Libya offered to FIDE to organize the World Championship in Tripoli and I repeat, at that moment it was the only real proposal, with necessary financial guarantees. During our negotiations with the Organisers an agreement was reached that they have to send invitations to all players without any exception. This is according to our regulations. But, unfortunately, the regulations have no provisions in respect of the visas for the accompanying persons: coaches, bodyguards etc. Libya was strictly following our regulations. When the scandalously known statement of Mohammed Al Gadhafi was published in Internet, we immediately requested the clarification form the Libyan side. We received the answer that there had no been such a statement. What really happened, was that Mr. Al Gadhafi was asked whether he sent personal invitations to the Israeli players, and the Organising Committee Chairman replied that he personally did not send such invitations. And he once again confirmed that the Organising Committee guarantees all the players without any exception, entry visas to Libya. – FIDE published a press-release in this respect. So, we should have cancelled the Championship due to some conjectures which are found in Internet, should we? FIDE was in written exchange of correspondence with the Israeli Federation, which was making enquiries in respect of the provision of the security for their players and entry visas for accompanying persons. Moreover, the discussion was about having a meeting somewhere in Europe between the representatives of Israel and Libya. The Libyan side had no intention to open their plans about the security of the players, and this is natural for intelligence services. I can give an example of our country. Greece is going to spend 1 billion 200 million USD to provide the security of the participants of the Olympic Games 2004 in Athens. All intelligence of the world is involved in the solution of this problem, but nobody shall tell you, what is the exact procedure. It is because the security is to the major extent, the guarantee of the success. Finally, the Israeli chess players decided not to participate in the Tripoli World Championship. They are right when they say that they cannot go to Libya without their trainers and accompanying persons. Our regulations have nothing in this respect. When we were creating these regulations, we could not imagine that such a problem could arise. At the next FIDE General Assembly this provision shall be changed. On the other hand, I can understand the Libyan side too, as they, due to the security reasons is not going to allow the armed security of the Israeli players enter their country. This is a very sensitive issue, but where do you see the discrimination of Israel?
I alongside with the other have the feeling that it could have been possible to save the Ponomariov-Kasparov match. Then FIDE would not have lost precious time and would not have had all these problems it is facing now. In your opinion, was this match doomed?
Already during the Bled Olympiad we were undertaking the steps to meet with Ponomariov, but he was avoiding us. That is why we had to go to Wijk aan Zee, in order to try to have a clear discussion with the FIDE World Champion during the traditional tournament, and this brought an ocean of criticisms addressed to us as we were in the way of Ruslanaˆ™s playing. By the way, Ponomariov had a bad start at that tournament, and after our meeting he won over Kramnik. Ponomariov might have won the tournament, should our negotiations be continued. On a serious note, we had the impression, from the very beginning, that Ponomariov was not ready to play the match with Kasparov and was avoiding it by all possible measures. Should the least possibility to save the match exist, the FIDE President would have had used it. But according to the information at our disposal, when Ponomariov sent his last and very strange letter to Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, he was purportedly aiming at the match cancellation.
Why did not you substitute Ivanchuk instead of Ponomariov? As far as I know, Vassily was ready to play with Kasparov.
Because it that case Kasparov would not have played against the FIDE World Champion. That is why we decided to organize the World Championship in Libya, to enable Kasparov meet with the highest title holder in FIDE. This is along the lines of the idea of the chess world unification.
Do you believe that it shall take place?
There is no other way for the chess community. At the forthcoming October FIDE General Assembly we shall announce exact dates of the match of Kasparov with the winner of the World Championship in Tripoli.
