Spätburgunder Writing

A late Sunday night flight from the Women’s Chess Bundesliga and I have suddenly felt like reviving this blog again.

Have taken my shoes off, something I don’t do often and I really hope it’s not only me who’s had a long day and stopped paying attention to things other than the music in the headphones and the newly created database with a new opening idea I plan to dwell on after I finish with this writing.

(Photo by Thomas Marschner)

Right, so the weekend has been a successful one- 2 team wins and 2 individual ones. I am quite content with my play, but that’s not the highlight of this weekend.

I had a dream last night. Mostly, I dream family and chess related stuff. This one was a very realistic one. I won the World Cup among women and it felt so real that I can still almost believe it. The joy was huge, but not lasting. I felt I won, but nothing really changed. Funnily, I was kind of trying to convince myself about the importance of the achieved- “You’ve got the GM title”, “You’ve qualified for the Candidates”, they all sounded cool, but I still felt empty. I saw people around congratulating me, even saw Magnus- the winner of the overall World Cup celebrating it. It felt very real but not fulfilling. I was surprised, not by winning- by the way I felt after it. Was it not what I wanted the most?

7:30 am. Time to wake up and get ready to play some real chess. The game was tough and the match- not easy either, but I pulled off some good moves and won, as the team also did. I could still not shake off the emptiness feeling I got after my dream.

A 2h30m drive to the airport and there I was, sharing dinner and chatting with my best friend, who is luckily also my teammate in more than just Bundesliga. The emptiness had slowly started to go away, but I am now left even more clueless than ever.

What is it that really makes me happy? It appears it’s not chess results only, as I had always believed. It is good people, straight-forward people, who are not considering twice before speaking their minds. I have realised that I’ve come to a point in my life when I can do really well the polite talking about nothing thing, but I really don’t want to invest time and energy into it. Being 1st in anything in your country comes with certain responsibilities and it might sound like something one really can’t complain about. I don’t. I won’t.

What do I want? I want to speak my soul out, play chess and be surrounded by true people, at least sometimes.

Have booked a mountain house in the middle of nowhere as a vacation after the tournaments season will be over and that is something I really look forward to. I’ve been longing for it for far too long and I actually secretly hope I won’t like it, though my dreams keep reminding me of how blessed I’d be to wake up with the view of the ocean, surrounded by forest, no phone signal, no need of polite talks and just the real me. Something to enjoy or to fear?

Taking a sip of very dry wine, laying back on my economy seat and diving into the blues in my headphones, I just remind myself that there’s one life and it would be a pity to spend even a split second of it away from that forest house if that’s what I don’t even dare to dream of.

Sweet dreams and a successful week!

Silence, Hypocrisy and Disgust

Today's post will be about something which has been bothering me for quite a while already. I have been trying to convince myself that I shouldn't write it, that it's not my business, that I'll possibly lose opportunities and invitations to tournaments because of it, but I simply can't keep silencing this voice inside my head.

It is about the situation in women's chess, the war between Russia and Ukraine, FIDE and top women players.

To start with the beginning, I have been thinking a lot on which is my position towards players from Russia competing on the international arena since the war between Russia and Ukraine has begun and I have come to the conclusion that as long as they are playing under a neutral flag- I don't have a problem with that. Some say that there should be a sort of anti-war declaration signed by them but my views are not as polarized because I've realized that there might be situations where it can be dangerous for one's life, their families or loved ones and not everyone is ready to take these risks. I have tried to imagine myself in this situation and I've understood that there might be circumstances under which I might have also stayed silent.

However, in my view, there is a big difference between staying silent and participating in tournaments organized by recognized war instigators (to put it mildly) like Sergey Karjakin. These tournaments looked very much like war propaganda events and it saddened me a lot to see players whom I previously respected or even admired participating there. To my knowledge, there where two such tournaments which were covered extensively by the Russian media and which makes it very easy to access information and photos from these events just by entering some key words in any searching engine. For example, here is a link to a press release from the official site of one of the events: https://chessstars.ru/press-release .

