Interview: Yasser Seirawan, Part 2

[Hanon W. Russell]

INTERVIEW: YASSER SEIRAWAN
by Hanon W. Russell
Copyright 1993 Hanon W. Russell
All Rights Reserved
Part II of II

American Grandmaster Yasser Seirawan has been one of the top
grandmasters in the United States for well over a decade. Most
recently his fine finish in the U.S. Championship qualified
Yasser, again, for the Interzonals. Seirawan is also well known
as the founder and Editor-In-Chief of the excellent bi-weekly
"Inside Chess." In December, 1992, we inquired if it would be
possible to interview Yasser. The answer came back - Yes, but
since he was then playing in the U.S. Championship being held in
Durango, Colorado, it would have to be scheduled after the
tournament. On Thursday, January 7, 1993, we were in our offices
in Connecticut and Yasser was in his in Seattle. We called him
and he was gracious enough to answer our questions for almost
three hours. The interview was very long and we are presenting
it in two parts. We are now pleased to present part two of our
interview with Yasser Seirawan.

[Part I had ended with Yasser talking about Fischer's views
about Jews and the Soviets having published Fischer's book "My
Sixty Memorable Games. We now continue...]

HWR: There are a few gaps in that logic.

YS: By the same logic, I could say Miguel Najdorf owes me money.
He says, "How so?" I said, "Well, I go to Seattle's SeaFirst
Bank, and I deposit money with SeaFirst. SeaFirst then makes a
loan to Argentina. Argentina's government then owes SeaFirst
money and it's the citizens of Argentina that owe that to my
bank. Therefore you could say that every Argentine person in the
world owes me 'x' amount of cents because I've deposited two
hundred bucks in SeaFirst Bank.

HWR: Sure, then do you sue Najdorf if Argentina defaults?

YS: Exactly. I mean, do I hold him responsible? This ability to
make these leaps of logic at times makes him look absurd and in
fact quite funny. I had these conversations with him like that
and I wrote all of this stuff in the book. It was very
interesting, his reactions to some of these arguments.

HWR: But in fact Yasser, not everybody thinks it is funny.

YS: Well, exactly.

HWR: You're talking about a group of people that are just a few
decades away from horrific events.

YS: I was referring specifically to this publisher and the fact
that Gary Kasparov owes Bobby Fischer money. That I found funny.
Obviously his racist remarks against Jewish people are not funny
and it is not a laughing matter and let's separate the two
clearly.

HWR: Let me ask you the same type of question about these
remarks, that I did about the events of the civil war. There are
those who think that you had ulterior motives for not saying
anything negative or "preaching" so to speak, moralistically,
against Fischer's comments away from the chessboard. In other
words, this tacit approval by silence.

YS: Well, again, the question itself is almost offensive.
Essentially the question comes down to this: Yasser, are YOU a
racist? Are you against Jewish people? And the answer quite
clearly is no. Because in fact I've been on the chess stage at
least twenty-odd years and I've met thousands of people and I
have never in my life been accused of being a racist. I find
Jewish people to be very friendly and I have a great number of
friends who are Jewish. So, the answer to whether or not I am a
racist is quite clearly and openly from my heart is no. To
answer your question as it was phrased, again, I think what we
did was excellent coverage. One of the things which I was very,
very annoyed with for example, Glenn Petersen, who is the editor
of "Chess Life," is what the U.S. Chess Federation did is they
published the denial. They basically said, "We do not side
Bobby's views. We find them offensive, and foul and so forth and
so on. And then they never published Bobby's views. It was very
funny. It's like how can you ignore this side of him?

What we did, I think, more than any other chess magazine in the
world, and certainly "Chess Life" did not even have these press
conferences, is, I believe we published four and a half of the
press conferences and we let Bobby hang himself, in a sense. We
said, "Look, these are Bobby's views and I think any reasonable
person in the world would find them extremely offensive and
foul." Once again, whether or not I should be moralizing and
proselytizing saying and holding my nose and saying, "Bobby,
you're way off the mark on this one." I didn't do that and I
felt I was right. I think anybody could reasonable say, "Bobby
why don't you close your mouth and play a good game of chess."

HWR: If you're not Yasser Seirawan, grandmaster chessplayer, but
Yasser Seirawan, journalist, maybe when you are covering the
match, although your annotations and descriptions of what was
going on during any game really were splendid, maybe, though,
you have an obligation, from a journalistic point of view, to
address these other issues. What do you have to say about that?

YS: Perhaps you're right. And perhaps you're wrong. My view was
that it was not my position to morally condemn others. I love
that statement from Lajos Portisch, "I hate to be morally
condemned." I am not going to sit there and morally condemn
Bobby Fischer. What I was going to sit there and do was just
print everything that Bobby had said and let others morally
condemn him. I didn't feel, once again, that "Inside Chess" was
the correct forum. I have in front of me something that I would
like to share with you. An interview that was made by a
newspaper reporter. His name is Scott Yates. While I was in
Durango, [Colorado, the site of the 1992 U.S. Championship] I
had just come back from Tilburg and went to the U.S.
Championship. It was held in Durango, Colorado. A local
newspaper interviewed me. We spoke about Fischer's alienation
and the tragedy that is Bobby Fischer. It's a marvelously long
article, on the front page. In that article, I could just read
the whole thing to you, but it's a long article, I explained
that Bobby's racist remarks were the most offensive thing about
his return and the greatest tragedy about his return. And once
again, I felt that this newspaper was the proper forum for me to
give my views. I gave the same views in the book wrote. But the
magazine itself, what I wanted to do was bring the news to the
reader and let the reader form their own views on Bobby Fischer.
And I think we did that very successfully. The letters which we
have received from our subscribers indicated that they were
elated, they were satisfied that we didn't shy away from this
controversy, where "Chess Life" did and many other magazines
didn't give the press conferences. We printed them in full.

