When Norway's Magnus Carlsen clinched victory over Russia's Ian Nepomniachtchi it was revealed that Russian Grandmsaster Daniil Dubov had once again been a key part of the World Chess Champion’s team of helpers. That saw instant criticism led by Sergey Karjakin, with Sergey Shipov adding that Dubov would “rightly” now never play for the Russian team again. Daniil has hit back, attacking the mentality that treats an individual event as a team event and pointing out he began working for Magnus before the winner of the Candidates was known.
Daniil Dubov at Magnus Carlsen's pre-match training camp in Spain
It had long been clear that Magnus Carlsen was going to retain his World Championship title whatever happened in Game 11, so that when the match ended there was room for another story to take the headlines. With the match over, teams could be revealed, and though Jorden van Foreest working for Magnus was the one real novelty, it was Daniil Dubov again helping Magnus that drew all the attention.
The collaboration was revealed in a video from their Spanish training camp, in which Magnus introduces the team. It’s both funny and revealing, with Magnus giving a glimpse of how ideas are worked on, with Daniil playing a key role.
Here’s a transcript of the section relating to Daniil:
Magnus Carlsen: Of course we have Daniil, who is, I would say, with Jorden [van Foreest] not as distinctly young, but he still has a bit of the same curiosity, although he has become a bit more selective and a bit more conservative and solid with the years.
Daniil Dubov: Are we still talking chess?
Magnus: Yes. There’s a clear dynamic. If there’s a creative idea it comes from one of these two guys. If it’s a boring idea it’s Fress[inet]! If it’s a good idea, it’s Jan [Gustafsson], and if it’s a crazy idea it’s probably Peter [Heine Nielsen]. But eventually Daniil’s ideas, with some of the help of the others, become good, and Jorden’s ideas… remain to be seen, but probably will be good as well.
Daniil: I think it’s kind of important for him to actually like the guys. For instance, the Russian team it’s exactly the opposite. They would normally bring all the biggest guns in, like it doesn’t matter if they’re farting, if they’re fighting or if they’re friends or whatever, it’s basically you just use all the power. Here it’s a European approach. Mostly you care about some atmosphere and so on, and only then you need people to work well.
Still sometimes I feel like I’m responsible for the chess part! All these guys are nice guys, and I’m not a nice guy, but someone has to work, yeah? It’s kind of a problem, otherwise I would never be in the team. But I’m joking, of course! I think in general he kind of likes us and tends to trust us in general. We’ll see.
Daniil’s helping Magnus, as he did for the 2018 match, whipped up an instant controversy in Russian chess circles, with 2016 challenger Sergey Karjakin attacking both Daniil and Magnus.
It wasn’t the first time Sergey had got into an argument on Twitter, and now is perhaps the right time to recall that when the Russian team with Ian Nepomniachtchi and Daniil Dubov (and no Karjakin) just missed out on winning the 2017 European Team Chess Championship, the following discussion took place.
Karjakin: I congratulate the Russian Women’s Team on a brilliant win! The men fought to the end but came a little short. Congratulations to the Azerbaijan team on a deserved victory!
Nepomniachtchi: Won’t you teach us how to feel yourself the victor when you miss out on the championship title?
Karjakin: The moment you miss out on the title, I’ll teach you.
Nepomniachtchi: And do you root for Russia at all?
Karjakin and his manager had antagonised some of the Russian chess community when they kept using the slogan “returning the chess crown to Russia” on the road to the 2016 match, and when Sergey still gained most of the media attention given to chess in Russia even after his defeat in New York.
The slogan was revived by sponsors of Ian Nepomniachtchi in the run-up to the 2021 match, however, and in Russia chess is much more closely bound up with national pride than in most other countries. Karjakin was joined by others in criticising Dubov, including commentator and one-time coach of Daniil, Sergey Shipov. He wrote on his Facebook page:
Ah Danya, Danya…
But why? For how much?
Why wasn’t it possible to rest for one match… or to commentate it on any internet site — boldly and with talent!
And now the seeds of discord have been sown in the Russian team.
You get a classic situation from At Home Among Strangers.
For example, imagine that Duda is playing a World Championship match and Wojtaszek helps his opponent. How would they look on that in Warsaw?
Or Mamedyarov is fighting in the match of his life and Radjabov is in the other camp. Can you really imagine that they’ll react to that situation calmly in Baku?
p.s. I think that Dubov now won’t play for the Russian team. And that’s correct.
In numerous posts on the forum of his Crestbook site Sergey also used the word “betrayal”.
Perhaps surprisingly, Ilya Levitov, the former head of the Russian Chess Federation and someone who has interviewed and worked with Daniil for the Levitov YouTube channel, was also critical on his Telegram page.
Yesterday evening it became clear that Magnus was helped in the match by Daniil Dubov. Frankly I didn’t believe it at first, but it turned out to be true. I somehow can’t get my head around it. Daniil so loves to talk about how he’s proud to play for the Russian team, that we’re a great chess power and we should always win… In short, I’m somehow in complete shock. [the Russian word used is stronger]
Daniil himself didn’t wait long to respond and, in a long interview with Grigory Telingater for championat.com he goes into detail both about working for Magnus and how the match went in general. It’s a must-read, and we’ve translated the sections where Daniil talks about the match and preparing for it.