Here, I will speak only about the women players who participated there. They are: World #4 Aleksandra Goryachkina, World #6 Kateryna Lagno- both from Russia and World #21 Bibisara Assaubayeva from Kazakhstan- all very strong and accomplished chess players who are well known in the chess world. 

I am not sure what was the message they wanted to send to their fans by participating there, getting photographed smiling next to Sergey Karjakin and shaking hands with him. What I understood was that they endorse in one way or another Karjakin's activity. It shocked me and the more I thought on it- the more it kept upsetting me. 

I expected the same reaction from most of my colleagues and they indeed felt the same way when we discussed it privately. 

Like it or not- it is the right of each individual to choose for themselves and it looked to me like those players did.

However, I was utterly surprised when FIDE (the International Chess Federation) not only allowed those players to participate in official FIDE events like the World Rapid & Blitz Championships and the Women's FIDE Grand Prix and the FIDE Women's Candidates but also promoted those players as personalities and models for the youngsters to look up to.

Later, the Ukrainian Muzychuk sisters withdrew from the FIDE Women's Grand Prix tournaments so that the same players could play and even the location of the last leg of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix was changed last minute from Poland to Cyprus in order to accommodate the same players who participated in the "Karjakin tournaments".

What conclusion should these things make one draw?

My conclusion was that FIDE has no problem with any of the upper mentioned facts. Is it ignorance or hypocrisy or something else? Every official in FIDE who had any involvement in these decisions knows better.

"Sport is out of politics." That's the main argument which Russian sportsmen, officials and fans use when some countries deny the participation of Russian athletes in their events. I can see why one would say that. If that is the case, how participating in tournaments organized by war instigators and smiling alongside them, shaking hands with them is in any way "out of politics"? Perhaps the FIDE officials have an answer for that too.

Photo source: https://twitter.com/PHChess/status/1662405612074926080

Photo of the "Chess Stars 2022" participants, held in Moscow- 29 Sept -5 Oct 2022

As for me, I am disgusted every time I read any news about those players, about FIDE promoting their images as those of great personalities and sportspeople and last, but not least, I am disgusted by the silence of most of my colleagues and about my being silent about it up until now.

I believe that by ignoring all of these- we are a part of it too, and honestly- I don't like what I see in the mirror after all these months of silence.

For those of you who feel the same way- is this really the community you want to be a part of?

What would be the solution? I am not a lawyer- I expected FIDE to have a solution by now and I am deeply disheartened that it's not the case. 

I want to continue playing and promoting chess but it has become very difficult to do so when the situation is the one I've described. I have a hard time finding reasons to keep being a part of FIDE and the chess world under these circumstances. What about you?

Do you think that what FIDE is doing is right?

Make God laugh hard

It is a gloomy day in Bucharest but a sunny one in my heart. Why? For no particular reason, it just feels good to be home and be able to focus on what I choose to.

This year is going to be special and that's not just because I will turn 30, but because I feel ready to move to a new level. I have grown to enjoy chess in a different way than I did before. It's not only a won game or tournament what motivates me and makes me happy these days. It is that twitch of surprise when finding a beautiful move or idea which makes the dopamine rush into the brain! Does it mean I have become addicted to finding beautiful moves? I wish. 

The chess scene is changing fast these days and it is so easy to sort of just go with the flow that I have to constantly remind myself about the things I want for myself even though it sometimes means swimming upstream.

I am happy with where I am now and I have a clear picture in my head with where I want to be in a few years. Will it make the journey easier? It remains to be seen. Do you know how they say that it's not the final destination but the journey towards it which is important? Perhaps I have started to understand a bit better what my journey is about, as about the final destination- people make plans and God laughs, right? 

 I hope that my biggest worry in 2023 will be choosing a resolution from "Make God laugh" and "Make God laugh hard".

I wish you all a peaceful Sunday and a year full of laughs!