Round 1 (CB)
No big surprises at the top, with all the favourites winning their games comfortable – with the possible exception of Veselin Topalov, who arrived a couple of hours late due to airline problems. President Ilyumzhinov allowed this game to start late, given the exceptional circumstances. Topalov scored a full point, as did Adams, Grischuk, Ivanchuk and Short, the hottest contenders for the title. The only true upsets were the loss by Zurab Azmaiparashvili (Elo 2679) to Morteza Mahjoob of Iran, rated 2478, and the defeat of Viktor Bologan (2665) by Mark Paragua of the Philippines (2529). Four players did not turn up and their opponents go through to the next round without a fight: 127th seed Abobker Elarbi, of Libya (Elo 2257) went through when second seed Alexander Morozevich (RUS, 2732) defaulted; India’s IM Das Neelotpal got a bye against Milov; Johann Hjartarson automatically won match 35 against Sergey Kudrin (2557); and Vladislav Tkachiev got the bye in match 39 against Juri Shulman (2559). Whilst seeds number 14, Zurab Azmaiparashvili and 22, Viktor Bologan reversed game one’s surprise losses, unfortunately for India, seed no.24 Sasikiran was knocked out with a second loss by Leonid Kritz of Germany. Another relative surprise was Morocco’s no.1, Hamdouchi’ s victory over higher rated Motylev. Unfortunately his co-national, Mohammed Tissir was eliminated by the strong Russian Grandmaster Dreev. Ghaem Maghami from Iran also achieved the double over Vaganian with a convincing win in an Alekhine’s defense. The tournament’ s youngest player Magnus Carlsen of Norway drew quite solidly against Aronian in the classical time control game. On the other hand 14-year old Karjakin unfortunately lost and is out of the Championship. One must objectively say that the results of these matches should not really be defined as big surprises, since the difference in players’ ratings between these last few matches was not so great, although the higher rated player tends to be favoured normally. Out of the sixty-four games today we had the same forfeits on the four tables where the player failed to turn up. In the remaining 60 games we had 24 draws, 19 wins for players with the white pieces and 17 wins for players with black. The top ten seeds all proceeded through to the second round without any major hitches, although one must at least mention the draws by Kenny Solomon against Grischuk, Haznedaroglu of Turkey against Malakhov and Dableo against Nisipeanu. The tension did not stop at 7.00pm however, since all those matches which tied at 1-1 had to face the grueling rapid play-offs. The players were given 25 minutes with a time increment of 10 secs per move to play all their moves. We had 23 tied matches in total in this first segment of the match. The play-off games started at 8.30pm and we had some hard fighting games. Given the time limit the number of draws was significant less. In the first half of the matches we had only 7 draws which shows the higher degree of pressure (and lower quality of chess of course) that rapid games put on players. White won 7 games and black won 9 … again reversing the average scores obtained under classical chess conditions. In the second half of the play-off matches we had 19 decisive results in the matches and still 4 matches were tied. This means that these remaining eight players had to play 2 more blitz games at 11.30 pm! For the record we had 8 wins for white, 10 draws and 5 draws for black. Despite a hard fight Magnus Carlsen was eliminated by Karen Asrian as well as Alejandro Ramirez by Kasimdzhanov. The drawn matches were Vasquez-Vallejo, Vladimirov-Ni Hua, Felgaer-Jobava and Tiviakov-Sargissian. In the blitz play-off players were given 5 min + 10 secs. increment. Even at this late (early!?) hour everyone was still fighting to remain in the tournament and only Vallejo managed to squeeze the win against Vasquez despite ‘Kastor’ trying all he could. So at close to one o’clock in the morning six exhausted players had to sit down for the sudden death playoffs! The onus was now on the players with the white pieces since they had six minutes against black’s five minutes. In the end Tiviakov won against Sargissian, Felgaer won against Jobava and Ni Hua won against Vladimirov to end a highly eventful first set of matches.
