Exploring More Chess Events
In my previous blog, I talked about four historic events in the world of chess. You might wonder, why am I doing this again? Well, dear viewer, the world of chess is endless, and it would be simply impossible for me to talk about all of the amazing and interesting events in chess in a single blog.
In this blog, I aim to delve into some more chess events that have shaped the game.
- The First Fide World Cup
- The 2013 World Championship
- The End of Kasparov
- The First Chess Tournament
- The First Chess Championship
- The 1978 World Chess Championship.
The 1st Fide World Cup
The FIDE World Cup 2000 was a 24-player chess tournament played between 1 September and 13 September 2000 in Shenyang, China. The 24 players were split into 4 groups of 6 people, and the top two of each group were seeded into a single-elimination bracket. From the quarterfinals onward, each knockout match consisted of two classical games, with ties being broken by a set of speed games.
The tournament was organized by FIDE and hosted by the Chinese Chess Association. There was a $50,000 cash prize.
Shenyang, China - the city where it happened.
Players
- Viswanathan Anand (wiki)
- Alexander Morozevich (wiki)
- Vassily Ivanchuk (wiki)
- Evgeny Bareev (wiki)
- Peter Svidler (wiki)
- Boris Gelfand (wiki)
- Nigel Short (wiki)
- Alexey Dreev (wiki)
- Zurab Azmaiparashvili (wiki)
- Ye Jiangchuan (wiki)
- Xu Jun (wiki)
- Alexander Khalifman (wiki)
- Mikhail Gurevich (wiki)
- Sergei Movsesian (wiki)
- Vladislav Tkachiev (wiki)
- Alexei Fedorov (wiki)
- Boris Gulko (wiki)
- Zhang Zhong (wiki)
- Gilberto Milos (wiki)
- Ruslan Ponomariov (wiki)
- Pavel Tregubov (wiki)
- Aleksej Aleksandrov (wiki)
- Aimen Rizouk (wiki)
- Mohamed Tissir (wiki)
Vishy Anand, the best player in this tournament.
The highest-rated seed in this group was Alexander Morozevich and the lowest-rated seed was Aleksej Aleksandrov.
| PLAYERS | POINTS |
| Gilberto Milos | 3.5 |
| Azmaiparashvili | 3 |
| Boris Gulko | 2.5 |
| Alexey Dreev | 2.5 |
| Aleksej Aleksandrov | 2.5 |
| Alexander Morozevich | 1 |
Morozevich vs. Milos, a big upset in the first group.
Group B
The highest-rated seed in this group was Ivanchuk and the lowest-rated seed was Ruslan Ponomariov.
| PLAYERS | POINTS |
| Ye Jiangchuan | 3.5 |
| Vassily Ivanchuk | 3 |
| Nigel Short | 3 |
| Mikhail Gurevich | 2 |
| Xu Jun | 2 |
| Ruslan Ponomariov | 1.5 |
Group C
The highest-rated seed in this group was Evgeny Bareev and the lowest-rated seed was Aimen Rizouk (who was an IM at the time).
| PLAYERS | POINTS |
| Evgeny Bareev | 3.5 |
| Sergei Movsesian | 3 |
| Peter Svidler | 3 |
| Zhang Zhong | 2.5 |
| Alexei Fedorov | 2 |
| Aimen Rizouk | 1 |
Group D
This was the fourth (and final) group. The top seed, Vishy Anand was placed in this group. It was expected that Anand would win this group (which he did.)
| PLAYERS | POINTS |
| Viswanathan Anand | 3.5 |
| Boris Gelfand | 3 |
| Vladislav Tkachiev | 3 |
| Pavel Tregubov | 2.5 |
| Alexander Khalifman | 2 |
| Mohamed Tissir | 1 |
Playoffs
In the playoffs, Anand beat Ivanchuk and Gelfand while Bareev beat Jiangchuan and Milos.
Bareev vs. Milos
Finals
The favourite Viswanathan Anand was going to play Evgeny Bareev in a two-game match for the final.
Evgeny Bareev
Anand's path to the semi-finals was quite effortless, as he breezed through the group stages and defeated Vassily Ivanchuk. Boris Gelfand put up a strong fight against Anand in the semi-finals, which was only decided in a sudden-death speed game.
