For
ten years Nigel Short wrote a column for the Sunday Telegraph, delivering one
of the most provocative and entertaining chess columns in the world. A year
ago he was given notice by Britain's oldest (right-wing) newspapers, after
it was sold to the billionaire Barclay brothers.
The good news at the time was that just a few months later Nigel was snapped
up by the liberal Guardian, which went on to show an unprecedented commitment
to chess. The Guardian
Chess Page holds links to multiple chess columns, by Leonard Barden and
GM Jon Speelman, as well as by Guardian journalist Stephen Moss, who has done
numerous chess stories in the past. And of course Nigel's brash and often outrageous
column, which has offended many in the past, but has never committed the gravest
sin known to professional journalism: being boring.
Nigel Short, Guardian Chess Columnist
In the following we bring you excerpts from recent Nigel Short columns in
the Guardian, with links to the full text and annotated game at the end. Enjoy.
On the English Chess Federation
Thursday July 6, 2006: Last year, the anachronistically named British
Chess Federation finally acknowledged reality by becoming the English Chess
Federation. The piecemeal disintegration of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland began at the Folkestone Olympiad in 1933, when a Scottish
team made its first appearance alongside the BCF team, possibly, in that depressed
era, to bolster the numbers in an otherwise underrepresented event. The remaining
UK glue held together until the Skopje Olympiad of 1972, when the Welsh dragon
breathed its fiery flame in the international arena. Guernsey and Jersey followed
later still.
The Ulster Chess Union's application to join FIDE was shelved at Turin this
year. The motive for this rebuff is transparently one of crude political expediency.
Either FIDE must insist on a single UK federation (unpalatable for the powers
that be, as it would ruffle feathers and cost votes), or it should allow all
constituent parts of the country to become members. Dispassionately speaking,
you cannot pick and choose in such circumstances; alas, logic rarely counts
when vested interests are at stake.
Now that we have an English Chess Federation, perhaps we can also have an
English Championship? I won this event on the only occasion it was held, in
1991, so I assume I am still the reigning champion. I am hoping to emulate
the late Kim Il Sung of North Korea: with a little luck, when I snuff it, my
son will nominate me "Eternal English Champion" so that I might lead
a contented afterlife. Pity I don't also have a republic to plunder: I will
have to leave that to others in the chess world.
Full
article with an annotated game Tiviakov-Timman, Dutch Ch. 2006
On Sergey Rublevsky
Thursday June 29, 2006: It was not quite a gulag-worthy performance,
but Sergey Rublevsky has every reason to be thankful that his 2/5 at the 2006
Turin Olympiad did not occur in harsher, totalitarian times. In Soviet days
he could have expected a fierce verbal lashing, the end of privileges and a
goodbye to western tournaments for his significant part in Russia's worst ever
team result. If he was lucky and escaped from his homeland at all in the following
years, it would be no further than dreary Bucharest or freezing Ulaan Bataar.
It is odd how severe threats tended to concentrate the mind rather than induce
psychiatric ruin. Little pity was given to the casualties: the Soviet Union
had such an abundance of chess talent that it could afford to squander the
abilities of those rare failures. In Turin, Rublevsky is unlikely to have suffered
more than the odd murmuring of discontent from his colleagues. His wretched
form continued into the elite Aerosvit Tournament in the Crimea a few days
later. Last week we saw him succumb to Mamedyarov in round one. However, after
a stabilising draw, the clouds departed and he suddenly won five consecutive
games to seize the lead. Suddenly we were reminded of why he had been Russian
champion and was one of the last players to have defeated the active Garry
Kasparov.
Rublevsky is not a sexy player. There are younger and more gifted individuals
around and he knows it. Yet he has canniness, which the greenhorns don't. He
does not engage the teenagers on the sharp end of opening theory, testing his
ailing memory against the freshness of their computer-assisted analysis. Instead
he heads a little off the beaten track - not exactly to the jungle, but to
lesser-travelled byways where his experience counts. Here his speculative attack
brought its reward.
