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Eyewitness
John Fernandez
Since I appear in this video (I am standing behind Kortchnoi in the Yellow
shirt, and I turn away when he starts walking away with a smile on my face), I
guess I can discuss a bit what happened.
First of all, this was the Semi-Finals of the Curacao Blitz Tournament held on
November 16, 2002. I cover some of this in my report at
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=612
The event was a 26 player tournament, split into 3 round robins, two of 9 and
one of 8. Players played one game against each other. I don't know about the
groups, but I was put in a group with IM Polgar, GM Benko, FM Salman and a few
others. Polgar went +7 -1 =0 losing only to me, and myself and Salman qualified
with +6 - 2 =0. The next stage was a knockout, with the pairings Kortchnoi -
Molander, Kosashvili - Popitz, Polgar - Salman and Ligterink - Me. The higher
rated player made it each time. Kosashvili beat Ligterink, and the discussion
surrounds the Kortchnoi - Polgar matchup in the semifinal. In the first game,
Polgar won, but I didn't see the game, so I am not privy to the details. In the
second (the main game shown in the video), the players got down to R + g + h
vs. R + g + h. Polgar had about 40 seconds to Kortchnoi's 1:20. Polgar said
something along the lines of "come on" and Kortchnoi responded with "I will
play." h pawns were traded, and Sofia hung her g-pawn, but it didn't matter, as
she got the third rank defense set up, and you saw the rest. Kotchnoi tried to leave,
but he had to play a third place game with Ligterink,
which coincidentally happened on the board next to Kosashvili - Kortchnoi. I
can't remember the comments, but they were going back and forth sniping at each
other, Kortchnoi at once saying "Oh how sweet the married couple is playing"
and so on and so forth. Looking back at my photos there are quite a few of Yona
and Sofia cracking up as Kortchnoi yells at them. Kortchnoi finished first, bid
them farewell, and left, not sticking around for the prize giving.
They got paired in the 3rd round of the real event, Kortchnoi had Black, some
King's Indian Attack which fizzled pretty quickly. They drew, and Viktor
stormed off. Sofia seemed very interested in making sure she got the "respect"
from Viktor. According to ChessBase, Sofia was +0 =0 -5 going into the blitz
games, so I guess I see why she was eager to get on teh scoreboard. But does
this really count in a blitz game? I mean, do I have "the respect" from Polgar
since I won a game from her in the same event? Or maybe the fact that she had a
cold, and if the reports of a second child on the way are correct, was
pregnant, somewhat diminish my victory? I doubt I have respect, but she might
beware that I'm rather dangerous.
The MAJOR incident was not in this video, however. In Round 9, there were 4
players on 6.0/8, Timman, Kortchnoi, Gallegos and Kosashvili. Timman and
Gallegos drew in an interesting 22 move draw (if there is such a thing).
Kosashvili played Sequera, which was scheduled early since Sequera had to catch
a plane back to Venezuela. Kosashvili had White and forced Sequera to resign on
move 40. This meant that the only person who could catch Kosashvili was
Kortchnoi. The problem is, the Buchholz tiebreak would favor Kortchnoi because
I had drawn Kosashvili in Round 1, and Kosashvili's subsequent pairing against
local player Tjong-A-Hung shot his Buchholz to hell, so Kortchnoi had to not
win. Timman wrote about this in NiC 2003/1, but he was incorrect in stating that
Sofia Polgar was done with her game- it was most definitely in progress. Sofia
had noticed that Molander had the shot 15. Bxf5! winning the exchange. Sofia
had a very bright smile on her face, and to me, seemed to be prompting the move
to Molander, who didn't bother looking up. At the time, I didn't notice Bxf5,
so I had no idea what she was doing, but she was clearly rooting against
Kortchnoi, since her husband would then win the event. I had gone back to my
game, when Kortchnoi ran over to Averbakh and screamed in Russian "Get this
little girl away from me" or something along those lines (my Russian sucks).
Averbakh strolled over, asked her not to watch the game, and this caused Sofia
to get very offended. Sofia at one point blurted out "Who are you???" Kortchnoi
was enfuriated by this, and repeatedly ran up to Sofia, then turned away, then
ran back, seemingly trying to decide what to do, and all he could do was, well,
I don't know how to describe it. Scream, sticking your tongue out in a
"eeeeeeeeghehg" sound. I was having trouble from laughing, Kortchnoi got back
to his game, and Molander resigned 11 moves later. This was from the videos made
by Hans Bohm, one of the cooler people out there.
Personally, there were other cool incidents he got on tape (just pull up
Neumann vs. Hernandez, Round 8).
John Fernandez
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