In January, Ruslan Ponomariov was crowned the new FIDE world champion
after defeating Vassily Ivanchuk 4.5-2.5 (+2-0=5) in the FIDE
Knockout finals. Ponomariov was born in Gorlovka, Ukraine, on 11
October 1983, making him the first teenage world champion in the
history of chess.

Since I had earlier decided to devote an article to the FIDE winner,
I set out gathering games on Ponomariov. My first stop was Mark
Crowther's TWIC...

The Week in Chess
http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic.html

...where I've collected all issues since 'THE WEEK IN CHESS 1' dated
17/09/94. Crowther, who had been posting regularly to the Usenet
newsgroups, introduced that issue by writing, 'This will be the first
in what will hopefully be a weekly round up of the events in chess.
I've decided to scale down my contributions during the week as next
year will probably be a hard one for me at work. Instead I'll save
all the material I get and post it as a single column at the weekend.'

Crowther's first reference to Ponomariov was in TWIC 94, dated
05/08/96 (5 August). Reporting on the European Youth Championship, he
wrote...

'In the Slovakian country town Rimavska Sobota, Ruslan Ponomariov
became European champion under 18. The boy from Ukraine is only
twelve years old, but competed in the highest category, because he
really belonged there with his elo of 2550. As far as I know
Ponomariov has broken all records. At the age of twelve even Peter
Leko was not this strong.

'Ponomariov, who was considered tournament favourite, lived up to the
expectations with an impressive eight points out of nine games. Still
this score was not sufficient for an unshared first prize. Mikhail
Kubilya from Russia defeated him in their personal encounter and
managed to keep pace till the end. Ponomariov, however, was awarded
the European title on account of his higher progressive score.

'The next game is characteristic of Ponomariov, who owes most of his
victories to his outstanding technique. Against Holger Grund (2375)
from Germany he opts for an old variation of the Caro Kann that
mostly yields nothing. The little boy does not achieve anything in
the opening either, but in the endgame he stands head and shoulders
above his opponent.'

...In the same issue Crowther reported that Alexandra Kosteniuk had
won the under-12 title for girls. Kosteniuk reached the women's final
match in the recent FIDE Knockout tournament, losing to Zhu Chen in
the second set of tiebreak games.

In a later issue of TWIC (no.259, dated 25 October 1999) Crowther
wrote that 'The record for youngest GM was set in October 1997 at the
Kiev NIKA-VV International by Ukranian Ruslan Ponomariov who was 14
years and 17 days at the time of the final norm'. I found references
to 'Ponomariov' in 59 TWICs through no.377, the issue which carried
the last two games of the Ivanchuk match. The references yielded 326
games in 36 events. Of the 326 games, 39 were duplicates and 11 were
played by Boris Ponomariov, Ruslan's coach and, according to at least
one source, his father. Removing these games left 276 game scores.

My next stop was...

ChessLab - Two million interactive chess games online
http://www.chesslab.com/

...I downloaded 275 games, only one of which was not in my first
collection, which now consisted of 277 games in 37 events. The
equivalence in the number of games yielded by TWIC and ChessLab
indicates that TWIC is the primary source for ChessLab updates.

A third useful source was...

Ruslan Ponomariov's Page
http://chess-sector.odessa.ua/ruslan.html

...which has information on various events. This yielded 19 new game
scores in 7 new events, giving me 296 games in 44 events.

Finally, I happened to mention to an email correspondent that I was
collecting Ponomariov games. He immediately sent me a copy of his own
collection of 375 games. Here I found 96 games from 8 new and 7
incomplete events, giving me a total of 392 games in 52 events.

I created an index page listing key data from the 52 events and
loaded the index and games to...

Ponomariov's Tournament, Match, and Exhibition Record
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw02b15/ponomari.htm

...I also have info on two other events for which I have no game
scores. I'll add these to the index page on my next update. While
researching the events, I encountered one mystery; Ponomariov's
website mentions that, at age 11, he won the World Under-12
Championship in 1995. Other sources say that Etienne Bacrot of France
won the 1995 event, held at Sao Lorenco, Brazil.

---

In Chess History on the Web (2002 no.2), I looked at Chessmetrics,
where you'll find two interesting documents on Ponomariov...

Career ratings for: Ponomariov, Ruslan
http://www.chessmetrics.com/PL/PL31470.htm

Will Ruslan Ponomariov become the first teenage champ?
http://www.chessmetrics.com/Documents/Teenagers.htm

...What's next for this young star? He recently settled a dispute
with the organizers of the Linares supertournament ('I am ready to
participate in Linares if the organizers would change their attitude
to me as a world champion!')...

Press Conference in Donetsk - 6 February 2002
http://chess-sector.odessa.ua/press_en.htm

...and will compete from 22 February to 10 March, in a seven player
double round robin with Adams, Anand, Ivanchuk, Kasparov, Shirov, and
Vallejo Pons. Somewhat surprisingly, my research indicates that this
will be Ponomariov's first participation in a supertournament and his
first games against each of the other players, except Ivanchuk, of
course! Even before the final FIDE match, Ponomariov had played
Ivanchuk only once -- during the FIDE World Cup in Shenyang, China,
where the more experienced player prevailed.

Former world champion Kasparov, who still calls himself 'the best
player on the planet', has won or tied for 1st in the last three
Linares events. Can Ponomariov compete successfully against him? The
whole chess world will be watching closely.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks