Chess politics - The big picture / Re: Parr on Winter on "The Termination"

Author

The big picture / Re: Parr on Winter on "The Termination"

Wlodzimierz Holsztynski (Wlod)

2006-03-11, 7:31 pm

Before "the big picture" let me address
the "Parr on Winter" issue. In my opinion
Winter did not write anything which would
justify Campo or make any difference to
any chess-political process. If Campo
reproduced Winter's essay in many copies,
it was his-Campo's idea (most likely
a rotten idea), but Winter is not responsible
for the state of mind of someone as
unpredictable and dishonest as Campo
(who was simply a crook and criminalist).
Objectively speaking, whatever Campo did,
it cannot reflect on Winter. People tend
to make backward logical connections
(due to their statistical positiver correlations?)
but it's neither logical nor nice. That's how
I see it.

*************
THE BIG PICTURE

Once Euwe and Fine were, for all
pracxtical purposes, out of the
championship competition, the SU
dominated chess almost completely.
Some chessplayer could make it
exciting on isolated occasions, like
Gligorich, but truly only Reshevsky
was a serious non-Soviet world champion
candidate.

It's quite nice to dominate, but
to get significant propaganda
advwntage from chess it was
necessary for Soviets to have
international chess opponents
and international interest ini chess.
For this reason they were quite nice
toward the Western grandmasters
(less so toward the ones from
the communist block) and to the
people like GMs Machgielis Euwe and
Fridrik Olafson--the respected FIDE
presidents during 1970-1978 and 1978-1982
years. Soviets even allowed for FIDE
regulations which had discriminated
against the Soviet grandmasters.

Thus one would think that it was in the
Soviet interest to make sure that
the next FIDE president would be as
worthy of respect as the erarlier ones.
Well, there is no such thing like "Soviet",
it is only a convenient abbreviation, a notion.
There are only people. And in the case
of a corrupted system like the Soviet
system, it's only natural that they allowed
for a FIDE president someone as low
as Campomanes. Somehow Campo had
a good insight into the soul of a Soviet
apparatchik, and soviet apparatchiks
found Campo to their liking, they had
to like him more than people who deserved
respect. Possibly, they took Campo easy,
they perhaps thought that they can easily
manipulate Campo, and perhaps they
did, but it was a two-way street, Campo--
the criminalist was able to manipulate the
Soviets to his personal advantage.

If an historian would like a true challenge,
here it is: describe the Campomanes-Soviet
appartatchiks relations. Too bad that Kushnir,
Korchnoy, Pachman, Sosonko, Gulko, Akhsharumova
and others were the victims of the CampoSoviet
FIDE (and of the USCF politicians too).

*****

Another diffirence between the abstract chess
"Soviet interests" and the real interest
of the people who were constituting what
amounted to the real "Soviet chess inistitution"
could be seen on the example of the story
of the candidate matches Kasparov-Korchnoi
and Smyslov-Ribli, 1983. They were almost
aborted, which would be to the detriment of
Chess but also AGAINST the abstract
"Soviet interest". However, it was in the
interest of Karpov. In those years there was
more or less an equality within the domain
of chess between the "Soviet interest" and
the "Karpov interest".

Let's remember that during the Karpov's
reign it was forbidden for the Soviet players
to beat Karpov in international tournaments.
(If you think about it, this was again very
m,uch against the idealistic Soviet chess
interests, but oce again we are dealing with
the true Soviet chess interests in those years).

Thus one should never make any mechanical
assuptions about the political systems
and the people who live under such systems.
One should not rationalize, one should not
extrapolate, etc. I've seen a lot of such
cheap, false arguments, also here on rgc[mp]
(of the type: "he couldn't do it, because if he
did he'd be killed"; or: "they both were the same,
everybody acted the same way under the terror";
and similar stupid, offending opinions).
The "System" is a consideration and not more.
There are still people behind it and aside of it
and against it. And each person is still doifferent,
some are straightforward, some are tricky, etc.
There are also some general habits, traditions,...
Also, the times change, and sharp dynamic turns
do happen.

*****

Now that we have some background, let's focus
on the match.

Kasparov had no say about match postponement.
He some time earlier found some support withing
the Azerbejdzan communist party but that was
about things which **directly** were related to
Kasparov only. This time it was a question of
a confrontation of Karpov v. Kasparov. Since:

1.Karpov was the world champion;
2.Karpov was winning 5:1 (at one moment);
3.Karpov's chess (and almnmost any) well being
got identified for years with the interests
of the Soviet chess;
4.Kasparov was was but a promising youngster;

It was really not up to Kasparov to
propose any match regulation changes.

