World
Blitz Chess Championship
Almaty 2008
The World Chess Blitz Championship took place from November 7th to 8th in Almaty,
Republic of Kazakhstan. Sixteen players participated in a round robin tournament
with classical plain vanilla time controls: five minutes for the whole game
for each opponent, no increment. The total prize fund was 350,000 Swiss Francs
(= 235,000 Euros = US $297,000), with the winner taking 80,000 SFr (€54,000
or $68,000). The prize money was donated by the Chess Federation of the Republic
of Kazakhstan with the support of the "Alliance Bank".
World Championship Blitz Chess in Almaty
Pictorial report from Kazakhstan by Alexander von Gleich
International chess life is very busy these days, with one tournament
starting immediately after the other. Only a few days ago the Worle Championship
Match Anand-Kramnik closed, now the world championship in five minutes
blitz chess (without time increment) was staged.
The tournament took place in Almaty, which for many years in the past
was the capital of Kazakhstan. Almaty means “Apple City” ("alma"
is the Kazakh word for "apple"), and the region is famous
for its great genetic diversity of wild apples. In fact this is thought
to be the ancestral home of the apple.
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An original Wild Malus sieversii apple in Almaty |

Every city has a symbol, like the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Kremlin in Moscow.
Almaty is well known for the mountains which surround the city and the TV tower
which is 371.5 m (1073 ft) and thus one of the highest in the world. It is was
designed to withstand earthquakes up to a strength of ten on the Richter scale.
T he famous TV tower in Almaty, erected on the slopes of Kok Tobe mountain
From the center of Almaty it takes only forty minutes by car to arrive in Chimbulak,
a skiing resort. They are adding new slopes there every year – Almaty
has ambitions to host the Asian Olympic Winter Games in 2012.

The ice skating stadium Medeo would already meet the criterion by any Olympic
standard. Located at 2000 m above sea level it is also one of the largest stadiums
in the world – more than 1000 skaters have enough room for their practice.

For people who are rightly afraid of skiing, snowboarding and other dangerous
winter sports the mountains around Almaty offer alternative activities. In just
an hour and a half the well trained hiker can climb all the way up to Almaty
Lake, a wonderful crystal clear lake, 2,511 meters above sea level, lying in
a hollow like a gleaming mirror, surrounded on all sides by majestic peaks.

About ten years ago the administration and government moved from Almaty to
Astana. But Almaty remains the cultural, economic and financial center of the
country.

Kazkahstan is a country rich in natural resources: oil, gas, metals, coal,
etc. In Almaty a construction boom started four years ago which has changed
the silhouette of the city.

Oops – what is this? Not a Photoshop trick – the owners of the
shopping mall Franzuski Dome (“French house”) had a 12
m high copy of the Eiffel tower erected in front of the shopping center.
There are two government languages in Kazakhstan: Kazakh which is a Turk language
and Russian. People are in the majority Moslems, however all other religions
are tolerated and even supported by the government. Since its independence in
the beginning of the nineties, President Nazarbaew is in power. With a lot of
diplomatic skills he has managed to preserve the neutral status of the country,
which has best relations with its powerful neighbors Russia and China, but also
enjoys a lot of support in the West. Effects of the world-wide economic and
financial crisis have hit the Kazakh banking system hard, already in 2007.
Nevertheless the investment group Seimar
has set significant funds aside to support charitable projects in education,
hospitals, etc. The Kazakh chess community can be grateful and happy that the
two main managers at Seimar, namely Margulan Seicembaew and Saken Seifullin,
are very interested in and supportive of chess. Last year they organized a big
children chess tournament, this year the chess federation applied to FIDE to
host the blitz Championship and won the bid.

The tournament took place in the sanatorium Alatau, which is located about
15 km from the city’s centre. During Soviet times the place was reserved
for important party members who would recover here from the hard work they were
doing for the Soviet Communist Party… Renovated recently, it now has a
modern spa, gym and pool area, about 100 rooms and three conference halls, which
make it a good choice to host any large event.

The tournament hall was well equipped with modern transmission technology.
All games were recorded by the government TV channels and broadcast via the
Charbar cultural channel. On Sunday Charbar showed chess for four hours. In
some regions people can receive only this channel, so they had to either to
watch chess or switch off their sets.

