After five-year pause, Baadur Jobava No.1 chess player of Georgia showed readiness to participate in Georgian national championship. Jobava has 2721 ranking points and he is in the 25th place. As it was expected, Jobava gained 10 points from 11 (9 victories, 2 draws) and became champion of Georgia the fourth time. As a result Jobava gained 9 ranking points, now he has 2730 points and he will advance in the next classification.
“World Sport” has talked to him.
- For five years you have not played in national championship. What was the reason of such a long pause?
- Sometimes other more important tournaments, sometimes – personal affairs.
- You played one of the draws from two with Irakli Beradze (2298) who is the youngest and has the lowest ranking.
- I nearly won the match, but I relaxed and I lost half point due to my carelessness.
- Are you satisfied with your playing in other matches?
- I am never satisfied with my playing, I always want to do my best and to pay better today than yesterday.
- What can you say about the level of Georgian championship?
- There is a little progress. But our opponents work harder than we do.
- What is the reason of it?
- Georgian chess players as the representatives of other kinds of sports are very talented, but due to laziness we do not use our talent well. Of course I consider myself among them.
- How do you think, who are our opponents?
- Everyone, who has higher ranking than we.
- No one has ever had such high ranking as you have, including veteran and active sportsmen. What is your plan for the future?
- My goal is to enter top ten in the nearest future.
- How do you think, who is the most successful chess player?
- Of course it is Indian Vishwa Anand, he won all the tournaments, what was possible to win.
- What about prospective chess players?
- Carlsen of Norway, Armenian Aornyan, Russian Kariakyn.. there are a lot of talented chess players.
- What about veteran players?
- American Bobby Fischer, Russian – Alexand Aliokhin and Mikhail Botvinik made big impression on me.
- Are you fond of another kind of sport besides chess?
- I like ice hockey very much. I really enjoy watching Russian and NHL championships. When I have free time I enjoy playing football and table tennis.
- Do not you regret that you went for chess?
- Of course I do not. Chess is my profession.
- Maybe some do not know that you have Ukrainian spouse and you live in Ukraine most time..
- I am citizen of Georgia. I travel so much that I live most time in air.
- Please, say some brief information about your family.
- I have a spouse Elene and daughter Izabela. I met my future spouse in Rijeka (Croatia), who was hosting European individual championship. Elene was accompanying her chess player brother. Rijeka brought me the most success. I met my future spouse and won silver medal there.
- Which is the next tournament, where you are planning to participate in?
- Now I am preparing for the match against Azerbaijan, which is hosted by Tbilisi chess palace on June 70-12.
Roland Labuchidze