Think about it--it is not up to anybody
to propose such changes, and much less
so to enforce them. Even world champion Lasker
only asked for a postponement due to his
very serious health problem during the match.
Capablanka refused and it was the end of the story.

Thus even under different circumstances it is
quite unthinkable that the challenger can change
the regulation to suit himself.

The clear conclusion is that the initiative
of changing the regulation was not Kasparov's.

Winter says that during one of the conversations
Kasparov said something like this "In this
case let's cancel match all together". And that
Kasparov was the first to mouth the idea of
cancelling the match. So what?!!! The youngster
had lively mind, was able to consider during
a conversation all kind of possibilities, and
had a quick and fast mouth. That's all. It doesn't
mean anything. His talking didn't influence anything,
had no weight.

The whole postponement/stopping the match
action had to be initialized by Karpov's camp.
Ot let me put it this way: if Kasparov camp
would do it, it would not matter at all, he was
in no position to demand anything.

Kasparov got his chance to be taken seriously
only when he won those last two games, the
score became 5:3, and Karpov really wanted
a break. Only then Kasparov could shout:
I want the match to go on (actually, he was
less direct than that, he was somewhat tricky
in his shouting). But even then he himself was
still in no position to initiate any changes to the
match regulation. He could voice a loud objection
to a change, but he himself could not install any.

Furthermore, his loud objection still was not
important: Kasparov DID NOT sign the final
agreement, but the semi-agreement (:-) WAS
executed anyway. Nobody cared whether
Kasparov wants to sign it or not. The semi-agreement
took place, and that was it.

So much for Kasparov's weight, importance and
influence at the time.

*****

I've read that supposedly the final match
agreement was the result of a misunderstanding
between the Karpov's camp and Campomanes.
I don't buy it. Supposedly Campomanes--bang!--
came to Moscow and read right away his version:
the annulment of the match. May be that's what
apparatchiks told Karpov. it doesn't matter. One
way or another, Campomanes MEANT what he
did. Otherwise there were plenty of possibilities
to do it Karpov's way. Karpov's camp could
EASILY object against wasting Karpov's two
good point advantage, and if Campo was willing
he would agree to rectify the misunderstanding.
But Campomanes didn't want to. If Campo did,
then Kasparov could scream all he wanted and
the things would go Campo-Karpov way all the
same. Kasparov would not be able to do anything
about it. Sure, it'd be another stain on Karpov,
but qnatoly was already so stained that one more
would make no difference. He would prefer to stay
a stained champ than virgin loser.

*****

We see that even with the limited
knowledge of facts the situation is
\clear, there is no mystery to it,
despite Edward Winter finding b unches
upon bunches of contradictions.

If it is so clear then why all these
contradictory statements from Kasparov?

Simple: it is not enough for Kasparov
to convince the world that the match
was stopped without his initiative and
impact. He wants much more from us--
from the chess audience. Kasparov
wants to look super-good. He wants
to prove that yes, but no, but yes, but
he was so great that the gift of the two
points was not really-really-really important.
Karpov in place of Kasparov would not care,
would say nothing. But Kasparov is so
much more moral oriented, the ethics is
important to Kasparov, and he badly wants
to somehow prove that he didn't gain anything.
He wanted to show himself as the sufferer, as
the victim.

The final "agreement" was a trade-off. There is
no way around it. And this simple truth was hard
for Kasparov to swallow. He would not contradict
it outright, but he would make all those
unnecessary, pathetic, complicated statements.

Winter finds those Gary's contradictions but
Winter misplaces them on the map of what
had happened.

******

Now, why Campomanes did what he did?
Why did he annihilated Karpov's 2 points?

If anybody knows, please share your knowledge.

I can only speculate. I am sure that these dirty
"friends": Campo and Karpov, didn't like each
other. It was a marriage convenience, not love.

Next, Campo saw during the Karpov-Korchnoy
matches how powerful is the combination of
Karpov+apparatchiks+KGB. Campo preferred
a new world champion who did not developed
yet this kind of close relations with apparatchiks.
Campo was also hoping for Kasparov's gratefulness.

Thus there would be a politically weaker champion
(Kasparov), who was personally grateful to him-to
Campo.

It didn't quite work. Not quite but actually it did,
didn't it? Campo would not be better the other
way. He had more power in the chess world
when Karpov lost.

These are my speculations. If you have better
speculations, let me know. If you have poorer
speculations than I may scold you :-) And if
you have additional FACTs then you're a hero.

*********

Wlod

help bot

2006-03-12, 6:02 am

I like Wlod's postings in general, but he sometimes tosses in some
some junk, right along with the many good points he makes.

