‘Visky,’ said the man driving the taxi.
‘Risky?’
‘Visky.’
‘Ah… whisky! Or vodka.’ I grinned as I got out. ‘Maybe see you last year,’ I ventured in bungled Russian.
There was no bottle to hand, but my wounded ego was soothed by the prescription. I’d been freshly eliminated from the World Cup in Siberia in a blitz tiebreak by Daniil Yuffa, an amiable young Russian. Two years ago, Daniil appeared on a Russian talent show (and YouTube). He simultaneously played three games of chess — blindfolded — and accompanied his own spectacle with a classical piano medley. Two days after beating me, he was out too. So it goes.
The Tragic Hero award goes to Nikita Vitiugov, another Russian who is formidably strong but just outside the world elite. He slew two giants on his winding path to the quarter final (Sergey Karjakin and Wesley So) but his tragedy unfolded in the ‘Armageddon’ game of the tiebreak against China’s Yu Yangyi.
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