The GibTelecom Chess Festival was held from January 26 to February 5, 2004,
in the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar. The main event, the Gibraltar Masters, was
very strong with 35 grandmasters, led by Nigel Short, Alexei Dreev and Vladimir
Epishin. The clear winner was Nigel Short with a very impressive 8/10. He was
leading the field for a long time together with Surya Ganguly. But in the last
round Nigel defeated fourth seed Ernesto Inarkiev (2606), while Ganguly could
only draw against Pentala Harikrishna.
A key game between Epishin and Short in the penultimate round (it was
a draw)
Antoaneta Stefanova, the top women player in the Masters |
13-year-old David Howell achieved his final IM norm in Gibraltar. |
Young Indian grandmaster Chanda Sandipan, a player to watch |
Veteran GM and Gambit Publications business manager Murray Chandler |
- Click here to download
all the games in zipped PGN
An interview with the winner Nigel Short
Immediately after the tournament we had an opportunity to speak to the
winner Nigel Short. We asked him about the tournament and its location, but
never really got around to talking about the chess. Instead we delved into
the historical and political background of Gibraltar, and into the historical
and political background of Nigel Short. We hope that the following candid
interview will clear up some common misunderstanding.
ChessBase: Nigel, congratulations on your
second fine victory in succession. How does it feel?
Nigel Short: Very good. Maybe some people are beginning to
realise that there is still a lot of fire in my veins. I actually played better
here than at the Commonwealth
Championship in January. There I gained I believe 1.2 Elo points, here
it was about nine. So on the next list I should be 2712. I hope this will catch
the eye of the organisers of the stronger events. I know I said some years
ago I was tired of playing in these super-strong tournaments, but now I am
ready to return. Incidentally this was my second Gib Telecom Chess Festival.
Last year I won it with Vasilios Kotronias, my neighbour. Actually he plays
for Cyprus for some unknown reason – I’m not quite sure whether
he’s ever been to Cyprus. He lives in Athens, just like me. This time
Dreev was the big star, and there were lots and lots of Indians.
Well, Gibraltar is a place which you either love or hate. I quite like it.
It’s a rock, that is essentially what it is. It’s a British colony.
When we were talking about the British Empire the other day I forgot to mention
it. It’s celebrating its tercentenary this year. We prised it out of
the Spaniards after the treaty of Utrecht in 1704, I think during the war of
the Spanish succession. It was a British naval base which was very important
for controlling the entrance to the Mediterranean. From here you can see Africa,
even with the naked eye, and so you could see any ships entering the Mediterranean.
Historically it was just a garrison town, now the military presence has been
wound down quite significantly, and financial services are extremely important.
Gibraltar is tiny, the population numbers in the tens of thousands, maybe
thirty thousand. We are in a hotel on the east side of the rock. The main town
is on the other side, so we are actually a bit isolated. But nothing is really
far away, you can walk around the rock if you like. The runway of the airport
is actually longer than the width of the peninsular, so it actually extends
out into the sea. There was a James Bond movie that was shot here, a couple
of hundred meters from this hotel. The Living Daylights, I believe, with Timothy
Dalton.
I would like to mention that this is a very nice tournament. I look outside
and it is very sunny, about as good as it gets in Europe at this time of the
year. The tournament is gradually building up, this year the number of participants
is up by about 40%. They lost a few players because people did not get their
visas on time. It’s complicated because you usually need two visas. For
instance Zhu Chen was supposed to play here but didn’t make it.
The Spaniards have not played their cards very well on the subject of Gibraltar.
You know there was a referendum here in 2002, and about 98% of the population
voted to remain British. The population is a mixture, with Gibraltarians coming
from many different countries. Most of the people are bilingual and speak English
and Spanish. If you are in town you might see a group of people chatting away
in Spanish, all holding their English newspapers.
When Franco was in power in Spain the peninsula was completely blockaded.
If you wanted to travel from Gibraltar to Spain you had to take a ferry to
Morocco and then go from Morocco to Spain. The border was sealed. The Gibraltarians
were not particularly impressed by that, and they have long memories. Now it’s
easy to cross the border, but there are still a lot of problems. For instance
there are no direct flights from Spain. For me to arrive here the easiest way
would have been to fly from Athens to Madrid or Barcelona and then to Gibraltar.
Instead I flew from Athens to London and then from London to here. These sort
of things irritate the people. I think that if the Spaniards were just to take
a much more conciliatory approach Gibraltar would become Spanish in a matter
of decades. It’s not as if there would be a huge change. Everyone speaks
Spanish, the Pound is the official currency but the Euro is accepted everywhere.
But there has been such a lot of ill will from Spain. They looked at this place,
which is a historical anomaly, and instead of just accepting it as it is, they
put pressure all through the years. The British were negotiating with the Spanish
government about some kind of joint sovereignty, because you know we are not
really great imperialists any more. We’ve been trying to wind down our
activities in this area. But the Gibraltarians didn’t like it at all,
they harbour a deep resentment.