Evgeny Bareev also won his preliminary group but he struggled against Zurab Azmaiparashvili in the quarterfinals after losing the first game as white. Luckily (for him), he won a game to tie the match and send it to a tiebreak, which he easily won. In the semi-finals, he faced Gilberto Milos. After two draws between the two, they played a speed-chess game. In the game, Milos distressingly blundered his Queen in the endgame which led to Bareev defeating him and getting qualified for the finals. Milos's reputation definitely improved after his performance in this World Cup though.
Viswanathan Anand won the first FIDE World Cup, 1.5 - 0.5.
The 2013 World Championship
- Held at: Chennai, India
- Main organizer: FIDE
- Prize Money: $2,800,000 (prize fund).
- Starting Date: 7th of November, 2013.
- Winner: Magnus Carlsen
Anand was the defending champion after he beat Boris Gelfand in the World Chess Championship of 2012. Magnus Carlsen had reached the World Championship through the Candidates tournament of 2013. In the Candidates, Carlsen won on the second tiebreak (number of wins) and was hence qualified to play Anand.
In the WCC of 2013, the first four games were drawn. Magnus Carlsen was the favorite to win the championship as he was much higher rated than anyone at that time.
VENUE CONTROVERSY
FIDE and India both announced that Chennai will host the 2013 World Championship because Anand was from Chennai. But the Norwegian Chess Federation protested and said that FIDE should consider making Paris the host city. FIDE tried to convince India to split the match between Chennai and Paris, but they refused. Finally, the Hyatt Regency in Chennai was chosen as the venue for the match.
Round 5
Vishy was left with 3 isolated pawns in the endgame, and he failed to defend his awful pawn structure.
Rounds 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10
In the 6th round, Carlsen won again due to a big mistake on the 60th move by Vishy. In an interview following the 6th round, an interviewer asked Anand: "How are you going to try to win after these losses?". Anand replied saying "Well I'm going to do my best". The interviewer continued by asking "I'm wondering if Mr. Anand could elaborate on what he means by doing his best". Anand replied with:
Doing your best means doing your best, I don't know why you don't understand English.
- Vishy Anand
Rounds 7 and 8 were both drawn, and Magnus Carlsen won in Round 9.
Anand was winning almost the entire game, but on his last move, he played a fatal blunder. Overall, an amazing game of chess.
Anand vs. Carlsen, round 9.
In round 10, Anand HAD to win if he wanted to have a chance of defending his title. But Anand and Carlsen drew, which led to Carlsen winning the World Championship without needing to play games 11 and 12.
It felt like every time Anand lost a game in this championship, it was because he made a single blunder which ruined the game. He tried his best every time, but it went in vain.
Carlsen won $1.53 million while Anand received $1.02 million for this championship.
Magnus Carlsen won the world championship.
2000
Garry Kasparov is known as the G.O.A.T of chess to many. He is a genius and was undefeatable for more than a decade. But ...who dethroned him?
It was none other than Vladimir Kramnik.
Kramnik during a match against Michael Adams
If you did not know, Garry Kasparov broke away from FIDE in 1990. He created his own international chess federation called the "Professional Chess Association". He was not recognized as the FIDE World Champion though.
Fortunately (or unfortunately), the PCA had to fold in 1996 due to the lack of sponsorship. Vladimir Kramnik and Alexei Shirov decided to play a match against each other in 1998, and whoever won would play Kasparov to become the "Classical" World Champion. Alexei Shirov won the match against Kramnik and was qualified to play against Kasparov, but the two weren't able to get to an agreement. So then Kramnik was chosen to play Kasparov.
The first game in the Championship was drawn. Kramnik and Kasparov played a very solid and almost perfect game of chess.
Game 2
Only one of the next thirteen games was not a draw, and that game was won by Kramnik. So with that, Kramnik won the match 8.5 - 6.5.
In 2006, Alexei Shirov said that Kramnik was not a valid World Champion because he was not the original challenger for the title. Almost no one agreed with Shirov though.
Kramnik continued to be the World Champion till 2007 and was dethroned by Anand. Kramnik challenged Anand again in the 2008 WCC but Anand retained his title.
The First Chess "Tournament"
- Held at: Madrid, Spain
- Winner: Leonardo di Bona
In my previous blog, I had said that the first international chess tournament was the London 1851 tournament. But actually, the first recorded "international" tournament was between the Spanish and the Italians in 1575.
The players who participated were Giovanni Leonardo, Paolo Boi, Ruy López and Alfonso Ceron. Leonardo won, with Boi placing second, López third, and Ceron fourth.
This was the start of modern competitive chess.
