Kramnik mad about being flagged by Keymer

Sosonko, Genna (2006). Smart Chip from St. Petersburg: And Other Tales of a Bygone Chess Era.

This book tells about the strongest Soviet blitz player, Genrikh M.Chepukaitis. GM Chepukaitis, although he did not receive the title of grandmaster.

"The 1958 Leningrad Blitz Championship was won by Viktor Kortchnoi. Second place was shared by Boris Spassky, Mark Taimanov and a first-category player who had beaten all the grandmasters in individual encounters. The name of this first-category player was Genrikh Chepukaitis, a modest master in classical chess but a true grandmaster in blitz"

"In those years he played in Moscow Championships several times, and with success. He particularly proudly recalled the one in which Tigran Petrosian did not take part. The veto came from Petrosian's wife Rona : 'You're the World Champion. Who will praise you if you win? And if you lose? It's fine if Bronstein, Tal or Kortchnoi beats you, but what if you lose to Chepukaitis?'
Tal won that Moscow Championship, Chepukaitis came second ahead of Kortchnoi."

"The Chigorin Club in his native city remained Chepukaitis's main and favourite battlefield. He played in the local blitz chamªpionship 47 times. Forty-seven times. He won on six occasions, the last time in 2002, when he was already long past 60. If he didn't happen to get through to the final, he would receive a personal invitation, as a blitz championship of the city without Chepukaitis was inconceivable.
On that day the spectators stood on the tables and winªdow-sills of the club, not only because renowned grandmasters were taking part in the tournament, but because Genrikh Chepukaitis was playing, and he was capable of beating - and did beat! - those same grandmasters, Kortchnoi and Spassky, Tal and Taimanov. For him the day was a holiday, his personal holiday, and he appeared in the club clean-shaven, in a snow-white shirt and tie.
On these occasions his colleagues could be seen at the club, workers from the compression section of the optical-mechanical factory, where he worked all his life. It didn't matter that they barely knew how the chess pieces moved, they couldn't miss such a spectacle : their Chip had come to smash the grandmasters! "

"Once, in a discussion about the constantly shrinking amount of time allocated for thinking, Anatoly Karpov said that we might all end up playing blitz , and then Chepukaitis could become world champion. 'Yes, he might, ' David Bronstein remarked, 'and I don't see anything wrong with that. Genrikh Chepukaitis is a magnificent strategist and a brilliant tactician. His countless vicªtories in blitz tournaments are due to his uncommon skill in creating complicated situations, in which his opponents, who are used to 'correct' play, simply get lost. '

ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A7%D0%B5%D0%BF%D1%83%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B9%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%81,_%D0%93%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%85_%D0%9C%D0%B8%D1%85%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87

Click the link to see a photo of Chip.

@Sarg0n said in #36:
> I play increment only so I cannot complain.
>
> Be like Sargon.
You are saying as if one can never get flagged in increment games.

The main issue seems to be not regarding the rules, but regarding a "code of honor" among top GM's and possibly some other players.

One essence of that "code" seems to be (or have been) that you get respect from peers by not only winning a point, but more importantly how you earned that point. You could argue that this rarely exists in sports today, not in science, not anywhere - and that's true. The times we live in, the question of intellectual beauty, an elegant solution or even something as banal as being somewhat happy about the success of another person - it does not exist. In your jobs, you compete to the death. In your relationships, you lie and cheat and pretend.

Capitalism's culture of quantity over quality, appearance over substance has finally fully soaked chess. "Greed is good" and in consequence there is nothing that would be too shameful to win a point.

This kind of aforementioned understanding does not even remotely exist for most online chess players. It's because the game here serves a different purpose for its players and that's fine. The online crowd doesn't care much for the intellectual challenge or the work others put into chess. The latter, meaning little respect for the hard ground work of previous generations, is probably true for every generation since a few hundred years or so. Not valuing the elders is just a consequence of a pretty meaningless consumer life. And that's also the hole that most online players fill with chess. It's not pretty, but it is how it is.

Losing on time in a winning position surely happened before in top level chess. I guess the difference here and what made Kramnik sore is the implicit question Keymer posed when choosing to continue playing this dead-lost position: "Sure you have won, but can you find a way to checkmate within X seconds?" This kind of question is totally normal here, but I can see why it could feel like a weird joke on that level.

The last move probably felt like a spit into Kramnik's face.

In his view Keymer was the less smart player in this game. And regarding the chess, of course he was. However, considering getting the point, of course he was not. That's why Kramnik decided not to play these formats any longer.

Kramnik seems to understand that the rules always allowed this, but the lack of "code" means that now more than ever a game consists of two phases:
Phase 1 - a challenge of the mathematical mind.
Phase 2 - a challenge of the animal brain.

The "animal brain" phase is the one, were any standard of playing a good game is given up on and the animal brain pattern recognition decides who can play "less bad" in a given, very short time. It is just a "natural" development with the commodification and entertainization of chess, which was just a question of time.

Somewhat ironically, great places like Lichess (because free and open source) seem to be the needed base to provide victory to the culture of capitalism in obscure traditional bastions like chess.

Of course most consumers will side with Keymer, as he just does what each of them would do whenever given the chance. Some may feel there is something to Kramnik's argument, but they can't really grasp it. Well, it is maybe the fact that hidden in his outburst lays something that for areas other than chess, would sound like a better way to live. Something a bit more human and less robotic, something a bit more interesting and less predetermined, ethics rather than fake morale, life rather than the performance of it.