Happy #InternationalChessDay! My friend Ervin Sindik reconstructed all my games from the 1992 blitz tournament in Mar del Plata, Argentina, most never published before. Here is one, vs GM Zarnicki. chesspastebin.com/view/22507
He reconstructed them from video, and here is a version of it with my interview. Long ago! Look at all that hair!
I won the first ten games against the best players and felt invincible going into the final round against an amateur. And you've heard about pride and falls! But that loss to De las Heras was of course preserved and published so I won't recount it here..
In the spirit of the day, and since many of us have a lot of time in isolation, it's a great time to teach someone to play chess! It would also honor the recent passing of the man who taught me, my uncle, Konstantin Gregorian. #InternationalChessDay
*Grigorian, typo!
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My congratulations to @DGukesh on his victory today. He has summitted the highest peak of all: making his mother happy!
Gukesh impressively surmounted every obstacle and opponent in his path, especially considering his age, and nothing more can be asked. My thoughts on the historical world championship lineage with Magnus outside are known, but that is not the story today.
The level of play was quite high, at least equal to the previous match. Ding showed great resistance. As for the blunders, which world championship, or world champion, was without them? I had my share, and recall the double blunder in Carlsen-Anand 2014, g6. Matches take a toll.
This post provokes strong reactions, least of which is the difference between the Russian and English, with content for the respective audiences. Lamenting RU expenditures & casualties in Syria in the Russian version plays politics when there are no politics in Russia today. 1/7
Russians dying in Syria isn’t the problem, Russians killing Syrians is. We should not express regret over Russia showering Assad’s regime with money, but over Russia showering the Syrian people with bombs. For generations they will curse the Russians who murdered so many. 2/7
As in Ukraine, it's demeaning to say only Putin is responsible. Putin never pulled a trigger. It was Russian soldiers, pilots, bombs & bullets. I didn’t hear of Russian mass desertions or protests. They targeted civilian infrastructure, schools & hospitals, razing cities. 3/7
Had Obama had the courage of his convictions, or any courage or convictions other than US power is bad, Assad would have been gone in 2013. Countless lives saved, refugee waves limited, and likely Putin never attempts to take Crimea. Inaction can be a deadly choice.
This isn’t just hindsight, of course. It was obvious to me at the time that letting Russia help keep Assad in power would have a disastrous legacy. ideas.time.com/2013/09/18/put…
The price of inaction is compounding even today, as the US and NATO nations make similar mistakes in Ukraine. Putin learned, Western leaders did not. 10 needless years of slaughter. Godspeed to the Syrian people today. kasparov.com/putin-toys-wit…
Biden should have stepped down and let Harris pardon Hunter. This would also 1) deliver the first black woman president and 2) ruin all of Trump's made-in-China "45th-47th President" merchandise!
More seriously, the pardon undercuts partisan debate re politicizing the justice system. Trump isn't going to do anything differently, but it is vital to keep principled arguments against it front and center. "Everybody does it" is a streetlight on the road to Hell.
Coincidentally, as I was not thinking at all about a potential Hunter pardon, I talked about the risks of presidential abuse of power in my interview with the @HuffPost that ran the day before. huffpost.com/entry/trump-mu…
America, this is your next four years, or longer. Oligarchs protected by Trump accusing former public officials of the gravest crimes without evidence or even pretense to provide any. Trial by social media, which of course is owned by said oligarch. Russia in the Wild West 90s.
Naturally, this is the sort of garbage produced by the Kremlin–and in fact was solicited by Trump emissary Giuliani & Co against Biden ("I would like you to do us a favor though"), leading indirectly to Trump's impeachment. Vindman blew the whistle & now the payback escalates.
This also seems like a good time to repeat my longstanding question to Musk that was unanswered—were any funds from Russian oligarchs used to purchase Twitter?
This disgraceful ICC decision is the last nail in the coffin of the international order based on Yalta-Potsdam arrangements. Politicizing & criminalizing self-defense against terrorism also discredits previous judgments against real war criminals like Putin.
I'm no Netanyahu supporter, but like any sovereign nation, Israel has the right to defend itself from existential threats. The ICC, like the UN, would like Israel to just disappear, which is exactly what would happen if it stopped fighting for its survival.
Many replies fall into the same accusation of Israeli "genocide" in Gaza, which would count as the most poorly executed in history were it true. Israel could flatten the entire region in a week. Meanwhile, Hamas still refuses to release the hostages.