Though the games in this tournament were not as accurate as the games in chess today, it shows us how much we've improved.
The First World Championship
The first-ever official World Chess Championship was between Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort.
- Held at: United States (many different cities)
- Main organizer: American Chess Congress
- Prize Money: $2,000 prize fund
- Starting Date: 11th of January, 1886.
- Winner: Wilhelm Steinitz
Before this World Championship, there were a series of "unofficial" World Championship matches held between the greatest players of that time, but discussion of an official World Championship did not materialize. Most historians today agree that the 1886 World Championship match between Steinitz and Zukertort was the first recognized World Championship match.
Similar to the first official international tournament of 1851, there was a dispute on where the match was to happen. Steinitz persuaded Zukertort to come to the US and play the match. Wilhelm Steinitz won the tournament with this game:
Steinitz–Zukertort, game 20
Steinitz successfully defended his world title against Mikhail Chigorin in 1889, Isidor Gunsberg in 1891, and Chigorin again in 1892. Steinitz lost his crown in 1894 to a much younger German mathematician Emanuel Lasker, who maintained this title for 27 years, the longest tenure of all World Champions.
The World Championship of 1978
The 1978 World Chess Championship was played between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi. Korchnoi had won the 1977 Candidates Tournament and earned the right to challenge Karpov.
- Held at: Baguio, Philippines
- Main organizer: FIDE
- Prize Money: $560,000 prize fund.
- Starting Date: 18th of July, 1978
- Winner: Anatoly Karpov
There were several weird happenings during the championship.
Opening Ceremony.
Before the opening ceremony on July 17, 1978, it was agreed that the Philippine National Anthem would be played first as the host country, followed by the Soviet anthem for the reigning World Champion Karpov. But what about Korchnoi, who was a Russian defector? Korchnoi was basically a man without a country. In 1977, he lived in the Netherlands. In 1978, he lived in Switzerland. Neither of the countries wanted Korchnoi to use their flags.
Korchnoi proposed that the last movement of Beethoven's ninth symphony could be played as "his" national anthem. Though this sounds like a harmless proposal, it is an insult to the Soviets. To make matters worse, Korchnoi did not stand up for the Soviet anthem when it was played.
Chair Incident
Korchnoi also refused the chair provided by FIDE, instead choosing his custom-made chair. Karpov's team accused Korchnoi of having hidden gadgets under his chair.
Hypnotism and Yoghurt
Vladimir Zukhar, a Soviet psychologist and hypnotist, was on Karpov's team. Korchnoi invited the assistance of two American "Ananda Marga" yoga specialists who had recently been convicted of attempted murder and freed on bail.
Korchnoi accused Zukhar of trying to hypnotize him during the games. Zukhar was harassed by Korchnoi's people a lot. He was forced to sit in the last row and he was threatened multiple times to leave the playing hall (which he eventually did for few games).
When Karpov's team handed him a blueberry yoghurt during a game without Karpov's request, Korchnoi's side objected, suggesting it may contain code that Karpov would use to cheat. So FIDE made it like only purple-colored yoghurt could be given to either of the players.
Because Korchnoi felt that Zukhar was hypnotising him, he brought in some psychologists as well. His team members, Steven Michael Dwyer and Victoria Shepperd, would sit in the playing hall with saffron robes and would meditate.
Disrespect and disrespect
Karpov was known for staring at his opponents while they were thinking of their move. Korrchnoi didn't like this, so he wore sunglasses during the match. Karpov complained, saying that Korchnoi's sunglasses were hurting his eyes.
Because no action was taken against the sunglasses, Karpov refused to shake hands with Korchnoi in game 8.
Never! Never will I shake hands with you!
- Karpov
The Chess
Game 8
In this event, the first person to win 6 games would be declared as the World Champion. After 17 games, Karpov had a 4–1 lead. Korchnoi and Karpov won one game each after that, putting Karpov on the brink of victory with a 5–2 lead. However, Korchnoi fought back, scoring three wins and one draw in the next four games, to equalise the match at 5–5 after 31 games.
However, Karpov won the very next game, and the match, by 6–5 with 21 draws.
Post-match Incident
After the event, three of Korchnoi's team members threatened to use "black magic" on Korchnoi unless they were paid $15,000. The three were arrested.
How did you get here?!?!
And there we have it. I have shown you some more chess events that have shaped the game of chess. Without some of these events happening, chess might not be where it is today.
Thank you for reading this blog.
