It's worth noting that the much-ballyhooed ICA Chess Bulletin, which is so
often pointed to as the reason for Illinois having one of the highest state
chess association dues in the country, did not bother reporting at all on
the interesting Kasparov vs. 2084 player fracas in his July simul in
Chicago.

The leading feature article on this event, just out in the most recent,
two-month's-late-in-the-mail issue, was filled with the usual feel-good
chess event hyperbole designed to stultify the average reader's senses,
along with plenty of ad copy for the Chicago Board Options Exchange. We are
also treated to endless paragraphs about the technical details of some new
trading system the CBOE uses, as well as some shameless plugging for
Belzberg Technologies.

But absolutely nothing is said about the most thought-provoking part of the
event: Kasparov terminating a game because the opponent was found to rated
2084, violating the 2000 limit agreed upon with the organizers. Apparently
Gazza was concerned because he as white was playing a "theoretical line"
against Black's Scandinavian.

All of this went completely unremarked in the six uninterrupted pages the
ICA Bulletin dedicated to this event. Certainly the aborted game was not
included, which would have been fascinating to see. Instead we are treated
to a short collection of Kasparov poundings on stockbrokers.

Next time the ICA might as well just reprint the CBOE's press release. It
would at least take less time to read.


TMB

I found the article very interesting. It was informative and contained
five of the games Kasparov played in the tournament. I wish another
company would come forward with $ to bring him back for another
simultaneous.

If I am looking for dirt on some event, I don't look for it in the ICB,
I go to rec.games.chess.politics. :-)

Marty

If I am looking for dirt on some event, I don't look for it in the ICB,

The incident could have been portrayed honestly, without recourse to
slamming or criticizing Kasparov. It was fraught with discussion points: was
Garry right to abort the game? What prompted him to do so? Did he see
ability that he KNEW was over a 2000 rating (apparently the opponent's
rating was not visible). Gary made a generous offer to restart from the
beginning, against the same player--this time he planned to play a more
normal line. Should Black have accepted the restart? (He didn't---I sure
would have!) What was the theoretical Garry was using, and why might it have
been dangerous for him against an Expert-level player? And many readers
might not be so informed as to the delicate nature of simul rules,
especially those concerning ratings limits...this too could have been
charted, in a sidebar. Were special exceptions made at this one, or is 2000
the normal limit for a GM simul?

All of this potentially interesting content, surrounding the very rare
Chicago appearance of the greatest player in the game, was ignored. And the
article was not that interesting, especially the huge amount of text
dedicated to pushing the sponsors. Yes, they deserve some, but not 2/3 of
the feature.

TMB

The Masked Bishop wrote:
It's worth noting that the much-ballyhooed ICA Chess Bulletin, which is
so often pointed to as the reason for Illinois having one of the highest
state chess association dues in the country, did not bother reporting at
all on the interesting Kasparov vs. 2084 player fracas in his July simul
in Chicago.

[etc.]

There's a discussion of this by Neil Kazaross, the player concerned, at

http://www.mrfixitonline.com/readTop...tingId=1366118

The variation played was 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6 3.Nf3 Nxd5 4.d4 g6 5.c4 Nb6
6.Nc3 Bg7 7.h3 O-O 8.Be3 Nc6 9.Qd2 e5 10.d5 Na5, though it's not clear
that Na5 was actually played. Kazaross says that he had a good talk about
chess with Kasparov over dinner afterwards.

There's an article at

http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/lcckasp.html

about a Belzberg/CBOE simul in London last month and Kasparov's visit to
the London Chess Centre the following day. That article also gives the
impression of having had large chunks of one of the organizers brocures
cut-and-pasted into the middle of it. On the other hand, it does have an
interesting game from the London simul featuring Kasparov against 2025-
rated Nick Faulks.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Moistened Love Shack (TM): it's like a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ house in the woods that you can share
with someone special but it's moist!