The trash talk gambit
Written by Jaideep Unudurti | Posted: November 7, 2014 1:07 am
Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen are all set to clash for the World Chess Championship starting Saturday. The return match, held in the Russian resort town of Sochi, will see Anand aiming to wrest back the crown he lost last year in Chennai. Just days earlier, legend Garry Kasparov had hinted darkly that Anand may be in cahoots with Russian intelligence to “destabilise” his protégé, Carlsen. In an interview, he said that the democracy-hating Russkies might nobble the incumbent champion.
The image of Anand confabulating with trenchcoated KGB agents over a plate of thayir sadam is certainly evocative. While it may have sent ripples amongst the more credulous Twitteratti, long-time watchers of the scene know that this is standard operating procedure. Boxing has its storied tradition of “weigh-ins”, where the contestants and their supporters trash talk, if not brawl. Chess championships too have their equivalent, when the two gladiators and their representatives in the run-up to the match fire verbal salvoes at each other.
Kasparov was Carlsen’s coach and still considers himself a mentor to the Norwegian. His statements are part of the put-downs, faint praise and veiled threats that fans have come to accept.
Why is all this so important? Chess is a game of perfect information. You see all your opponent’s pieces on the board, and so does she. The mindgames are an attempt to inject what strategist Clausewitz called the “fog of war”. Each of the duellists wants to insert an element of uncertainty in the enemy’s mind that can paralyse decision-making.
“Lies and hypocrisy do not survive for long on the chessboard. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie, while the merciless fact, culminating in a checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite,” said the great Emanuel Lasker. He was world champ for 27 years and certainly knew what he was talking about. Grandmasters crave this certainty, this attempt to impose order in a chaotic world, by reducing it to 64 squares. Shake this certainty, and you might just have that extra ammo in a gun battle.
Carlsen is a master at this agenda-setting, this brinkmanship as popularised by Henry Kissinger. Prior to the match in Chennai, he demanded that there should be a sickness clause, which would enable him to take a two-day break whenever he wanted in the middle of the match. Why? Because of the possibility that his Norwegian constitution may collapse due to eating spicy Indian food. As Anand was an Indian and presumably used to the fare, this clause would expressly not be allowed for him.
Again, in the run-up to Sochi, he refused to sign the contract, agreeing to do only at the last minute after the global chess federation called his bluff and threatened to replace him. Carlsen showed his shrewd understanding of what makes a chess player tick. Grandmasters are used to strict objective rules governing the play.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Carlsen’s mentor is Nakamura, not Kasparov.