I could never think of keeping a blog but Vlad Tkachiev asked me and I agreed.

Generally speaking, nowadays there are quite a lot of good chess websites (and way more bad ones!) but all of them are pretty of the same type. So, I wonder what can become from whychess.com.

As far as I understand it will bear no resemblance to any of the existing websites.

As for me, very soon I’m going to participate in the World Team Championship in China (It is likely to be the strongest one ever. Let’s say, in the previous championship there played teams from Turkey, Egypt, and Greece whereas this time only Egypt remained). If you think it will be held from July 15th to 26th and calculated that it would take only 10 days, you’re much mistaken. This event includes 10-day training camp plus 5 days for acclimatization (it’s going to be kind of +40 and 100% humidity). So, all in all it will take almost a month. Thus, usual for me annual cycle (play autumn to spring and have rest in summer) falls apart this year.

All the more so, as in August there will be held the Super Final of the Russian Championship (according to the ultra-modern formula: 8 players in a single round-robin) and another World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk where I’ll have the possibility to prove myself in the right for Kazan.

I completely agree with the philosophy that “the second is just the first of the losers” and it can be applied to Kazan to the full extent. Despite a great deal of positive emotions I got in the first parts of the tournament (let’s say, after the 4th regulation game against Kramnik) I can hardly call it an absolute achievement. So, seeing me, don’t hurry to congratulate me “on Kazan” or “on the final”.

Here is a little fun: http://hitech.newsru.com/article/26may2011/cnlabcampgldfrm. There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. The computers were never turned off. If prisoners didn't complete their credit quota, they would get quite a real punishment. “They would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things.”

Well, we’ll see what whychess.com can do and I hope next time I’ll write about something more interesting.

Peace.