Grandmaster makes a move on the Kremlin
September 30, 2008
Garry Kasparov’s greatest opponent is Russian political apathy, says viv groskop
When 5,000 Russians gathered in St Petersburg at the weekend to protest against Putin’s presidency, one of the leaders of the ‘March of the Discontented’ was a man we are more used to seeing glaring across a chessboard – grandmaster Garry Kasparov.
Famous for his chess battles with Anatoly Karpov in the 1980s, Kasparov retired from the game in 2005 and is now pitting himself against Putin as an increasingly visible dissident.
Saturday’s protest – during which 100 were arrested – marked the fact that Russia’s next general election is only a year away. According to the constitution, Putin should be stepping down then. But Kasparov and his supporters are concerned the President will attempt – illegally – to stand for a third term.
Usually Russia’s opposition parties are unable to find common ground, but on this issue they rallied: representatives from left and right marched on Saturday, including from the National Bolshevik Party and Yabloko, the social-liberal party.
If this movement could find a figurehead in Kasparov, it might make some gains. But though the chess master is a household name, admired for his steely determination, few young Russians recall his heyday. “Kasparov’s problem,” a St Petersburg journalist tells me, “is that no-one under the age of 30 really knows who he is.”
Kasparov’s first match in the big league in 1985 was the longest in history, eventually broken off by adjudicators after 48 games when Anatoly Karpov began to show signs of physical and emotional strain. Kasparov is not a man who suffers fools gladly. As one critic puts it, he is the genius whom “no one would dare call a demented control freak to his face.”
Here is the full story.
Don’t give up, Garry!
Caption:
Look comrades! The booger at the end of my finger is invisible!
Follow me!
lol. Garry is still trying to sell this BS throughout the so-called “West”
Kasparov’s involvement in the Russian politics will (should) answer some almost “philosophical” questions…..about CHESS!!!
Since, why do chess players are looked at as “super-intellectuals” for centuries? Because the common belief is that “they can see many moves ahead” and this is somehow translated into a real life ability to see things ahead. But do chess players really see “many moves ahead” in real life? The common sense suggest that they should, but interestingly enough very few great chess players had even tried utilizing their look-ahead talent in other things than in chess.
Now we have Kasparov as a rare exception. By some, the best ever chess player ever, by some others among the best ever. Yet, so far he is doing quite poorly in real life. Ran for the presidency, yet he didn’t even get close enough to get on the ballots. Did he see that ahead of time? He wants to bring down Putin. So far it seems that everything is happening in Russia goes exactly to the opposite direction Kasparov wishes to see. Does he have a secret move none of us “mortals” can even see?
Well, time will tell.
“Does he have a secret move none of us “mortals” can even see?”
Yes he does. He moves to the USA permanently and takes over the USCF. Once installed as President, the chess-nut-jobs begin to sue him for having a Russian accent and posting as the Fake Vladimir Putin on the Internet.
Somehow Spam Slaoni and several juvenile sheep will be incuded in the action.