Tiebreak day. I just went through all the games at the official site to figure out the scores to post them at ChessBase. Full results, report, and second-round pairings are now there, along with some photos. Many of the pics are actually from yesterday because I didn't get the new ones until 5:40am Wednesday. I'll make a photo gallery of the rest later. Speaking of delays, FIDE just now, 13 hours after I put them up at CB, posted the results at the official site. Terrible.
The first underdog to come through the tiebreaks was USA's Yuri Shulman in a sudden death game against Zvjaginsev. (You may remember Zvjaginsev as the "American killer" of the first FIDE KO back in 1997. Not this time.) Kudrin was eliminated by Eljanov so half the Americans came through. Further south, Leitao joins his Brazilian compatriot Vescovi in the second round. Karjakin is out, Carlsen stays in.
Lots of heavyweight match-ups in the second round. Ivanchuk against the up-and-coming Cheparinov, Topalov's second, should be a hot one. Speaking of FIDE champions, here's another bizarre item that I missed about the candidates matches for the 2007 cycle, of which this World Cup is the start. From the regulations 2.2:
This explains why no one from San Luis bothered to play in Khanty-Mansyisk. They are already all qualified into the candidates or the final tournament by rating since FIDE is using the same rating criteria as they used for San Luis! (Kasimdzhanov is into the candidates as 2004 champ.) Insanity. Only Topalov should be seeded and everyone else should have to play. They should use much more recent rating lists so the players aren't yet sure if they will qualify by rating. Then if a qualifier is also in by rating, you take the next qualifier down the list. Actually I'd be delighted to drop all qualification by rating, or cut it to one or two spots max, not five. The point of a cycle is to play for the championship in a championship event.
Mig,
Do you know where I can get the pairings for round 2? I only saw the tree at the FIDE site but that is a pain to go through.
Thanks!
Susan Polgar
www.SusanPolgar.blogspot.com
www.PolgarChess.com
They have round 2 pairings on ICC, fi WorldCup05-2a.
Thanks Stan! Good luck in San Diego!
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
www.SusanPolgar.blogspot.com
www.PolgarChess.com
"Three first round matches went to sudden death and the player with black in that final game went through in every case. (Shulman, Erenburg, and Nikolic" -- taken from your ChessBase World Cup Round 1 Report
Mig, do you have statistics on these sudden death games [white 6 min, black 5 min, black wins on draw]? It seems to me that black almost always wins on these terms. What good is the playoff when the outcome is known in advance? (Toss a coin to see who gets black and declare him the winner.) Or do the statistics show I'm wrong....
Noticed at Chessbase that Mikhail Gurevich was listed as representing Turkey. Did he grow tired of Blegian Chocolates (or is he craving Turkish Delight instead)????
/Jens
Susan,
Thanks for your wishes! Just out of curiosity, have you decided if you will play in San Diego? I'm asking since you didn't play there last time.
Best,
Stan
Stan,
To be honest, I have no clue. I have a couple major chess projects that are supposed to be taking place in early February. If the producers stick to their plans then I am OK. It is about 50/50 that they will start on time. I will talk to Erik soon about it.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
www.SusanPolgar.blogspot.com
www.PolgarChess.com
Yah, I was surprised when I saw "Gurevich (TUR)" myself and double-checked it on the FIDE site so at least I wouldn't be the only one screwing up. (More important than RGB or HTML is CYA.) The Turks are making a major chess push and have been bringing in GMs to lead and train. Nikolic, Ivanchuk, and Gurevich were brought in to give training camps a year ago. India did similarly a decade ago, importing a few Russian GMs (though they didn't change federation iirc) as well as a few Middle Eastern countries.
The downside of the federation change is that Gurevich isn't as useful for them in making norms possible.
Regarding the sudden death games, it's been well known for a long time that they favor black in both preference and practice. The player to win the toss almost always picks black. A few events have tried a 5-4 time advantage for White instead of 6-5, which helps but of course the games become increasingly nonsensical as the shorter they are.
