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World Chess Championships 1999

"High Anxiety"

by Hans Ree

 

Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, where the FIDE World Championship is held, can be called a hotel or a casino, but in fact it is a huge complex of hundreds of shops, scores of conference rooms and restaurants, thousands of hotel rooms, a few theatres and then of course the vast plains where the gamblers assemble.

I was walking through the endless succession of shopping malls and thousands were with me. I wanted to get out. Already after two days I wanted to get out of Las Vegas, but my duty as a reporter kept me there.

But escaping from Caesar's Palace seemed feasible, though not easy. The management wants to keep you in and the whole huge complex has only two exits for the general public. I could not find them. There were other exits, for the attendants, but those were locked. In case of fire they will have to be opened quickly. Let's hope they will be opened quickly enough.

But lo and behold, I found an emergency exit that was not locked and gave access to a car-park that again was huger than any I had ever seen. I had escaped. Theoretically I should be able to find my way to the public highway. But not in practice.

There were people at work, they should be able to help me. And they did. One of them took a key, opened a door and shoved me in. There I was again, in Caesar's Palace's shopping mall, with its moving and talking statues and its mock open sky with mock clouds and mock setting sun. Escape had failed.

Where had I seen this before? Yes, of course, in the movie The Truman Show, the final scene where the main character hits his head against the borders of his artificial world, that turn out to be made of cardboard.

My feeling that nothing was real here, quite common to visitors of Las Vegas, was reinforced by another experience, which had nothing to do with the city, but with modern technology in general. 

Many of the chess journalists whom I usually meet at big events were absent this time. Maybe because the European morning papers could only report two days after the round because of the time difference. We missed Leontxo from Spain, who apart from his newspaper articles for El Pais was always doing at least three live reports a day for Spanish radio. The Russian radio and TV team, normally always present, was absent too. Their listeners were asleep while the games were being played. But there were new people. Mainly Internet journalists, reporting for sites on the web. 

Now my story will become a bit technical, but I hope you will be patient. As in almost every important tournament nowadays, the moves the players make are automatically relayed to computer screens. There are many systems that do this almost perfectly, but the friendly and hard-working Russian crew that was in charge here could not make it happen. Very often the screens gave up after a while and no more moves were transmitted. But the game notation, the PGN-file, did arrive alright in the computers. With a simple piece of software, this can be converted into moving pieces on a screen. Not on the screens we saw in the playing hall and in the press room, apparently. But it could be sent to the Internet.

And so, what did your reporter on the spot do if he wanted to follow a game that was played one floor above him, when the screen failed? He ventured outside to the wide world of the Internet.

Next to the press room is the computer room. There the messages are sent to the world. On the laptop in front of me I can chart the voyage of these messages. They make a few stops in the United States. Then the big jump over the ocean. They visit a few European computers and arrive at their destination, the FIDE computer. Then they start their return trip. Destination: my laptop. Now I see the game on my screen. The game is played in my immediate vicinity, but it had to make a trip around the world to reach me. If all goes well, the trip takes seconds. With heavy traffic it goes slower. But anyhow, it is a miracle.

That is, if it works well. Next day something else was wrong with the computer system and the miracle did not occur.

And now for real chess, but only the first two rounds. You readers know much more by now. Viktor Kortchnoi was a bit worried at the start of the tournament. As number 16 on the FIDE rating list he didn't have to play in the first round, but in the second round he had to face Dolmatov, a very strong player, who prepares his openings in collaboration with Kramnik. And if Kortchnoi beat Dolmatov, his next opponent would be the great Kramnik himself. "I have to face the opening preparation of the whole family," he said.

In the first game against Dolmatov this succeeded beyond expectation. Seldom has Dolmatov been so hard hit in the opening stage of a game.

White: Kortchnoi Black: Dolmatov

1. c4-c4 f7-f5 2. Ng1-f3 Ng8-f6 3. g2-g3 d7-d6 4. d2-d4 g7-g6 5. Bf1-g2 Bf8-g7 6. 0-0 0-0 7. Nb1-c3 c7-c6 8. Qd1-b3 Kg8-h8 9. Rf1-d1 Nb8-a6 10. Qb3-a3 This queen manoeuver is quite original. She seems to be out of play, but in fact the queen will support a dangerous action on her wing.