HWR: Alright. What do you have to say, and you are to be
commended for printing it, about Floyd Boudreaux's letter [which
appeared in a recent issue of "Inside Chess" criticizing the
coverage of the match by Seirawan, especially his calling Bobby
Fischer world champion]?

YS: Again, I answered it and I think I answered it in the best
way I could. Truthfully. I went to Yugoslavia at my own expense.
I felt I was very critical of Bobby's play during the match,
that I let Bobby hang himself at his own press conferences. I
felt that all of these out-of-pocket expenses, there were no
"sycophantic financial expenses" I love that, I mean, where does
that come from? It cost me a great deal of money to go there. I
heard rumors that I sucked up to Bobby because I'm in line to
play him a match, which is simply not true.

HWR: Do you have any designs to play him a match?

YS: On that particular note, Bobby told me that his idea was to
play three matches in 1993 and whip Kasparov in 1994. His
intention was to play three top players. He specifically singled
out the loser to the Timman-Short match. He further mentioned
specifically Michael Adams of England and Viswanathan Anand of
India. He doesn't want to play me. [Laughs] He doesn't want to
play any American because he feels that he doesn't have an
American challenger. He doesn't think there is anyone in America
who can compete on his level. From my perspective, the reason I
went to see Bobby is that he was a chessic hero despite the
strong differences I have with his political views, racial
views. I admire his chess, he had a big impact on my career, and
I wanted to meet my chessic boyhood hero and I quite literally
went into a war to do that. What really astonished me is how
lonely I was as a reporter there because I just couldn't
understand how so many other of my colleagues would miss an
opportunity. I never had an opportunity to meet Bobby or speak
with him in twenty years. So for me, it was a fulfillment of a
dream. Simultaneous to that I felt it was such an important
chess event, that the best thing I could do for the readers of
"Inside Chess" was to provide first-hand coverage and those were
my motivations.

If you take a look at Evans' pre-match comments or his comments
prior to game one [published in "Chess Life"], I found things in
there, condemnations of Bobby. I mean, I think it's right to
have whatever views you have on a particular thing, especially
if you can point to the comments. But I thought a lot of things
were inventions of Evans.

HWR: Can you give me an example?

YS: The question of the holocaust. I don't recall in any of the
press conferences Bobby denying the holocaust occurred. I
believe there was something in the pre-match comment of Evans
about that. I should be sitting here with that particular "Chess
Life" in front of me as I am making these comments, but I do
feel that Evans' pre-match comments were off base. In my view
"Chess Life" made a terrible error by not having a person to
give first-hand reportage, because I felt that this was such an
important chess event. Finally, I was very offended by the fact
that Bobby Fischer was not on the cover of "Chess Life." Every
major magazine in the world had Bobby on the cover, except for
one. His home American magazine, "Chess Life" - he was not on
the cover. In fact, I think Glenn particularly drove the nail
home by putting Gary Kasparov on a cover and really kind of
said, "We, the U.S. Chess States Federation, are not recognizing
Bobby Fischer at all and we put our faith and blessing behind
Gary Kasparov and he's our cover boy. I thought that was
particularly ill-conceived and very, very poor judgment.

HWR: Of course, Fischer had condemned the U.S.C.F.

YS: Of course, not just at this press conference but many, many
times. Just like FIDE, Bobby has very, very bitter feeling
towards the U.S. Chess Federation. In my opinion, unjustifiably
so, in his opinion, justifiably so.

HWR: Why do you think, after twenty years, Fischer decided to
return to play chess?

YS: That particular question I harped on a great deal in the
book. But in a nutshell, there was a multitude of reasons. No,
single factor sticks out. We spoke about the death of Mikhail
Tal. That hurt. That hurt.

HWR: You think Fischer was affected by that?

YS: Very much so.

HWR: But Tal didn't die until the end of June. It's hard for me
to believe that on the day after Tal dies, Fischer all of a
sudden decided to return. There is too much going on here for
things to happen that quickly.

YS: That's right. But you have to understand, from the time the
signature is on the dotted line, to the moves being made, there
was a gap. And heaven and earth can move between that gap. What
I mean to say is, you're absolutely right, there was a number of
factors that got Bobby to sign on the dotted line. After he had
signed the dotted line, the death convinced him he had made the
right decision.

HWR: Do you think he was affected by Reshevsky's death?

YS: Not as much. He did not like Sammy Reshevsky. I think he
respected him as a chessplayer, but of course Sammy was a Jewish
person, which automatically falls into the condemnation
category, and an Orthodox Jewish man at that. So, there's that.
And I think there was a genuine personal animosity between the
two men. They were great competitors with one another and Bobby
really did not like Sammy.

