Ene
8
[Escrito en San Sebastián, el 18 de noviembre de 2007; publicado en el número de diciembre de la revista New in Chess (2007/8)]
At the Chess Champions League in Vitoria the participants ‘played for a better world’, and their efforts and generosity will soon have a hopefully large and tangible impact in Mbuji-Mayi, one of the poorest regions in Congo. That being the most important goal of the event, it may not be the only legacy. According to our man in the spot David Llada, Vitoria may also have an impact on the future of chess itself, as very few tournaments have created better conditions for the spectators. The most eye-catching innovation was the sound-proof booth in which the champions played their games, a novelty that was praised by the winner, Veselin Topalov, who unambiguosly claimed first prize by winning his last three games.
I don’t know if any of the readers have ever heard about a benefit chesstournament before. I definitely hand’t, at least at this level. Mostly what you can hear from chess organizers are complaints about their hard struggle to raise the basic funds they need to carry on with their events year after year. Seen in this light, you may have two questions: Firstly, who was ‘the optimistic’ who thought that a chess tournament was a suitable way to collect funds for a good cause? And secondly, how did –or she- do it?
Telling the personal story behind this tournament answers the first question. She doesn’t like to be mentioned, but the mother of it all has a name: Anabel de la Fuente. Anabel grew in a family with a true passion for chess. Her parents and brothers were all keen players, and in her childhood she was a promising talent herself. Her father, Jesús de la Fuente, was a promoter and sponsor of many chess events in the Basque Country. Two years ago he passed away without fulfilling his ultimate dream: to stage ‘a big one’, a top tournament with some of the top players he admired so much.
To make up for this unfulfilled dream, Anabel decided after his death to organize sucha tournament as a tribute to her father. However, only a few months after her loss, she went through another moving experience that would affect her plans when she happened to visit Mbuji-Mayi, one of the poorest places in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and possibly one of the most tragic spots on the whole earth. Totally shocked by what she saw there, Anabel decided that she had to do something to help. And somehow both her wishes, to pay tribute to her father and to bring some hope to the heart of the darkness –which is the way Joseph Conrad referred to this African country- were merged.
Of course, she understood that she couldn’t rely on the chess tournament alone, and she organized many side-events to raise money. The Russian State Symphony Orchestra offered several concerts in Vitoria during the tournament and donated all the benefits to the project. The models and designers from the ‘Pasarela Cibeles’ in Madrid came to Vitoria to stage a fashion show: some of the designs were inspired both by chess and Africa, and the dresses and costumes were donated to be auctioned off. Also, some of Spain’s best sportsmen (the likes of David Ferrer and Miguel Indurain) and other celebrities acted similarly and donated items to be auctioned. Veselin Topalov, for instance, donated the plaque he got when he became U-14 Junior World Champion in Puerto Rico 1989! And it should be mentioned that all the players, with no exception, donated their prize-money entirely to the project in Congo, showing that they genuinely supported the motto of the tournament: ‘We play for a better world’.
The count is still not closed, but one thing we can be sure of: Vitoria has succeeded in raising a considerable amount of money to be sent to the hospital in Mbuji-Mayi. These funds will allow it to buy vaccines and medical equipment, and even –and this was the generous donation of Linares and its Mayor, Juan Fernandez- to drill a well for drinking water, a basic facility it currently lacks.
But this donation to a good cause will not be the only legacy of this tournament. Another unique aspect of the event in Vitoria was that it was the first chess tournament that had been enterely designed from the point of view of the spectators in order to provide them with maximum entertainment. For this purpose, the players were isolated in a sound-proof booth, saving the chess fans the trouble of being silent for the long hours that the games lasted. Thanks to this arrangement the spectators could not only follow the games on the displays and video screens, but they could also talk. They could ask questions, listen to interviews and participate in a very dinamic show conducted by chess journalist Leontxo Garcia and Spanish GM Alfonso Romero. And all this at a few meters’ distance from the players, who couldn’t care less! The glass was thick enough to muffle any noise up to 65 decibels, which means that if you put this booth in the midle of a city roundabout, the people inside wouldn’t hear any noise from the cars circling it. Furthermore, the players were also visually isolated: thanks to special lighting, they could barely see further than the second row of spectators –apart from shadows.
The glass cabin was designed by local architect Javier Barcena, another prestigious proessional who made his contribution for free. Two other tournaments have already shown interest in this cabin: the Mtel Masters in Sofia next May and the Grand Slam tournament in Mexico City next July.
