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Two-time vice-world champion in classical chess Ian Nepomniachtchi spoke in an interview about his mood for the 2024 Candidates Tournament, commented on the selection system for it, spoke about the change of citizenship of Russians, assessed the position of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on admission to the 2024 Games and shared his impressions from the success of the cyber team Team Spirit.
The Russian in 2021 lost to world champion Norwegian Magnus Carlsen in the title match — 3.5-7.5. In 2023, the grandmaster in the match for the world crown lost to the Chinese challenger Ding Liren in a tiebreaker — 8.5-9.5.
— Yang, you have an interesting inscription on your sweatshirt — » In Siberia of my own free will.» What does it mean?
— In September I was at the economic forum in Tyumen and gave a simultaneous game show. The inscription apparently suggests that earlier, about five hundred years ago, people were mostly exiled to Tyumen, as well as to Siberia in general. And the idea, perhaps, is that many people now want to live in the region.
—You are often invited to such events?
— Proposals are received periodically. When it is possible to take part in them in accordance with the schedule, I do so. But I can’t say that I often give such sessions or take part in any public events.
— Not so long ago, FIDE extended the suspension of Russian national teams from participating in team competitions. How much do you miss such tournaments and is there any hope that they will return us in the near future, because the World Olympiad will be held in 2024?
“I would like us to take part there.” I think that the probability definitely does not exceed, I would say carefully, 50%. Of course, team tournaments are my favorite, but there are several points that prevent participation, let's call it that. The FIDE ban on the performance of our national teams is only one of them.
On the other hand, we must understand that with the exception of team tournaments, chess as the sport as a whole is doing much better than the rest. Yes, performing in a neutral status is, of course, unpleasant, but when compared with many other athletes who cannot compete outside of Russia, it’s a shame for chess players to complain.
“Relations with Ukrainians will not be easy”
— How are you treated abroad now? Is the opinion changing in the elite or are they far from politics?
— It is clear that in relations with Ukrainian chess players there will be a very big background. Of course, today and, I think, in the foreseeable future, communication will not be easy. But in general, I would not say that the attitude towards me in the professional environment has somehow changed due to the fact that I am from Russia.
It is clear that not a single Russian will receive an invitation to certain tournaments (with a smile). I was pleasantly surprised by the organizers of the January tournament in Wijk aan Zee (Netherlands). On the eve of the World Championship match (2023), I needed to compete in strong competition. This tournament was one of the options, but back in July 2022 the organizers informed me that they would like to invite me, although they did not see the possibility of my participation. Now, as I understand it, the position has softened a little.
— Was the invitation a surprise?
— Yes, it’s difficult to find any similar strong tournament on the same dates. There will be a major Fischer chess competition in February, but its organizers have not contacted me. I only learned about it from conversations with foreign colleagues during a tournament held in St. Louis. On the other hand, it is impossible to play in all competitions; in February it will be time to prepare for the Candidates Tournament.
After the end of the performance in Wijk aan Zee, there will not be much time to rest, prepare, and gain strength.
— Are you surprised by some of the players who have already qualified into the Candidates Tournament, or was everything quite predictable?
— The greatest surprise is that Azerbaijani Nijat Abasov, who took fourth place in the World Cup, will most likely play. Because with a probability of over 90% (World Cup winner) Magnus Carlsen will not play. Wait and see. It is clear that Indian Santosh Vidit is having a great year. And if he had beaten Abasov in the quarterfinals of the World Cup, he could have qualified for the Candidates Tournament in August. But then he performed very well at the Grand Swiss and won.
It’s a shame that our grandmaster Andrei Esipenko lacked quite a bit to win a ticket to the Candidates Tournament. He played the “Big Swiss” in wonderful style. Now, as I understand, the race for the two remaining seats has become very tense, with (Dutch) Anish Giri, (American) Wesley So, (French representative) Alireza Firouzja, (American) Lenier Dominguez, and (Indian) Gukesh all vying for them Dommaraju (the conversation with Nepomnyashy took place in December — ed.).
«The idea of FIDE is not bad, but crude»
— Yes different attitudes towards the FIDE selection system. How does it seem to you — convenient, stable, logical?
— This year the FIDE Grand Prix series of tournaments was replaced by a rating series. The idea is probably not bad, it is reminiscent of the scoring system from tennis. But it’s not entirely clear to me why not only classical chess competitions are counted, but also rapid and blitz competitions. This is still a completely different type of chess.