I think it's worth having them continue to play pairs of blitz games; it's not going to last more than an hour at worst. Leaving it up to a player vote with "coin flip" as one of the options would be best.
"They have round 2 pairings on ICC, fi WorldCup05-2a"
I am unable to locate this, can someone please post the complete url
Thanks
I'll have this all up at ChessBase in a bit.
1 Ivanchuk Cheparinov
2 Bacrot Kempinski
3 Aronian Sadvakasov
4 Grischuk Istratescu
5 Gelfand Felgaer
6 Shirov Kotronias
7 Lane Jobava
8 Radjabov Kazhgaleyev
9 Ponomariov Motylev
10 Tiviakov Korneev
11 I.Sokolov Zhang.Z
12 Dreev Paragua
13 Kamsky Bocharov
14 Bologan Efimenko
15 Lautier A.Ivanov
16 Bruzon Onischuk
17 Bareev Naiditsch
18 Mamedyarov Najer
19 Vallejo Leitao
20 Smirin Wang Yue
21 Harikrishna Vescovi
22 Malakhov Nikolic
23 Sakaev Erenburg
24 Cao Xu Jun
25 Moiseenko van Wely
26 Sasikiran Rublevsky
27 Eljanov M.Gurevich
28 Ganguly Pantsulaia
29 Shulman Khalifman
30 Balogh Areshchenko
31 Timofeev Sutovsky
32 Carlsen Ammonatov
Go Paragua!!!
I find it really strange that something as basic as the results of the previous rounds or the pairings for the next round is missing (or late, or in excel format, ...) what a lack of common sense !
Yes, Gurevich changed federation recently. It's not sucha surprise sunce the Belgian federation, crippled by internal disputes and petty politics, is unable or unwilling to pay anything for professional players anyway, even for representing Belgium in international competitions.
Mig, isnt Moro in that list somewhere??? Does that mean he's not playing in the final in 2007??
Also can somebody please explain what happened in Sasikiran-Rublevskey???? Too complicated for me to understand straight away... Crazy game
Moro already qualified for the final tournament in 2007 by finishing among the first 4 in San Luis.
oh yes, thanks
What a bummer for Ivanchuk, losing game 1 against Cheparinov. If he can't win one back tomorrow, he's out of the world championship cycle yet again. It's a strange thing that a player rated 2750 cannot take a swing at the title while much weaker players, Adams and Polgar, got the invitation to San Luis on a golden platter, and IN SPITE OF FINISHING LAST, will play in the candidate matches.
And it's all because FIDE just took a snapshot of two rating lists (oct 04 and apr 05, I believe), and are using this snapshot FOR TWO YEARS. Obviously far from the optimal way to determine seedings, and bad luck for gifted players like Ivanchuk and Shirov, who just happened to be in a slump at that particular time.
Ivanchuk has never been especially good in WC (or World Cup) cycles. He's one of those tournament specialists who can rack up a good score in a round robin tournament, but his nerves and/or playing style don't hold up well in a knockout.
I'll be amazed if Ivanchuk wins a strong knockout event some day.
I suppose that any time you allow qualification by rating, you can get really close decimal numbers and it'll seem really unfair to whoever misses out. You might notice that if Kasparov and Kramnik decline to participate in that next round of matches, then Shirov and Bacrot would qualify and Ivanchuk would be left out in the cold, by a fraction of a rating point! Although currently Ivanchuk is rated 23 points higher than Bacrot...