Round 3
Top seed Grandmaster Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria recorded his fifth straight victory to gain the lead against Grandmaster Sergei Movsesian of Slovakia Seeded second after the withdrawal of Alexander Morozevich of Russia, GM Michael Adams of England displayed lot of fire to get the better of Hichem Hamdouchi of Morocco who played black. Also gaining in confidence with first round victories were GMs LenierDominiguez of Cuba and Zoltan Almasi of Hungary, who grounded GMs Vladislav Tkachieve of France and Ye Ziangchuan of China respectively. The day proved extremely good for those playing white and as many as eight victories were scored by the favourable colour. Only seven games were drawn and the lone victory with black pieces was scored by Zdenko Kozul of Croatia, who put it across Sergei Rublevski of Russia. The youngest participant in the fray, GM Hikaru Nakamura of the United States had Grandmaster Alexander Lastin of Russia on the ropes for the major part of the game and won in an emphatic manner. Nakamura, 16, now looks an excellent bet to make it to the next round. Topalov crushed Movsesian in all departments of the game from the white side of a Sicilian Taimanov. Employing a set up akin to the English attack, the Bulgarian showed tremendous understanding and had Movsesian in trouble right from the word go in the complicated opening. The Slovak found himself struggling once Topalov had his guns ready on the king side and ended up losing his exchange for no compensation at all. The game lasted 36 moves. Former World junior champion Levon Aronian of Armenia drew with Pavel Smirnov of Russia in a keenly contested game where the former played white. The English opening gave almost nothing to Aronian he had to struggle once Smirnov sacrificed his exchange. Even as the peace was signed in the 47th move, Aronian was not a contended man. “I tried too hard and was certainly better but then he turned the tables with this spectacular sacrifice,” Aronian said after the game. An interesting duel was fought between Andrei Kharlov of Russia and Rafal Leitao in which the former came out trumps with energetic manoeuvres. Up against the Slav, Kharov utilised his better-placed heavy pieces in the endgame to force a checkmating web. In game 2 Top seeded Bulgarian Grandmaster Veselin Topalov’s winning spree was halted by Grandmaster Sergei Movsesian of Slovakia but the drawn result was enough to take the former to the pre-quarter-finals stage as he had won the crucial first round between the two. Dominiguez stole the show from even the likes of second seed Adams and Topalov with his back to back victories over Tkachiev, a formidable opponent. Having lost the first game, it wasn’t anyway easy for Tkachiev to make a come back even as he tried valiantly. The Caro Kann defence by the Cuban led to extreme complexities with Tkachiev having a better pawn structure and Dominiguez better placed pieces in the middle game. As the game progressed in to wild tactics, Dominiguez found Tkachiev off guard and eventually won an exchange. To add to the woes of the French, the position had simplified beyond repairs. The game lasted 33 moves. Topalov had little difficulty in securing the required draw against Movsesian,who played white. Going for the Italian game, Movsesian failed to get much and signed his ouster papers after getting a slightly worse position in 27 moves. Speaking about his chances in the event now, Topalov said, “It is still very tough; there are many stalwarts here.” Asked about Indian performances, the Bulgarian replied; “They all appear very good and this time I think they will be amongst medals in the Olympiad with Anand leading them. Adams got the better of Hichem Hamdouchi of Morocco in similar fashion. The Englishman also had the cushion of the first round victory and played solidly in the Ruy Lopez to net himself a pawn. Not wanting to risk his rating further, Hamdouchi settled for the peace on his 37th turn through repetition of moves. Teimour Radjabov is a few months older and has an extra hundred rating points, but he hasn’t been making it look easy. He just squeaked by Bacrot in a clock-banging nightmare of a rapid game that had pieces flying everywhere.
Topalov, Veselin (BUL) – Movsesian, Sergei (SVK) 1-0 ½
Aronian, Levon (ARM) – Smirnov, Pavel (RUS) ½ ½ (2-3)
Adams, Michael (ENG) – Hamdouchi, Hichem (MAR) 1-0 ½
Filippov, Valerij (RUS) – Grischuk, Alexander (RUS) ½ ½ (1-2)
Ivanchuk, Vassily (UKR) – Kasimdzhanov, Rustam (UZB) ½ ½ (0.5-1.5)
Zvjaginsev, Vadim (RUS) – Krasenkow, Michal (POL) ½ 0-1
Dominguez, Lenier (CUB) – Tkachiev, Vladislav (FRA) 1-0 1-0
Mamedyarov, S. (AZE) – Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter (ROM) ½ ½ (0.5-1.5)
Kharlov, Andrei (RUS) – Leitao, Rafael (BRA) 1-0 ½
Sakaev, Konstantin (RUS) – Dreev, Alexey (RUS) ½ ½ (1.5-2.5)
Akopian, Vladimir (ARM) – Moiseenko, Alexander (UKR) 1-0 ½
Almasi, Zoltan (HUN) – Ye, Jiangchuan (CHN) 1-0 ½
Anastasian, Ashot (ARM) – Beliavsky, Alexander G (SLO) ½ 0-1
Nakamura, Hikaru (USA) – Lastin, Alexander (RUS) 1-0 ½
Bacrot, Etienne (FRA) – Radjabov, Teimour (AZE) ½ ½ (0.5-1.5)
Rublevsky, Sergei (RUS) – Kozul, Zdenko (CRO) 0-1 0-1