Tidbits

Some information that wouldn't fit anywhere else:

At the press conference, Nigel was sitting at a long table along with the organizers and Pascal. Pascal and Nigel were both sitting in front of chessboards with full sets of pieces. Nigel adjusted the pieces in much the same way he would if he were about to begin a game.

Sergey Tiviakov told me that his best game was against Short, because Nigel didn't make any big mistakes in that game. He agreed that his game with Elyanov was exciting, but thought that it was full of mistakes. He also said that he was disappointed with his finish, and that he just did not have enough energy left after playing such interesting chess to see him through to the end.

Emil Sutovsky said that while he arrived in Montreal four days before the Tournament, the he was still jet lagged for his first two games, but that he had no excuses for his 3rd loss in a row (against Ivanchuk)

Gata Kamsky said he was bothered by all the controversy with Short and was disappointed with his finish.

I had a great deal of contact with Vassily Ivanchuk. He was extremely interested in what was happening in the women's event, and wanted print outs each day of their games.

Midway through the tournament, Short switched from playing under the English flag to the Union Jack, at his request.

By bizarre coincidence, a convention for people who liked to dress up as animals (they call themselves 'anthropets') was happening at the hotel at the same time as the tournament. Quite often during the games, people dressed as wolves, bats, and rabbits, could be seen just wandering around the hall.