Anatoly Karpov gave an almost hour-long interview on Russian prime-time television, discussing his candicacy for the position of FIDE President, and much else besides. 

There’s quite a lot of interesting material – for instance on Kasparov and the dirty campaign Ilyumzhinov’s fighting within the Russian chess federation, but there are also some very random questions: “how would you like to die?” “Suddenly”.

I do slightly wonder about Karpov’s claims to want to look after the interests of the world champion… when this is the second or third interview I’ve seen where he’s downplayed Anand and Topalov (he said in one interview that without computers they wouldn’t have achieved the success they have).

He was asked to give the top 3 players of all time, in order. He starts by saying all the world champions up until Kramnik (“perhaps” – for beating Kasparov) make up an era in chess. Then he says Euwe is a bit weaker, but still above the contemporary world champion! (he does laugh at this point) Eventually he selects the strongest 5 in no particular order – Capablanca (his teacher), Tal, Fischer, Kasparov and himself.

Originally posted here.