Specifically, Bobby thinks that computers are going to become
world champion very soon. He believes it could be as short as
five years. I think one of the motivations there was that if
computers do become world champions, will sponsors be willing to
pay millions of dollars to watch imperfect chess, when they
could be paying nothing to watch perfect chess? OK, that's
another motivation, and whether it is right or wrong it is
something that Bobby pointed out to me.

Also, he does have a young lady, Zita. It's unclear exactly how
their relationship will develop. It's clear that she was a
motivational force for him to return to chess. Bobby's own
hunger to prove himself the real world champion. His own desire
to share his views, not only about Jewish people, but about,
what he considers conspiracy between Gary Kasparov and Anatoly
Karpov to fix their matches and so forth and so on. He genuinely
wants the world to know and to let them know these terrible dark
secrets that are going on in the world.

HWR: What was your reaction to his accusations about the
Karpov-Kasparov matches?

YS: Again, don't get me wrong, I take quite a light-hearted
approach to life. I find that the most important things I have
learned in my years is not to forget to be able to laugh and to
show kindness. In this particular case I had to take so
light-hearted, I nearly fell off my seat. What I did with Bobby
is I said, "OK, Bobby, let me play the devil's advocate." I
wrote this in the book because I just thought it was so
charming. I said, "You gotta imagine the following scene: Here
we are in 1985. It is their second match. Kasparov leads 12-11.
Karpov has White. He has to win to retain the world
championship. Now, according to you, Bobby, every move of every
game is fixed, known. So presumably, these guys have to have
the scores so they can sit down and memorize it.

"So you have to imagine the scene, Bobby. Here's Anatoly
anxiously, awaiting, the guy knocks on the door, he opens up and
there is the First Secretary of the Communist Party who says,
'Comrade Tolya. You've been a wonderful sportsman for chess, but
I'm sorry to say Kasparov defends marvelously in a Sicilian, you
fall into time trouble, you blunder and you lose the game and
you lose your title 13 to 11.' And you have to imagine Tolya
weeping, 'Why?! This guy is from the sticks. I've sold my soul,
I've done everything for the Communist Party and now this guy,
this half-breed little monster is going to take away my title.
Please! Please!' 'No, I'm sorry.'

And then you have to fast forward to 1987 and the situation is
reversed. Karpov is leading 12-11. There is knock on Kasparov's
door and there is the First Secretary, and Kasparov is
trembling. 'Well, what's the news?' And the First Secretary
says, 'Well, Comrade Kasparov, you are one of our youngest
members and I want to be one of the first to congratulate you on
you victory tomorrow!' [Laughs] You can hear the whoops and
hollers in the next room with Karpov sitting there going 'Oh,
no! If Kasparov is so happy it means I must lose.'"

I said, "I mean, Bobby, what you're saying on the surface just
sounds completely absurd." Bobby's reaction was as follows: Are
you aware of the game show, something like the "$64,000
Question" or something like that? Some contestants were asked
questions and they were supposed to win prizes. This show
totally, totally bombed. I mean, the answers were bad. It was a
total dead show. The sponsors calls up the network and says to
the producer, "Screw it, I'm cancelling the show. I don't want
to be associated with it, I'm withdrawing my money." The
president says, "Please, please! One more week to do the show
and then let me know what you think." So the sponsor reluctantly
agrees, the producer then turns to his directors and says, "Let
me explain something so that it is clear to everybody. From this
moment onward, every scene, every second, every question, every
answer is rehearsed and known beforehand." And what happens is
years went by and it became a very, very popular show until one
of the contestants wrote letters to himself while he was winning
thousands and thousands of dollars and proved that the entire
thing was a fraud. Were you aware of the show?

HWR: Yes, I know exactly what went on.

YS: So, you are aware of this entire episode?

HWR: Yes.

YS: For me, I was not. I had never heard of such a thing. I
said, "You gotta be kidding." He said, "Everything was staged.
And they did this for thousands of dollars, and now you're
talking about millions of dollars between two commies!"

HWR: How did he react to that kind of criticism. I mean, what
you are doing is you are criticizing what he has come out and
put himself out on a limb for.

YS: Exactly. His answer was as I described it. He says, " I
really enjoyed what you are saying, but you don't seem to
understand, these guys are criminals, Yasser. They will do
anything for money. What you're saying, and I know it sounds
absurd and it's wonderful, but you have to understand millions
and millions of dollars were on the line and these guys would
sell themselves for hundreds of dollars." Again, Bobby's words,
not mine. "And this is what they do, Yasser. They make it so
hard for you to believe that you don't want to believe." And
then he would go on and he says, "It's not just my perspective,
but let me show you why I think this way." And then he'll sit
there and he'll take you through an enormous amount of what he
has built up in terms of circumstantial evidence to prove his
perspective. Let me put it to you this way. It was very
disturbing, because he is trying to do something I don't believe
ever occurred. Yet, he's putting together a very compelling case
and he told me, he promised me, that he will write a book about
it and that this book will open up the chess world's eyes. He
says that he has "tons" of proof, as he puts it. And it's very,
very scary. Trust me, he has not persuaded me that his views are
correct. In short, I do not believe any of the matches were
fixed. I do not believe that. And yet, when he puts it all
together, it shakes you. It's very surprising. I think everybody
will be surprised once the book is published, and I'll leave it
at that.