On the July 2004 list, Ivanchuk was 2715 and Bacrot 2712
On the January 2005 list, Ivanchuk was 2711 and Bacrot 2715
So on average, Bacrot was 2713.5 and Ivanchuk 2713. Interestingly enough, there is kind of a quirk in the FIDE ratings in that for each list, they round off to the nearest integer and throw away the remainder. If you trace back a few years, and follow what would have happened if the remainders had been preserved, you see that time and again Bacrot benefitted slightly from this. For instance, on the January 2005 list he should have dropped 3.5 points from 2718 to 2714.5, but because of rounding, his rating got to be 2715. If they'd rounded down then it would be Ivanchuk in 2nd place on that reserve list. Bacrot happens to have a bunch of ratings where this happened, and if you do the math you'd see that on the July 2004 list Ivanchuk should actually be 6.7 points ahead of Bacrot rather than 3, and on the January 2005 list Ivanchuk should actually be 0.6 points ahead of Bacrot rather than 4 points behind. So actually that reserve list would have had Ivanchuk almost 4 rating points higher than Bacrot.
I know there are reasons it's good to keep the ratings as integers, and I don't mean to nit-pick. But it does seem kind of silly for such a minor numerical difference to be such a big deal.
Whoops, now that I think of it, if either Bacrot or Shirov does qualify via the World Cup, then that list of the top five changes, doesn't it? Ivanchuk would sneak in as one of the five players by rating.
Now if both Bacrot and Shirov get in, then it would be Ivanchuk and the next player on the combined list (Bareev, with an average rating of 2713 but fewer games than Ivanchuk). If Bacrot, Shirov, and Bareev all qualify from the World Cup, then it looks like Ponomariov sneaks in with 2711.
With these new changes FIDE officials have shown they can not be trusted. I hope Kirsan loses the election.
Hold on, it's much weirder than I thought. I read those regulations closer:
*****
2.4 The qualifiers for the Candidate Matches are determined with the following priority:
1. World Champion 2004.
2. FIDE Rating (average) of July 2004 & January 2005.
3. World Cup 2005.
Any qualified player for the Candidates Matches can be replaced from the players placed 5-8 in the San Luis World Chess Championship 2005. If the replacement is not fulfilled, then:
a) the 5 players qualifying by rating (as described in 2.2) are replaced from the average rating list,
b) the previous World Champion R. Kasimjanov and the World Cup qualifiers are replaced from the 2005 World Cup.
If a player has finally the right to qualify from both the rating list and the World Cup, he will be seeded in the Candidates
Matches as a qualifier by rating. His qualifying spot from the World Cup will then pass to the next player of the World
Cup, but only up to the 16th place. After the 16th place, the average rating list will be used again (as described in 2.2).
2. 5 The list of qualified players and the reserves will be published on the FIDE website. All qualified players should sign the
"letter of intent", specifying that they are willing to participate in the Candidates Matches, and send it to the FIDE Secretariat
until 31 December 2005. The "letter of intent" will be available to download from the FIDE website and it is the player’s
responsibility to get a copy and send it signed to the FIDE Secretariat. Any player who does not submit his signed "letter of
intent" within the deadline will be replaced according to article 2.4.
*****
Okay, as I read this, it means that there are 16 original invitees: Kasimjanov, Kasparov, Kramnik, Leko, Adams, and Polgar, plus the top ten finishers in the World Cup. If Kasparov declines to participate in the Candidate matches, then first we look to the 5-8 finishers from San Luis, but all four of them have already qualified. Then we look next on the rating list, and so that would be Shirov. If Shirov also finishes in the top ten in the World Cup, then he qualifies by rating, leaving only nine qualifiers from the World Cup, so we drop down and pick whoever finishes 11th in the World Cup. If Kramnik declines to participate in the Candidate matches, then we look next on the rating list and it's Bacrot. If Bacrot also had qualified from the World Cup, then he qualifies by rating, so we drop down and pick the next finisher from the World Cup.
Okay, so presumably Kasparov and Kramnik will decline, and Shirov and Bacrot get in one way or another. So it's really the top ten finishers at the World Cup other than Shirov and Bacrot, meaning either 10, 11, or 12 players will qualify from the World Cup. So if you finish 11th, and Shirov or Bacrot was ahead of you, you have to wait until Kasparov and/or Kramnik fails to send a letter of intent by December 31st, and then you know you get in. If Ivanchuk does indeed get eliminated tomorrow then he's out of luck unless Kasparov AND Kramnik AND one of the San Luis participants, or Shirov, or Bacrot, declines to participate. Or I guess if so many World Cup qualifiers decline to participate that they refuse to go any lower than #16 from the World Cup, and it reverts to the rating list and that means Ivanchuk. So I guess Bareev and Ponomariov probably won't make it based on their ratings, unless there's a massive protest or something...
