| Teimour
the youngest GM in the world today
BUT
IS HE ALSO THE YOUNGEST GM
OF
ALL TIME?
 Records
are always meant to be broken. In recent times we have seen the record
for youngest Grandmaster in the history of the game toppled repeatedly.
At 14 years old, Azerbaijan's chess sensation Teimour Radjabov is very
young to reach the rank of Grandmaster, but it isn't a record. Or
is it?
Confusion
swept across the chess world when Baku Sun, a newspaper from Garry Kasparov's
hometown in Azerbaijan, reported that Teimour had been confirmed as the
youngest chess Grandmaster in history after he had tied for first at 2001
Alushta GM Tournament in the Ukraine. There is absolutely no doubt
on the awarding of his Grandmaster status for, by winning in Alushta, he
had clearly nailed the third and final GM norm that is required to achieve
the title. Likewise, he is definitely the youngest Grandmaster in
the world at the moment. The question is whether or not, at 14 years
and 14 days, he deserves to be hailed as "the youngest Grandmaster ever
in history," a title that was once held by the likes of Bobby Fischer and
Peter Leko.
Before
the tournament in Alushta began, no one reported that Teimour -- who turned
14 during the tournament -- is in the brink of breaking the record for
the simple reason that the record holder, Bu Xiangzhi of China, got the
GM title at the age of only 13 years and 10 months in October of 1999.
Baku Sun never mentioned Bu's name when they reported that Radjabov had
clinched the record.
Baku
Sun's report was quickly reprinted by the KasparovChess, one of the leading
chess websites today. An editor's note above the article gave
a slight correction regarding Teimour's finish at the Wijk aan Zee tournament
but cited that Teimour had broken Bu's record. Chessbase, another
leading chess website, also referred to Baku Sun's report but went further
by indicating Teimour as the new record holder since he has surpassed the real record that was
set by Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomariov by 3 days. It briefly noted that
Bu Xiangzhi had achieved his final GM norm under suspicious circumstances.
FIDE
has never issued a statement to date that retracts Bu's title except
perhaps the release from the headquarters in Lausanne that Radjabov had
been confirmed as the youngest Grandmaster ever. In fairness to Teimour,
never did he intend to create confusion when he competed and emerged victorious
in Alushta. He bagged all his GM norms in only four months but some
believe he could have done it even earlier if he really wanted to.
Had Bu claimed the record cleanly or beyond reasonable doubt before, there
wouldn't be an argument at all. What makes people say that Bu got
the GM title under questionable circumstances? Is there any basis
to the allegation? And if so, why did FIDE recognize his feat before
in the first place?
Bu
Xiangzhi scored his first two GM norms in the Atom Cup tournaments held
in Hungary although it wasn't clear whether a different one-on-one match
he played was included in addition to the total of 20 rounds he played
in the tournaments when his application for the two GM norms were calculated.
Combining the results of different tournaments or matches to achieve a
norm is disconcerting but the doubt on Bu's title and record is on his
third and final GM norm that he got at the Daily Cup tournament that was
held in his birthplace in Qingdao, China in 1999.
It
was a tournament that was obviously tailor-made for Bu so the Chinese can
make history. In that tournament, Bu lost in the early rounds to
foreign players then almost effortlessly won the rest of the rounds against
his fellow Chinese. Now, who wouldn't think those Chinese players
simply threw their games against him? After all, aren't the Chinese
often the center of controversy in the Asia-Pacific region with their game
fixing tactics?
It
wasn't just once when a player walked out of his game in protest against
the outright cheating by the Chinese competitors. Usually, the weaker
Chinese players were ordered to throw games to their better placed compatriots
while playing hard against their countryman's rivals. The Chinese
players who had no choice in the results of their games against their compatriots
made only token attempts to hide what they were doing. All these
controversies were denied, but well understood by the audience who refused
to applaud the Chinese "victories."
To
Bu Xiangzhi's credit, some people believe he would have still managed to
break Ponomariov's record using his own talents and with his own merits
alone. In one of his articles then, GM Ian Rogers of Australia pointed-out,
"Organizers of the (Qingdao) tournament no doubt were satisfied at having
brought glory to China, yet now may notice people react with a nudge and
a wink when he (Bu) is described as the youngest GM of all time."
True enough, for outside China, Bu did not have the rousing recognition
and applause the previous record holders before him enjoyed.
Rogers,
a former champion of the Asia-Pacific region, also revealed once how Indonesians
decided to take a page out of the Chinese's book of game-throwing tricks
when they hosted the zonals in the region but fared miserably when up to
nine games where caught to be thrown. Rogers published in amusement
how obscure games were copied from less known players from weak chess playing
countries, thinking they would never be discovered.
FIDE
is not stone-blind and do not hesitate to make adjustments. This
is one of the reasons why the Chinese were moved into a zone of their own
although it was criticized to be a lame-duck modification that would even
serve the Chinese purposes despite their impeccable behavior. Last
year however, FIDE showed more teeth when they skinned 100 Elo points from
the ratings of the players from Myanmar to regulate the exploited flaw
in the rating system.
The
irregularities by China and some other countries in the Asia-Pacific zones
are fortunately foiled more often than not by countries such as the Philippines,
which has won the most number of Asian Championships. The interesting
chess produced by the talented Filipinos are never overshadowed by the
controversies of game throwing some of their Asian rivals seem to have
grown accustomed to.
The
professionalism of the Filipinos in the sport was for everyone to see and
follow during last year's FIDE Congress at the Istanbul Olympiad.
The GM application of Filipino International Master Rogelio Barcenilla
came to a final standoff when votes were tied after all but one of the
officials had cast their votes. The last official to vote, who will
therefore break the tie and decide whether or not Barcenilla becomes a
Grandmaster, happened to be a Filipino-- but to everyone's surprise, he
voted to reject the application. The reason was due to the fact that
the supposed third GM norm of Barcenilla was a result of a tournament that
he had won in the US which used the Marshall system, a tournament format
that wasn't included among the those cited in FIDE's guidelines that could
bestow Grandmaster norms.
People
once thought that Bobby Fischer's record of becoming a Grandmaster at the
age of 15 would never be broken until Judit Polgar beat it by two months
decades later. Then in just a wink of an eye however, Peter Leko
shattered Polgar's record by a whole year. People once thought that
Fischer's record of 2785 Elo rating would forever stand until Garry Kasparov
surpassed it two decades later. Now, Vladimir Kramnik has just become
the second player in history to surpass the 2800 mark. Fischer's
records have long been vanquished. And yet, as KasparovChess puts it, he
still towers among the greats like no one before or since. Even Kasparov
humbly spoke once, "By this measure, I consider him the greatest world
champion." Fischer only ruled the chess world for a short time, but
he rose so high that his shadow would reach into the next centuries as
well.
Perhaps,
things such as how fast one has reached something or how high one has gone
do not measure greatness. After all, records are meant to be broken.
Already waiting in the wings to probably exceed Bu or Radjabov's record
is David Howell, who last year, at the age of 8 became the youngest player
ever to beat a Grandmaster. Whatever it takes to ultimately achieve
greatness, the best of luck to both Radjabov and Bu in their quest.
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