Mtel Masters 2009 will be category 21
interview with Silvio Danailov
Presented by Chessdom.com
There are only a few days left to the 2009 edition of Mtel Masters. It is the 4th tournament from the Grand Slam (after Nanjing, Corus, and Linares) and it will be a category 21 event.
Chessdom.com will provide live commentary of the matches, with guest commentator GM Christian Bauer (France, ELO 2605), accompanied by GM Dimitrov and IM Peunovic.
In a short interview for Chessdom, the Mtel Masters director and Veselin Topalov’s manager, Mr. Silvio Danailov, answered a few questions.
More about Mtel Master 2009
The Ivan Vazov theater’s garden is the venue – article from April 2007
The construction of the glass cube – video from May 2008
Mtel Masters 2009 participants
Mtel Masters 2009 discussion
Mr Danailov, the Mtel Masters starts in a few days, how is the preparation going?
Everything is going smoothly, thank you. The glass pavilion will be installed on the beautiful square in front of the National Theatre Ivan Vazov, in the heart of Sofia. This is our strongest tournament ever, FIDE category 21. The participants are world class players : Veselin Topalov, Magnus Carlsen, Vassily Ivanchuk (winner of last year), Wang Yue, Lenier Dominguez, and Alexey Shirov. More information you can find on our official site where the live games will be. We are looking forward to a really big chess show!
You mentioned live games, will other sites be permitted to retransmit the moves? We remember what happened with Chessbase during Topalov-Kamsky, how is the copyright issue standing now?
We have no problems with Chessbase in general, we have problems with one person there, who is trying to damage our reputation for years. What this person is doing is unforgiven.
Anyway, the copyrights have nothing to do with this. These guys want to use our products for free and then to sell them to their clients and to charge them. This should stop, and not only for Chessbase, also for everybody else who is using our products without permission. To organize a big event cost a lot of effort and money, so if somebody wants to use the results of this work he should sign a contract with the organizers and pay for the copyrights. This is the normal way in every professional sport like football, tennis, golf, basketball, etc. If chess wants to become real professional sport this is the only way to follow.
The Anand – Topalov match is going to take place next year, but there is already much media attention towards it. Anand will participate in the Presidents Cup and the match Azerbaijan vs The World, where he will also receive the Chess Oscar.
Topalov was also invited for Baku, but unfortunately we had to refuse the invitation. The reason was that we have other commitments with our sponsors in Bulgaria in the same period.
The Chess Oscar award does not surprise me at all, after Elista 2006 is very difficult to imagine that Veselin will get any award from Russia. This is typical political decision, otherwise they will probably close the “64” magazine.
Look, for every person with common sense it is obvious that Topalov had by far the best results in 2008. He won the strongest tournaments in Bilbao and Nanjing and he is number one in the World ratings with big margin. The biggest result of Vishy was to beat the player number six in the world in the World Championship match. Great achievement, of course, but not enough to win the Oscar.
Here is the full interview on chessdom.com.
Will Kamsky be back at Mtel this year?
I just love this guy! He speaks his heart and his mind freely with no blocks. I appreciate it very much in a person. Although I am not like that and I am more political. But it is very important to listen to this man closely for many reasons. One of them being to see his side. To see how things look from a different angle. And not to immediately dismiss all he says.. People have to negotiate. Who deserves the Chess Oscar, Toplaov, or Vishy? Both are great and outstanding. Is the decision to give
Vishy the Oscar, political? Maybe yes maybe no. Anyway it is important to have several points of view. I think all in all, Danailov is doing a good job as standing up and speaking Topalov’s mind. I think it is not wrong that it is like that and it resembles the Carlsen’s situation. To me , Danailov is a good manager and a great chess organizer.
Naughty, naughty person at Chessbase … who can it be?
It’s irrelevant. It should not be about individuals. Total b/s-explanation. ‘Null point’.