Hold on, it's much weirder than I thought. I read those regulations closer:
*****
2.4 The qualifiers for the Candidate Matches are determined with the following priority:
1. World Champion 2004.
2. FIDE Rating (average) of July 2004 & January 2005.
3. World Cup 2005.
Any qualified player for the Candidates Matches can be replaced from the players placed 5-8 in the San Luis World Chess Championship 2005. If the replacement is not fulfilled, then:
a) the 5 players qualifying by rating (as described in 2.2) are replaced from the average rating list,
b) the previous World Champion R. Kasimjanov and the World Cup qualifiers are replaced from the 2005 World Cup.
If a player has finally the right to qualify from both the rating list and the World Cup, he will be seeded in the Candidates
Matches as a qualifier by rating. His qualifying spot from the World Cup will then pass to the next player of the World
Cup, but only up to the 16th place. After the 16th place, the average rating list will be used again (as described in 2.2).
2. 5 The list of qualified players and the reserves will be published on the FIDE website. All qualified players should sign the
"letter of intent", specifying that they are willing to participate in the Candidates Matches, and send it to the FIDE Secretariat
until 31 December 2005. The "letter of intent" will be available to download from the FIDE website and it is the player’s
responsibility to get a copy and send it signed to the FIDE Secretariat. Any player who does not submit his signed "letter of
intent" within the deadline will be replaced according to article 2.4.
*****
Okay, as I read this, it means that there are 16 original invitees: Kasimjanov, Kasparov, Kramnik, Leko, Adams, and Polgar, plus the top ten finishers in the World Cup. If Kasparov declines to participate in the Candidate matches, then first we look to the 5-8 finishers from San Luis, but all four of them have already qualified. Then we look next on the rating list, and so that would be Shirov. If Shirov also finishes in the top ten in the World Cup, then he qualifies by rating, leaving only nine qualifiers from the World Cup, so we drop down and pick whoever finishes 11th in the World Cup. If Kramnik declines to participate in the Candidate matches, then we look next on the rating list and it's Bacrot. If Bacrot also had qualified from the World Cup, then he qualifies by rating, so we drop down and pick the next finisher from the World Cup.
Okay, so presumably Kasparov and Kramnik will decline, and Shirov and Bacrot get in one way or another. So it's really the top ten finishers at the World Cup other than Shirov and Bacrot, meaning either 10, 11, or 12 players will qualify from the World Cup. So if you finish 11th, and Shirov or Bacrot was ahead of you, you have to wait until Kasparov and/or Kramnik fails to send a letter of intent by December 31st, and then you know you get in. If Ivanchuk does indeed get eliminated tomorrow then he's out of luck unless Kasparov AND Kramnik AND one of the San Luis participants, or Shirov, or Bacrot, declines to participate. Or I guess if so many World Cup qualifiers decline to participate that they refuse to go any lower than #16 from the World Cup, and it reverts to the rating list and that means Ivanchuk. So I guess Bareev and Ponomariov probably won't make it based on their ratings, unless there's a massive protest or something...
This is way off-topic, but I have a feeling it always will be, so...
From the FIDE "top players" page, a relatively new addition (a few months old, I think) is the following info:
Ranked World #1 Most Times:
Kasparov, Garry (22 times)
Ranked World #1 Woman Most Times:
Polgar, Judit (GM) (21 times)
Um... isn't something wrong here? What time period are they using? If it's years, then Judit has too many, and if it's lists, then Garry has too few? I don't know the actual numbers, but does anyone have an insight into the webmaster's reasoning?
