From ChessBase.com: American GM Gata Kamsky has won the FIDE World Cup.
Normally, the winner of the FIDE World Cup would be crowned the FIDE World Champion, but ChessBase.com reports that last year FIDE changed the rules so that the winner of the World Cup would have to play the previous winner -- Bulgaria's Veselin Topalov -- to become FIDE's World Champion. The match may end becoming something of a spectacle if Gata brings his dad, Rustam, along. Rustam was well-known during Gata's early years. From ChessBase.com:
A number of readers have suggested that the Kamsky-Topalov match could become really exciting if the American reactivates his famously belligerent father Rustam, to counter the activities of Topalov's manager Silvio Danailov. "That would be a wonderfully thrilling matchup," wrote one wag, "with explosive off-the-board play. We look forward to daily blow-by-blow reports on your news page."
I remember seeing Rustam at the 1993 FIDE candidates in Biel/Bienne Switzerland during a weekend that I took off while I was at Oxford University. I still have a picture of Gata playing against a long-haired Vladimir Kramnik. Maybe I will scan it in and post it sometime. I don't remember Rustam causing any trouble at the tournament; but there was always the fear that he would. I had a lot of great memories of that tournament. Every morning I would have breakfast with many of the Grandmasters all sitting at the same table. During one breakfast, German GM Eric Lobron animatedly explained his preparation in his win over GM Judit Polgar. I also had dinner with Former many-time U.S. Champion Yasser Seirawan and French GM Joel Lautier and Lautier's father. But I digress.
In any case, it is exciting to have an American at the top of Chess World again. Maybe this will spur some interest chess in the United States unlike we have seen in quite a while.
If I get a chance to talk to Gata between now and the match with Topalov, I will try to post that, too.
1 comment:
you're right, even though I've played chess since childhood the only world level matches I followed were the Bobby Fisher - Boris Spatsky match many many moons ago.
Post a Comment