The spectators could watch the games via large Demo boards. At the same time
all technical prerequisites were met to allow a live translation via the Playchess
Server, however the players were playing to fast and not always placing
the pieces accurately in the centre of a square. The technicians complained:
why cant they move the pieces properly? How man times have we told them, but
they won't listen… And indeed sometimes a rook or even a queen would leave
the board mysteriously, raising concerns among the spectators, especially the
older generation: how can Morozevich continue to play without a queen?

Good conditions and good prize money attracted the top players to participate
– of the best blitz players only Aronian and Anand were missing. Pre-tournament
favorites were Grishuk, Morozevich, Radjabov and Ivanchuk. "Chuky"
arrived in his talisman Real Madrid sport jacket, which had already provided
moral support in previous tournaments which he won in 2008. So what was there
to stop him here?
However, Ivanchuk had some problems in the first games, losing two of them
and trailing the leaders by 1.5 points. After five rounds the favorites were
leading the field: Grishuk 4.5, Morozewich 4, Dominguez 3.5 points.

Leinier Dominguez playing out-of-sorts Krishnan Sasikiran (with Grischuk-Morozevich
in the back)
Judit Polgar had a bad start with 0.5/5, same as Raffael Vaganian. Krishnan
Sasikiran fared even worse, starting with 0/5. He might have still been under
the effect of a collapse during the opening ceremony. Later he scored better,
but it was too late and he could not contend for one of the top places.

The only lady in the tournament, Judit Polgar, had a very bad start
The things that can happen in blitz tournament are unique, often tragic. Take
a look at this game between a young Egyptian grandmaster and a great blitz veteran
from Kazakhstan.
Amin,B (2560) - Tkachiev,V (2664) [C86]
IV World Blitz Almaty KAZ (4), 08.11.2008
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.Qe2 Be7 6.0-0 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.c3
d5 9.d3 Bb7 10.Bg5 Na5 11.Bc2 dxe4 12.dxe4 Nd7 13.Bc1 Nc4 14.Rd1 Nd6 15.Nbd2
c6 16.Nf1 Qc7 17.Ng3 Rfe8 18.b3 Rad8 19.h3 c5 20.Nh2 Bh4 21.Nh5 Nf6 22.Nxf6+
Bxf6 23.Ng4 Bh4 24.g3 Be7 25.h4 f5 26.Nxe5 Bf6 27.f4 Nxe4 28.Rxd8 Rxd8 29.Be3
Nxg3 30.Qh2 Bxe5 31.Qxg3 Bxc3 32.Rf1 Re8 33.Kh2 Be4 34.Bd1 Bd4 35.Bxd4 cxd4
36.b4 d3 37.h5 Kh8 38.Rg1 Qe7 39.h6 g6 40.Qf2 Qf6 41.Bb3 Rd8 42.Rd1 Re8 43.Rc1
Rd8 44.Rc7 d2 45.Kg3 Qd6 46.Qa7 Qd3+ 47.Kh4
Now 47...g5+ 48.fxg5 Bb7! wins (the threat of ...Rd4 or ...Qe4 cannot be met).
However Tkachiev gave up a valuable full point with 47...Qg3+??
and since the queen can be simply taken 1-0.

A prominent kibitzer: twelfth world champion Anatoly Karpov

Two more legends kibitzing: Boris Spassky, left, and Viktor Korchnoi (background
right)

These days Boris Vasilievich, tenth World Champion, likes to wear shades

...and Viktor Lvovich, multiple challenger, watches the youngsters with skepticism

Smokers – like Alexander Grischuk here – had to step outside to
get their nicotine fix

The final decisive game: Dominguez held out against Bassem, who lost on
time
About the author: Aledander von Gleich has worked
for the MicrofinanceBank in Georgia and the IFC world banking group in Russia.
For two years now he has been living in Kazakhstan and working as the CFO of
the ATF Bank, which belongs to the Unicredit Group. He is married to Nino and
father of three sons. His job and family leave him very little time for chess,
a game he played ambitiously in the past but now mainly follows in the news.
Final standings

Click for a full table with tiebreak points