HWR: Do you really think it will be?

YS: Yes. In fact, I know it will be, because Gliga and he have
brought together all the files that Bobby has collected and I
know from Bobby that he is in a hotel in Belgrade, he has now
bought a villa in Yugoslavia, by the way, and he is working on
this book with Gligoric. Very interesting.

HWR: I'm sure it will be a big seller.

YS: We have been speaking an hour about Bobby Fischer and one of
the things that I haven't been able to tell you is how shocked I
was. Bobby, is first of all quite a large man, he's a big man.
He's like six-foot-two, probably closer to six-foot-three. Very
large hands which completely engulf your own. He has a very
engaging smile. A friendly, friendly man and what really blew me
away was how funny he was.

HWR: A good sense of humor?

YS: We laughed for hours. I mean, hours and hours and hours.
Telling jokes, we began to talk about people from Seattle, I
mentioned to him Bruce Lee and he said "Bruce Lee! Did you see
that movie?" And he gets up and mimics Bruce Lee and does this
brilliant parody. I mean four people are on the floor just
laughing, holding their tears back it was so good. Just a number
of things about Bobby that I have just never seen printed.

The people that are around Bobby are very, very loyal to him and
vice versa. He is very loyal to them too. To Bobby, that is his
biggest payoff, that is his reward in this lifetime. He could
have made millions of dollars, he didn't want to. That is not
what he wanted the money for. One of the things that he really,
really holds dear is his friends. And the friends that he has
hold him dear. I think that that type of loyalty means
something. It means that he is a human being and a human being
that has some really marvelous qualities.

It is really shocking to meet somebody like Bobby who is
obviously so well versed in what was going on in the Balkans, in
the world. To see some of his views which just didn't jive with
this humanitarianism he expressed for so many others. Especially
poignant moments in our conversation, one specifically involved
the Balkan crisis. I said to him, "Bobby, in "Inside Chess," I
said that if you were to ever make a possible solution, your
stature is such that your possible solution would be treated
seriously. Do you have a solution?" Now, I have met a lot of
egotists in the chess world. He looked at me and it wasn't the
answer I wanted. "Yaz," he said, "Truthfully, I have no solution
whatsoever. I don't have any idea what can be done." And it
really shook me, because I had expected him to say, "Yes. What
the Serbs need to do is do this, to make a de-militarized zone,
and confidence building measures and have everything mapped
out." Essentially what he said was probably for all intents and
purposes the right answer. It struck me how he had that answer
because so many others in the chess world have answers for
everything.

HWR: Let me finish this Fischer segment with a question that I
really don't want to ask you, because I am afraid to hear the
answer. But, I absolutely cannot resist. Fischer is notorious
for distancing himself from people who talk or write about him.
Are you engaged in some exercise here that is going to come back
to haunt you?

YS: Absolutely not. In fact, there are so many myths about Bobby
Fischer. My conversations with him debunked so many of them, I'm
just happy to cross another one off. One specifically is that
Bobby is reluctant to be around women, that they intimidate him
and that he does not know how to handle himself around them.
Bobby has a good eye for the ladies. [Laughs] We were at a
closing ceremony and there were a lot of ladies swirling around
him and Bobby was enjoying every second of it. I said to him,
"How is it Bobby every time I see you, you are with a beautiful
woman?" He looks at me and in a nanosecond says, "I'm lucky
here." He was having a really good time. When he was around my
lady friend Yvette, Yvette and he engaged in deep discussions,
she kissed him on the cheek good night and Bobby was just very
happy, thankful and said how very please he was to meet her.

And this is one of those myths. That if his friends talk to the
press, he'll hate them for life and things like this. Bobby has
been getting "Inside Chess" since day one. Through Eugene Torre
and Svetozar Gligoric, purviews things. I saw him on the beach
where he came up and thanked me personally and especially for my
book "Five Crowns" which he praised to the sky.

HWR: The best book on the 1990 match, bar none. I called it as
such when I reviewed it.

YS: Thank you. Well, when got a copy of the book, he told me he
read every single page carefully, carefully. He said, "Yasser,
you're a stronger player than I gave you credit for. That is
clear from the writings. But what I really enjoyed was your
writing style and more than that, the variations you gave and
you know, I only found two mistakes. For me, all I could sit
there and silently pray to myself, "Thank you Jonathan Tisdall
and thank you Jonathan Berry" because we worked our asses off
and this was the greatest reward I'd ever received from the
book. OK, the book is profitable, but I just want to be very
clear about this. This compliment - I soared. Now, I know the
two mistakes. I've read the book twelve times since publication,
and I know the two mistakes. I said, "Bobby, what were the
mistakes you found?" - hoping they were the same mistakes I
found. When they correlated and they were, I was just so
thrilled. That meant to me that I stuck my head out on a lot of
line, called mistakes - mistakes, moves - dubious, others good,
others extremely good, and felt, "Boy, I hope I'm right" Right?
And I just kind of got the USDA seal of approval. [Laughs]

