CHESS GATA Kamsky, 33, of Brooklyn completed a remarkable three-year comeback, after a nearly decade-long absence from chess, by winning the World Cup in Siberia last week.
He is now two steps away from the world championship. This is the closest any American has gotten since Kamsky lost a world title match to Anatoly Karpov in 1996 and then gave up chess. He returned to the game in local New York tournaments in 2004.
Kamsky won seven knockout rounds in the Siberian tournament, beating Alexey Shirov in the finals by 21/2-11/2, and this week’s diagram shows how he won. He now qualifies to meet Veselin Topalov in a match in 2008. The winner will be the official world championship challenger in 2009.
Shirov should have been ousted in the second round by another American, Yury Shulman. Shulman sacrificed pawns to expose White’s king but missed a difficult win with 24 . . . d3 and an easier one with 26 . . . Nd4+.
The knight check was still the best try a move later. He had one last shot at move 29, when 29 . . . Rxd1 30 Rxd1 Rxe6! might have confused White to miss the winning 31 Rh1!.
BRIDGE IN the club lounge, Cy the Cynic and I found Rose, whose courtesy and kindness we all should emulate, sitting with a pad and pen.
“What’re you up to?” I asked.
“Making my list, checking it twice,” Rose smiled.
“Well, I need a new toaster oven,” the Cynic informed her.
Rose was today’s North, and West led the king of spades against four hearts.
“If you go down, it’s my fault,” Rose said, putting her partner at ease as she tabled the dummy. “I’ve a minimum.”
East won the second spade and returned the jack, and West ruffed South’s queen and led a diamond. South, who needed the rest of the tricks, had to guess. After some thought, he played dummy’s queen. He threw the queen of clubs on the ace of diamonds, won a trump finesse and claimed.
“How’d you find the winning play?” Rose marveled.
“I had to assume East had the king of trumps,” South said. “But he didn’t open the bidding and had the A-J of spades. To take the ace of diamonds and finesse in clubs later couldn’t be right. If East held the king of clubs, he couldn’t have the king of diamonds, so the diamond finesse would win just as well. I gain when West has both kings.”
“Well played,” Rose said, gracious as ever, “and well defended.”
Cy won’t get a toaster oven for Christmas. This was Rose’s gift list:
For Cy the Cynic and Wendy the Feminist: tolerance
For Unlucky Louie: encouragement
For Grapefruit: compassion
For myself: respect
For all my fellow players: a good example