10...Qd8-e8 11. b2-b4 Na6-c7 12. Bc1-b2 e7-e5 Asking for trouble. The modest 12...Bd7 should be played.

13. d4xe5 d6xe5

14. Qa3-a5 Now the seemingly misplaced queen hits hard. Black had probably just overlooked, when he made his 12th move, that two of his men are now attacked.

14...Nc7-a6 The only way not to lose a pawn at once, but the knight comes to a square that he had just evacuated with good reason. 15. b4-b5 (See Diagram)

15...b7-b6 This weakens the long diagonal, but there was no good defense. 15...cxb5 16. cxb5 Nc5 17. b6 would also be hopeless for Black.

16. Qa5-a3 Na6-c5 17. b5xc6 If Black cannot regain this pawn soon, he is done for.

17...e5-e4 18. Nf3-d4 Qe8-f7 19. Ra1-c1 Bc8-e6 20. Nc3-b5 a7-a6 21. Nb5-d6 Qf7-c7 22. Nd6-b7 This wins a second pawn. Black resigned.

Quite fascinating too was the first game between Alexei Shirov from Spain and Ivan Sokolov from Bosnia (or from Holland, where he lives).

White: Shirov Black: Sokolov

1. e2-e4 e7-e5 2. Ng1-f3 Ng8-f6 3. Nf3xe5 d7-d6 4. Ne5-f3 Nf6xe4 5. d2-d4 d6-d5 6. Bf1-d3 Nb8-c6 7. 0-0 Bf8-e7 8. Rf1-e1 Bc8-g4 9. c2-c4 Ne4-f6 10. Nb1-c3 0-0 11. c4xd5 Nf6xd5 12. h2- h3 Bg4-e6 13. a2-a3 Be7-f6 14. Nc3-e4 Be6-f5 15. Qd1-b3 Nd5-b6 16. d4-d5 Bf5xe4 17. Bd3xe4 Nc6-e7 18. Bc1-e3 Ne7-c8 19. Ra1- c1 Nc8-d6 20. Be4-b1 Qd8-d7 White may have a slight advantage, but all Black's pieces are decently placed and his position is hard to attack.

21. Rc1-c5 g7-g6 22. Re1-c1 Ra8-c8 23. Nf3-d4 a7-a6 24. Bb1-a2 Rf8-e8 25. Qb3-d3 Nd6-e4 26. Rc5-a5 Qd7-d6 27. b2-b4 Bf6-e5 28. Nd4-f3 Be5-b2 29. Rc1-c2 Bb2-g7 30. Be3-c5 Qd6-d7

31. Ba2-b3 Rc8-d8 32. Bc5-e3 Qd7-d6 33. Ra5-c5 Rd8-d7 34. Nf3-d2 Ne4-f6 35. Nd2-c4 White has not made much progress and his last move was wrong, according to Sokolov, because now his king remains without protectors.

35...Nb6xc4 36. Bb3xc4 Nf6-e4 37. Rc5-a5 Rd7-e7 38. Bc4-b3 Bg7-e5 Suddenly Black has a dangerous attack. 39. Bb3-a4 He cannot find a defense anymore and tries for a counter attack, but this comes too late.

39...Be5-h2+40. Kg1-f1 Ne4-g3+ (See Diagram) 41. Kf1-e1 b7-b5 42. Rc2-c6 Qd6-e5 43. d5-d6 c7xd6 44. Rc6xa6 Ng3-f5 45. Ba4xb5 Nf5xe3 46. Bb5xe8 Qe5-a1+ 47. Ke1-d2 Qa1-

b2+ White resigned.

Sokolov lost the next game to Shirov and then was eliminated in the tie-breaker, but Viktor the Indestructible and Indefatigable after some frantic tie-break games went on to the next round.

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This column first appeared in the Dutch newspaper NRC-Handelsblad August 7, 1999. Copyright 1999 Hans Ree. All Rights Reserved