reptilians?
When I checked if there is any mention of chess in Wikipedia's list of conspiracy theories, I found Garry Kasparov's name there. Unfortunately, he is there only because of a so-called "New Chronology" As it turns out, Kasparov is a strong advocate of this conspiracy theory, which has nothing to do with chess. But no worries, we'll get to chess conspiracy later in this article.
We had two anniversaries at the end of May that were mostly ignored by chess society. On May 26, GM Valery Salov celebrated his 54th birthday and on May 29, the World Players' Council celebrated its 20th anniversary.
Chess players of the new generation don't know much about GM Salov, who at some point was world number-three. In my opinion his style had a striking resemblance to Magnus Carlsen's. Just like the current world champion, Valery Salov tried to skip the opening debates and outplay his opponent in the middlegame or preferably the endgame. A strong endgame technique coupled with willingness to torture his opponent for 100 moves made GM Salov a formidable chess player.
Valery Salov in 1989 via Wikipedia.
Look at the following game. I don't think Magnus Carlsen would do a better job!
In 1998, Valery Salov became president of a new chess organization: the World Players' Council (WPC). I don't remember who were the other members of WPC and what was its goal. As far as I know, in a couple of years, GM Salov became not just the president but also the WPC's only member. Unfortunately around the same time Salov stopped playing chess and instead concentrated his efforts on fighting the world conspiracy.
According to Wikipedia, "on November 9, 2015, in his capacity as President of the World Players' Council, Salov announced a sentence from the WPC Disciplinary Committee against Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, including lifetime bans and cancellation of titles for all, plus a 13 million euro fine for each."
According to Salov, all the major world events were predicted well in advance by the games of the top players. Take for example the following famous game:
Salov is absolutely convinced that a key game of the Candidates' Tournament was prearranged.
I knew Salov personally, and played and analyzed tournament games with him numerous times. It is sad that an exceptionally strong chess player with very high intellectual abilities took a similar path to the late Bobby Fischer. As a matter of fact, Valery Salov is already way ahead of the great American champion by the degree of his antisemitism and paranoia.
If you look at the last two games, you can see that both of them were decided by an exchange sacrifice on the d5 square. This sacrifice is very popular among top chess players. Take a look:
Well, the very last game is not a true sacrifice since the Rd5 cannot be taken by the Nf6. Yet, these games prove the following:
- Such exchange sacrifices are quite common.
- World champions (Anand and Karpov) win by playing Rd5.
- Non-world-champions (GM Mamedyarov) lose when the opponent sacrifices Rd5 against them.
I bet that by reshuffling the letters in the names of the above-mentioned players, you can get some hidden message from the rulers of the world. Or maybe the rulers of the world just tell you to learn this interesting sacrifice and use it in your games when the opportunity arises.