So, Eugene Torre and Gliga came to me privately and both of them
said to me, "Bobby thanks you for "Inside Chess" but, you know,
he is a little sore at you." I said, "Oh? Why?" Well, years ago
in an article (I can't even remember the piece, I searched for
it) I referred to Bobby as the "Ghost of Pasadena" and Bobby had
complained why does he call me a ghost? I'm a man! So, I
realized, I had to get passed this right away. So, I came into
his room, it was two-thirty, quarter-of-three in the afternoon
in his suite. He got up from the table when our party came in.
We were, you see, going to be playing blitz. I stuck out my hand
and I shook his hand and he said, "Welcome!" and it was supposed
to be a light-hearted handshake. But, I'm standing there holding
his hand, and I said, "Bobby, listen buddy, I gotta tell you
that years ago I wrote in "Inside Chess" you were the 'Ghost of
Pasadena' and it was a comment I was trying to write in a
colorful way. It was wrong of me, I'm sorry." And I'm pumping
his hand and I'm saying, "I'm sorry." So I'm apologizing to the
guy...

HWR: And you don't know what's going to happen.

YS: And I don't know what's going to happen. But one thing is
for sure: I ain't gonna let go of his hand! [Laughs] And Bobby's
eyes kind of fluttered a bit and I could read into them that
he's sore, that the comment had stuck in his craw a bit and
simultaneously he says, "Well, yeah, uh..." The realization has
dawned on him, I'm shaking his hand and I ain't lettin' go! And
he looks at that and then he says, "Well, uh, why don't we just
forget it?" I said, "Done! Not another word about it. Thank you
very much for your forgiveness." And I'll tell you something,
Hanon, it set the tone for the entire day. Then Bobby understood
that I wasn't out to hurt or betray him, or do anything to him
that was not real. I mean I was a real genuine person and my
motivations were honest.

I spoke to Bobby, I told him that I was writing about
experiences in Sveti Stefan for "Inside Chess." I'm going to
develop it into a book. Bobby was completely aware of that. I
further went on to say to Bobby, "Listen, Bobby, you have your
views. You've accused others in the past of misquoting you. If
you ever needed a forum to express your dislikes or hatreds or
wants or needs or anything like that. You have a forum. I
wouldn't change a comma or a period. That it would just go in
'Inside Chess' as is." And it really surprised him.

He stepped back and he said, "You mean, I could have an
editorial space?" I said, "Absolutely!" And he says, "Well this
ain't a promise or anything like that, but I really want to
thank you because no one ever offered me that before." And I
said, "Huh?" He said, "Nobody every offered that to me before."
I said, "Bobby, if you ever wrote a damn thing, you'd have
publishers in line." He said, "Yeah, but they always change my
words." I said, "C'mon, you can do it. No one is going to change
your words." He said, "You'd do that for me?" I said, "Bobby,
it's a promise." And he said, "Thank you. I will really think
about it, but it is no guarantee." I said, "No guarantee,
Bobby."

It kind of struck me. Bobby does hate the media. There is no
question about it. But his hatred or anger is understandable,
because of the way he has been characterized. He is a buffoon in
the media, he's nuts, he's crazy. He's a Nazist. Of course he
hates the media. But on the other hand he respects the power of
the media and I genuinely believe that the reason he wrote "I
was tortured in a jail in Pasadena" and distributed it himself
was because he was afraid if he told his story, it wouldn't come
out the way he wanted it to.

Which was very funny. I said, "Bobby, if you ever decided to do
a book about your last twenty years, you could give me the
camera-ready copy. We would have the printer print the book
together. I would act as a distributor. [Laughs] I'd have no
problems with that. And it kind of struck Bobby differently. I'm
trying to say that in the past he has been very, very frightened
of the media because he recognizes that power and he also
recognizes what he sees as their need to assassinate him. He's
genuinely concerned about being misquoted and being exploited.
He thinks it's very unfair. So, I said "Let's do something about
that."

HWR: To change the subject, your criticism of Kasparov regarding
the award of the brilliancy prize at Manila, as far as I was
concerned, was right on the nose. It seemed to me to be clear.
On the other hand, you sometimes treat Gary a little roughly.

YS: Absolutely.

HWR: Why?

YS: First of all, I think he's deserving. Genuinely deserving. I
think that Gary has done some marvelous, marvelous things for
chess and I think at other times he's personally a one-man
wrecking crew in his desire to destroy or reshape chess to his
own vision.

HWR: Is that altogether bad? In some respects Fischer tried to
do the same thing in the seventies, late sixties and early
seventies.

YS: Yes it is. I think it's atrocious, I think it was bad of
Bobby and I think it is terrible of Gary and I think it is
terrible of anybody. Gary's explanation is "Let's torch the city
and build a new city." And I say, "Why do we have to torch the
city. Why don't we let that city exist and go build another one
somewhere else?" I mean, two very, very different approaches.
Gary's first approach was to torch FIDE. I think it was
misguided because I think, quite frankly, FIDE does some
excellent work. It is a very, very useful organization which is
built up on the backs of men and women for tens of years. I
can't go through all the things they do. From blind chess,
children's chess, women's chess, professional chess to amateur
chess, all the nations all over the world. I'm very thankful
they're in the FIDE and let them be. So Gary's first desire was
to torch FIDE.