You’re again working with Magnus. How long ago did you restart?
Again isn’t quite the word. It suggests that we stopped. It’s simply that after the match with Fabi there was no particular need for it. We stayed in touch, and could discuss some lines, but after the World Championship match there was no reason to do any major work.
And when did you start now for Dubai?
Before the start of the Candidates. I was asked what I thought about the idea of helping. I replied that it would be normal. That’s perhaps the first thing I’d like to point out about the rather strange criticism. In normal teams all the agreements are formulated in advance.
You don’t have to wait for who wins the Candidates in order to start preparing.
Was your agreement verbal or did you sign a contract about cooperating with Magnus’s team?
For me there’s no difference in principle, if it’s verbal or on paper. I won’t pretend. If I really wanted to say no, then I could have done that after Nepomniachtchi’s victory in Yekaterinburg.
In that case would you simply violate the agreement or would you also suffer some financial losses?
I can’t reveal all the details of the contract, but to be honest I don’t even recall. I didn’t look, as I wasn’t planning to say no. For a start, I wasn’t prepared to break my word.
When Ian won the Candidates Tournament did you think that hate would come your way because of your cooperation with Magnus?
That someone might not like it is nothing new. It’s not the first time I’ve encountered this and I’m relatively calm about it. For me there’s no issue. I think it’s the same for Ian. When people talk about the state or the Russia team, then that’s precisely the Russian team. Here, after all, it’s not Russia versus Norway.
When Daniil Dubov won the 2018 World Rapid Championship he came under fire in the Russian media for saying what he thought, for instance, about the situation in Crimea | photo: Lennart Ootes
And if it was teams?
Then, of course, I more likely than not wouldn’t help the Norwegians, but here it’s precisely Nepomniachtchi against Carlsen. Well, and in Ian’s team there aren’t only Russians, as I understand. Here, you could say, it’s a fair-haired guy against a dark-haired guy. [an allusion to Ilf and Petrov’s 12 Chairs, where the con-man hero pretends to be a grandmaster and gives a lecture including, “we see that the fair-haired guy plays well and the dark-haired guy plays badly, and no lectures will change this balance of power…”].
You help the person you have better relations with. Or who makes you the better offer. Or, in my case, the one with whom it’s much more beneficial to work, in my view. A match of two people. An individual sport. Blowing it up into a great national story strikes me as absurd.
How close are you to Ian? Did he tell you about his weak points or give you some inside information about himself?
In general, Magnus and Ian know each other well. Nepomniachtchi helped him himself, even in World Championship matches.
Carlsen knows Ian much better than I do.
They’re of the same age, since childhood they’ve been playing in the same tournaments. There’s nothing that I know about Ian that Magnus doesn’t. Yes, I know Ian quite well, but you can’t say we’re friends. We haven’t worked together, at the very least for the last 3-4 years, and maybe longer. We’re colleagues. Of course we know each other, but I’m definitely not in Ian’s close circle. I don’t have and couldn’t have had any inside information.
What do you think? Where do people get the idea that a Russian shouldn’t help a foreigner prepare for a World Championship match against a Russian?
I don’t know where it comes from. Not from any great intellect, I guess. There are some kind of imperial ambitions — everyone is against us, everyone is an enemy, particularly if something doesn’t go right for us.
In general you could logically look at all this differently. From the point of view of the Russian team: one of the best Russian chess players, relatively young, has worked with the best chess player in history — he’s gained experience that will help him in his career.
Does it help a lot?
For example, after my previous cooperation with Magnus I won the World Rapid Championship. You can also look at the situation like that. Or you can look at in the context of them and us. It’s probably a matter of perception.
After his win in Yekaterinburg, Nepomniachtchi was asked if he’d like to prepare with you. Ian back then replied that you “wouldn’t want to serve two masters”. Could Ian already guess that you would work with Magnus?
Yes, he certainly could have guessed. In general, it’s strange that now it’s such a shock for the community. It’s almost the main news, overshadowing the end of the match.
It seems to me that for professionals there were lots of signals by which you could sense that I was on Magnus’s team.
What kind of details?
Magnus played openings that I use. Plus the signature of the openings was similar to mine — various experts noted that. Well, and usually strong chess players don’t stay on the sidelines. If you’re not helping anyone then you commentate on the games or produce some kind of content, but I wasn’t anywhere to be found in the media. You could put two and two together. I doubt it came as a surprise to Ian’s team.
You said that news of your cooperation overshadowed the match itself. What gave you that impression?
There aren’t so many chess sites. Wherever you look, it’s one of the main items. But ok, they published it. Those who are criticising for some reason think that Ian’s team and the Russian team are identical. From my professional point of view those are absolutely different things.
I play for the Russian team with great responsibility, pride and pleasure. For me it means a lot. I also played for free, and when I felt I couldn’t, because it’s important. It’s another matter why I should help a team of people who I’m neutral or unfriendly with?
