Today we got a new leader. It's Volokitin (UKR) who defeated Inarkiev (RUS) in a theoretically very important game. Black's choice was a famous Marshall gambit that is in the repertoire of a great number of top players. For a long time it was considered to give enough counter play for a sacrificed pawn, but some of the last games indicate that the ball might be again in Black's court. On table number two we saw a strange game between Navara (CZE) and Meier (GER). Black opted for French defense and made his first 18 moves in a lightning manner. In that moment, due to the bonus of 30 seconds per move, he had 4 minutes more on his clock than at the start of the round, but also a somewhat suspicious position, to say it in a gentle way. It seems that White didn't manage to find a good plan, probably went wrong in some moment and at the end was obliged to fight for a draw being pawn down in a rook endgame.
Behind the leader there is a group of nine players with 5,5 points: Inarkiev (RUS), Sjugirov (RUS), Meier (GER), Bocharov (RUS), Ivan Sokolov (NED), Navara (CZE), Jobava (GEO), Grachev (RUS) and Papaioannou (GRE), followed by 23 players with 5,0 points. These 33 players are in this moment the most serious candidates for the next World Cup. Let us see the composition of the leading group of ten players. There are 4 Russians, one Ukrainian, one German, one Dutch (in fact it's our Ivan Sokolov), one Czech, one Georgian and one Greek. From the point of view of rating, in that group there is only one player under 2600 (Sjugirov). Those who support the theory of the relativity of rating in some chess sites will be certainly disappointed.
Let's go back on the issue from yesterday. Besides everything already said there is one more reason for the drop of chess quality in countries that belong to the former Yugoslavia and it is the lack of the high class trainers. In my final comment about the Olympiad in Erevan (1996) on Croatian TV I said that this problem can be solved in two different ways. One, of short term nature, is to bring such coaches from the countries with so called «Russian school», and that is exactly what did the Slovenian chess Federation in mid nineties. They invited Beliavsky and Mikhalchishin to become Slovenian citizens, and also Sveshnikov to come from time to time to give a training session. As a result they got a couple of strong young players, the possibility to make their national team younger and even to win an Olympic medal.
A long term solution is to form the coaches of its own, but this is a much more complex operation that needs some time for its realization.
As you probably know, to be a good coach requires two things: knowledge and the capacity to transfer that knowledge to the pupils. A GM title itself doesn't guarantee anything in that sense.
Speaking about my country (Croatia), in these 13 years nothing serious has been done. We have a couple of talented and strong young players who will be soon over 2600. However, they were not created by the system but thanks to their parents who were obliged to make a lot of sacrifices to create for them all the necessary conditions.
It would be logical that coaches are recruited from older players who don't have ambitions for further playing or even finished their careers. In Croatia we have four persons of the kind, all of them with GM title, coaching experience plus university diplomas that include pedagogical skills. What do you think, how many of them are engaged by the system to work with young talents? Nobody.
M.Cebalo
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