Hangin's take on Player Comments

Leko: [30th September] "The first game was a deep shock for me. But now I will start to be more ambitious", after Game 4.


 Hangin's take: Well it's a World Championship, Leko is just not ready for the intense psychological pressure of a world championship match. Garry Kasparov felt the same pressure during his first 1984 match against Anatoly Karpov. Kasparov went on to lose 4 out of 9 games. Peter should consider him self lucky he only lost the first one. It's good to hear that Leko going to be more ambitious. However he should not take risky chances, but he does need to pick up the pace. There is still a lot of chess left in this match.  Kramnik says "time is precious when you don't have enough of it". Well Peter you have time in this match.

Here is an interview from Kramnik from Chessbase Today. www.chesstoday.net. It was gotten off of a Russian newspaper interview of Kramnik. Hangin got ChessToday today, and he gets it daily. Do You ?

Kramnik - Leko Match

Game 5 will be played on Saturday. After 4 games Kramnik leads 2½-1½.

Official website Russian newspaper Sport Express

published a brief interview conducted by Yuri Vasiliev with Vladimir Kramnik after game 3, when he drew with Black. We would like to translate part of that interview:

- What can you say about today's game?

- We are both well-prepared with Black, there is a powerful theoretical fight. For the second time Leko falls for my home preparation and cannot get anything with White.

- Taking into account the match situation, a short draw suited you?

- When playing Black, my task is to equalise the game. And I did it. It might be possible to get more, but Leko sensed the danger and found 21.Bd2.

- At the short press conference one could feel the sense of disappointment about two short draws...

- Modern chess is such that a good novelty from Black does not allow White to play for a win. Two short draws do not show lack of fighting spirit. It's a reflection of the surprise factor – in game 2 Leko employed the Ruy Lopez and today he faced a very strong novelty from me. Now our teams will start working at full capacity and the middle of the match should be very interesting!

 Hangin's take: Well I think the match has been exciting so far. Two of the games have been exciting, the first and the fourth.  I didn't enjoy the 2nd game so much, but the third game was good.  Leko says he's going to be more ambitious. I am looking forward to the middle of the match now. So far So good. For Novelties effects, check out my answers to  questions on how has  the world championship changed over the years. With GM strength computers today, novelties are very effective. But that wasn't always the case.