Six of the Best 606

Photo by Keith Evans

Rhetoric has consequences and we cannot stand by and do nothing, says Ceri Phillips.

"I’m sick of people saying, “gosh, you must have thick skin". That’s not the way it should work." Daisy Benson on the threats political activists face today.

Peter Watts explains why Battersea power station is down to one chimney and asks if it could now be facing demolition.

"As things stand, English cricket is in danger of becoming a sporting version of the Church of England, with an ageing demographic who attend because they always attend, and believe because they have always believed. Meanwhile younger generations will barely notice its slow and graceful slide into irrelevance." Roy Greenslade quotes Sean Ingle while arguing that newspapers' retreat from cricket coverage reflects the game's demise.

Cara Buckley celebrates Garrison Keillor as he announces his retirement.

The Australian grandmaster Ian Rogers pays tribute to Viktor Korchnoi

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Viktor Korchnoi was a beacon to Soviet dissidents

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In April I wrote that:

Like all sports, chess has a way of mirroring the conflicts in wider society. 

The Fischer vs Spassky match of 1972 was a wonderful metaphor for the Cold War, even if the gentlemanly, quietly dissident Boris Spassky was never a cypher for the Soviet Union. 

In the 1980s the volatile Garry Kasparov was a perfect symbol of glasnost and perestroika against the model Soviet citizen Anatoly Karpov.

In between those two rivalries came the one between Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi, which was a battle between the model Soviet citizen and a dissident.

Korchnoi died today at the age of 85. Leonard Barden's obituary of him in the Guardian explains his significance in and beyond the game:

Viktor Korchnoi ... was a chess grandmaster who defected from the Soviet Union, then twice challenged the USSR’s Anatoly Karpov for the world title. Their first contest, in 1978 in the Philippines, was the most bizarre in championship history, bitterly fought on and off the board. 

Soviet media referred to Korchnoi as “the opponent” or “the challenger” rather than by name. Karpov refused the traditional pre-game handshake, Korchnoi wore mirror glasses. Karpov’s team included a hypnotist seated in the front rows staring at Korchnoi, who enlisted two members of a meditative sect on bail for murder. Needing six games to win, Karpov led 5-2 before Korchnoi fought back to 5-5, only to lose the decisive game. 

Korchnoi was already 45 years old when he defected, an age when most chess players are well past their best. For him it was a liberating experience, and when his results equalled or surpassed what he had achieved as a Soviet citizen, it stimulated an exodus not just of grandmasters but also of other intellectuals.

Korchnoi's agreed  epitaph already seems to be that he was the strongest player never to win the world title.

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Sergey Karjakin: Putin's challenger for the world chess title

Like all sports, chess has a way of mirroring the conflicts in wider society.

The Fischer vs Spassky match of 1972 was a wonderful metaphor for the Cold War, even if the gentlemanly, quietly dissident Boris Spassky was never a cypher for the Soviet Union.

In the 1980s the volatile Garry Kasparov was a perfect symbol of glasnost and perestroika against the model Soviet citizen Anatoly Karpov.

"We already have a world champion: we don't need another one," the young Kasparov was once told by the authorities.

Now Segey Karjakin's qualification to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the world title brings another conflict into the limelight.

Because Karjakin was born in Crimea's capital, Simferopol, in 1990 and represented Ukraine until he was poached to play for Russia. In July 2009, President Dmitry Medvedev made Karjakin a Russian citizen by decree.

Which makes him a sort of chess-playing Zola Budd.

Since then, as Radio Free Europe shows, he has become a born again Russian:

From his adopted home, Karjakin has been a staunch supporter of the Kremlin and Russian policy in Ukraine which has seen Moscow forcibly annex the Crimean Peninsula following the ouster of former Russia-backed president Viktor Yanukovych and then support a separatist conflict in the east that has claimed more than 9,100 lives. 

Following the Russian operation in Crimea in 2014, Karjakin posted a photograph of himself on Instagram wearing a T-shirt bearing an image Russian President Vladimir Putin and the caption: "We don't leave our guys behind."

The only time I seem to lose my cool on Twitter is when people who ought to know better show sympathy for the Putin regime. He is all but a Fascist dictator and on the borders on Europe.

He was allowed to annexe territory in Georgia and then Ukraine with barely a word of condemnation from the British left.

Yes, the situation in the Crimea is complicated. Historically, it was part of Russia but was transferred to Ukraine as part of his programme of blurring ethnic boundaries to discourage nationalist risings against the Soviet Union.

So you can make a case that the Crimea should be Russian. But the idea that shared race and culture justify military action that breaks international law is an odd one for the left to embrace.

