Chess players get silent treatment in £1.7m tournament
By Matthew Day in Warsaw
Published: 10:57PM BST 23 Apr 2010
The world of chess has been rocked by a controversial demand for the game’s greatest international tournament to be played in complete silence.
Bulgarian champion Veselin Topalov has invoked little-known rules which allow him to ban conversation between the him and his opponent during the World Chess Championship.
Casting aside the sport’s staid and cerebral reputation, he has insisted he will not speak to India’s Viswanathan Anand as they compete for the title and a prize of £1.7 million over almost a month.
It is the first time the rules have been applied to the 12-match tournament, which starts in the Bulgarian capital Sofia on Saturday, and have provoked uproar among players and fans.
Rules allowing players to demand a ban on communication were introduced in 2005 in order to curb the practice of competitors offering each other draws during drawn-out games.
But they have rarely been invoked and this is the first time any player has demanded their application in a world championship.
The move by Topalov, who has a reputation as the “bad boy” of chess, have been described as “insane” and “a sheer provocation”.
The dispute has been escalated by Anand, a popular figure on the world chess scene, who has said he will refuse to play in silence, arguing “a world championship should be played with world championship rules.”
Here is the full article.
Since Anand knows Topalov will not propose anything and will never accept a draw, the provocation is that Anand opens the possibility to talk during the game !
Topalov must be scared.
What FIDE rule says that you can’t speak to offer a draw? FIDE laws article 9.1 say that you CAN offer a draw.
“”golf’s usually placid waters”????
Strange, confusing and poorly written article replete with typos (Kramniak, “the move…have been”) and not well referenced.
Kramniak is the name of Kramnik’s evil twin brother who lives in St. Kitts.
Kramniak is the one who installed the Rybka in the toilet to frame his good sportsman brother.
Kramniak also won a Nobel Prize for figuring out how to make a public toilet run complex chess software.
Larry Evans wrote about him in his book” “World Chess Champions and their Evil Twins”
The Bulgarians were right all along!
It is obvious to me that topalov’s camp has made this move to disturb Anand’s inner poise and anger him.
Anand is gentle and corteous; so by being rude to the nth degree, camp Topalov seeks to insult Anand, so his inner poise is shaken by anger…
It is, no more and no less, a low tactic to gain an advantage in the match, similar to the kind of insults Kramnik had to bear in Elista. Despicable!
It shows a lack of class from Topalov, and also a lack of confidence in himself, in terms of his capacity to defeat Anand under normal conditions.
That Danailov and Topalov are able to stoop to this low level is an insult to the World Championship as an institution.
In contrast, when Kasparov played his first match for the World Championship in 1984 against Karpov, they used to analyze together at the end of each game. Even though they were fierce rivals, courtesy and respect were paramount!
Kamalakanta
Sorry. I misspelled the typo. It’s “Mr. Kremniak.”
Everyone else is talking about the Sofia rule and how both parties have come to a mutual agreement since Anand rejected the Sofia rule, but not this article. From the way it is written, it suggests “insane” “bad boy” Topalov might even declare foul if Anand mumbles a draw offer and claim victory based on “Rules allowing players to demand a ban on communication were introduced in 2005 in order to curb the practice of competitors offering each other draws during drawn-out games. “