Final Chess Masters Bilbao 2008

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Participants

TEIMOUR RADJABOV (ELO 2752)
Baku (Azerbaijan), 12.03.1987

The kid that knocked out Kasparov TEIMOUR RADJABOV

Even though chess is along with music and mathematics the activity that more child prodigies produces, very few have impressed so much as Teimur Radyabov. At 12, when he became European Champion U-18, he already showed a strategic depth and good manners not expected from someone of his age. At 14 he became grandmaster. At 15 he defeated Kasparov with the black pieces in Linares. Today he is 21 and has settled among the elite, though everything shows that he’s still got a long way to go, as he will most probably demonstrate in Bilbao.

One has to go back as far as the legendary Bobby Fischer in the 60’s to find feats as resounding as when Radyabov defeated Kasparov in 2003. Also born in Baku, he had never lost with white pieces to a human rival in the classical game since May 1996. Bearing in mind that both of them were born in Baku and were Guéidar Alíyev’s protégées (President of the Azerbaijan KGB when Kasparov was young and of the Azerbaijani Government when Radyábov was a child) one can better understand Kaspárov’s angry outburst that night: he did not shake hands with the winner and had a very late dinner, thumping his fist on the table while having chicken.

Radyabov’s achievements began in 1997: he was the only one to beat Swedish Víktor Korchnói twice world runner-up in a simultaneous exhibition in Baku. Soon after, former champion Anatoli Karpov met him and talked to Alíyev: "Radyabov is highly talented. I see him as a future world champion”. A year later he became world chess champion U-12 in Marina D'Or (Castellón) very easily. Still 12, then he won the European U-12. Ever since he was a child his maturity and calmness over the chessboard as well as a domain of the positional game not expected from his age impressed especially. Son of an engineer and an English translator, he trained five hours a day (now seven) and did not go to school, except for passing his examinations with no trouble: “His intelligence level was so much greater than that of the other children of his age. The contact with them came through football playing. He also liked music and drawing. He already spoke three languages as a kid. In the old times, the great Soviet chess grandmasters were almost obliged to go to university though they never practised their professions. But Teimur future was in chess, a very popular sport in Azerbaijan", explains his compatriot Faik Gasanov, international referee.

Now, at the age of 21, Radyabov is undergoing a self debate about whether he should stick to his aggressive style of the recent years or become more conservative and pragmatic. He will probably see the light to this dilemma, like he saw it in an interview given to the newspaper El País when he was 15, in which he gave his opinion about the Iraq’s invasion: “I don’t quite understand all this mess USA and the UN have about revolutions. War should be the last alternative to disarm Sadan, and I don't know for a fact that everything possible has been done to disarm him without going to war". Finally he was asked if there was something essential missing in that interview. He gave a very original answer: “Yes, jamón. It is one of the main reasons I like Spain very much”.

TEIMOUR RADYABOV’S RECORD

1996 y 1997: European Chess Champion U-10
1998: European and World Chess Champion U-12
1999: European Chess Champion and 4th in the World Championship, when he was 12 years old!
2001: Grandmaster at the age of 14, at that time he was the second youngest grandmaster in history.
2002: He entered into the world’s top one hundred chess players list at the age of 14, the youngest in history.
2003: When he was 15 he became the youngest player ever to defeat Gari Kaspárov with the black pieces in the Linares Chess Tournament, where he had been unbeaten the previous six years.