Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Q&A with Maya Chiburdanidze

Just got my grubby hands on the latest New in Chess magazine. I could tell you about Grischuk's (his game against Alekseev in Elista) and Gelfand's (against Aronian in Dresden) excellent annotations or Kramnik's counter salvo against Kasparov or the latter going on again about the world championships; or maybe I could tell you to read Hans Ree who pokes damn good fun at Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. But no, I won't direct your attention to those. The one thing that gave me a chuckle was on the last page - in the "Just Checking" section. If you're not familiar with it, it's that part of the magazine where a player gets to answer one of those Q&A interviews. This month's guest is Georgian women's powerhouse, Maya Chiburdanidze. Here are just a few tidbits.

What was the most interesting book you ever read?
Patericon - Sayings of the Ancient Ascetics

What music do you like to listen to?
Silence. It's the most beautiful music in the world.

Who or what would you like to be if you weren't yourself?
An Anthonite monk.

If you've ever seen Maya in person, then you'll know why I find all this a bit funny, yet somehow, kind of fitting!

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