27 January 2021

The Kamskys vs. Bob Rice

During the last 20+ years I've accumulated thousands of documents and document snippets related to the World Chess Championship. While sorting through them for another post, I rediscovered a series of early TWIC extracts related to the 1994-95 PCA Candidates Matches. As far as I can tell, these historically relevant documents exist only on TWIC.

1994-11-20: The Week in Chess 10 • '2) The Kamsky Letter and Bob Rice's response'

  • 'Eric Schiller posted an open letter to the chess world from Gata Kamsky. It purely represents Kamsky's point of view and was unedited by Eric; Dated: 07.11.94' • 'One and half months already passed since we started trying to get any answer from Bob Rice. So far, our lawyers received only telephone answers. We officially requested him in written form to allow PCA Candidates' finals match between Kamsky and Anand to be held in Linares, starting December 15-20th.'

  • 'PCA Response to Kamsky. November 19, 1994; Bob Rice's Reaction; We spoke to Bob Rice today over the phone about Gata Kamsky's Open Letter and he made these comments. The fragments are presented more or less in the order that I jotted them down. -- Larry Evans' • "The charges made by Gata Kamsky are patently absurd and have about the same degree of validity as his earlier charge that people were poisoning his food. [...]"

1994-11-27: The Week in Chess 11 • '2) FIDE, PCA and the Kamskys'

  • 'Interview with Gata Kamsky; By Larry Evans' • (On Sunday we received a phone call from Gata Kamsky and his father Rustam. These are their comments on my interview with Bob Rice.) "We had two lawyers but dismissed them because we feel they took the side of PCA commissioner Bob Rice against us. [...]"

  • 'Protest; From Roustam Kamsky; To Bob Rice; Dated 18-Nov-94' • 'On behalf of Gata Kamsky and myself I protest against the fact that the prize for the Candidates Final Match was cut in half. [...]'

1994-12-04: The Week in Chess 12 • '5) Further Bob Rice - Kamsky letters.'

  • 'Text of letter from Bob Rice to Rustam and Gata Kamsky, date November 23, 1994, on PCA letterhead, with the contact information listed as 345 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010' • 'This letter replies to your "Protest" of November 18 and confirms conversations I had with your lawyers, Mr. Joel Lutwin and Mr. Edwin Rubin, previously on the subjects you raise in your "Protest".'

  • 'Reply to Bob Rice; For immediate release; From Roustam Kamsky; Retyped and posted by Eric Schiller' • 'This is a reply to a fax I received 25-Nov-94 from Bob Rice. After almost two months Mr. Rice finally sent me a fax in reply to my repeated requests for information.'

TWIC 12 had an additional section about the recently concluded match, Kamsky - Short, Linares • '6) The PCA Candidates Semifinals - Linares 1994'

  • 'Report to the PCA by Technical Director Mauricio B. Perea' • 'My first experience as a chess Technical Director became an interesting episode, blending amusing bouts of curiosity with an almost paranoid human behaviour on the part of Mr Rustam Kamsky. [...] Technical meeting of September 20, 1994 • Mr Rustam Kamsky insisted on being present at the Technical Meeting of Sept. 20th, on the grounds that his son is still a minor (Gata is 20 years old).'

  • 'Chief Arbiter's Report; Regarding the incident of September 25, 1994, in the hotel restaurant of the Anibal Hotel; Chief Arbiter Andrzei Filipowicz; Linares, September 26, 1994 • 1. During the 4th round, in the opening (after Black's 5th move) Mr Short, on his own time, said a few words directly to Mr Gata Kamsky, asking him to stop his permanent coughing which was disturbing him. [...] 9. As I understand, a few hours later that same night the police took Mr Rustam Kamsky to the police station to clarify his version of the case and his behaviour in the restaurant.'

For more about the struggle between the rival chess organizations that damaged world chess at the highest level, see my page FIDE vs. PCA : World Chess Championship.

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