5 April 2017
When Important People Take it Easy
Eteri Kublashvili reports on the April fool day's giveaway chess tournament from the the Central House of Chess Player.
A traditional festive tournament, the World Championship in giveaway chess, took place in the Central House of Chess Player on April 1. It was already the 21st edition of the tournament, which was jointly organized by newspaper Moskovskij Komsomolets, the Russian Chess Federation and the Russian Chess House.This beautiful tradition's pioneer was a journalist and writer Evgeny Gik, who passed away in October last year. A lot of interesting memories about her husband's starting the April giveaway tournament, as well as about its winners and participants throughout the many years of its existence, were shared by Bella, Evgeny's widow.
The first tournament's appearance under the "MK" banners was seen in 1996, which was attended by the famous Ostap Bender in the person of an actor Archil Gomiashvili. During those many years that the event was staged in the hotel "Cosmos", its winners have come to embrace Sergey Smagin, Igor Burstein, an academician Alexander Nekipelov, while the rank of participants features Alexander Zhukov, Vladimir Dashkevich and many other famous persons.
Besides coming again to enjoy some light chess, a famous composer, Merited Artist of Russia and State Prize Laureate Vladimir Dashkevich performed two musical pieces in the meanwhile as well. Also performing the piano pieces that evening was Roman Lvovich - a well-known music composer and arranger. Meanwhile, Mikhail Slutsky, an entertainer artist, master of impromptu speeches and "grandmaster of humor" (as labelled by Evgeny Gik), would regularly amuse the audience with his witty remarks to keep up the festive mood. This said, one of the breaks was filled in with a comic quiz.
The "Russian Chess House" Director Murad Amannazarov honored the tournament with an exhibition of unique chess sets and various chess artifacts, a handwritten letter by the young Vladimir Kramnik being among them. In his turn, candidate of historical sciences Dmitry Oleynikov acquainted everyone with the items exhibited by the RCF Chess Museum.
This is not the end of the museum topic, however, since the closing ceremony saw the founder of the St. Petersburg Museum of Porcelain and Chess, art connoisseur and collector German Aleksandrov, who was one of the tournament participants, gifting luxurious collection books "Porcelain and Chess" to the two best tournament players - an amateur and a professional.
Ilya Legostaev and Evgeny Miroshnichenko shined as program hosts, their lighthearted humor helping bridge the in-between round gaps seamlessly.
The festive program's list of guests featured RCF president and vice-president of FIDE Andrey Filatov with his wife Elena, editor-in-chief and owner of the newspaper Moskovskij Komsomolets Pavel Gusev, President of the Moscow Chess Federation Vladimir Palikhata, the Duma deputy from the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug and President of the Ugra Chess Federation Vasily Filipenko, Rector of the Russian State Social University Natalia Pochinok, an academician Alexander Nekipelov, grandmasters Alexander Morozevich, Sergey Shipov, Olga Girya, Evgeni Vasiukov, Sergey Smagin, Maria Manakova, a many-time world champion in chess composition Andrei Selivanov, Anatoly Avraamovich Bykhovsky, Alexander Grigorievich Bach and many other fans of chess.
The opening speeches were given by Andrey Filatov, Pavel Gusev and Murad Amannazarov.
I do not have the heart to say that playing a giveaway chess comes easy. Thus, Sergey Shipov refused an invitation, reasoning that lavishing material on your opponent is far from an easy task for a professional player. One would find it difficult to contest this statement. You need to negate your standard approach to chess, forget about e4 and d4 strategies in favor of an entirely different way of thinking.
With the competition being held to a knockout system, it came as quite a surprise that such chess masters as Alexander Morozevich, Olga Girya, Evgeni Vasiukov, Oleg Pervakov, Artem Akhmetov (who, by the way, celebrated his birthday on April 1) dropped out at quite early stages.
An international master Vladimir Shumilin, a managing partner of Buran Venture Capital Mikhail Salontai, an entrepreneur Zarif Safoyev and Ekaterina Vasyukova reached the semi-finals, which were enthusiastically commented for the audience by Evgeny Miroshnichenko and executive director of the Russian Chess Federation Mark Glukhovsky. The semi-final matchups saw Shumilin and Salontai outplaying Safoev and Vasiukova respectively.
Vladimir Shumilin outperformed Mikhail Salontai in the final, while Zarif Safoev won the battle for third from Ekaterina Vasiukova.
Prize winners were awarded by Andrey Filatov, Murad Amannazarov and Peter Spector, first deputy Editor-in-Chief of Moskovskij Komsomolets. A gold cup that Vladimir Shumilin took home from the Central House of Culture would be worthy of a classical chess champion, while Mikhail Salontai, among other things, was gifted by Murad Amannazarov with two original text sheets written by Mikhail Botvinnik himself.
The evening passed in one breath, accompanied with tasty treats and heart-to-heart talks. The night closed in on Moscow, but the guests were unwilling to leave. This is a good example of how holidays should be celebrated, let alone a Fool's Day.
