Author: Shay Bushinsky
Date: 15:40:32 05/19/98
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Garry Kasparov vs the Israeli national chess team simul - day 1 (Tel-Aviv, May 19th, 1998) Hello guys, Hope you enjoyed the first round - incredible performance by GK! Kasparov managed to manipulate the simul in his usual extreme professional way: dealing with the problematic board of Smirin first which actually decided the faith of the whole match. After he drew Smirin in a very sharp game (at one point Junior felt Smirin may of missed a great line with a knight sacrifice on g3) Kasparov turned to close another draw with Alterman. Alterman's game developed too passive from the point of view of the Israeli team permitting Kasparov to concentrate on the other games and thus did not take too much energy out of him. Former U-20 world champion, Emil Sutovsky, chose the Shvenigen variation in the Sicilian defense which was a controversial choice being that Kasparov had practically wrote the book on this variation for both sides: white and black. Although reaching what seemed to be a stable position he then tried to push things too hard ending up in total defeat. Huzman, a very solid player who tends to let his own clock tick often yet yielding good results, had failed this time against Kasparov. In a critical position where he seemed to had good drawing chances, Huzman blundered a rook exchage leading to a tactically won endgame for black. From the Israeli side, while the players with the black pieces did all right, the white-piece players looked as if they were outspyched by Kasparov and did not fulfill the expectations of converting their opening advantage to a win. Prior to the match, Kasparov, had devoted all his time since his impeccable sweep of Bulgarian super grandmaster Vasilin Topalov (4-0) to training for the event. He and his second, grandmaster Yuri Dochoyan, had carefully prepared against each individual Israeli player studying their recent games from the World champion interzonal qualification matches just held in Dresden Germany. During the simul, Kasparov seemed very intense, aggressive and sharp. KAsparov arrived to Tel-Aviv with a delegation which included his mother. Klara, who managed the seating arrangements in the playing hall and of course inspired him during the games. Though he had just a 15 minute advantage on his clock to compensate for his need to move from one table to the other, Kasparov always kept an open eye on all clocks all the time knowing which board to approach at what timing. No doubt that the 3-1 defeat of the Israeli team puts the Israelis under incredible pressure on the eve of round 2 to be held Thursday 14:30 local (07:30 EDT) In order to win the overall match, the Israelis know they must score a 3.5-0,5 result which by the looks of today's result seems practically impossible. The games iwere held before several hundred spectators who sat in the Kasparov Academy beautiful building situated in Tel-Aviv. The moves were projected on a huge screen to allow both the crowd and the players to appreciate the current positions. Grandmasters Alon Greenfeld and Ronen Har-Zvi with the help of Junior provided on-line commentary in a different hall which attracted also a big crowd. The moves were fed via Silicon graphics computers to the ICC server and viewers from all over the world picked them up. (http://www.chessclub.com) thanks to a fast Internet link provided by Barak. See you Thursday, -- Shay Bushinsky (the event producer)
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