Chess - The Scotsman 21/06/2012

Published on 21/06/2012 00:00

AMERICAN satirist Tom Lehrer famously said that he gave up doing satire after Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, because after that satire became pointless. And I know how he feels, especially as I write about Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the president of Fide, the game’s governing body.

Ilyumzhinov once claimed he was abducted by space aliens, who apparently brought chess to Earth hundreds of years ago. He’s also no stranger to contact with regimes of faltering despots; he was the last to be publicly photographed alongside Saddam Hussain and Colonel Gaddaffi. And late last week, amidst the backdrop to an increasingly bloody civil war, he again embarrassed the chess world by making another visit to Damascus, to support President Bashar al-Assad’s regime by publicly heralding the signing there of an agreement on cooperation with the Syrian Ministry of Education for a chess in schools programme.

Fide’s activities in support of the Syrian dictator led to an outcry in the chess world, with the most vocal condemnation from former world champions Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov. Kasparov even went as far as announcing his immediate candidacy to unseat Ilyumzhinov in the next presidential elections, in 2014. In 2010 Kasparov ran the candidacy of his former foe Karpov, who lost the election as Ilyumzhinov had his pockets stuffed with proxy votes from Third World countries.

F Caruana - V Kramnik

7th Mikhail Tal Memorial, (8)

Scotch Game

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 exd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nxc6 bxc6 6 e5 Qe7 7 Qe2 Nd5 8 c4 Ba6 9 Nd2 g6 10 Nf3 Bg7 11 Bg5 f6 12 exf6 Qxe2+ 13 Bxe2 Nxf6 14 0-0-0 0-0-0 15 Be3 Rde8 16 Bd3 d6 17 c5 Bxd3 18 Rxd3 Nd5 19 cxd6 cxd6 20 Bxa7 Kc7 21 Be3 Ra8 22 a3 Ra4 23 Re1 Rf8 24 Ng5 Re8 25 Bb6+! Kd7 26 Rxe8 Kxe8 27 Be3 Kd7 28 Rb3 Kc8 29 Bd2 h5 30 Nf7 Kc7 31 Rg3 Ne7 32 b4 Kd7 33 Rd3 d5 34 Kc2 Nf5 35 Bc3 d4 36 Kb3 Ra8 37 Ng5 Kd6 38 f3 Kd5 39 Ne4 Ne3 40 Rxe3 1-0