Teimour Radjabov Evaluating Bazna Kings
Interview for news portal Day.az
Posted by Chessdom.com
Grandmaster Teimour Radjabov recently competed at the Kings tournament in Bazna, Romania, where he finished on shared third place. Radjabov spoke to Day.az about this event and upcoming tournaments.
Day.az: You were the top-seeded player at the Bazna Kings, but in the end you shared third place. How do you evaluate this result?
Teimour Radjabov: Yes, I was the highest rated, but there was only a slight difference between me and the remaining participants, and let’s not forget who were my opponents. Vassily Ivanchuk – winner of countless super-tournaments; Alexei Shirov – a convincing winner of the recent Grand Slam in Sofia; Boris Gelfand – winner of the World Rapid Cup 2009; American Grandmaster Gata Kamsky – winner of the last World Cup, who recently played a World Championship challenger match with Veselin Topalov; finally, the most experienced Romanian player Liviu-Dieter Nisipianu, who has the title of European chess champion in 2005. It is not by coincidence that the name of the tournament had “Kings” in it. I would say that my result was normal. There were many intense and exciting games. At least on two occasions I was very close to winning.
Day.az: In which games you missed to score wins?
Teimour Radjabov: Against Shirov and Gelfand I had positions that with precise play could have brought me full points.
Day.az: FIDE has recently announced the rules for selection of candidates in the world championship cycle. How difficult will it be to obtain a seat for the matches?
Teimour Radjabov: I don’t know yet. I didn’t think about the FIDE rules. There are rules and I play in accordance with them. What is the point of the endless discussion? Many of them, in my opinion, are far from perfect, but on the other hand FIDE is working on the process of selection, the cycle for the world championship is ongoing, and this is good for chess.
Day.az: Does that mean that your top priority will now become Grand Prix and World Cup?
Teimour Radjabov: It was supposed to be like that anyway. Frankly, there is again some confusion with the calendar. The two most difficult and most important tournaments are almost overlapping. Grand Prix will start only a couple of days after the World Cup and the playing venue for the last phase is yet to be determined.
Link courtesy of e3e5.com
Radjabov will be a World Champion one day.