[Ivanchuk has never been especially good in WC (or World Cup) cycles....his nerves and/or playing style don't hold up well in a knockout. I'll be amazed if Ivanchuk wins a strong knockout event some day.]
Hey there macuga, can you elucidate how Ivanchuk's style is unsuited to knockout play?
And were you not duly amazed when Ivanchuk reached the WC final in the first FIDE 128-player knockout in late 2001? Or did the participants in that event (bush-league pikers on the order of Anand, Svidler and Ponomariov) not meet your GM strength requirement?
Hold on, it's much weirder than I thought. I read those regulations closer:
*****
2.4 The qualifiers for the Candidate Matches are determined with the following priority:
1. World Champion 2004.
2. FIDE Rating (average) of July 2004 & January 2005.
3. World Cup 2005.
Any qualified player for the Candidates Matches can be replaced from the players placed 5-8 in the San Luis World Chess Championship 2005. If the replacement is not fulfilled, then:
a) the 5 players qualifying by rating (as described in 2.2) are replaced from the average rating list,
b) the previous World Champion R. Kasimjanov and the World Cup qualifiers are replaced from the 2005 World Cup.
If a player has finally the right to qualify from both the rating list and the World Cup, he will be seeded in the Candidates
Matches as a qualifier by rating. His qualifying spot from the World Cup will then pass to the next player of the World
Cup, but only up to the 16th place. After the 16th place, the average rating list will be used again (as described in 2.2).
2. 5 The list of qualified players and the reserves will be published on the FIDE website. All qualified players should sign the
"letter of intent", specifying that they are willing to participate in the Candidates Matches, and send it to the FIDE Secretariat
until 31 December 2005. The "letter of intent" will be available to download from the FIDE website and it is the player’s
responsibility to get a copy and send it signed to the FIDE Secretariat. Any player who does not submit his signed "letter of
intent" within the deadline will be replaced according to article 2.4.
*****
Okay, as I read this, it means that there are 16 original invitees: Kasimjanov, Kasparov, Kramnik, Leko, Adams, and Polgar, plus the top ten finishers in the World Cup. If Kasparov declines to participate in the Candidate matches, then first we look to the 5-8 finishers from San Luis, but all four of them have already qualified. Then we look next on the rating list, and so that would be Shirov. If Shirov also finishes in the top ten in the World Cup, then he qualifies by rating, leaving only nine qualifiers from the World Cup, so we drop down and pick whoever finishes 11th in the World Cup. If Kramnik declines to participate in the Candidate matches, then we look next on the rating list and it's Bacrot. If Bacrot also had qualified from the World Cup, then he qualifies by rating, so we drop down and pick the next finisher from the World Cup.
Okay, so presumably Kasparov and Kramnik will decline, and Shirov and Bacrot get in one way or another. So it's really the top ten finishers at the World Cup other than Shirov and Bacrot, meaning either 10, 11, or 12 players will qualify from the World Cup. So if you finish 11th, and Shirov or Bacrot was ahead of you, you have to wait until Kasparov and/or Kramnik fails to send a letter of intent by December 31st, and then you know you get in. If Ivanchuk does indeed get eliminated tomorrow then he's out of luck unless Kasparov AND Kramnik AND one of the San Luis participants, or Shirov, or Bacrot, declines to participate. Or I guess if so many World Cup qualifiers decline to participate that they refuse to go any lower than #16 from the World Cup, and it reverts to the rating list and that means Ivanchuk. So I guess Bareev and Ponomariov probably won't make it based on their ratings, unless there's a massive protest or something...
[Hey there macuga, can you elucidate how Ivanchuk's style is unsuited to knockout play?]
Certainly! As soon as you find me a WLAN cable.
reply to morning:
There are using rating lists, and are only keeping track back till 2000. There were 22 rating list in all since then, Kasparov was rated first in all of them, Polgar was rated first in all but one (which she missed due to inactivity)
I agree that the format in which FIDE presents this information is somewhat confusing.
Thanks, Alex!