MARK RUBERY CHESS
One of the world’s top players, and certainly one of the more interesting characters, Alexander Grischuk, gave the following interview the Chess24 site.
Chess24: All top chess players set themselves the goal of fighting for the crown. Is the World Championship title the goal of your whole life, or something you’re calm about? Alexander Grischuk: It’s foolish to declare your ambitions publicly. You need to back them up with actions, and not chatter. In modern sport there’s now a fashion for making loud declarations, like “I’ll crush them all”. Perhaps that’s good for attracting sponsors, but it strikes me as foolish.
Competition has grown many times over recently and there’s a whole array of top young chess players. Do you feel that?
Of course I do. Ten years ago the competition was less. Top young chess players are appearing thanks to computers. Twenty years ago in order to grow as a chess player it was essential to have a good coach. Now you don’t really need a coach as there are special programs – just work and don’t be lazy.
Some grandmasters express the opinion that Carlsen is a more multifaceted chess player than Kasparov. Do you agree?
Carlsen is a very strong chess player, a World Champion, but Kasparov is no. 1 for me, if you take all the chess players over the last thirty years or so.
Kasparov was considered to have a demonic effect on his opponents – they’d already be lost before the game began.
There’s no doubt he exuded a powerful energy.
Does Carlsen have such charisma?
Yes, because some strong grandmasters play much worse against him than they’re capable of doing. For example, Hikaru Nakamura has a terrible negative score against Carlsen.
Chess has dramatically shifted towards accelerated time controls. Do you see that as an inevitable demand of the times?
I don’t see any big changes in that regard, except that they’ve now begun to hold World Championships in rapid and blitz. For now it’s more just talking about it. I’d welcome it if there were more such tournaments.
Don’t accelerated time controls kill chess?
In what sense? Chess is only a game. If your opponent is better than you and wins he hasn’t killed you, after all.
People think that it’s only at the classical time control that chess approaches a work of art, while in rapid you can’t create an immortal work.
That depends on your approach to chess. If someone thinks chess possesses some sacred meaning then I can only envy that person. Perhaps I’d also like to think like that, but I don’t. For me it’s just a game and I can’t rank it alongside, for instance, an art like music.
Grischuk gave an interesting twist to the Grand Prix Attack to win the following attractive blitz game…
Grischuk,A (2750) - Vachier Lagrave,M (2795) [B23]