Kasparov-Kramnik BGN World Championship
London, October 8 - November 4 2000

By the way

No matter what, it is hardly possible to refrain from offering at least a minimum original information on the greatest chess event of the last five years. Incidentally, a small story comes back to me...
 
KRAMNIK
In 1988, the USSR juniors team championship was taking place in Dimitrovgrad.
There I played for Ukraine, on the last fifth board. Our team was rather strong but it was agog due to various reasons, in particular because three of us (Boris Alterman, Mikhail Nedobora and me) were called up for active service in the Soviet Army about a month before the tournament. It took plenty of efforts to fish us out of the young soldiers' barracks. On top of that the other two players (Artur Frolov and Vitaly Golod) were not in their best form...
After every round one or other team member was made personally responsible for all evils and was criticized to such an extent that can only be imagined in the civil life. I was lucky to avoid punishment for a long time because I managed to score on the my last board. However, by the end of the tournament I lost, after refusing a draw, to a small boy from Russian team and also (accidentally) managed to make a draw by repetition, when having a better position with another very small boy from Leningrad (St.Petersburg) team...
You can guess what happened. The level of coaches' contempt to my sport results could have been compared only with the level of their hopeless skepticism as to my chess and personal future. It is worth telling that it was a single tournament where I happened to defend the honour of the Ukrainian team, and I still recollect these days with some shiver...
You have guessed, probably, the name of the young boy from the All-Russian team, he was Vladimir Kramnik. He told me after the game that Russian coaches had wound him up for a draw with me. Had I imagined at the time (even if not in rating, but in a direct sense) how he would grow in the near future, I would have hardly implemented the very optimistic but absolutely suicidal plan ...f2-f4 and e4-e5...
The text of this unknown game can already be submitted (in zipped pgn form) to the chess impartiality - it is easy to see that Kramnik was very strong even in 1988. Incidentally, the other small boy was Peter Svidler but I 'll save the text of the our game until further occasion...
The story was finished happily. I managed to make a draw in the difficult decisive round against Armenia where my win would not have brought Ukraine any advancement while the defeat would have thrown us back from the fourth place to the fifth... Everything was forgiven and forgotten.
 
KASPAROV
As to Garry Kasparov, I never played with him and have absolutely nothing to tell you about. Whenever I lose a couple of blitz games and some rating points in the www.kasparovchess.com Playing Zone, it is tempting to suggest that my anonymous opponent was not one of young chess cyberpanks (which is most probable as they know how to make moves without losing the computer time) but the world champion. Even if it is the case, he alone can tell you about that.
 
M.G.   7.10.2000