Coffee Break ChessGM Alexander Baburin's online newsletter |
It's been more than a month since I produced CBC-22. During this period I played 2 tournaments in US and also competed in British (4NCL) and German (BL) Team Championships. There was a lot of travelling involved: New York, Chicago, Madison, Las Vegas, San Francisco & Berkley, Birmingham, Bremen and Cork - chess players certainly get to travel sometimes! :-) In this and next issues of CBC I am going to show some curious games, which I played recently, and also to share my views on some interesting developments in the chess world nowadays.
Recently FIDE President Kirsan Illyumzhinov suggested a very controversial plan of commercialisation of FIDE. You can read his address at Inside Chess Publisher's Messages, along with comments of Yasser Seirawan. Illyumzhinovs plan looks scary to me, as chess players might became mere workers (slaves?) of FIDE, which would have much power over their lives. If excepted, the plan might also lead to decline of chess activity in the world, as some chess organisers may not like the to pay FIDE and might just pull out altogether. One practical implication for chess pros: if the organiser does not pay FIDE a fee (the size of which is not defined in the Presidents address) for running his/her tournament, then FIDE can call all players who took part in such a tournament before its disciplinary committee. Then FIDE can ban such players from other (FIDE) events, thus seriously affecting lives of chess professionals. The other aspect of the proposed plan is that Kirsan Illyumzhinov will have much influence on chess even if/when he will be no longer a FIDE President. At The Chess Café Tony Miles shared his impressions of the Illyumzhinovs plan in his excellent column, which you can find at The Miles Report. Basically, the drawbacks of the proposed plan are very obvious, but I fear that FIDE is such an inefficient organisation that it may actually accept the plan! :-( If this happens, chess professionals should unite to oppose certain threats, which the plan poses to their livelihood. You can learn more about FIDE at: FIDE. My Web master Michael Dooley posted a poll concerning commercialisation of chess on our site. So far most people voted against it, though I believe that the chess needs to go commercial, if it is to survive. However, I am clearly against the current plans of FIDE President.
Its a pity that excellent magazine Inside Chess is gone in its printed form. Still, its Web site: Inside Chess is worth visiting. I particularly enjoy Seirawans messages to general chess public. See the latest one at: Inside Chess Publisher's Messages. Yasser is now involved in chess.net (Chess.net). Some of view may remember that I had an endgame column in Inside Chess. Now I write similar columns for Schach-64 (Schach-64) and The Australian Chess Forum, whose editor Paul Dunn is also involved in Australian Chess Archive (Australian Chess Games Archive), which is similar to BritBase.
As you may already know, Anand declined the offer to play Kasparov
and he has been replaced with Kramnik. Last year the match Kasparov-Anand
failed to materialise and it will be interesting whether Garry will be more
successful this time. There is little doubt that he is the strongest player
in the world now, but to be called the world champion one needs to play for
the title. Alas, Kasparov created a lot of mess in chess and now its
hard for ambitious players to have a go at the world champion title. Alexey
Shirov is one obvious and sad example... The new match has already provoked
some curious comments - for example see GM Gausels remarks at:
www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/Chess/wc.html.
I agree with Einar that computers should not be given a chance to play in the World Championship. Cars are not invited to compete with runners, boats are not competing with swimmers, etc. Secondly, I dont see how Braingames Network Ltd, or Kasparov can make such an important decision alone - surely the chess world must have a say on this matter, before we all have to sing Long live Pentium XX, our new Chess World Champion!. The decision to invite computers to such matches is very controversial, but there is even more controversy surrounding the match, as IM David Levy wrote an open letter to GM Ray Keen, who is involved in organising the Kasparov-Kramnik match. Keen replied and the discussion seems to be rather heated. To learn more about this story please refer to Sam Sloan Web Page.
Today I invite you for an on-line chat. You can ask me questions, make suggestions, etc. The chat will start at 18-15 Dublin time (19-15 in Berlin, 13-15 in New York, 10-15 in Los Angeles). To join the chat please go to: Live Chat. If the chat goes well, I will make it a regular feature on my Web site, announcing the next ones well in advance.
Recently Alexander Morozevich visited Ireland. He gave a very interesting lecture in Dublin, but the main result of his visit is that I will work as his manager. Morozevich is currently ranked No. 5 in the world and I hope that our co-operation will help him to concentrate on chess, while I will take care of the organising side and problems. Alexander is one of the most exciting players in chess today and soon I will create a Web site devoted to him. If you would like to suggest what you want to see there, please e-mail me at: baburin@hotmail.com - I will appreciate your thoughts and comments.
When I came to Chicago in March, I learnt that Eugene Martinovsky had just died of cancel. He was a real gentleman and his death is a big loss for the chess scene in US. I really looked forward to meet Eugene in Chicago, which was his hometown. We played two games (Hawaii and Isle of Man) and talked on numerous occasions. He came from Macedonia, but his father was Russian. Eugene lived in UK for a while, but finally settled in the USA, where he worked as a psychiatrist. He was a strong player, dangerous for anyone, as he had a very good common sense in chess. In one of our games I was completely lost after making an unsound sacrifice in the opening. Here is the game he won against GM Summerscale in the same tournament:
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E. Martinovsky (2365) - A. Summerscale (2455)
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In March I had a very enjoyable US tour. I played well and finished equal first in both US Masters in Chicago and in the National Open in Las Vegas. During the tour many people told me that they enjoyed CBC and my Web site - their feedback was very encouraging! I will certainly try to keep it this way, not letting your expectations down. I will write more about the tour in my next CBC, while here Id like to show one game from Chicago, where I shared 1-7 places with GMs Ehlvest, Wojtkiewicz, Shabalov, Blatny, de Firmian and GM-elect Ziatdinov.
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Alexander Baburin (2591) - Rashit Ziatdinov (2473)
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I recently received a few messages, which contained Pretty Park exe attachment. I am an experienced user, so I deleted them straight away. However, I feel that among my readers there are some, who might benefit from learning more about computer worms. Once you open such attachment, you probably see some stupid fireworks or maybe even nothing. However, behind the scenes a worm gets into your PC and sends out e-mails (without you knowing!) to all people in your address book. Some of them will open it and their computers will get infected too. Those guys will not be happy, as it takes time to get rid of the warm. So, first of all, never open executable attachments (exe, etc). If you really want to see what such attachments contain, e-mail the sender first and check whether he really did send the message. By the way, CBC often comes with attachments - they are usually pdf files (for Adobe Acrobat) and cbv files, which are Chess Base archives.
In the next issue of CBC I will continue covering my US tour, so more games will follow - stay tuned!
Alexander Baburin, Dublin
ababurin.tripod.com
chessauction.tripod.com
I am very grateful to Igor Yagolnitser for his help with this project. For assistance regarding CBC, please contact Igor at: MOHCTP@ix.netcom.com.
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