And selection by rating will be calculated based on data as of January 1, 2024, and not the annual average. There are probably advantages to this: so that a person does not sit on the same high rating all year. This encourages play. But when it became clear that new faces were entering the ranking race, including Dominguez, and there was a possibility that separate tournaments would be held for Gukesh and Firouzja (to collect the missing points in the ranking), FIDE began to introduce some additional clarifications . It is clear that the selection system is crude and not everything was foreseen in advance.
I hope that we will not see a repetition of the feat of the Chinese Chess Federation, which managed to fit 30 games into one month so that Ding Liren had time to play them and get into the Candidates Tournament. Games that passed…
— Behind closed doors?
— Let's just say, behind tightly closed doors (with a smile). Some games and tournaments may raise questions. I wrote about this to FIDE and the relevant commissions. I received a fairly official response, which, however, said that in the future they will try to prevent such manipulations by some restrictions in the rules.
By the way, when the tournaments were held, as far as I know, a number of strong chess players contacted FIDE, expressing concern about the situation. But concern is not the same as an official demand, so this letter was conveniently ignored. It is clear that the selection system is imperfect and there was a loophole in the rules that was exploited by the Chinese side.
This does not look good on FIDE; now there is a great temptation to organize some additional competitions exclusively for those chess players who are fighting for rating places in the Candidates Tournament. I hope that in the end everything will be fair, in compliance with sporting criteria.
“Changing citizenship in chess is a big loss”
— In 2023, a galaxy of strong Russians changed their sports citizenship and now represent different countries. How critical is the situation for our chess and the national team?
— I will quote one functionary of our federation: “The downed pilots and completely unknown chess players left.” True, it must be said that the “downed pilots” not so long ago won the European team championship, Alexey Sarana and Alexander Predke (the ex-Russians led the Serbian team, which won the tournament for the first time). And they fought for high places in the Grand Swiss until the last moment.
Many grandmasters changed their federation to another and this is quite a big loss. Combined with the fact that, in general, I, unfortunately, do not yet see a galaxy of very strong juniors in our country. It seems to me that this is a serious problem. I spoke about it repeatedly in conversations with the leadership of the Russian Chess Federation and in various interviews.
I hope the situation will change for the better. Even without taking into account the outcome of several very strong and promising chess players, I cannot say that in the long term we will have a good chance of success in team competitions.
I recently listened to an interview with Alexander Grischuk, who recalled that the “Match of the Century” on 10 boards with the world team in 2002 was a very important tournament for him. The Russian team was then initially a slight favorite and although they lost, the meeting was very equal. And if a few years ago, say, in 2010-2012, we had three or four people consistently in the top 10 of the world rankings, now the trend is quite deplorable (in the top ten are Nepomniachtchi and Sergei Karyakin, who refused to play in international competitions in a neutral status — ed.).
It is clear that the advent of computers evened the odds; chess is now practiced all over the world, and our coaching school is no longer so unique. But again, what is stopping us, for example, from adopting the experience of India or Uzbekistan? In these countries, great attention is paid to the growth of youth; a fairly serious chess boarding school operates in Uzbekistan, and in 2022, yesterday’s juniors won the World Olympiad.
In India, chess is enjoying a huge wave of popularity, perhaps comparable to what it was in the USSR. And it turns out there is very serious support for capable guys. If, for example, you meet the grandmaster norm, then you may have a personal sponsor. And Nihal Sarin, Arjun Erigaisi, Gukesh, Rameshbabu Pragnanandha and others have them. We have something to work on in this regard. I hope that the situation will improve, but so far, unfortunately, I don’t see much work in this direction.
“Kramnik has started a crusade against cheaters”< br>— Recently, the chess world has been stirred up by the situation with the search for contradictions between Vladimir Kramnik and Hikaru Nakamura. Kramnik conducted a serious study and concluded that the American has extremely suspicious streaks of winning games in online chess.
— You know, my mother is a university mathematics teacher, she has quite a lot of colleagues who also study probability theory. I asked their opinions, asked them to make calculations, and it turned out that this was a rather complicated task. What Kramnik is talking about is not even so much about probabilities — rather, here you need to build a complex statistical model.
Kramnik began a crusade against cheating on the Internet. We communicate with him and he shares certain statistics with me. The unexpected successes of some players are impressive. I never would have thought that, statistically speaking, any of them were that good. You have to understand that if a person wants to cheat, plays at home and has a couple of tricks up his sleeve, then no obstacles will stop him.
Yes, online cheating is one thing, but there is another problem: what to do about offline cheating? Now there is a check of players with metal detectors, a delay in broadcasting games, but if for a second we imagine that a person has feedback from some kind of assistant, then the delay in broadcasting no longer makes sense, and we rely solely on the sensitivity of various sensors. You can't be 100% sure of them. I think that in the near future the problem of cheating will be very acute.
