r9 pairings: Anand-Topalov 1/2, Polgar-Adams 1/2, Svidler-Kasimdzhanov 1/2, Morozevich-Leko 1-0. Going into the ninth round Topalov leads by two points over Svidler with 7/8.
If Topalov the topadora is going to be slowed down with enough time left for it to matter, today is the day. Anand is coming off a win and a free day and has white; can't get more momentum than that and he has nothing to lose. Svidler will be looking to pick up ground against the fading Kasimdzhanov, whose wheels came off in the second half of Linares this year. Moro has won two in a row and is capable of anything. Tail-enders Polgar and Adams may just split a short Petroff point or fight for the cellar in a Marshall.
Yasser is doing a magnificent commentary tonight, it is not really a commentary, it is free lesson on chess strategy...Excellent.
Anand-Toppy 1/2-1/2
even a 2788 with white has the fear.
manhnvny4ezv
Gregory Kaidanov is on Chess.FM giving commentary on the press conference of Anand-Topalov. Great stuff!!
the real Sasha is in the house! Leko screwed himself tonight, poor sod, but still the Chess I love so much from Moro. Extremely creative, and walking a tightrope with the tactics. The only man who owned Moro has retired, so I hope 4 great things from him!!!
Aparently, while Anand didn't have much to lose, he did stand to lose approximately 5 rating points, if he lost to Topalov. Plus some Prize Money. Plus, the prospects of automatic qualification, at an advanced stage of the next cycle...
Yeah, Sasha and Kasim both played excellent with the latter walking on the blade for 34 moves!
Is Morozevich hot or what? Topalov - Morozevich promises to be a battle to the death.
i agree about yasser: when i tuned in he gave a certain gm who happens to be elo favorite a 10+ min telling-off about fighting spirit - or generally professional attitude -
all with his usual soft-spoken voice :-) only to continue to compensate the audience for the 17 move draw with a brilliant, crystal clear positional analysis and explanation of
the two games svidler-kasim and moro-leko => this guy rocks!!
i wish i could have heard yasser today berating vishy -- it's really the talk of the town... haha...
Polgar and Adams played a Marshall. No short Petroff for them. Good on them. A pity for Adams that he didn't try the Marshall vs. Vishy. Alas, Judit got nothing out of the opening. However, a draw is looking good at this stage.
Anand seems to have veered way out of theory, by eschewing the main lines of the Berlin. A cagey psychological choice for Topalov.
All of a sudden the Sveshnikov is looking neither solid, NOR dynamic. Leko's piece offer looked to be too optimistic.
Svidler's play against Kasimjanov's Sicilian was a bit moribund, and he looked to be getting into a spot of trouble, before finding a tactical escape.
Interesting match-ups for Round 10:
Topalov White vs the White-hot Morozevich. That ought to be a real fight.
Kasimjanov White vs. Polgar Given Kasim's reaction to his loss against Judit, this could feature some real pyrotechnics.
Adams White vs. Anand. I wouldn't be surprised to see an Adams victory here, if Anand is not content with a draw. Otherwise, if Anand plays solidly, Adams can't break through. His play on the White side of a Sicilian has been anemic.
Leko White vs. Svidler
This may be interesting, since Leko needs to take some risks to try to improve his placement. He has little to lose by losing to Svidler again
Woa, for once Short's commentary gets posted on chessbase prior to getting posted on the san luis site -- how did this happen? ;-)
Nigel Short ends his latest "journal entry" this way: "The best man is still winning and will win, unless there is a major disaster in the coming days." If we did not know that he was being sloppy, we could take this to mean that Short believes Morozevich will win the tournament. Certainly possible!
A matter of interpretation, Jeremy.
I take it to mean "still winning the tournament".
Regarding Yasser's condemnation of Vishy (which I unfortunately didn't hear): I think Vishy ran into a prepared line which scared him greatly. It would take a gambler's mentality to risk loss (in particular given his poor position in the tournament at present), which would be probable playing against the unstoppable Topalov in a variation Topalov analysed deeply at home.
It is, although few will like to hear it, probably more "professional" to say, "Drat, didn't work, let's see if there is any hope I can still get to 2nd place."
It would be interesting to hear the Vish comment on the draw. Obviously, there are rational explanations to what happened and honestly that Vishy was purely afraid of Topalov and attempted to force a draw at the first moment doesn't seem to be inline with his character.
Agree with the other comments about Yassar's efforts today. It was the sort of lecture that I'd travel a long distance to hear. The fact that I was able to listen and watch his analysis on the board as I toggled back to the game still in progress was a real treat. I feel like my positional understanding has received a real boost thanks efforts. He really pitches it at the average player - probably way too superficial for strong players but he knows his audience. I'd love for Chessbase to release a DVD of Yassar commenting on each of the games from this tournament especially once he's had a chance to analyse deeply once the tournament is over. I think such a DVD would be a big seller and a wonderful historical record.
I completely agree with comments on Yasser. The few times I followed his at playchess I got free strategy lessons, the highest possible standard. Kind of comments that make the games easy to follow. Yasser, please, make your analysis available on book or DVD, chess players around the world, this and next generations, will thank you.
Topalov x Moro. I canīt wait for it.
Don't see where anyone has commented already... Amazing prognostication Mig!!
Yes, you're right. I was being too harsh on Short. Haha. At this point, by drawing, Topalov is winning.
