Chess

WITH the dog days of summer there comes the silly season, where anything goes in the media to fill the space. And with perfect timing, Fide, the governing body of chess, made headlines in all the chess media with a change to the current World Championship cycle that immediately backfired on them.

I wrote months ago in this column that Fide's plan of staging all of the upcoming Candidates matches in Baku, Azerbaijan was a silly idea from the start because of a long, protracted border dispute with tiny neighbouring Armenia, and said that their star player, Levon Aronian, the world No 4, would refuse to play there.

Now Fide have woken up to this fact. So in their infinite wisdom, last week they moved all of the matches to the Russian city of Kazan – but the minute they made that announcement, up popped Veselin Topalov, the world No 2, who threatened to boycott the event due to what he perceives will be "unfair treatment for him should he face a Russian" there.

Topalov's boycott threat highlighted just how much Russia has consolidated its considerable power within the governing body of chess, as they now more or less control Fide President Kirsan Illyumzhinov, and it will have hosted all of the major events there in the past year: the World Cup, four of the Grand Prix events, the upcoming Chess Olympiad, and now the Candidates matches.

R Pert – M Adams

97th British Championship, (3) Torre Attack

1 d4 Nf6 2 Bg5 d5 3 e3 Nbd7 4 Nf3 h6 5 Bh4 c5 6 dxc5 g5 7 Bg3 Bg7 8 Nbd2 Nh5 9 c4 Nxg3 10 hxg3 Nxc5 11 b4 Ne6 12 cxd5 Qxd5 13 Bc4 Qd6 14 Rb1 0–0 15 0–0 Rd8 16 Qc2 g4 17 Ne4 Qc7 18 Nh4 b5 19 Bb3 Qxc2 20 Bxc2 Bb7 21 Nf5 Kf8 22 Nxg7 Kxg7 23 Nc5 Nxc5 24 bxc5 a5! 25 Rxb5 Ba6 26 a4 Rac8 27 Rxa5 Bxf1 28 Kxf1 Rd5 29 Ke2 Kf6 30 Ra6+ e6 31 c6 Rc5 32 Be4 Ke5 33 f3 f5 34 Bd3 R8xc6 35 Ra7 Rb6 36 f4+ Kf6 37 Bb5 Rd6 38 e4 e5 39 exf5 Rc2+ 40 Ke3 Rc3+ 41 Ke2 Rxg3 42 Rh7 Rxg2+ 43 Kf1 Rh2 44 Kg1 g3 45 Bc4 Rd1+ 0–1