Andrey Volokitin and his father and coach Alexander Volokitin
An interview with GM Andrey Volokitin
25 January starts a robin round tournament 15 cat. at Bermuda
Island. We are talking with the youngest participant 16 y.o. GM
from Ukraine
Andrey Volokitin
and his Father Alexander
Valerievich.
What do you think about your participation in the
forthcoming event at Bermuda Island?
According to the rating I am at the end of the
list of players who will take part there. Among the participants there are such
strong players as Peter Svidler, the Champion of Europe Bartlomiej Macieja,
Sergei Movsesian, the Russian Champion Alexander Motylev, the USA Champion
Alexander Shabalov (by the way my congratulations to him on this recent victory).
So it is difficult to make any forecasts about my participation in this
event. After my wins over Ivanchuk and Bareev in the tournament in Warsaw
which was held lately I feel I can win anyone. But of course I have to play
my best chess for that.
Do you look after the tournament in Wijk aan Zee?
What do you think about the tournament struggle and the standings
of the participans? Who is your favourite there?
Of course I do look after this tournament.
It is a very strong event. A lot of interesting
games. The World Champions take not their places.
Vladimir Kramnik suffers of the lack of playing practice
and besides he propably tryes to keep in secret his
opening schemes before the match with Leko.
And Ruslan Ponomariov plays under the strong psychological pressure as you
know.
My favourite is Vasily Ivanchuk there. We are from one city with him - from
Lvov. I hope he will win several victories at the final rounds.
What do you think about conflict between
Ponomariov and FIDE and about the new World Championship circle?
I have to have sufficient information about that
to estimate it right and unfortunately I have no such information.
Certainly I care about my compatriot and I think FIDE has to support
it's Champion and not to put the ultimatum before him.
I think it would be logical if the conditions of the both semi-final
matches were equal at every point. I hope they will find the
compromise decision. And now about the unification of two World Chamionships:
I think it is very good idea but I cannot understand why they
ignored the opinions of such players as Vice-world Champion Vasily
Ivanchuk and Ex-world Champion Viswanathan Anand? There are
many other great chessplayers besides. I understand that the sacrifices were
necessary but some of them were incorrect.
Alexander Valerievich, are you satisfied
by the results of Andrey?
(the question to the Andey's father)
Of course one always wants more and more.
After the row of the excellent results in 2001: Lausanne, Championship of Europe
in Ochrid and event in Portoroz, where we were invited by
the President of ECU Boris Kutin (thank him a lot for that)
and where Andrey made two GM norms, then there was very offensive
defeat in won ending to Sakaev in the World Championship in Moscow.
In the most of the tournaments in 2002 Andrey played well. I just don't want
to recall the club championship of Russia in Ekaterinburg.
But, as the coach and the teacher with 20 years of record of service, I
know that the defeats are inevitable and one has to
take it easy. I am satisfied by his purposefulness, I see
his big potential so I am sure he will show good results.
Andrey, where are you going to play in 2003?
Certainly I will play in the individual European championship,
of course I would like to play in the strong round-robin events, with
the participants who have the ratings higher than mine.
Probably I will play in Lausanne in youngmasters tournament,
in Portoroz, Esberg, in these events I played not so bad, so I hope to
get the invitation to take part there.
Besides I want to play in Mainz. Here is my e-mail address for the interested
organizers: [email protected]
Andrey what do you think about the perforamnce
of the Ukrainian team in the Olympiad in Bled? Would you like to be in the team?
The result, frankly speaking, is not good.
The place of our team must be as a minimum in the top five, and
not the 14th.
Only Moiseenko played excelently, Ivanchuk played well.
Of course I would like to play in the team, but this time
they decided to make the team according to the rating and mine
was not enough for that. And I think they did it right despite of the
bad performance of our team. I suppose the reason of this result
is the absence of the prepartion assembly before the Olympiad.
But now everyone has the real chance to be in the national team.
Moiseenko has used this chance and Neverov has not.
As the coaches of the team I see Vladimir Borisovich Tukmakov and
Oleg Mikhailovich Romanishin.
You are one of the youngest grandmasters of
Ukraine and of over World. Does the state support you, do you have the sponsors?
Unfortunately I have no sponsors.
There in Lvov they promised to support me when I was invited
to move to Kramatorsk, but already a year passed and nothing has changed.
The state has no enough money for that too.
I do not get any grants, we spend our own money to come in to the tournaments.
The only exceptions are the club Championships of Ukraine and Europe. I played
in the team "Karpaty-Galycina".
In this year you finish the school. What do you plan
to do after?
I am going to enter in Lvov University
or in Kharkov juridical academy.
Good luck to you in Bermuda event!
Thanks. I wish your web-site
a lot of the visitors! I promise to tell about the Bermuda event.
22nd January 2003
The interview was taken by the director of
Shahcom company Boris Yeshan
