The ups and downs of Vassily Ivanchuk

• I always expect that my success will come in the future.

• Hobbies: Reading books, visits concerts and theatre, spends time with his wife and parents.

• When talking about his seconds and his preparation Ivanchuk sees Boris Gelfand walking by. He says he "prefers to wait a bit" before continuing his narrative.

• It is difficult, he says, to work with somebody who is close to his playing strength, because you might end up playing him and it is "difficult to be very open" in your work.

• Ivanchuk's second Manuel León Hoyos is strong enough to analyse things very well (but it is unlikely to face him in a tournament). Manuel works during the day – "I don't believe in the rule that the second must work during the night."

• The Anand-Topalov match: "I expect a good quality of games, good preparation, novelties." Chances are about equal, maybe Anand is the slightly greater favorite, since he has played classical matches against Kasparov and Karpov, so he has more experience than Topalov.

• Karpov for FIDE President: "I respect Karpov very much as a chess player, but I don't know if he could be a good FIDE President. I'm not saying that he cannot be, I simply don't know."

• World Championship Cycle: Ivanchuk prefers mini-matches ("like in Mérida") with two games played in one day ("like in boxing, where you don't have six rounds on one day and six on the second"). So "one game, second game, if necessary tiebreaks, on the same day." It won't kill anyone. The knockout system has the big advantage of allowing many players to fight for the title. In Tripoli Rustam Kasimdzhanov was able to win the FIDE title, but in the system with candidates matches he would probably not even have qualified.

Copyright Europe Echecs