Rauf Mamedov lost to a Chinese player in the first round of the World Cup, but was far from singing the praises of Chinese chess.

Originally posted here:

Mamedov lost to Jianchao Zhou in the first round, before Gashimov beat the same player in the second round (see Gashimov’s comments here). Initially Mamedov says, “the Chinese school is quite dangerous”, that he wasn’t prepared and played badly. Then later:

Interviewer: As a chess player who’s experienced the Chinese school of chess at first hand, what can you advise Gashimov and Mamedyarov?

Mamedov: Actually until the match with Zhou I had a positive score with the Chinese chess players, including a plus against Zhou. I think that with the Chinese you simply need to play without theory, the same thing that I was told by Gata Kamsky. In the two games with the Chinese player I stayed within theory and you could say that in the second game I was already lost in the opening. It seems to me that if with white, for example, you get out of theory ok, they start to “drift”. Gashimov’s play demonstrated that Jianchao isn’t actually such a strong player. I was very glad that he won. Chinese chess is inferior to the Soviet school, but their plus is that they work very hard.”