Meanwhile, I suspect Karjakin has a good chance against Carlsen. At the very least we shall find out how good Carlsen really is,

His challenger in the last two world championship matches, Vishy Anand, never gave the impression that he believed he could win.

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Sergey Karjakin qualifies to challenge for the world chess title

While the geeks were watching a rerun of the election night coverage from 1966, I outgeeked them by watching the final round of the Candidates chess tournament in Moscow.

The tournament was held to find who would challenge the world champion Magnus Carlsen for his title in a match in New York this November.

In today's final round the leaders were playing one another: Sergey Karjakin had white against Fabiano Caruana.

A draw would give Karjakin victory in the tournament, but Caruana needed a win. (By a quirk of the tie-break system that situation could have been reversed if Vishy Anand had won his game, but that never looked likely and he agreed an early draw.)

Caruana obtained an active, unbalance position without taking on too much risk. I got the impression he was drifting slightly when he got to move 35 or so, but there still seemed all to play for.

Then Karjakin played a devastating rook sacrifice that the grandmasters commentating on the game had not anticipated.

A tremendous achievement in such a tense game, though most people believe that Carlsen will retain his title when they meet.

You can play through the game on chess,com.

Karjakin played his sacrifice in the position above: the devastating 37. Rxd5.

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In which I draw with a man who once came second in the British chess championship

Derren Brown came to Leicester in 2010:

We stayed at a terrific boutique hotel ‘Maiyango’, which was just lovely, and has a great restaurant attached. Worth seeking out. And pop into Alfred Lenton’s next door: an odd gem of a downtrodden second hand bookstore that has been there for 40 years.

In my experience he did well to find Alfred Lenton's open, but I am glad he enjoyed himself.

Alfred died in 2004 and these days the shop is run by his son.

Alfred Lenton was a strong chess player. His obituary on the Leicestershire & Rutland Chess Association website begins:

Alf Lenton was a notable player immediately before WW2, playing in the first three Anglo-Dutch internationals and the last four pre-war British Championship tournaments. 

He made his debut in the British Championship in Great Yarmouth in 1935, when he finished 3rd= (with Golombek, Michell and Tylor) behind Winter and Sir George Thomas. 

In 1936 he improved to 2nd= with Ritson Morry, once again behind Winter. Had he taken a good chance to beat Winter he might have won the championship that year.

Lenton played chess for Thurnby in the Leicestershire league until a few months before his death.

I played him in a match in the late 1990s when he must have been pushing 90 (and I was pushing 40).

I remember the game was a short, violent King's Indian Defence that soon burned out into a draw, but I cannot remember if I was White or Black. (I may still have the game score somewhere.)

So as well as having beaten someone who played top board for two different countries in the Olympiad, I can say I have drawn with someone who finished second in the British championship.

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Jim Slater and British chess

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The financier Jim Slater, whose rise and fall were once the talk of the City, died on Wednesday.

His Telegraph obituary says:

Slater remained a chess enthusiast all his life, and counted his sponsorship of British chess as one of his proudest achievements.

There is more about that sponsorship on Slater's own website, which began in the aftermath of the Fischer vs Spassky world title match when the game was on the front page of every newspaper.

In fact Slater played an important part in ensuring that the match took place at all:

While preparations were being made for the World Championship in Iceland, Fischer began complaining about the prize money which he thought should be doubled. 

“I was driving into London early one Monday morning in mid-July feeling disappointed that after all this build-up Fischer might not be taking on Spassky, when it suddenly occurred to me that I could easily afford the extra prize money personally. As well as providing me with a fascinating spectacle for the next few weeks it would give chess players throughout the world enormous pleasure for the match to proceed."

Chess players should thank Slater for that if nothing else.

He then turned his attention to promoting the game in Britain:

A few months later, in an endeavour to help our young players, Jim Slater offered on behalf of The Slater Foundation to give a prize of £5,000 (over £50,000 in today’s money) to the first British Grandmaster and £2,500 to each of the next four. Over the next few years Great Britain progressed from having no Grandmasters to twenty with one of the strongest teams of young chess players in the world.

When that time was offered the idea of a British grandmaster seemed fanciful, but Tony Miles claimed the £5000 in 1976. Soon there were dozens of British GMs - two from Leicester alone.

Since then, chess in Britain has been in serious decline. I once discussed the reasons for that decline on this blog.

Yesterday Stephen Moss examined the problem in the Guardian. His one firm conclusion is that there is no longer any money in the British game.

Which brings us back to Jim Slater.

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