Two interesting tournaments are starting up now in the not-so-frozen tundra. 14-year-old Magnus Carlsen is playing in the Gausdal Classics in Norway. The Swedish-Danish Sigeman Tournament starts on the 15th with Nakamura and Sasikiran as top seeds. Of course Hikaru is a sentimental favorite around here since he's a contributor to the Black Belt newsletter. You can give your own opinion at the the poll to pick a winner in the Ninja message boards.
Sasi has been going through a bad patch for the past few months. But he always bounces back because he's an incredibly hard worker and a person with calm head. Hopefully, this recent pull back should be enough to catapult him closer to the 2675 mark by the end of this year.
"Hank" better watch out :-)
Sasi just fell to third on the Indian rating list for the first time since reaching second, which was a while ago. Harikrishna is currently second.
I am interested in how Hikaru will do playing in a strong round robin tournament given that he's pretty much played in Swiss tournaments in the past. Wasn't his last experience in a round robin tourney at Corus B in 04(?)? Not being a strong chess player myself, I still would imagine that playing in a r-r as opposed to a Swiss presents different challenges and it seems like if Hikaru wants to improve into becoming a 2700+ Super-GM he'll have to learn to perform in these kinds of strong closed r-r tournaments.
I think it is true that Hikaru will find this tournament interesting. Preparation is not his strong suit to say the least and well that is what these tournaments are about.
Naka's off to a pretty good start at Sigeman with two wins from three games, and he probably has another one coming tomorrow.
Go Naka go! Show them that chess isn't all fun and games. Make 'em work for every point they get.
3.5/5 is about on par for his rating.
What is going on with Magnus? He is -2 and is playing one of the stronger players in the tournament tommorow(he has a chance to lose). Isn't he supposed to be working with Kasparov or something? Hey, if he manages to win, he could even qualify for an IM norm. lol.What can I say, except that I root for Hikaru?
That's just normal for Magnus these days. He has scored badly for a long time. A pity but that's how it is. I don't doubt his potential at all -- he used to perform 2600+ regularly but sooner or later he just needs to demonstrate it again.
on another note, Tiviakov won the event (Gausdal) with the incredible 8.5/9! http://home.online.no/~eirikgu/gausdal2005/g05gma.htm
I wonder if the guy who scored 1/2 earned his draw or the other guy felt sorry for him?
Well - it was no quick draw per se but you don't get the impression that any of the players was burning with ambition. http://home.online.no/~eirikgu/gausdal2005/games/gma9.htm