Averbakh: “History is written by the victors”
Yuri Averbakh, the world’s oldest grandmaster, celebrated his 90th birthday on February 8th this year. To mark the occasion he gave a long and fascinating interview to Vladimir Barsky and Eteri Kublashvili, which turned into a whirlwind tour of chess history.
Mark Taimanov at 85
For someone perhaps best known for spectacular failure – losing 6:0 to Bobby Fischer – Mark Taimanov has had the most successful of lives. A top Soviet grandmaster and a successful concert pianist, he’s now the happy octogenarian father of 6-year-old twins. He talks about his life and contemporary chess.
Remembering Smyslov
The death of the 7th World Champion, Vasily Smyslov (1921-2010), was one of the greatest chess losses of the last year. He featured in two year-end interviews: one with FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who claimed Smyslov also encountered aliens, and the other with GM Sergey Shipov, who recalled the Smyslov he knew.
The forgotten recollections of Chigorin’s daughter
Alexander Kentler, who writes a chess column for sportsdaily.ru, was recently sent a remarkable document: the recollections of Mikhail Chigorin’s daughter on the 50th anniversary of her father’s death. She talks of his legendary absent-mindedness, how cigar smoke thwarted his title ambitions, and describes the last moments of his life.
Karpov on the World Champions
Anatoly Karpov gave a long interview to the Russian RIA News. The most fascinating section is his assessment of his own place in the pantheon of Chess World Champions, including his controversial opinion that Anand and Topalov would have been unable to achieve the same success without computers.
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