Then he saw, let's say, the strength of my words and the words
of many others so he built up the GMA. Then when the GMA didn't
go exactly the way he wanted it to go, his idea was to torch the
GMA and destroy everything that had been built up by Bessel Kok,
himself - I consider those the two leading people. Then the
other board of directors, my fellow directors, the staff of the
GMA, all the organizers. He was literally so rude and so cruel,
almost vindictive, certainly vindictive. I thought it was just
terrible, atrocious. I think he should apologize.

I have had these conversations directly, as I am having them now
directly with you. We've gone 'round and 'round and 'round, and
ranting and raving. There was period in our lives when I felt
Gary to be younger brother. We were very, very close. We played
a lot of blitz together, we talked a lot, lots of dinners, and I
just said, "Gary, your ego has gone way out of bounds. You're so
far from reality, you can't see the forest for the trees." He
was really annoyed that I would say this. Often he would say,
"Yasser, you say things to me no one says to me." He said it so
angrily. I said, "Damn it! You need people like me." He's
surrounded with the "bubble gum gang" I call it. He has these
body guards that don't smoke, and he refuses to allow them to
smoke, so they all chew bubble gum! I say, "You're surrounded by
'Yes-people' who aren't smacking you when you are out of line."
He didn't like that and we would have a lot of conversations
like this.

Another thing that I think really hurts chess, and I don't think
Gary really understands this, I said, "Gary, you are a world
champion, you are a role model. It's very, very important how
you behave, what you say at press conferences, what you do." I
wrote an entire press conference speech once in Zurich,
September, 1989. He read it verbatim, in which he said we were
going to make peace with FIDE and everything else. The first
question after that was does that mean that you and Campo aren't
at war? He said, "No, no! We'll kill FIDE!" And he went on like
this. Gary makes friends and he makes enemies incredibly
quickly. He has very, very strong opinions. Kasparov is blind,
he doesn't see colors, he sees black and white. He sees "Are you
pro-Kasparov or are you not?" You have to make the decision
almost from the time he meets you. I think that is atrociously
wrong.

HWR: Let me offer a thought here to you. The description you've
just made the last few minutes of Kasparov, with a name change,
could almost apply to Fischer.

YS: Exactly.

HWR: These two, except for their biological ages, are very
close.

YS: They are very strong willed, strong opinions on certain
topics, yes. There is no question.

HWR: It is an interesting phenomenon.

YS: And I would say to some extent Karpov's personality was very
similar when he was world champion.

HWR: Maybe it is a necessary factor to go to the ultimate peak.

YS: Exactly. It is almost like to become world champion you have
had to have had such a strong sense of self belief. And such an
utter confidence in yourself that you almost become contemptuous
of others. Therein lies the danger. It's an ego trap. I think
Gary has fallen deep into that chasm. The other thing, I can
live with a lot of Gary's tantrums because, quite frankly, it is
water off a duck's back. He says it so often it is hyperbolic
and it means nothing. One of the things that really hurts Gary
is his manners at the board. You see that really, really
antagonizes his colleagues. He squishes the piece into the
square, he bangs the clock, the clock jumps from the table and
he has the power stare, you know, right in the eyes. He looks at
you. He juts his jaw and he is very animated at the board,
compared to many other people, who are very poker-faced at the
board. I think Timman and Short, Karpov, are very fair at the
board. Spassky is a very fair person at the board.

HWR: Fischer is noted for his etiquette at the board.

YS: Very much so and I think that that is very important. I once
was playing Kasparov in Thessaloniki in 1988 in the Olympiad. He
had been squishing in the pieces and making bad moves
simultaneously. [Laughs] He had a bad position and now I had the
better position and I think the shift had really upset him,
because he realized he had let the initiative pass.

He was angry at himself and he took it out on the clock. The
clock made a jump and I don't to get angry. I really, really
don't. I have a high tolerance, but that hurt. And I looked at
him with a look that said, "Do that one more time, sucker, and a
right is going to drop you on your ass!" I was so angry. And he
totally disarmed me. And psychologically it reversed the game. I
didn't say a word, but right then he said, "Yasser, I'm sorry. I
didn't mean to do that. Forgive me." It totally shattered me,
because had he not said that, then I would have really bore down
on the game, but I had so much conflict going on I could hardly
concentrate on the board anymore. But that's the type of thing
that hurts Gary. I think he feels a tremendous distance between
him and his colleagues.

Do you know this wonderful story from Linares? Between Gary and
Vassily Ivanchuk?

HWR: I read the anecdote in "New In Chess."

YS: He walks by the board and Ivanchuk starts looking,
gesticulating wildly between the game position and what is on
the demonstration board. All he did was simply mimic Kasparov
and Kasparov was confused. Everybody else in the tournament hall
was just laughing, because Ivanchuk was so animated and he
pulled off this imitation so wonderfully.

HWR: Whom do you see mounting a serious challenge to Kasparov
eventually.

YS: I am so deeply impressed by Gary Kasparov the chessplayer, I
think that [Keene & Divinsky's book, which attempted to rate all
chessplayers of all time] "Warriors of the Mind" was premature,
but I think Gary is basically making the prophecy of that book
come true. Gary has broken the 2800 [Elo] barrier, justifiably
so. I think he is a head, now, taller than Anatoly Karpov, who
is certainly one of the greatest chessplayers ever.