For example, opining that Edward Winter did not give Keene's writing
inordinate attention on the matter of the stopping of a match betweene
K & K. Now if the match had been between Kasparov and Keene, I would
have to agree; the space devoted by EW would seem to make sense, in
that case. But this match did not directly involve Keene, he is even
shown as sending messages from afar by EW, so his involvement is not so
great as many others, quite neglected by Winter. Nonetheless, Winter
deals with Keene's writings as if they were the prime source for hard
facts about this match, which is ridiculous. A close examination of
Kasparov's writings makes more sense, but even here Kasparov's muddy
record would seem to indicate that his work should be used as a last
resort in fact-finding missions. Unless ...EW wasn't really on a
fact-finding mission.

Other problems include quick and easy dismissals of Kasparov's lying
(substitute appropriate euphemism if desired), while at the same time
lampooning certain others for their lack of moral character -- this is
not consistent at all. What's sauce for the goose, is sauce for
Kasparov.

One other recent gaffe was Wlod's claim regarding Karpov whereby he
was purportedly only bested once off the chessboard, by Kasparov when
he refused to sign a document which Karpov had just signed. C'mon!
Has Wlod "forgotten" how this scenario was instant-replayed between
Karpov and Fischer? Karpov signed a document agreeing to a match with
Fischer, whereupon Fischer insisted the word "professional" be inserted
into the contract, breaking the deal. Not to mention Campomanes, first
getting Karpov's signature, and then annihilating his two-point lead by
surprise! LOL

Some of Wlod's theories make sense, but they are mere speculation
without supporting evidence.

Louis Blair

2006-03-12, 6:02 am

helpbot (nomorechess@hotmail.com)
wrote (11 Mar 2006 23:45:19 -0800):

quote:

> A close examination of Kasparov's writings makes
> more sense [than a close examination of Keene's
> writings], but even here Kasparov's muddy record
> would seem to indicate that his work should be
> used as a last resort in fact-finding missions.
> Unless ...EW wasn't really on a fact-finding mission.
>

_
Again, it seems to me that Edward Winter's primary
"mission" was to argue that there was a need for "a
reliable journalistic write-up of the entire Termination
Affair". For the purpose of making such an argument,
it would, of course, be natural to consider what had
already been written by such authors as Keene and
Kasparov.

help bot

2006-03-12, 7:33 pm

LB wrote:
---
Again, it seems to me that Edward Winter's primary
"mission" was to argue that there was a need for "a
reliable journalistic write-up of the entire Termination
Affair"."
---

And I would simply point out that the comment about a need for a
"reliable" journalistic write-up falls neatly into place with EW's
pattern of ridiculing the "unreliable" Raymond Keene.
There is no reason why Edward Winter could not do a "reliable"
write-up on the issue, if in fact he were the slightest bit interested
in it; however, what he seems to be much more interested in is
attacking Raymond Keene (and why not, he's an easy mark). What seems
strange to me is the often very narrow focus of EW's criticism; surely
there are plenty of others besides Keene who need to be nitpicked. It
lends the appearance of jealousy; jealousy I presume of Keenes great
commercial success in writing, due in part to his GM title I suppose,
as well as his focus on chess openings and Kasparov. By contrast EW,
who undoubtedly considers himself vastly superior as a writer, has
focused on chess history and nitpicking others, which doesn't pay
nearly as well.

After browsing Winter's article once again -- and in the process,
discovering that Louis Blair is right, EW makes no pretense to be ace
detective, Sherlock Holmes, intent on solving the case -- I clicked on
an archive link on that Web site, and a long list came up. Famous
chessplayers, many of them world champions, etc., etc., etc. But
wait -- here is a link to an old article by EW about -- wait for it --
Ray Keene and Eric Schiller! Naturally, I expected a rave review of
one of their many "flawless" works, but lo and behold:

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/keene.html

The man simply *revels* in demolishing every tiny detail of every
itty-bitty slip, even a few which do not even exist. Winter lashes out
at the authors for giving the location of a chessgame as "USA", when in
fact it was New York. (Last time I checked, New York -- despite
centuries of plate tectonic shifting -- was still inside the USA).
Perhaps not giving the precise city is considered "substandard" or just
plain lazy.

Be that as it may, I found the article to be downright hilarious.
Keene (and here, Schiller too) makes an excellent target. I *like*
EW's writing. I just think he is sometimes lacking perspective,
focusing too narrowly on details. For example, part way through his
"book review" at the above link, I found myself wondering whether or
not Winter was ever going to even mention the *contents* of the book,
when he was through lambasting its authors. "It is only considerations
of space which prevent me from...."

quote:

>From lambasting Keene (and his associates) endlessly, I expect. That

last quote was from his other article, but it seems to apply
universally.