Sliding Doors

“It’s been a year since I’ve played chess over the board and I feel happy that the [Candidates] Tournament is going to be resumed”, Grandmaster Alexander Igorevich Grischuk told TASS. “Every time I’m asked about my preparation, I feel a bit at a dead end. Of course I prepared, studied openings... But if someone thinks that I climbed Everest in order to better prepare myself, well, no, I did not”. Grischuk also noted that the fateful eight round — the first of the second act — may well be the deciding one as to who will be the Challenger at last: “There is a funny side to it: with certain results, it might possibly happen that after the eight round there will be two leaders — all others being two points behind. Or, conversely, there may be six tied leaders — two points ahead of the other two participants. Let’s see it. It will be interesting”. Photo © Gregor Fischer/EPA.