DREAMS COME TRUE

What does a chess player dream of at the age of 19? At the initial stage of his career, an ordinary player of this ancient game tries to show himself as a promising chess player in order to receive invitations to major international tournaments. What should a talent like Teymur Rajabov do at the age of 19 since he showed himself as a promising chess player almost at the age of 10 and received invitations to the most prestigious international tournaments at 15? What else, you would say. He has to win these tournaments. This is what 19-year-old Teymur Rajabov did, having won one of the most prestigious international chess tournaments in the Dutch city of Wijk-aan-Zee. It has status as one of the Grand Slam tournaments (similar to tennis) and brings together the strongest grandmasters of the planet.

It is notable that Teymur Rajabov had not really spoilt his fans with his participation in the Wijk-aan-Zee tournament - he had participated in the main tournament of the country of tulips only once before - in 2003, but at that time, he was only a promising player among the elite of world chess. Although some time later in 2003, the whole chess community of the world started talking about Teymur Rajabov. In 2003, the Azerbaijani grandmaster gained a sensational and very beautiful victory over the 13th world champion Garry Kasparov in Linares. What's more, Kasparov lost to our chess player with white figures, which is not typical of the former Bakuvian, while the game itself was recognized as one of the most beautiful games in the tournament.

Of course, even before the Dutch tournament, Teymur Rajabov had prestigious victories in his account. This is his success in Dos Hermanas (Spain) and Cape d'Ague (France), a silver at the European championship and a bronze at the FIDE world championship, and finally, the second place at last year's Linares/Morelia tournament. The victory in Wijk-aan-Zee is important because it is a victory in a tournament that has the prefix "super".

Only gold

Teymur Rajabov made it clear from the very beginning of the Dutch tournament that he will not go for anything but the first place. In the first tour when the rest of the participants made quick draws in order to adapt to the conditions of the tournament, our chess player gained his first winning point in a game with the Dutch player Loek Van Wely. There were a total of five winning points like that in the tournament. After a short break in the form of a draw with Ukraine's Sergey Karyakin, Teymur Rajabov gained a beautiful victory over one of the strongest chess players of the planet Aleksey Shirov, by sacrificing two queens in this game. After the tournament, Teymur Rajabov said in an interview with R+ that this was probably his most beautiful victory in his entire professional career especially as it was gained in a prestigious tournament in a game with one of the strongest chess players of the planet.

After such a beautiful victory over Shirov, Teymur Rajabov did not stop at what he had achieved and sorted out another Dutchman Sergey Tivyakov and David Navarra from the Czech Republic. In his game with the latter, the Azerbaijani grandmaster had quite a bad position and could have lost, but having confused his rival with his pointless moves, he dealt a lightning blow and checkmated his rival's king. At that moment, Teymur Rajabov headed the tournament on his own and was followed only by the ex-world champion Veselin Topalov from Bulgaria. It was him who gained on our countryman after the 8th tour when he suffered a defeat in a game with Armenian Levon Aronyan. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Topalov immediately gained a victory and became a leader. Incidentally, this is Rajabov's second loss to Aronyan in high category tournaments. It must be remembered that last year Teymur Rajabov also lost to the representative of Armenia in Linares/Morelia, which creates an impression about a difficult rival. However, Teymur Rajabov denied this idea after the fixture in Holland. "In principle, I do not have difficult rivals at all. I have absolutely no psychological problems, and if I ever lose to someone, I do not experience any problems in a game with the same rival in another tournament," Teymur Rajabov said after the tournament. "I just consciously played to win, as was the case in Linares/Morelia last year, where I could have made a draw, but I decided to struggle. This is the stylistic feature of my game. This is just a set of circumstances."

After losing to Aroyan, almost all specialists wrote off the Azerbaijani grandmaster, as they did not believe that he would become the leader again. For example, the former world champion of FIDE, Russian Alexander Khalifman, commenting on the course of the tournament, expressed the opinion that our chess player is not ready yet to win a tournament like Wijk-aan-Zee. But the same Khalifman had to acknowledge his mistake after the tournament. "Rajabov proved it to all those who had doubts about him, including to me. I am taking off my hat. Yes, now he will be among favorites in future tournaments, Alexander Khalifman thinks. He was probably right when he did not rush to beat Carlsen with black figures immediately after his defeat. He waited for the right moment. Teymur's statistics at this tournament is impressive - fifty with whites and +4 with blacks! I do not remember any result like that in super-tournaments. Teymur entered the first place on the back of an old Indian elephant."

To surpass Kasparov

Teymur Rajabov's game with black figures is the subject of a different conversation. Taking into account that the black color in chess suggests a number two game, i.e. a defensive game, it is surprising that Teymur Rajabov gained four of his five victories with black figures. What's more, Teymur Rajabov gained all these victories using the old Indian defense whose debut was copied by many chess experts, including the current world champion, Vladimir Kramnik, who "beat" this debut out of the 13th world champion Garry Kasparov. The same Kramnik, who could not do anything in his game with Rajabov who used the old Indian defense against the world champion, said that our chess player has no match in this debut at present. The well-known Russian chess reporter, Yuriy Vasilyev, expressed the opinion that Rajabov surpassed Kasparov himself in this debut.

"Garry Kasparov played the old Indian defense much longer than I did, because he played it from his childhood up to his match with Karpov who failed to beat him in this debut. Only Kramnik managed to "beat" the old Indian defense out of Kasparov. Kramnik beat Kasparov in all his games in this debut. Kasparov had big problems after which he switched to other debuts, Teymur Rajabov said. Of course, I am happy that in the game with Kramnik I managed to get not just equal play, but a slightly better position. Of course, "the old Indian" helped me a lot in this tournament as it allowed me to gain two very important points at the start with Van Wely and Shirov. I cannot say that I surpassed Kasparov in this debut, I still have a long time to play chess, God willing, which is why I hope to show good results not only in the old Indian, but also in other debuts."

After losing to Aroyan, our grandmaster turned out of a leader into a chaser, although at some point, when Topalov was one point ahead, it seemed that no-one would ever catch up with him. But Rajabov waited for the Bulgarian to make a mistake, which happened in the following tournament where Topalov lost to Russia's Petr Svidler. Teymur Rajabov immediately took advantage of this and gained on the leader after beating Russia's Alexey Motylev. The organizers of the Wijk-aan-Zee tournament did not even suppose that defining the pairs, in the last tour they would bring together the leaders - Teymur Rajabov and Veselin Topalov - the two worthiest participants in the tournament. It was also natural that the two equally strong grandmasters concluded a peace agreement without revealing the strongest chess player. However, Armenian Levon Aroyan gained on the two leaders in the last tour and all three were recognized as winners since additional indicators are not counted in Wijk-aan-Zee. But if you count the number of tours in which Teymur Rajabov was in the lead, and he was in the lead in eight of the 13 tours, it becomes obvious that Teymur Rajabov was the first among equals.

"I am very happy about my victory in such a great tournament. I think this is the dream of every chess player who has become a grandmaster. I hope to win more often in Grand Slam tournaments that are held four or five times a year. Such victories are highly rated in the chess world and in the press, that's to say they have an absolutely different response than victories in other tournaments. Now I have fulfilled my great dream, or to be more precise, one of the great ones, Rajabov said after the tournament. Asked whether he found this game disgusting after such a tiring marathon of 13 tours, the chess player replied: No, I am not disgusted by chess at all. Even after such tournaments, it is always interesting to see an interesting game and even to play a fast game of chess in the Internet. But I have never found it disgusting. This is the game I adore and actually live for."