Spassky’s interview

Boris Spassky is invited to Nalchik to comment the games of the FIDE Grand Prix tournament. Before the next round starts 10th world champion was answered the questions of the journalists.

– What was the most memorable in the first days of the tournament?

– There were several interesting games in the first round that were rather dramatic. One of the most interesting games was between Vasily Ivanchuk and Peter Svidler. Ivanchuk was running out of time and though he played very well, he hadn’t enough time to solve all the problems and as a result he lost. Levon Aronian is a convincing leader. He has two wins. It is quiet a good start. But it is difficult to judge after the first two rounds.

I watch with great interest how the grandmasters of the new generation compete to each other. It is very interesting to follow the style of struggle and to find out who is the dark horse. We know the white horses – they are our favorites.

– Are you going to continue the player’s career?

– The point is that I am 72 and what is the most difficult is to bear the tenseness of the struggle. I can’t do it anymore. I can play one-two games when I am invited to some contest but it is impossible for me to whole distance.
– The most necessary condition to be able to play in the tournaments is to feel like you are ready to “kill” everyone, but I am very shy and now I don’t want to win. If I win I don’t feel any joy but I don’t like to lose. And it is very boring to make draws. I have already made a lot of them. I can tell you that now the old age comes to chess very early. Flourishing comes very early at 26-28. We became champions at 32. I became the champion at 32, Bobby Fisher was a bit younger, Karpov was 24, but he didn’t play the World Championship match. Vasker was 24, and it was the 19th century time.

– Are you going to attend the club “Ladja” and play simultan or may be something else connected with chess?

– Now I don’t have any special program of getting acquainted with the chess life in the republic and namely Nalchik. But there are two things I would like to do- I want to visit the chess club and the local museum of regional studies. This is the minimum program, and I think that it is also the maximum that I can do. As far as I know we have two days off and there are definite touristiс programs on these days. And, of course, I would like to join our chess herd, pardon me for the expression.

– What do you think of the today’s system of determining the World Chess Champion?

– I have never thought of the ideal system. It always seemed to that the title of the champion has lost it significance. I think now it would be reasonable to hold one tournament of claimants of the year and there should be the World Champion of the definite year. But, on the other hand, after Anand, who is the World chess champion now, had won the last game with Kramnik, the significance of the title became more important. And I am happy about this. Speaking about the idea of taking such kind of series in which the selection will be made on the pyramid scheme, which consists of six tournaments, I must say that it is not a new idea. I have an experience of participating in tournaments, made on the GMA. There were also four tournaments and the three best results were taken into consideration. I can’t judge whether it’s reasonable or not. May be it is a little bit complicated. And especially for now, when it is quite difficult to find money for organization of competitions.

Here is the full interview.