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These days in the first pages of Donetsk newspapers, even those far from sports coverage, you can see the portraits of two grandmasters. One of them is Ruslan Ponomariov, the cult-figure of Donetsk people and the hope of Ukrainian chess, and the other is the legendary and ever-young Victor Korchnoi. It is not in vain that they have been caught by the press photographers' lenses - they play a match of 8 games that has been organized in Donetsk.
It might happen, probably, only in chess when one of the rivals is older than his opponent by more than half a century. The zest is that apart of the common elements of sport struggle the other factors play their part: energy and dash versus experience and knowledge. The event is also spectacular because this is, actually, the first international chess match in Ukraine.
To avoid mishap, the organizers have cared about everything, including trifles. Korchnoi and his wife Petra were met at Dnepropetrovsk airport where they have arrived by a flight from Switzerland, with... police. The trip to Donetsk under Roads Police escort at 140 km/hr turned to be much less tiresome - the progress was not slowed down even within the cities. Veniamin Amitan, first vice-president of DANKO company that sponsored the match supervised in person that all wishes of the distinguished guests have been fulfilled. Commendable efforts were appreciated by Korchnoi who knows Western service and comfort well enough: «The match is well organized».
Quite evidently, Ruslan Ponomariov was the only person who did not try to appease Victor Lvovich. Previously he played with Korchnoi twice: one draw and one loss. In his desire for revenge Ruslan got assistance from GMs Gennadi Kuzmin and Alexander Shneider while his adversary's trainer, second and wife is one and the same person.
The play was arranged in one of the architectural sights of Donetsk - the Business Centre of the First Ukrainian International Bank. The representatives of the city, region and Chess Federation of Ukraine opened the ceremony. FIDE was represented by Mr. Berik Balgabaev who greeted the audience on behalf of Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, President of the International Chess Federation. It is but natural that plenty of questions at the press-conference to follow were addressed to Victor Korchnoi - when one can have a chance to ask Korchnoi in person? Should the reporters were allowed, they would have detained Korchnoi till morning, however, at some moment the press-conference officer put an end to questioning...
Korchnoi emphasized the decision of the organizes to adhere to the 7-hour time control: 2 hours for 40 moves each plus 1 hour for 20 moves and half an hour until the end of the game. It should be noted that the opponents have almost fully used this time in every game. The situations of the play dictated that. On the other hand, the spectators who were not bound by anybody and anything filled the 200-seat hall daily and spent all 7 hours patiently watching the struggle that was not always entertaining and absorbing.
After a draw in the first game that happened at the 91st move, Victor Korchnoi opened the score in the second game which was still longer. By the time Ruslan extended his hand, there was still one minute at Korchnoi's clock and 117 moves were made.
Ruslan got his revenge already the next day when Korchnoi did not manage to overcome the problems playing Spanish party for Black. The first half of the match ended with a short game in a draw but there were no more pauses. In all remaining games the fight did not subside until the bare kings were left.
As a rule, the initiative stayed with Ponomariov but Korchnoi fought heroically and saved the positions where plenty of others would surely failed to defend. Maybe, that is the basic lesson for Ruslan - he did not meet earlier with such a dogged defense, even when playing with younger opponents.
It should be marked that Donetsk spectators admired Korchnoi's insistence and applauded to him as sincerely as to Ruslan. The rivals exchanged strikes one more time and the match ended with a 4:4 score. However, as it was said at the closure, the ancient game of chess and the chess admirers are always the winners.
© Chess-Sector.odessa.ua
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