Y. Vasiliev: What can you, an expert with a huge personal experience, say about the grandmaster Ponomariov?
Y.Razuvaev: He is an enormously gifted player! He resembles Karpov astonishingly, in such a degree that it is just difficult to believe! There were no two world champions resembling each other so much in their talent.
Y. Vasiliev: And what is your impression of the other players?
Y.Razuvaev: Leko demonstrates an extremely interesting play! I must observe, that he changed completely, he is not the player I used to see previously. The sporting element has came to the fore in him drastically. He acquired the sense of leadership, which never was not his particular trait. Suddenly a Super Player emerged in the world chess! He is not only the chess player of a high class, but also a very strong fighter. By now, he resembles Bobby Fischer in so me degree.
Krrmnik played very good. However, Vladimir experiences a state of some inner uncertainty… He could not acquire the proper functional state. You know, it is a very subtle feeling! Sometimes, one can lost this state during a single day, even in the next five minutes! Vladimir gladdened me then. It was obvious, that he was playing with taste. However, he experienced some health problems in the end of the tournament, otherwise, he would have scored more points.
Anand was shocked by his absurd loss in the deadly drawn rook endgame against Kasparov. He also played good until that moment, but suddenly his nerves let him down. This breakdown affected his subsequent play dramatically, it became rather murky and lost its usual brilliance and ambitiousness.
I observe Kasparov from the times, when he was 10 years old… It happened so, that I was an assistant to Mikhail Moiseevich Botvinnik, when Kasparov attended the Patriarch school. I witnessed all Kasparov’s career, I even managed to play against him couple of times… It was in Astana-2001 that I already told him, that he was still playing good, but he lost the easiness. Gary practically stopped playing ‘with his own hand’. And this is very important! The chess player cannot be solving a difficult analytical task during the all life. Some easiness must be present in the play, otherwise the time troubles begin and, generally, the play becomes a torture… Gary has some problems. He broke down and lost to Radzhabov. After that loss, his play became even more difficult…
Y. Vasiliev: Maestro, what do you think about chances of the participants of the so called Absolute World Championship?
Y.Razuvaev: Genarally, the Leko-Kramnik pair looked more fresh and demonstrated brighter play, than Kasparov and Ponomariov. However, the sport is fluent and by the June there will be completely different players – Ponomariov, and Kasparov, and Leko, and Kramnik.