Gary's tournament record speaks volumes. His results and more
than anything his games themselves are marvelous examples of
perfection in so many areas, from positional play to original
maneuvers, to combinations, and especially combinations. I just
speak with reverence, because, I mean, he's really, really so
good. He is so diverse. He can play so many positions. The
openings - I honestly, it is hard for me to imagine who will
scale those heights. If I had anybody to pick right now, it
would be, funnily enough, a guy people laughed at when I picked
him before, and that was Anand. I had picked Ivanchuk as an heir
apparent, but Anand has recently dispatched Ivanchuk and proven
he should be treated more seriously. If I were to mention five
names, it would be Ivanchuk, Gelfand, Anand, Short, Kamsky.

HWR: How about Gata Kamsky?

YS: I do not like him.

HWR: The bad boy of U.S. chess.

YS: Yes, he and his father have alienated themselves and
justifiably so. I think it is really, really sad, their
behavior. But simultaneously, again, I have deep respect and
recognition of what Rustam has achieved, because quite clearly
Gata is a reflection of his father. He is more or less an
automaton. He has no personality. Rustam is so dominant in their
relationship, but Gata's chess is excellent and it speaks for
itself. If I can sit there and go "Tut, tut, tut, what did I
ever do to deserve these guys?" I have to say darn it, let's
give them my respect as chessplayers.

HWR: Your editorial in "Inside Chess" indicated you were quite
put off by the way he handled his appearance and then
non-appearance in the U.S. Championship.

YS: I was furious. Furious. And perhaps my fury was a little bit
misdirected. He deserved what was said. The problem is his
behavior is nothing new. He's not mimicking anybody in particular,
but others in the chess world have done what he has done and
have not been chastised for that behavior. I think it is
absolutely foul. It's terrible, that type of thing. If I were an
organizer, I mean, it's clear what my editorial said. Those are
my views. I think it should not be done. I think that it is a
terrible thing and I'm surprised that others are not more
outspoken about it, because, that type of behavior is what
destroys tournaments.

HWR: Let me get your views on the recently completed U.S.
Championship. Were you surprised that [IGM Patrick] Wolff won?

YS: Yes.

HWR: Who did you think were the favorites to win?

YS: I thought myself, Boris Gulko, Joel Benjamin and I thought
Yermolinsky were the four favorites. I thought there were a
number of dark horses and I was ready for many surprises. I
thought Fedorowicz would finish higher. I expected Wolff to be a
contender.

HWR: You must have been surprised by Sherzer's performance.

YS: I was astonished. I thought Alex had a marvelous tournament.
I know what it means to have those types of tournaments. I will
say this about the U.S. Championship. It was one of the most
thrilling finishes. It was an extremely combative tournament,
with the lead changing hands and everybody trying to scramble
for points, but you cannot win a tournament like the U.S.
Championship without a good deal of skill and a bigger degree of
luck.

And I have to say that Patrick, a deserved winner, was extremely
fortunate, as would anybody have been. Sherzer would have been a
very fortunate winner because there were just so many games that
the result could have gone either way. I mean that came out in
his favor. I feel, looking beyond the U.S. Championship, what I
feel was important was that we got a group of qualifiers - there
will be seven Americans in the Interzonal, who I am hopeful will
be very competitive and hopefully will qualify a candidate or
two.

HWR: That would be quite a boost for U.S. chess.

YS: Which we need.

HWR: What do you see as the future of chess in the United
States?

YS: It is kind of, not to have the glass that is half empty or
half full, or the garden of roses. I see chess in the United
States as a rose garden. You can concentrate on the roses or you
can see the dirt. Whenever you talk about chess in the U.S., you
first have to start with the chess federation, because they're
the leaders. They are our representatives to FIDE and their
success is our success, and their failure will be our failure.
The U.S. Chess Federation is lookin' good. They have lots of
money in the bank. They have more members than they have ever
had. They have a strong staff which is doing excellent work.
There are still the wonderfully acrimonious chess politics, the
political body that has always been there.

HWR: That is an interesting choice of words.

YS: The policy board and the delegates. They have their
problems, but simultaneously they stumbled through the
recession. They have done very well. I see many, many positive
things there. I attribute that mostly to [USCF Executive
Director] Al Lawrence and his staff, which I think has done
very well.

I see "Chess Life" having some serious weaknesses, like the
failure with Bobby Fischer, which is more than overcompensated
by the fact that the magazine is more informative, is more
interesting than it has been in a long time. I like particularly
the theoretical pieces and the covers are superb. I see growth
there. Our scholastics program is immense and growing. All the
people involved with scholastics should be commended.

Two things which stand out in my mind being tremendously
positive, the ACF [American Chess Foundation, which funds and
sponsors many events and players] and the Manhattan Chess Club
combining to create their own building in New York City. An
excellent move. David Mehler and the Washington Chess Center,
which will be there in D.C. A marvelous, marvelous thing. So, I
see all of these very positive things, and I think, "Superb!" I
should add to that also that I see more and more Soviet Jewish
people, from the former Soviet Union, going on to emigrate to
Israel and the United States, and with them, they bring another
wave of dynamic chess talent. It's really really bringing our
strength as a chess nation higher and higher.

HWR: Of course, there is some backlash to that.

