I have very high opinion of Alex. I consider him my friend. He is one of the nicest Grandmasters and a very honorable one. I have worked with Alex on a number of occasions. He was my teammate in the USA vs. Russia match and he participated in the 2006 NY City Mayor’s Cup, the highest rated RR event in the United States. Alex also worked with Karpov for the Times Square Rapid Match where he defeated Kasparov. Alex and A. Zatonskih are the only 2 players in history to win both Ukrainian and US Championships.

Again, I was not in Elista so I have no idea what went on. That is why I decided to stay neutral. But the descriptions of the event from ChessBase / Russian media were quite contrasting to what I heard from other direct sources.

So which side is right? As I have said many times before, both players, their managers and FIDE could have resolved this mess in a much more dignified way. It is inexcusable that the situation went way out of hands. That does not mean that I condone the language, actions or behavior of Danailov during and after the match. No professional person should ever behave that way, even if he thinks he was right.

It is silly to have definitive opinions based on what what the media says. We will probably never know the whole truth in Elista. But what I find interesting is honorable Grandmasters who were IN Elista such as Illescas, Vallejo Pons and Onischuk have very contrasting views of what happened. They did not get the information from the tabloids. They WERE THERE! So why such a big contrast?

A few days ago, GM Miguel Illescas, Kramnik’s second, defended Kramnik on Chess.fm. He offered many good and interesting points. I report, you decide. Here are some of the words from Alex Onischuk:

I will not describe the scandal all over again, most of the facts are known. After coming back to the US and reading some reviews and talking about the issue with my colleagues, I realized that I’m one of the not so many supporters of Topalov in this conflict.

In this article I don’t want to argue about who was wrong and who was right. Time will show. I just want to say something that I know for sure, what I felt and I saw from inside and not from reading the Russian press or the ChessBase articles.

1. Nobody in our team considered the match situation catastrophic, not when the score was 0:2 and not when it was 1:3. In fact, we all believed that Topalov had great chances to win the match. Why not? It’s well known that Topalov plays better toward the end. His performance in Linares and Sophia proves it. Physically he is much stronger than Kramnik.

2. The manager of Topalov, Silvio Danailov sincerely believed that Kramnik’s behavior was suspicious and he suspected him of using outside help, so his protests had a purpose to stop whatever it could be and not just to disturb Kramnik.

3. Topalov is a great fighter and he has never wanted the match to be stopped. All he wanted was fair play.

Source: USCF Website. The rest of article by Alex can be read there.
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Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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