Garry Kasparov at the London Chess Center
By Dave Bland
The queue forming outside the London Chess Center before Kasparov's arrival
London welcomed Garry's fourth visit to Chess & Bridge with typical January
weather: cold, windy and not a glimmer of sun. Despite the relatively short
notice and the prospect of queuing in the driving wind and rain hundreds of
people came to see the world number one, who was in town to promote the fourth
part of his My Great Predecessor series. They were not to be disappointed
by what proved to be a great day.
Inside the store, which sells chess books, sets, software and other equipment
The highlight certainly proved to be a marvellous one-hour long lecture from
Kasparov on the plans for the series, how it has evolved and some marvellous
insights into the players included in Volume Four.
Early arrivals: Jan Svarovsky, Mark Zarb-Adami and David Robertson actually
turned up three hours before Garry!
In particular Garry spoke about the roles of Reshevsky and Fine in the development
of American chess life and how it was not Europe but the USA that held sway
in the pre-war years. Fine was described in glowing terms, and Reshevsky's
match victory against Botvinnik in Moscow was praised. Kasparov stressed the
fact that both Fine and Reshevsky were amateurs!
Garry arrives for a three and half hour (!) signing session
Garry also spoke about Korchnoi's fantastic contribution which still continues
and mentioned the relative merits of Karpov and Fischer.
With visitors IM Simon Williams (left) and IM Richard Pert
One particularly interesting point made was that, in Kasparov's opinion, Karpov
would have had very good chances against Fischer in 1975 if the match had ever
come to fruition. Only after a careful study of the games whilst preparing
Part Four did Garry come to this conclusion, and he was at pains to point out
that this was not a rehash of the views of the Soviet Chess School – an accusation
too often levelled by "Fischer-ites".
All the day the book was selling in large numbers
With amusing anecdotes and crisp analytical insight, the lecture lasted twice
as long as we expected! And it included the whole game between Fischer and
Gligoric, and a mention of Larsen, whose ideas from a match against Ivkov in
he 1960s surfaced again at 1994 in Linares when an unknowing Illescas and Bareev
played the same line. You can catch the whole lecture in the video links given
below.
Signing His Great Predecessors for a future Successor?
After Garry departed in a taxi, still signing books and shaking hands even
in the street, a blitz tournament started in the pub down the road from the
Chess Centre, attended by amongst others Rashid Ziatdinov, Danny Gormally,
and the winner, GM elect Simon Williams. We can't wait for the next Kasparov
Day.
Mareta and Meri Grigoryan, mother and daughter, both competent chess
players
With David Foster and his five-year-old son Thomas, the youngest fan
on this day
Peter Andreev, who is just six years old and, we presume, an avid reader
of chess books
Was it good for you? Kasparov with London Chess Center head Malcolm Pein
Video Links
The London Chess Center has videotaped Kasparov's lecture and made it available
in Windows Media format. You can click on the following links to replay it
in six parts. Each video is about 6 MB in size.