YS: Right. Well, screw that. We're a nation of emigrants. We are
going to have to stand up one day and realize that. I'm a
naturalized citizen, but I was born outside the United States.
Walter Browne was born outside the United States, and others as
well. I mean, I welcome people with open arms, because I was
welcomed with open arms.

But my feeling is that we have so many positive things, I would
just as soon stay on those, yet I can't help but feel - Boy
we're missing the boat somewhere. There are tens of millions of
chessplayers in the United States. People like "Software
Toolworks" have sold two million copies of their Chessmaster
program. Are we doing enough and the answer clearly is no. There
are so many areas for improvements, but hey, that's a challenge,
let's go for it and let's all work for a common cause.

The things that bug me the most about chess in the United
States, are that I think we spend a great deal of our time
fighting ourselves. Nitpicking on one another and, in effect,
hurting our own causes and bringing others down with us. Perhaps
criticisms of Gary Kasparov, as justified as I feel they may be,
might injure chess. Perhaps I should be painting a more
wonderful portrait of a nice happy chess family so people don't
realize that it's a dog-eat-dog world out there. I see that in
chess so often.

I see chess clubs, rival chess clubs, gloating if one has a bad
month. I see chess organizers struggling during the recession,
losing money at tournaments they put on. I see players whining
or complaining about the lack of prizes. I look inward at myself
and I say that if there are problems out there, such as there
are, can't we deal with these from a common good. I see a lot of
people wasting a lot of time doing things that have absolutely
very little use. Whereas I think the real heroes in the chess
world aren't people like myself, although perhaps, deserve that,
but more those people who volunteer their time and their energy
and get clubs going.

I was reading about this women in President Bush's Thousand
Points of Light program. She is a grandmother in Reno, Nevada,
who teaches chess to five- and seven-year old children. She
claims she has taught hundreds of kids how to play chess. Well,
wonderful, give this woman a gold star. How come she is not on
the cover of "Chess Life?" I don't know who she is, I had never
heard her name before I read it in the newspaper. That was so
inspirational, marvelous. Those are the type of things that need
to be stressed, that need to be done.

HWR: Well, of course, you also have your critics in Reno.

YS: Grandmaster Larry Evans. I'll speak a little bit about that.
I think that Larry, his chess career speaks for itself. The many
times he won the U.S. Championship, his grandmaster title, all
deserved. I think he is going to be inducted soon, or will be
inducted soon into the [U.S. Chess] Hall of Fame, and I think as
a chessplayer that is marvelous. My disenchantment with him and
my disconnection from him was years ago. He wrote what Harold
Winston characterized as a racist letter to FIDE. I agreed with
Harold. To me, I thought that that was very, very sad. I saw, at
that time when I had the conflict with Larry strangely enough a
very bitter man. A man who was spending a great deal of his time
hurting the world of chess for no other reason than perhaps
selling a newspaper story. I don't know.

HWR: He is deeply involved in [chess] politics. He does believe,
let me tell you, that you broke a contractual agreement with him
to have his writing appear in "Inside Chess."

YS: Yes, I know he has that belief. I have spoken to that with
him on several occasions and presented my view, which he hasn't
accepted. My view is that I had an agreement with him - We would
publish like half-pages of writings over the course of issues
and that what I got instead was his chess columns that go to all
of these newspapers all over the United States, which was
written for the newspaper market, as opposed to the "Inside
Chess" market, which I think are very, very distinct, where he
would harp and gripe about Campomanes, this tinpot despot,
dictator, as he would describe him very often in many of these
articles and of the political machinations that were occurring
within the USCF framework, which quite frankly, were horrible.
[Laughs]

I told Larry as much. That was my perspective. He was very angry
at me. It wasn't a question of money, because the money we were
talking about was twenty-five bucks an article. It was my
refusal to print what he felt was clever, brilliant writing and
insight. And I said, "Just a second. What's so clever and
brilliant about Mr. Hanken spouting off at one meeting, or
somebody, I think it was Harold Winston, not accepting the
"Friends of the USCF" forum?" Yes, we have a very, very strong
disagreement. I saw a very bitter man through his writings and
it was really sad. That's one of the tragic stories about
chess, Larry Evans.

HWR: Yasser, thank you very much. I'm going to let you go now.

YS: Well, I would just like to say one thing. First of all, I
would like to thank you for taking your time to do what I feel
will hopefully be a good service to all the people on Leisure
Linc [now known as the USA Today Sports Center]. I want to wish
the people of Leisure Linc and CompuServe and Internet and
wherever else this interview appears, well. I want to thank you
for this opportunity.

HWR: Thank you.

Mr. Russell's weekly writings about chess history and review of
chess literature can be found on the USA Today Sports Center, an
electronic network which can be reached at 1-800-826-9688. His
interview of the late American Grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky
which appeared in the November, 1991 issue of "Chess Life"
received the "Best Interview of the Year" Award from the Chess
Journalists of America.

Those interested in subscribing to Yasser Seirawan's "Inside
Chess" may do so be contacting the magazine at INSIDE CHESS, PO
Box 19457, Seattle, WA 98109 Subscription information (U.S.
subscriptions): 6 months, 13 issues, $29.95 1 year, 26 issues,
$49.95

Copyright 1993, Hanon W. Russell
All Rights Reserved