Full
article with an annotated game Rublevsky-Volokitin, Foros 2006
On the Crimea
Thursday June 22, 2006: The Crimea was, until recently, undoubtedly
the best place to obtain the Grandmaster title. One did not have to do anything
so irksome as to actually play chess. Indeed, in some cases, one did not need
go to Ukraine at all. A simple bank transfer and the organisers would fill
in the results in the cross-table on your behalf and submit them to FIDE. Thirty
euros, or thereabouts, was the going rate for procuring each "win",
according to a Ukrainian GM colleague of mine with more than a passing familiarity
with this business, although if one were prepared to bargain-hunt for long
enough, games could be bought for less. All in all, even with fat commissions,
the whole transaction could be concluded satisfactorily for a few thousands.
The situation became so bad that in 2005, FIDE - no paragon of virtue itself
- took the unusual step of refusing to ratify norms obtained from Alushta,
the origin of many of the complaints. Alas, this blanket imposition - a rare,
laudable show of treating corruption seriously - discriminated against those
who had obtained their titles legitimately. A more effective policy would have
been to empower the FIDE Ethics Commission to demand evidence - visas, photos
and the like - that people were present when they claimed to be. This would
have trapped only the most culpable, but it would not have punished the innocent.
Full
article with an annotated game Rublevsky-Mamedyarov, Foros 2006
On the FIDE Elections
Thursday June 15, 2006: The horror of the FIDE presidential election
result in Turin has not fully sunk in yet. Will the chess world get another
eight years without significant corporate sponsorship to add to the 11 we have
already had? Probably. It came as no surprise, after Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was
re-elected, that oil-rich Khanty-Mansysk, in western Siberia, won the nomination
to hold the 2010 Olympiad. It is hard to envisage any challenger defeating
the Russian Ilyumzhinov there without spending millions of dollars on their
campaign.
One small consolation: I was elected president of the Commonwealth Chess
Association despite a concerted attempt to oust me by the FIDE apparatchiks.
It was a close-run thing though: I defeated general secretary Ignatius Leong
from Singapore by 16 votes to 15 with one abstention. Nice try, guys! Come
back again in four years.
Full
article with an annotated game Polanco-Tidman, Turin 2006
On playing in Brunei
Thursday May 25, 2006: There is no booze in Brunei," I informed
Bessel Kok, the candidate for FIDE president, as we boarded the flight to Bandar
Seri Begawan. "Excellent!" he replied. "We will be able to give
our livers a rest."
It had seemed like a noble idea at the time, but by the second night we were
reduced, in the opulent Empire Hotel, to ordering cocktails that at least sounded
alcoholic, and had begun inquiries as to how far we were from the Malaysian
border.
Except for that one drawback, Brunei Darussalam is a fine country - clean,
orderly, free of income tax, blessed with pristine jungle, tropical weather
and cheap petrol. I had expected a relatively easy task in my clock simultaneous
exhibition against the national team. I was surprised to find myself pitted
against some very young juniors at the newly inaugurated federation headquarters.
Brunei is planning for the future, as the BCF president, Zainal Abidin Ali,
proudly told me.
The standard was very respectable, with even the youngest having a fair knowledge
of openings and good grasp of midgame strategy. Training by their national
coach, IM Tahir Vakhidov from Uzbekistan, is starting to have an impact. The
final result, 7-0, somewhat flattered your columnist. Five or even three years
hence I very much doubt I will be able to repeat such a feat.
The leading Brunei player is 22-year-old Ak Hirawan. He attacked me like a
homicidal machete-wielding maniac, which gave me a few nervous moments. Nevertheless
when I quickly beat off the assault, it was time for him to resign. Perhaps
a measured approach would have been more successful. Mind you, extreme violence
was the key to victory in the game below.
Full
column with an annotated game Hirawan-Harika, Hyderabad 2005
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