Alexander Morozevich: “I think I must be boring”

Alexander Morozevich. Not too long ago he was the world’s number two player, but the last two years he almost disappeared from the chess radar. Then, out of nothing he participated in the Higher League of the Russian Championship, and won it. After another excellent result in Biel, the grandmaster from Moscow, Russia sat down with us for a video interview.

In the video interview below, conducted on Friday, July 29th in Biel, Switzerland Alexander Morozevich first talks about the Higher League of the Russian Championship. He won this strong tournament with 8/11, half a point more than Artyom Timofeev and Alexander Galkin. Together with them, Morozevich qualified for the Russian Championship Superfinal, which will start in a few days from now.

Talking about Biel, it becomes clear that Morozevich mostly feels like a sportsman, but also like an artist to some extent. “In general I think that it’s good that we’re playing on stage, that people are coming and watching. It’s quite nice actually, here.”

Asked about the importance of creative play, Morozevich reacted vehemently: “I think I must be boring, because I was trying to find my name in some books. Recently I read a book by John Nunn, like ’125 best chess games ever’, and I was desparately looking for a single game of mine but OK, of course none of them. And I was looking at some other anthology of the best chess games ever played and I was desparately looking for some games of mine, but none of the books.” Morozevich agreed that he gets enough recognition from the chess fans, but “professionas find my play extremely boring.”

Alexander Morozevich in Biel during a post-mortem

Naturally we asked the big question: why did he play so few tournaments? Morozevich: “I think it’s quite easy. 2009 was already tough year. In Wijk aan Zee I played extremely poorly and then in Biel and Zürich I played extremely uneven. Then I showed some results in the European Championship for Russia when I took the gold medal on board 2. But then, since that bright moment, something wrong happened to my, I started to play really badly. Tal Memorial plus Khanty-Mansiysk plus Bursa was really too much. Not only because I was losing all these games, but also the way I was losing these games.

So that’s why I decided to make a break and just to see how it goes. This break was probably too long but OK, my next tournament was half a year later in July in Pamplona, but I was still playing like a total idiot there. After that of course I was forced to deny some invitations, for example the Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, because with such a level I can’t play for the national team.”

From October last year until April this year, Morozevich worked in Qatar, as a coach for GM Zhu Chen. She is a former Women’s World Champion and married to Qatar’s number one grandmaster Mohamad Al-Modiahki. In between this coaching period, Morozevich played the tournament in Reggio Emilia, but again with a disappointing result.

About training Zhu Chen, he said: “The most interesting thing is that she’s Chinese. She has a totally different understanding of everything. I was learning the way Chinese people are understanding chess.”

From a long period with few events, Morozevich suddenly finds himself playing in four tournaments in three months. Not only will he participate in the Superfinal, but afterwards he’ll also play the Word Cup. “Of course it’s a tough schedule, but what can you do?”

Here’s the full interview: http://www.youtube.com/embed/NqWIM6Gpof0