Yasser's lectures are excellent, but they would be even better as post-mortem analyses, rather than coinciding with the live event because often exciting things will be happening otb while Seirawan will still be caught way behind discussing the merits of the opening.
I don't feel that way. Once he has explained a position in depth he is always able to catch up with the moves quickly, because they confirm what has been said ealier.
"Regarding Yasser's condemnation of Vishy..."
Condemnation is too harsh a word - he just insisted on how he disliked the result given the high expectations of the game between one of the favorites and the tournament leader - which surprised me, because to me Yasser Seirawan seemed almost too much a nice guy to exert criticism on anybody. He mentioned the $5,000 prize incentive in the US Chessmaster Championship for "the most combative player ... standing out for eschewing early draws and for fighting hard ..." (I am citing their website).
"...which scared him greatly"
You can always stay at home if you're scared.
"It would take a gambler's mentality to risk..."
Exactly! GK commented "he is playing chess" on Topalov's performance.
"...any hope I can still get to 2nd place"
Amazing that - GK being out of the way - he suddenly contents himself with 2nd place: before '04 Russian Championship / Linares '05 Anand gave interviews explaining how unfair the (Elo) system is to him, i.e. that he wanted to be regarded as #1 pronto (before GK's retirement a blasphemy in his own right ;-). Such pretensions don't go well with his round 9 whimpering...
Kaidanov on Chess.FM is what onsite reporting is all about. During several of the games when there were questions about a game (for example, the misfeeds), he simply ran downstairs and got clarification. He was able to attend the press conference and tell the audience the interesting reactions of the players. Anand was said to be visibly upset and talked about his subpar +1 performance as a disappointment. Meanwhile Topalov was calm and again rejected all types of praise. Topalov also answered questions about his rise to prominence. Really interesting.
He also said in the wild Svidler-Kasimjanov game that Kasimjanov claimed he didn't see 26...Qa7! threatening a queen sacrifice of 27...Qxa3!! On Chess.FM Federowicz kept saying that Svidler was better when obviously Kasimjanov had the initiative and was attacking crazily. However, Kasimjanov played 30...fxe6 instead of 30...Nxc7. White never got within 100km of the black king. Even Fritz was confused at that game. The show went off the air before Kaidanov could report on the game and Short didn't provide any reactions from the two players in his report.
Maybe Kaidanov should help Short write those reports. Kaidanov will be on Chess.FM again today.
I disagree that Yasser should comment real time - his anlaysis has really helped me from the old Fischer saw, 'don't make a move until you understand the position'. The way the moves come over the intenet feed, its too hard to understand what is really going on.
Yasser's opinion on Anand 100% reflected fans' reaction as well as other professionals...Anand had a choice to rehabilitate his shattered reputation, instead he remained as I siad before an opportunist-pragmatic. ChessPro called his attitude not-champion-like which I think is a perfectly reasonable description. According to GM Shipov the New King has already been Coronated last night and Anand accepted it by bowing down to him in a rather humiliating way.
"Anand gave interviews explaining how unfair the (Elo) system is to him, i.e. that he wanted to be regarded as #1 pronto (before GK's retirement a blasphemy in his own right ;-). Such pretensions don't go well with his round 9 whimpering..."
Before Weik aan Zee there was an in-debth article on Anand's carrer. It basically concluded in 1995 Anand was at his Prime and that was when he could've made it into the Hall of fame. And yet depite the fact that Anand had all the ingedients of a Great champion- being an all-round universal player,quick thinker etc. during his second bout aganist Kasparov in the FIDE championp Kasparov somehow broke him both psychologically and in terms of his play over the board. Vishi never recovered from that.
Anyone know if any of these apparently stellar commentaries (Seirawan and/or Kaidanov) are being re-broadcast or if there's anyway to hear them after the rounds have ended? Here in Hong Kong the games start at the truly unfortunate hour of 2AM meaning that the action is usually wrapped up by the time I get up in the morning...
I don't think anyone will forgive Vichy Anand for his collaboration with the Nazi regime in WWII.
In the spanish page of chessbase there is a video of Anand in the conference press after the game (http://www.fritzserver.biz/Anand08). He gives (in spanish) some lines justifying the draw:
12... g4 (forced) 13.Bh4
[13.Ne1 Nh5! (13... exd4 is suggested by Topalov, Anand answers with 14.Bh4, unclear]
13... gxf3 14.Qxf3 Kg7 15.Qg3+ Kh7
[15... Kh8? 16.Qd3 (16.dxe5 is suggested by Topalov, Anand answers with the line 16... dxe5 17.Qxe5 Qxd2 18.Rad1 Qe2 19.Rd8 Be6 20.Bxf6+ Kh7 21.Qg3 Qg4)]
16.Qd3 and then
A) 16... Rg8 17.f4 Rg4 18.fxe5 Rxh4 19.Rxf6 was Anand's idea when he played 12.d4, but later he saw a problem: Black's bishop on a7 prevents d5. He can double rooks on the f-file, Black plays Be6 and Qg8 and he doesn't have d5, so White stands worse because he doesn't have enough compensation.
B) Moreover, Anand suddenly thought that with 16... Qe7 17.f4 Qe6 18.f5 Black drives himself into an "eternal pin" (he says "clave eternal" in spanish ŋ?), but he didn't see how to make progress there, and he had to play on with a piece down.
He concludes that this way Black equalizes and he must choose another options, although earlier in the game.
(my english is quite poor, so obviously I expect a lot better and complete translations to come)