Kramnik Humor
SPRAGGETT ON CHESS
Playing on the same theme as the successful ”Chuck Norris Facts” humour that swept the ‘net some years ago, GM Natalia Pogonina started a ”Vlad Kramnik Facts” fad on her popular website the other day. I thought that I would reproduce here some of this…enjoy!
7) New doping issue: kramnidii has been banned. This substance allows one to memorize 100 pages of chess lines with just one glance. The only person who is not invited for doping control is Vladimir Kramnik, as this substance is created in his organism by natural means.
SPRAGGETT ON CHESS
Former (future?) World Champion Vladimir Kramnik (born 1975)
VLADIMIR KRAMNIK FACTS
(By Natalia Pogonina and friends)
1) There are two types of positions in chess: those that Vladimir Kramnik remembers, or those which he has forgotten.
2) Slyusarchuk wanted to register his record of remembering 30 million digits of pi with the Guiness book, but then he found out about Kramnik’s existence.
3) During school years teachers of literature didn’t ask Vova Kramnik to recite poems by heart.
4) Anatoly Karpov launched a new elite chess set. It features leading grandmasters as pieces, while the king is Vladimir Kramnik.
5) Kramnik didn’t lose his match to Anand. He was just checking if Vishy can convert such positions.
5) Kramnik didn’t lose his match to Anand. He was just checking if Vishy can convert such positions.
6) Russia is working on a new super computer with an exceptional hard drive since no other machine can store Kramnik’s analyses.
7) New doping issue: kramnidii has been banned. This substance allows one to memorize 100 pages of chess lines with just one glance. The only person who is not invited for doping control is Vladimir Kramnik, as this substance is created in his organism by natural means.
8) Houdini managed to beat Rybka after studying Vladimir Kramnik’s games.
9) When Kramnik isn’t playing in tournaments, he is busy dictating the next set of tablebases.
10) To deal with the draw death of chess FIDE introduced a new rule: players with the surname Kramnik have to give a pawn and a move in advance to their opponents.
11) When Botvinnik was recruiting new students for his school, he asked Vova Kramnik if he can recall the move he made in the masters tournament in the 20’s. Kramnik smiled and called out not only to move, but recited the games played on other boards as well.
12) Magnus Carlsen is so popular in Norway he even got an invite to the “Who wants to be Vladimir Kramnik” TV-show.
13) Kramnik was paid a huge sum by IBM when they launched the Watson computer. Otherwise he threatened to start playing Jeopardy and ruin their plans.
14) There are two types of moves in chess: chosen by Vladimir Kramnik and inferior.
15) When Kramnik said during a press conference that he FORGOT the accident that occured in his game vs Ponomariov (when the clock stopped), the public couldn’t stop laughing for quite a time.
16) Kramnik was elected the spokesperson for Blancpain since he knows how to stop time. Radjabov became a victim of this recently.
17) The World Chess Boxing Championship is held only because Kramnik is not interested so far.
18) Hot-tempered Kasparov fired Kramnik (who used to be his second) since he often made fun of his moves during sparring games.
19) Danailov once won a game against Kramnik. Then he woke up.
20) Kramnik knows all the theory not only in classical chess, but also in Fischer’s.
21) When Kramnik was invited to the Amber blindfold event for the first time, he couldn’t understand what the difference was.
22) Manufacturers of top chess engines stopped asking Kramnik to comment on the games as he gives ? marks too often when analysing their play.
23) Once the public thought Kramnik has overlooked a tricky win in 37 plies. “Ok, I will give a mate in 57, and you will be sitting and staring at this like idiots” – thought Kramnik.
24) Even God is afraid of playing Kramnik. The games always end in a draw, but Kramnik still knows how to put pressure on the opponent.
25) Few people know why Fischer didn’t come back, and Kasparov left chess. But you do now, don’t you?
26) Joanne Rowling is working on a sequel to “Harry Potter” called “Vladimir Kramnik”.
27) Vladimir’s Kramnik’s glasses is an artefact that increases one’s FIDE raing by 500 points.
28) One of the journalists asked Kramnik if he will start playing weaker without his glasses (see #2). Kramnik replied calmly: “What will happen if you subtract a constant from infinity?”.
29) While Kramnik’s classmates were busy proving the Pythagorean theorem, little Vova proved that chess is a draw.
30) Vladimir Kramnik is not interested in all the chess positions, but all chess positions are interested in Vladimir Kramnik.
31) Candid Camera asked a cute blonde to approach Kramnik, ask for knight odds, while being secretly assisted by Rybka. Kramnik, being a true gentleman, decided not to win and made a draw.
32) Kramnik finds poker dull as his starting hand is always two kings.
33) Yet another eminent grandmaster has been delivered to the asylum. He claimed he can beat Kramnik.
34) Vladimir Kramnik doesn’t wait for his opponents to make a move. Instead, he takes a walk and sends them the move using telekinesis when necessary.
35) There is just one player whom Vladimir Kramnik agrees to draw on move one – Peter Leko.
36) When Kramnik is playing in tournaments, book-makers don’t offer odds for the winner.
37) In 1990 Kramnik was surprised to learn that the Berlin Wall has fallen, and promised he will “fix it soon”.
38) After all, Botvinnik did create an artificial intelligence that plays chess. His name is Vladimir Kramnik.
39) Some openings are called after eminent masters. Chess is sometimes called “the game of Kramnik”.
40) Vladimir Kramnik uses chess engines only to find out why annotators keep making mistakes when analyzing his games.
41) The Drawmaster character of the ChessMaster series is a pitiful attempt to imitate Kramnik’s play.
42) Few people know that Deep Blue self-destructed after losing a chess match to Kramnik’s tennis racket.
43) One day Kramnik was invited to the world chess puzzle solving contest. After he handed in answers to all the FIDE albums ahead of time, he doesn’t visit these events anymore.
44) The statement “e4 is winning, d6 doesn’t lose” is not against the laws of logic since it works only for Vladimir Kramnik.
45) The aliens who visited Ilyumzhinov have captured all the other planets of the Universe after defeating their best chess players. Unfortunately for them, Kirsan had Kramnik’s phone number…
46) Kramnik solved checkers while being in the maternity home.
47) Kramnik says his wife plays chess on amateur level. Indeed, she still enjoys beating Rybka over and over again.
48) Kramnik was named the best painter of all times since no one can match his drawing technique.
49) Few people know that the Pepsi machine from the famous commercial that delivered a knock-out punch to Kasparov was just Kramnik wearing a special uniform.
50) Kasparov, Karpov and Fischer all failed to make it past round 1 of the “Who wants to be a millionaire” show since the question was “Who is the greatest chess player ever?” and the options – a) Kasparov b) Karpov c) Fischer d) Kramnik