Maybe not in elite competitions, because there are big ones there reputational risks, but in ordinary open tournaments. Recently, by the way, smart glasses with built-in cameras came out that look like regular ones. These are not some kind of spy equipment, they cost about $300. The problem of cheating is very acute, I hope that somehow it will be possible to contain the spread of this infection.
“The IOC wants to sit on all the chairs”
— The IOC recently allowed Russians to participate in the Olympics, but in a neutral status and with a number of serious restrictions. How do you assess this decision and is our participation possible?
“It is no coincidence that the IOC delayed this decision almost until the last minute. But if in the end some of our athletes are able to take part in the Olympics, then it will be great. In any case, it's better than the other way around. It is clear that the IOC leadership wants to sit on all the chairs at the same time. It cares not about the well-being of athletes from Russia and other countries, but about their reputation in the media space.
I hope that as many of our athletes as possible will be able to compete at the Games in Paris and win medals.
—Will refusing to participate be the wrong option?
— This is everyone's personal decision. I have seen many people talk about their reluctance to participate on such terms. Of course, first of all, victory is important, but even participation in the Olympic Games is an important milestone in the life of every athlete. The sporting age is short. When you work hard for 15–20 years for Olympic medals, then such a decision, whether to go or not to go, requires very serious consideration.
— In the current situation, some of our athletes are changing their citizenship. How do you feel about this?
— If for some athlete this, for example, is the only chance to compete at the Olympics or to remain in the sport, then what should we talk about? Like refusal to participate in the Games, such a choice is a personal matter for everyone.
«Life without chess has its advantages»
— Eight months have passed since the world title match. Did you manage to recover and move past this story?
— From a moral point of view, due to my character, I am easy-going, but when you turn on, say, YouTube and see some clips from a past fight in the recommendations, it does not add pleasant emotions. In the previous match with Carlsen, he suffered a painful defeat, but, objectively speaking, it was deserved. Then I came to my senses quite quickly, but now this period of time was a little longer. I needed to recover more physically and feel, relatively speaking, a little hungry before the game. Since the summer, I haven’t played very carefully every month and, for example, played at the World Cup without any desire.
And then I managed to take a break; in October I didn’t play a single game, not even in blitz games on the Internet. On the one hand, this is good, but on the other, it’s not easy to re-enter the game. And at the tournament in St. Louis, I performed terribly on the first day, and then played out a little. Pretense is important, but I decided to try to live for a month without chess. There are also many advantages to this, but the main thing is not to get caught up (with a smile). jpg» />
«I used to play Dota 2 with the Team Spirit coach»
— What did you fill the vacuum with, what did you switch to?
— I watched a lot of sports and did a lot of it with a coach. Almost every day in the gym. I watched the (prestigious cyber tournament) The International and even commented on it a little myself, as a form of relaxation. In addition to chess, there are many interesting activities.
— What can you say about the level of our guys?
— In Team Spirit, guys from Russia and Ukraine have been playing together for many years. They won two years ago and are now back in first place. This year the prize fund was very low by the standards of this tournament, but all the strongest still played. And our guys dominated terribly throughout the entire competition and deservedly won it. They were head and shoulders stronger than everyone else and therefore we can only applaud them.
— Do you communicate with these guys or, perhaps, have you crossed paths before?
— I know the coach of this team, because about 15 years ago we played quite a lot together, back in the first Dota. And the guys who are performing now are from a different generation. I don’t know any of them personally.
— That Dota and today’s are heaven and earth?
“Back then everyone was an amateur, some played a little stronger, some weaker.” And now this is a professional discipline that requires enormous knowledge and great pretense. This is already real work. I play sometimes, but if you compare it with a chess rating, it’s at about 2000 points (comparable to the first rank — ed.). Previously, when I played more or less constantly, I was at the level of 2400-2500, but now I have completely forgotten how.
— The Candidates Tournament is coming up. You won the previous two and your fans are probably worried about the question: is the energy that helped you win still there? To go for the world crown again, did failure break you?
—I don’t know how to answer you. You either have energy or you don’t, but I’m not ending my career. I'll do everything I always do and try to play my best. It is clear that no one guarantees victory for me, as in previous tournaments. I will prepare according to my own understanding, and everything else will be decided at the board.
— Nobody has won the Candidates Tournament three times. Is this the main incentive or an accompanying one?
— There is only one available place and every effort must be made to take it. And records are a nice bonus, but nothing more.
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