Tuesday, April 11, 2023

A Holiday Match

Among the VIP spectators at the World Chess Championship Match in Astana, Kazakhstan, was three-time Russian Women’s Champion Aleksandra Yuryevna Goryachkina, who is taking a holiday after her very recent victory in the third stage of FIDE Women’s Grand Prix 2022–23 in New Delhi, India. She got here in a flash, from Delhi to Astana via Moscow. But will she stay till the end of the match? “I’ll see how it goes”, she told Матч ТВ (Match TV). “Now, I planned for a week. If I like it, I’ll stay longer. If I get bored, I’ll fly back to Moscow”.
As for the match, Goryachkina noticed something at once from day one: “I’d say that 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) was a little nervous from the first game”, Goryachkina told TASS correspondents. “I can tell by his running around from the stage to his lounge he was nervous — he did not sit at the board at all. Ian Alexandrovich [Nepomniachtchi] behaved in much the same way in his match against Magnus Carlsen in Dubai”.
Goryachkina herself, indeed, knows how does it feel to sit on such a hard chair as 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) and Nepomniachtchi are sitting on. But this time she can enjoy it. “I’m delighted”, she said. “It’s the first time I’m in it as a tourist. I feel so much relaxed: I must not play, nor must I think. I visited the auditorium — I never saw such an organisation in all my life. You sit literally three meters from the stage. It’s grandiose”.

No comments: