Grandmaster José Martínez Alcántara, also known as Jospem, discusses the Clash of Claims, the Clash of Blames, Kramnik’s attitude, and the differences between playing online and over-the-board chess in Part one of his interview.
Q: I understand you are back to your hometown Lima. Can you sum up how was the European tour?
A: My last trip was to London, but in June I went to Madrid, for Clash of Claims. Two weeks ago I went to London to play the other edition of that match against Vladimir Kramnik.
Q: How was the London match for you?
A: I was not in my best shape for sure. I almost decided not to go, because I had family issues as you maybe know. But at the end of the day I decided to travel to the tournament because my family, my mother would have wanted me to play. She would always support me. Even if I was not mentally in my best shape to play, I decided to go because I just didn’t want to wait another time.
I was aiming to win, as in Madrid, but for sure I didn’t prepare enough for this match. I found a really strong and well prepared opponent. He prepared twice. Also I was not playing, even on my regular level, I was playing worse than my average level, so that happened when I played really bad.
Q: But you were leading after two days, right?
A: Yeah, actually I was leading the first day. Somehow I tried to prepare something for the second day, but it didn’t work, even if I was still leading. But on the third day, I don’t know, I was playing normal chess, but he was playing amazing chess and in the online part I was not focused, I just lost my concentration.
I hoped for the OTB to do my best, I think if I was in a normal situation, I could have won the OTB part by a large margin. I think the last game was totally winning for me and I don’t know what happened in my mind. The first game also was almost totally winning for a long time and I just waited until the last 10 seconds to realize I needed to move. Yeah, I was not in the game, my mind sometimes was on the game, sometimes with other thoughts. It was unusual context for me.
Q: Still, big effort from you. Do you consider this matter now settled?
A: I didn’t want to finish with this kind of result. It was not as I expected. I couldn’t do too much. I didn’t want to replace or cancel or postpone the match because that would be against the contract and there was some fine if you don’t play. At that point I couldn’t really think very well, I just wanted to play and finish the match. I tried to do my best but chess is mental. I didn’t want to finish the second match in that way, I wanted to win even if I was not thinking.
The matter is… the people that think I am not a fair player will continue to think so. The people that believed me will still believe me. And for sure, there are a lot of details everyone should know about the matches.
There are a lot of differences between playing a regular weekly tournament and a special scheduled event like Clash of Claims.
For example, I see a lot of differences. The first and maybe the biggest difference between when I play someone, I don’t know in Titled Tuesday, and someone in a special match with months to prepare – you can prepare something against that opponent. You will not surprise the opponent. I am a player who… I don’t have a lot of time to study chess so I’m mainly using the same repertoire, but I know it really well. But in Clash of Claims I didn’t use a single time my main repertoire. Because he for sure will have had prepared against it.
That is the main difference. When you play against someone in Titled Tuesday, you can never expect what he will play, what he’s doing. Even after the game, I don’t think there are a lot of players, maybe one in ten, who analyze every game.
In a special match a player can analyze your opening, your weaknesses, your time management, the kind of things that can influence a lot.
Also, you rest! In Titled Tuesday you don’t have a minute to rest between the rounds. In these matches we had 15 minutes, 20, 50 even at some point. It’s totally different. Also the stress of being in the playing hall. The confidence you gain when you play OTB, if you win a game you gain confidence. There is a lot of things that people don’t take seriously, but it can change the outcome.
Q: How was Kramnik’s attitude towards you? Did it change over time?
A: I don’t know. After this second match I don’t know what he thinks about me. For the first match he can say that Chess.com was not working well, but I don’t think this is true.
For the second match we had other type of context. For sure he knows the difference between playing me in a random game and playing me in a special match where he can prepare. I know that he prepared. He knows the difference. I think he cannot maybe lie that this should be the same person. No, there are a lot of differences between playing me in a random game you don’t expect and playing me in a special match where you have weeks, maybe months to prepare, maybe with his GM friends.
I don’t have that help, that person that can help me prepare. At least in the second match, in the first one I had one person to help me, but in the second one I was totally alone.
I don’t know what he thinks. He is not saying nothing, maybe he is neutral. I don’t know what he will think about my 11/11 in the last Titled Tuesday. You need to ask him maybe.
Q: But from the photos and videos he looked more relaxed in London compared to Madrid.
A: Yeah, but he contacted the organizer, he created that event. He called the people who can organize the event.
Q: You mentioned playing on ChessArena. How was your experience playing there? Was there really less lag compared to Chess.com?
A: If there was lag on Chess.com I didn’t figure it out because I am playing in the same speed. So I couldn’t figure out if there was lag or not. On ChessArena it was not my first time, but I didn’t play there since two years. I couldn’t be familiar with the playing sound, but anyway it was working really well. I have no complaints. He didn’t complain.
Q: Do you follow Reddit maybe? There was a post by a member that deliberately cheated on ChessArena just to see how far it can go. I am not sure if he’s banned yet. But that was one counter-argument to Kramnik’s claims that it’s a perfect place to play.
A: Most websites, if we don’t count Chess.com, maybe Lichess, don’t have really good Fair-Play measures. Because I played once in ChessArena, in a big tournament actually, they created a series of tournaments with OTB part and online part. I was playing in an online qualifier, I qualified fortunately, but in one of the qualifiers I played against one untitled player who was winning every single game before he faced me. So I was saying, okay this is clear cheating because he is not even 1500, he is playing completely crazy moves, beating everyone.
I was speaking to the administrator, and this player kept saying he is not cheating, but after few minutes he admitted “okay I am cheating”. And he got disqualified, and the points of many Grandmasters who lost to him were recovered. I beat him by then, but he played normally against me, I don’t remember exactly. That happens even. Because in that qualifier every single person complained about him.
In Part 2 of the interview, coming soon, José Martínez reveals whether he will play in the Chess Olympiad, discusses who is tougher – Bortnyk or Danya – talks about Hikaru Nakamura, shares his opinion on the double elimination format, and makes predictions for the Speed Chess Championship Finals in Paris.
