I have written several times about The Lion, so it should be familiar to regular visitors to Marsh Towers.
I was delighted to see our favourite opening involved a game against World Champion Vishy Anand.
Follow the link to the home of The Lion and see the item dated 23/12/2009.
http://www.vanrekom.nl/thelion/indexgb.htm
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Short version: The main problem about this story and the game is that it wasn't a game played by Anand.
Long version:
Every summer there is a team simul event by the well-known German chess club OSG Baden-Baden (German team champion 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009). Their Bundesliga team is quite strong with many stars from all over the world. And the purpose of this day with the team simul is to present their stars to the public, the press and the chess fans. That's why they are having this team simul as an open air event right in the center of Baden-Baden. The really nice location is the Trinkhalle in Baden-Baden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinkhalle_%28Baden-Baden%29). The event allows about 150 chess players to face a set of players from Baden-Baden. By no means all of them are GMs, the team usually also consists of players of their second team and their Women's team. (some results and pictures see here: http://www.schachzentrum-baden-baden.de/?s=mannschaftssimultan)
Well, the event goes on like this: One player walks around to all of the 138 boards, shakes hands, and makes the first move. According to the pictures, it was Anand's turn to make the first move. Then another player of the Baden-Baden team makes the 2nd move, and again a different player makes the 3rd move etc.,... I think everyone gets the picture: much fun, and low level of play. We can assume that e.g. Anand has played the 1st, 11th, 21st and 31st move of each game. But in the meantime, other team colleagues have followed up with some contradicting plans, dropped material etc.
Summing up: yes Anand was there, but the game was a fun team simul. And saying the amateur was beating Anand is an outright lie.
(user papageno at chesspub.com)
Thank you for the explanation, papageno.
Post a Comment