Author: Fernando Villegas
Date: 14:58:11 06/10/00
After reading the commentaries posted here about how I should face my game against Karpov, I made my mind and decided to get serious, so, as every Friday night, I met my friends, ate as a Viking, drunk as a sailor, talked about everything, told jokes -like that of Moses coming down the mount Sinai and telling his people “I have been with God and I bring to you a good and a bad new...The good one is that He only gave us 10 commandments... the bad one is that adultery is still a sin...”-... lessoned music -three different versions of Goldberg Variations, some Mozart, Barbara Hendricks singing Negro spirituals and so on- and finally I went to bed at around 3 a. m. Maybe not the best way to face a game against Karpov, but at least I had a good time. The game As I told you, there were 8 boards, 4 played by children of a talent chess school and 4 by old farts with national prestige for some reason or another. Well, the sponsor wanted some advertising as a price for his money. One of them was the Minister of Economy, another one a politician and probably the second richest man of Chile, a real financial wizard, then another guy I do not remember and finally your truly in my condition of writer and TV, journal, magazines and radio politic comentarist with some reputation. The first moves were played by Chilean GM Ivan Morovic, and, as you will see, he played very conservatively in order -as organizers told me later- avoid premature carnage. Then Karpov was the man and the real game begun. Let us see how it was with me: White: Morovic first amiable moves, Karpov from then on Blacks: yours truly. Santiago de Chile, 10 june, 2000. King Indian d4 Nf6 c4 g6 Nc3 Bg7 e4 d6 f3 0-0 Bg5 Nd7 Qd2 c6 Ne2 a5 ...I believe this move is the root of some of my problems later... g3 Nb6 ...to make room for the bishop and putting the queen in d7 ASAP. Nb5 Qd8 b3 Re8 ...yes, not the very best, but I can tell you is not easy to concentrate when you are surrounded by two dozens of noisy kibbitzers and the lights of TV are in your face all the time... Bd3 (last move by Morovic) .... Bh3 ...I felt very happy with this move. I felt, also, that white Bd3 was a mistake and I still think the same. g4 (first move by Karpov) .... Qd7 ...with the hope to sacrifice the knight in g4, but of course that little, childish plan, could go OK only with a patzer, not with Karpov. Rg1 h5 ...why not? If you are going to die anyway, better to die with the sword in your hands... Qf2 Nxp pxN Bxp Rd7 Rf8 ...I was thinking in pushing with f3 Bf6 Bh6 Ne2 !!?? ....well, if you see the world master giving you the exchange, it is not neccesary to be a genius to know he has very good reasons to do so, BUT if you are a player like me, a common one, it is difficult to avoid the temptation to get the gift and even to check the man. In this very moment I remembered some master that used to say “when I give a check I am not afraid of nobody”. So... .... BxR+ KxB a4 .. at this moment there were only two surviving boards and so the rythm of the game became very fast, precisely the worst situation for a guy like me that NEVER play fast games because I do not like them. I begun to feel I had not enough time to see not even the first delivery of the laundry list of tactical complications. So after a general and shallow examination of the position I judged useful to begin some operations in “a” in order to get some advantage of the white king situation, but I did not make specific calculations at all. No time for it. Later I realized was better to begin at once the translation of the knight to the King side. Qd3 Kh7 Nc3 pxp pxp Ra6 ...at this moment only my board was still alive and so the rythm was almost that of a blitz kind of game. With just some seconds to play -you just cannot ask Karpov to wait for you- I had a very dreamily sensation that some kind of sacrifice could be perfomed in a2 in order to stabb Karpov in the kidney. Idiot me.... Rg3 h4 ...what else...? Ask Fritz. I have no heart for that... Rg1 Bh5 Rg5 Rf-a8 N2-c3 Ra1 Bb1 Nc8 ...late, too late. RxB and I resign. Mate unavoidable. And now the talk.. After the game I talked with Kasparov, a not very tall man with a round face from which a couple of grey-bluewish eyes stare the world with a mix of boredom, ingenuity and some humour. I asked about the current level of chess computers and he was very disdainful: -They are- he said- faster and faster, but are not already at a level with a GM player... Did he think.. - I asked- he could get a sustantial win against Deep Blue if the case -now imposble- ever arrived? -Well, - he said, smiling- I am almost sure: 50% sure.... Then he explained tht enormous advantage of a player like him over a player like me: -I just have not neccesity to think, I know the patterns of thousands of positions, I know without thinking what must be done, but you must think almost everything, from move to move because you have not so much patterns. My thinking processes begin just playing another GM.....
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