Nigel, after our last interview we received a number of letter complaining
about the tone of your remarks. Some people thought you spoke in a deprecatory
fashion about countries like Uzbekistan of Cambodia. Are you racist or right
wing?
Of course I'm not a racist, but I’m certainly right wing, there’s
no question about that. I was always considered the most right-wing chess player
in the British team...
Including James Plaskett?
Plaskett was not always on the British team. I think Jim would have pipped
me. But I must mention that I am only economically right wing. I have no problems
with Uzbekistan; it’s probably a lovely country. I just didn’t
see why players from Uzbekistan should have been playing in the Commonwealth
Championship.
One complaint was that you said “a few random Russians and Uzbeks”.
It was the choice of words.
Yes, but that was not directed against Russians or Uzbeks. If there had been
American or German players and I didn’t know their names I would have
said exactly the same, “a few random Americans and Germans”. This
has nothing to do with Russia or Uzbekistan. I have traveled all over the world,
about 70 countries, and meeting so many foreign people leads to a greater appreciation
of their culture.
But do you feel that you were lucky to be born in Britain, that Britain
and England are somehow superior to many other countries?
No, of course not. Naturally you could be born in a country with a much lower
life expectancy, or low levels of literacy, or in an unstable country, things
like that. In that sense I am fortunate. But there are also many, many countries
where things are as good as if not better than in Britain. Besides I don’t
live in Britain anymore. I live in Athens, because I am married to a Greek
wife. I also happen to like it there. People are very friendly, friendlier
than in Britain, where people are not as immediately welcoming. We have a large
underclass in Britain, and a fairly low standard of education. Our best universities
are extremely good, but a very significant proportion of the British population
that comes out of compulsory schooling with very low standards of education.
We have these “Untermenschen” [see footnote], this subclass of
virtually illiterates. This is one of the problems we have in Britain, and
there are many countries in Europe and elsewhere in which things are much better.
So you live in Greece. Do you speak the language?
I speak Greek, but rather poorly. I can carry on simple conversations. My
children are completely bilingual; they go to an English school. My daughter
sounds just like an English girl, and also just like a Greek girl in Greece.
My son doesn’t sound like an English boy; he still has some Greekisms.
Do they feel they are Greek or that they are English?
They think that they are both. Which is exactly how I would want it to be.
So you are basically a right-wing British conservative who is living
abroad with a Greek wife. Is that normal for British conservatives?
I should emphasize again that I am only economically right wing. In the Conservative
Party you have traditionalists who believe Sunday is a day of rest, and at
the same time there are free marketers who believe that shops should be allowed
to open anytime they want to, including Sunday. So you have these two different
strands which uneasily coexist within the same party. I am not a traditionalist.
My position on abortion and on sex and on drugs and various other things is
very liberal. But economically I am right wing.
What do you think of the Labour government under Tony Blair?
The current Labour government has been, from an economic point of view, by
far the best Labour government for years. The Labour Party of the 1980s was
just a socialist party, and as we know, socialism impoverishes nations. But
the current Labour government has really abandoned socialism. This is Margaret
Thatcher’s legacy. She essentially won the argument, but ironically she
won it and now Labour is in power. They are wearing her clothes.
I must stress that I don’t like the current British government, but
not because of their economic policies. I dislike them because Tony Blair happens
to go to war with whoever he feels like. We’ve been bombing Yugoslavia,
and we’ve been bombing Afghanistan, and we’ve been bombing Iraq.
He doesn’t seem to stop. I’ve been opposed to every single one
of these actions. So you see I am not a hawkish right winger, just an economic
right winger, a free marketer. And on most other issues I would be termed liberal,
in the American sense.
Footnote: Nigel's use of the word "Untermenschen"
has caused a bit of an uproar (it wouldn't be a Nigel Short interview if it
didn't). One of the critics, Hauke Rudolph of Memphis, TN,
presented an interesting explanations and some notes on the interview in general:
Having lived in Memphis,TN, (one of the great diasporas of chess) for almost
five years now, I truly enjoy chessbase. It is basically my only connection
to the chessworld. I truly enjoy ChessBase. It is basically my only connection
to the chessworld. However, today I have to utter some mild criticism. In
your recent interview with Nigel Short he is referred to and refers to himself
as an economic right winger. I believe that the term "conservative"
would have been more appropriate than "right winger". Short is
obviously an advocate of the free market system. That however, does not make
him a right winger. In fact, a true right winger is likely to support an
economic system that is under tight government control.
My main criticism, however, is directed against your failure to point out
Short's misusage of the word "untermensch". What he means is "member
of the lower class", not "subhuman". He is clearly talking
about people whose educational and economic level is well below that of the
average member of society, but not about people who are biologically inferior
to other human beings. Short was just not familiar with the true meaning
of the term "untermensch".
Keep up the good work!
Hauke Rudolph
Links