I don’t see any connection. For me this is a match between people, one of whom I have a slightly better relationship with. Well, and whose team I have a much better relationship with. And it’s precisely that team that invited me. I saw no reason to turn down the experience of working with the strongest chess player in history and to help out friends.
Daniil Dubov was the only Russian player who didn't underperform as Russia finished only 6th in the recent European Team Chess Championship — his 2770 performance gave him individual silver on Board 2
Who don’t you get along with on Ian’s team and why?
I don’t want to name people, but you yourself cited Ian about serving two masters. It seems to me that’s precisely the difference between the two teams. The team I was with wouldn’t call me or anyone else a servant.
What was your role on Carlsen’s team?
We worked a lot and our roles were in many ways similar. Everyone was responsible for everything. It wasn’t that you work on this position and someone else on another, although some really did concentrate on finding new ideas, while others spent time polishing the existing material. In the end we all check everything everyone else has done.
You could say that I spent more time on looking for new directions, and I also tried to put up resistance to Magnus in training games.
Where and how did you hold training sessions?
I’m not sure I have the right to talk about everything, although an excellent video was just released from our training camp in Spain. And without training camps there’s also online preparation, because there was a lot of work to do both in the half-year before Dubai and during the World Championship match. Magnus has everything worked out professionally. It’s hard for me to imagine that during the match someone on his team would first fly to Dubai, then head back to Moscow to commentate, and then declare, “today we’ll win”. With Carlsen, if people sign up to work, they work with full dedication.
How was the work organised during the games?
It’s always most interesting and difficult during the match. Despite the huge amount of preparation, the match itself becomes a dialogue between chess players and their teams. A test of strength: we prepare this, and they prepare something else. Each seeks an antidote to the opponent’s line. All the preparation is split between games with White and Black. With White you should try to play for a win, which means you need fresh ideas. With Black the task is not just to hold them off, but equalising out of the opening is excellent, and a draw in the end is also excellent.
To what extent did everything go according to your plan?
As I see it: we tried lots of different ideas, some of which were found during the match.
We managed to surprise Ian. That doesn’t mean we had an advantage, but as a rule coming out of the opening Ian was playing a position that he was absolutely unfamiliar with.
That’s already not bad, as World Championship matches go. And we also believed that Magnus simply plays chess better — our preparation was also based on that. If we can get a complex position that’s unfamiliar to both players, that’s an acceptable result. If Magnus knows it a little better, that’s even better.
Peter Heine Nielsen shared the same philosophy in a video released during the match
And what was the approach on the other side of the board?
A little different. By and large they tried to break through in the same line.
Apparently it was a massive attack of a supercomputer, an analytical brigade and brainstorming. A perfectly plausible approach, though it seems less attractive to me. Our armour proved to be solid.
On account of what?
All the games where we had Black went more or less along the same lines. Magnus equalised and got the positions he was striving for. Well, and playing with White, we got quite an interesting battle. That’s how I see it. I don’t insist on my assessment, but it seems to me that our team surpassed theirs a little.
Do you have any suggestions for why Nepomniachtchi became so burnt-out?
A World Championship match is huge stress.
In my view, Ian played five and three quarters of the games brilliantly. The way he operated was fantastic, at the limits of his ability, and he was in no way inferior to Magnus.
Which made his sharp decline all the more surprising.
Simply the main strength of Carlsen is that even on his worst days he doesn’t fall below a certain level, and that level is very high.
That isn’t Ian’s strong point. On a good day he can beat anyone, but on a bad one he can lose to anyone. As has already been said, at the end Ian played in such a way that you didn’t need to be Magnus to beat him. That’s precisely what makes World Championship matches so tough. There are a lot of games. At some moment the stress will get to you and the fatigue will tell.
Did Carlsen deliberately extend the games in order to unbalance Ian?
We didn’t discuss it, but I think that was one of the elements. Magnus is more resilient, and then there was also the schedule. Previously there was usually a rest day after two games, but here there were three in a row.
Roughly speaking, the idea was to make the play as difficult as possible for both sides. It was also tough for Magnus, after all. Simply one of them began to play a little worse, but the other played much worse. No doubt that’s one of those things that makes him the best chess player in history.
Did you talk to Magnus during the match?
Literally a couple of times. Like the majority of the team, I wasn’t in Dubai. It seems to me that during the match Magnus likes to isolate himself from unnecessary interaction. As a rule, there’s someone from his family and one person from the team, who handles all the communication. Well, I congratulated him on his birthday, but nothing special.
Does Magnus know how you’ve been criticised?
I think he was asleep on the morning after the match. No doubt he celebrated after the victory, as we also did a little. Although they did ask me in advance if there was a problem with revealing Magnus’s helpers. I said there wasn’t. In any case many knew about it, and it would soon become public knowledge. It’s better to get a flurry of criticism when you expect it.
What do you think? Is there a problem with a chess player working on the opposing team to someone from his own country? Let us know in the comments!
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