Your questions answered by Natalia Pogonina-37 |
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| Saturday, 25 June 2011 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 The rules are simple - send us your questions and see them featured in Natalia's Q&As column! Q1: Do you think any human will achieve a 3000+ rating? A1: FIDE ratings of different times are relative. If we "freeze" the current ones as a certain standard, then the best players are rated about 2800. To be 3000, one has to score about 3/4 points. I don't think there will ever be a person who will be able to consistenly beat Anand, Carlsen or Aronian 3-1.  Q2: I often listen to Classical music while studying or analyzing chess positions and puzzles. Many of my friends who play chess, like classical music. Do you like classical music? Is there any kind of connection with chess? Who is your favorite musician? A2: While studying, I usually don't listen to any music at all since it's distracting. I have a deep respect for classical music, but in daily life prefer something "lighter" like A-ha, Enigma, Mylene Farmer or Dido. Not to mention LOTs of rap since my husband is a hard-core admirer of the hip-hop culture. Q3: What do you bring to a tournament? And, in the U.S. at least, it is common to bring your own tournament bag, board, pieces and clock: do you have a tournament set you travel with, and if so will you post a picture for us! A3: In the chess sense, all I need is a laptop with my opening preparation. The boards and digital clocks are always provided by the organizers. However, my chess friends sometimes take lessons from me since I'm quite skillful at packing up suitcases. Choosing the outfits for an event and making sure the luggage doesn't disturb you along the way is half the overall tournament success.  Q4: Excellent articles, can you please tell me if anyone can play at the Tal Memorial or is it just for GM? Do you know the exact date for this coming one? Thanks a lot. A4: Thanks. The Tal Memorial will probably have a record XXII category this year and will take place in Moscow in November. According to FIDE Vice-president Ilya Levitov, Anand, Carlsen, Aronian, Kramnik, Karjakin, Nakamura, Gelfand, Wang Hao and Nepomniatchi have confirmed their participating, while Ivanchuk will also get an invitation. And now try to guess yourself if anyone can play them or not.  Q5: What do you consider the best chess game? I have asked this question to many great players and would love to hear your view. A5: There are many absolutely incredible chess masterpieces that we see in chess books and different "best prize" contests. And I don't think that any single game stands out from all the others so far that we may call it "the best". Q6: I've been following the open tournament for the past 5 years regularly. What I see is that the competition has been getting stiffer and stiffer. More number of strong players have joined in (mostly the youngsters, but no-name adults too with their practice) thus increasing the player base. This scenario is what they call in economics "perfectly competitive model" What do you think is the future of chess competition? will the number of players in the tournament in future generally remain the same due to people quitting chess eventually? In which case only the stronger ones remain which leads to even more tough competition over years. Isn't it tough for the players above the age of 18 years as they will be facing stronger opposition in every tournament they play and that they will no longer play "age-category" tournaments anymore? So is chess only limited to youngsters, and that if any one is over 18, they either have to move on to other career/job, or put up with stronger opposition if they feel they do have guts to defeat them and take part in Open tournaments? A6: First of all, chess is indeed becoming more competitive as more people start competing in tournaments. Modern amateurs are often underrated and very solid players who study opening, practice a lot and are free of the professional burden of having to earn money by playing. Also, the FIDE rule that gives a player rated 400 points above just 0.08 points is called ridiculous by many GMs. For example, a 2500 has to get 92 points out of 100 against a 2100 in order to maintain one's rating. Or do you think a 2800 will score that well against a 2400-rated IM? Secondly, the trend is that life is becoming faster and faster, and we will obviously see more rapid and blitz in the future. However, as a devoted chess fan, I wouldn't like to see kids trained to be skillful woodpushers instead of bright strategic thinkers. One can't ignore the benefits of playing standard time control chess and replace it with blitz/rapid. Nonetheless, it is understandable that most chess fans can't afford to spend as much time on chess as open events require (e.g. 9 days in a row), so there has to be an alternative that can be run over the weekend. Thirdly, most junior players compete in tournaments on par with adults. Of course, there are special age group championships, but it's not like kids play only among themselves. And yes, depending on the situation, either after 17 or after graduating from the university, they have to make up their minds and evaluate their chances of becoming a chess pro. Chess is very competitive, and you have got to be one of the very best to make a living by playing only. Of course, there are other ways you can earn money doing something chess-related, but it's a different story. Q7: How do I beat you at the upcoming Polugaevsky Memorial? I'm a weak candidate master. A7: Attend a hypnotist and have him convince you you are Garry Kasparov. 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