Monday
Aug052013
Kramnik Interview: "Intellectual Effort Gives Me Enormous Pleasure"
Monday, August 5, 2013 at 4:46PM
Here's a long and interesting interview with Vladimir Kramnik that is enjoyable in most every respect but one: he, like Gata Kamsky, renewed the "threat" to retire from chess at 40. (He's 38 now.) Why not keep going as long as you can seriously compete for the world championship, enjoy it and have the strength to keep up the lifestyle? Oh well. I wonder what would happen if he won the next Candidates event and then defeated Carlsen. Would he retire even then?
Anyway, the rest is enjoyable, and if you're not a Kramnik fan you might enjoy that part too.
HT: Jaideep
tagged Vladimir Kramnik
Reader Comments (10)
Thanks for this. I think Kramnik is the most interesting interview in chess. He is also my favorite annotator, since he puts across so much of his personality, and his feelings during a game.
Yes, it must be the melancholy in the Russian soul or something :) He has been playing some lovely chess recently, his game against Fridman was a beaut.
What makes these threats to retire at age 40 even more bewildering are the fantastic results we're seeing elite players achieving in their post-40 years: Gelfand reached the World Championship at age 43. Michael Adams just posted the best result of his career at 41. Karpov's legendary Linares 1994 victory happened when he was 41. [DM: 43, actually. And don't forget Korchnoi, who claimed to peak at the age of 47.] Clearly, age 40 isn't as "over-the-hill" as some of these players seem to think it is....
Dennis - Kramnik actually says he'll quit chess after 40, not at 40. So there is still hope!
"If he won the next Candidates event and then defeated Carlsen"? I don't want to make a fuss, but really, surely I am not the only one who still believes the match is very much undecided? Carlsen might be the paper favourite to win any tournament (though he's not doing that as consistently as he used to any more), and if fatigue will play a role, I'll put my money on him too, but this is his first World Championship match (not only that: one of his first matches of any kind, full stop) and Anand is solid enough when he wants it. You only need +1 to win a match.
We'll see in autumn, but I for one would sincerely love to see Kramnik win the next Candidates and then defeat Anand.
[DM: Oops, a slip on my part! I do think Carlsen's a heavy favorite, but I would agree that it's not a foregone conclusion.]
I may have missed something, but I didn't see/read Kramnik's "threat" to retire, at least not in the pretty near future (within two years). He merely answered an unsolicited question "What will you do when you quit chess?". Some years ago he may have said "it's time to quit when I turn 40" but - this coming near - he seems to have changed his mind a bit. In another fairly recent interview (don't ask me when and where exactly), he said that he will quit when his playing strength declines, maybe if he drops out of the top10 - no sooner but not much later?
[DM: I certainly hope you're right, but I'm reading the last sentence of the interview as suggesting not merely at some point after 40, like, say, when he turns 75, but meaning pretty nearly at 40.]
But at least the answer to your second question "Would he retire even then?" [if he should regain the WCh title] rather seems to be "not yet".
"and then defeated Carlsen".
Hmm..are you already suggesting Carlsen will beat Anand in Nov ?
[DM: A slip on my part, though I do think he's a fairly heavy favorite. I'd like to see a competitive match, and wouldn't mind seeing Anand win.]
I think Kramnik just stumbled into a c3-Sicilian sideline he wasn't too familiar with and Adams, as a lifelong 1 e4 player, reached into his bag of tricks and pulled out just the right weapon for the occasion. Repeat or lose by force.
I have to disagree with Kramnik's gratuitous slap at Kasparov's political activities post-retirement from chess. Sure, Kasparov probably likes applause as much as the next politico. But remember, grandstanding in Russian politics can land you in jail. Kasparov isn't running to acquire power and control people. He's fighting the next generation of sorry Russian communists who who are power hungry and want to control people. It doesn't take someone with Vladimir Putin's KGB credentials to recognize Kasparov as a dangerous freedom fighter.
I think it's necessary to quit at a certain point. Chess as a professional demands a lot of work and neglects certainly other important fields.
As long as Kramnik can reinvent him from time to time there's still a way to go. Hope he will quit past his 45th birthday :-)
"If he won the next Candidates event and then defeated Carlsen" hmm!!! ;o) ..Dennis, Carlsen may not be in the next Championship match!
I saw the couple of comments and your responses - which is a fair assessment (i.e. carlsen winning is not a foregone conclusion but he is the heavy favorite)
I have gotten the impression from your blog over the last 2 years that you are a strong fan of Anand (and probably an Anand supporter in his match against Carlsen). So when I read your statement, my assessment of how strong Carlsen's advantage might be ..increased even more (seeing that an Anand fan like you made that mini-slip!)
[DM: I'd say I'm a medium-strength fan of Anand's. I rooted against him in the Kramnik and Gelfand matches, but it was because I was rooting for his opponents rather than against him. I'd probably root for Adams against him too - though despite Adams' recent run of success that's probably not going to happen at this point. Maybe it would be a toss-up for me between Anand and Aronian, but against anyone else I'd probably root for Anand. And if he had a second chance against Kasparov somehow, I might fly to Anand's training camp offering to help!]