Besides the motto ‘playing for a better world’, the tournament was named ‘the Chess Champions League’, because only former World Champions –Topalov, Ponomariov, Kasimdzhanov, Khalifman and Karpov- plus the best woman ever –Judit Polgar- had been invited. But some four days before the start of the tournament the organizers lost contact with Alexander Khalifman, and on the eve of the opening round their worst fears were confirmed: Khalif was in hospital, waiting to undergo surgery and obviously unable to make it to the tournament.
It wasn’t eay to find a last-minute replacement, as most of the European top players were in Greece, playing with their national teams, but fortunately Liviu Nisipeanu proved very cooperative, especially from the moment he got to know that it was a charity event. ‘It’s weird’, he joked, ‘One day before I was in a Deep Purple concert in Bucharest, totally relaxed, and the last thing I could have imagined was that 48 hours later I would be in Spain playing such a strong tournament’. For the first time in his career, the Romanian had the chance to meet on of the greatest players of all time –Anatoly karpov- and his overall result in the tournament (third, 50 per cent, with a 2700+ performance rating) should be more than satisfying for someone who joined the competition without any preparation.
Ruslan Ponomariov, the youngest participant, was also relatively happy with his performance, in spite of ruining his tournament in the last two rounds, when he suffered two consecutive defeats and lost the lead. But his +1 result was still good for a few Elo points and second place, which wasn’t bad at all.
Top-seed Veselin Topalov seemed very eager to compete after not playing too much during the past few months. By way of a warming up he first went to crete to play a couple of games on Bulgaria’s first board, where he crushed his opponents. But then, for no apparent reason, he looked very exhausted during the first days of play in Vitoria and experienced his worst moment in Round 4, when he blundered a piece against Polgar. However, this wasn’t a big set-back for the Bulgarian gladiator. In a manner that has become his trademark, Topalov made an epic come-back with three wins in a row. In Round 8 against the (a yet) undefeated Nisipeanu; then, in the decisive game of the tournament against Ponomariov, who at that moment was leading him by half a point; and finally in the last round against Judit Polgar, a final victory that allowed him to breach a one-and-a-half point gap between himself and his closest pursuer.
Rustam Kasimdzhanov started the tournament with two consecutive defeats and anyone who saw him after those losses would have thought that at that point he would have wanted to be anywhere but in Vitoria. But he found an interesting therapy: on the first free day, along with Judit, he offered to play a simul against several members of the Russian Orchestra. ‘That was an old piece of advice I got from Mikhail Tal’, he explained. ‘When you have lost several games, the first thing you need to do is to recover the confidence of being able to win. In such a situation i doesn’t hurt to play some games against chess aficionados’. The trick worked out well, and little by little Rustam improved his play. He even got the beauty prize for his delightful win against Karpov.
Rustam Kasimdzhanov
Anatoly Karpov
Vitoria 2007 (9)
1.d4 Cf6; 2.c4 e6; 3.Cc3 Ab4; 4.Dc2 d5; 5.a3 Axc3+; 6.Dxc3 Ce4; 7.Dc2 c5; 8.dxc5 Cc6; 9.cxd5 exd5; 10.e3 Da5+; 11.b4 Cxb4; 12.axb4 Dxa1; 13.Ab5+ Rf8; 14.Ce2 a5; 15.f3 Cf6; 16.0-0 De5; 17.e4 dxe4; 18.Af4 Df5; 19.g4 Dg6; 20.Dd2 Ae6;
21.Ab8!!
An original and beautiful sacrifice. The bishop cannot be captured, of course, but its intrepid and surprising incursion has helped to create new ways to threaten the black king.
21…Cd5; 22.Cf4 Dh6; 23.Cxe6+ Dxe6; 24.Ad6+ Rg8; 25.Ac4 exf3; 26.Axd5 Dxg4+; 27.Rh1 axb4; 28.Axf3 Dc4; 29.Dg2 h5; 30.Ad5 Dg4; 31.Axf7+ Rh7; 32.Dc2+ g6; 33.Axg6+
Black resigned
It was quite sad to see Karpov dropping down to the last position (with not a single win) in which was probably the worst tournament in his long career. Yet he played some good chess in this tournament and could have garnered more points but for his perpetual time-trouble. In some games he was already well behind on the clock on move 15. Maximalism? Lack of confidence? Whatever the answer, one thing is clear, viz. That the man still loves chess with every cell and fibre of his body. He spent more hours on stage than any other player, but this never stopped him from analyzing with his opponents after every game for another hour.
