20 responses to “Kramnik and Radjabov’s post-match press conference”

  1. Excellent work! Many thanks.

  2. “and the journalists present insisting they switch to Russian!”

    This fact screams the journalists are morons.

    Thank god we have you for to cover for their mistake!

  3. You are a treasure, Mishanp. Thanks a million!

  4. Outstanding job as usual Mishanp.

  5. Thanks bud

  6. Amazing stuff, just what I was hoping for, you’re treasure for the international chess community!

  7. A thousand thank you’s !

  8. And more one thank you (that will not be enough!)

    Aquele abraço!

  9. Thanks you very much!

  10. where does radjabov get the idea that the clock malfunction only worked in kramnik’s favor?

    for a while it seemed like vladimir borisovich was trying to capitalize on the fact that his opponent was low on time, and the clock stopping allowed teimour more time to think about the position and find a winning line. it’s not as if though kramnik was able to analyze what to do while teimour was forced to stop thinking.

    people who dislike kramnik will just use this as an excuse for why radjabov lost, but the real reason he lost is because his nerves and his hands were not up to the task. that’s chess, and that’s blitz.

  11. Thanks mishanp, but also thanks Kramnik and thanks Radjabov (except for the follow-up interview at Azerisport). As to press conferences in Russian, I find it relatively normal for an audience of Russian journalists (who may not all be fluent in English). If a foreign (“non-Soviet”) journalist had asked a question in English, I guess it would have been OK to answer in English. But was this ever the case? Are there _any_ western journalists at the venue?

  12. Again and again great thanks to mishanp for the translation! I have finally found time to watch the press conference video and I am impressed with mishanp getting what Radjabov was saying. TR was talking so fast that I barely understood a few select passages, and I am supposed to understand Russian.

    Also, the civility of both players during the conference was refreshing.

    Now waiting eagerly for G-K and G-K (I seem to remember these two letters were somehow important in chess context some time ago :)

  13. Many thanks – great work. One small comment:
    “So then, it seems to me I played the first game well, from a practical point of view, and in terms of calculation, given that it was blitz. The play there was a bit like boxing. Who’ll land a punch, or allow one through, but I think we played relatively accurately. After the first rapid game …”

    I think the boxing part is related to rapid. He starts talking about Blitz (very quickly) and than says something like “this is related to Blitz, of course. Rapid was more like boxing …” only to say some more sentences regarding rapid (all this in parenthesis – really hard to follow) and later returning to Blitz (if I remember correctly – can’t replay it right now).

    The Kramnik – Radjabov press conferences were by far the most interesting. In contrast Kamsky – Topalov was more cartoon style. I don’t know how to say it in English (in German we use the term “Beamtenmikado” related to the game pickup sticks. Never make the first move – then you will lose – or here rather never say the first sentence ;-)) Unfortunately it is very hard – at least for me – to understand the questions in the videos acoustically. So I don’t know because of what question Kamsky simply raises his eyebrows, doesn’t answer and asks Kutin whether it is enough with this press conference (after very few questions).

    Back to Kramnik – Radjabov. You know Kramnik as eloquent and outspoken. It was the first time I’ve heard Radjabov and really liked the way he commented on the games, even after the really unlucky defeat. I don’t think the Azerisport.com interview is that bad either. I have to add that Shipov in his daily video disagrees with Kramnik on the clock incident too.

    There were many more interesting moments, from a psychological point of view. For instance when Radja was asked about his seconds or when Kramnik was asked whether Radjabov’s openings with black were surprising for him (that was after game 2 and despite you could feel it was an unpleasant surprise he of course says something else, even playing with the possibility of another Catalan, and he might have something to play there). You really could feel and see the different mood Kramnik was in after say game 1 (very confident) or after game 2 or 4 – but that’s understandable. One great moment is imho at the start of the press conference after game 4, should be this one:
    http://video.russiachess.org/view/highlight/88

    While Radjabov is signing some posters (seemingly it takes forever) we see Kramnik all the time – maybe a bit displeased because he couldn’t win another game with white and maybe a bit impatient ;-) But the press conference that follows is as interesting and enjoyable as always.

  14. “though Radjabov was thinking of the players circling each other trying to find the right moment to strike.”

    That’s what I think too. It’s a nice picture to describe the first 8 games of this match.

  15. i guess translating from a video is more painstaking than translating from a written article?? do u have to replay to catch every word, or do you just translate the gist?
    stellar effort in any case (i’ve stopped thanking you, as u must’ve noticed)

  16. Great article!

    And great sportsmanship from two great players. A real pleasure to read.

  17. I don’t think it unusual that most of the press conference is in Russian, but I bet most of the internet audience would prefer it not be the case.

    It would be nice if the players were asked briefly to summarise the game in English. I too have been kind of annoyed at them stopping them speaking English, especially as the pre-interview chit-chat is in English. It sort of rubs it in.

    But the video presentation is so great that you don’t need so much more to understand what was going on (it was very clear there was a clock malfunction for instance). It isn’t a big deal but out of politeness just throwing a bone to English speakers would be considerate.

    After this raising the bar so high, can anyone running a world title match go back to single webcams? Although I am surprised that a roving cameramen around the boards hasn’t caused distraction to the players.

    Not to be underestimated is the actual quality of the signal, the ability to slide back and forth during play, it hardly ever hangs either, that is also a technical wonder. So the tiny language issue aside, “Bravo!”.

  18. In my opinion, the decision to conduct the press conference in Russian was completely justified in this particular instance. All the players (with exception of Topalov) are native Russian speakers, the most of journalists present (if not all of them) are Russian or (if they are from Azerbaijan, for instance) can understand Russian very well – and most of them can hardly understand English at all. Perhaps, the only person in the hall who was not able to understand Russian was Kutin who’ve been behaving very passively throughout the event. How on earth did such an incompetent man end up in such a position? Perhaps, because he’s “a dignitary” and that job was assigned to him to justify his paycheque.

    Of course, one can have players speaking in English and provide live translation but in this particular instance it’d look strange and awkward. Moreover: Radjabov and Kramnik know English well enough but they are not Peter Svidlers, and their press conference was so interesting exactly because they’re speaking in their native language and thus were able to express all the emotions and that noticeable feeling of immediacy.

    Of course, there should have been issued post factum press conferences video-reports with proper translating which then would be watched by English speaking audience. However, it’s FIDE event with its trademark organization, and it’s beyond them to hire professional journalist and translator to work on such reports (for a fraction of Kutin’s payment)…

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