Just so you have a place to chat as the games end. Pono wiped out van Wely and is through. Playing a must-win with black is a lot of pressure and there's no clear strategy to employ. Risk it all early with a very unbalanced and risky opening? (van Wely's choice) or try to keep pieces on the board for as long as possible and wait your chance? Rublevsky drew to beat Sakaev.
Remember it's not strictly elimination anymore. The defeated players continue playing each other to settle the places. The top 10 go into the candidates matches. Kasparov and Kramnik likely won't play, so Bacrot will be in by rating (along with Shirov). That means if Bacrot finishes top 10, 11 of these 16 players will likely pass to the next stage in the end, not 10. No conspiracy theories in a KO format!
Mig, no. Read the FIDE regulations for the candidates matches:
"A First Round of Matches (16 players)
a1 Any qualified player for the first round of the Candidates Matches is replaced, in case of withdrawal, according to the following order:
a) from the San Luis World Championship Tournament 2005,
b) from the average rating list for the 5 players qualifying by rating (as described in 3.1.2),
c) from the 2005 World Cup for the previous World Champion R. Kasimjanov and the World Cup qualifiers."
1. Shirov, 2. Bacrot, 3. Ivanchuk as I remember are the first reserve players by rating (to replace Kasparov, Ktramnik).
Right, I combined the two formulas by accident. I got it right when I wrote about this last week. Kasparov and Kramnik are replaced from the rating list (Shirov, Bacrot). Bacrot still matters, however. If a qualifier from the World Cup also qualifies by rating, the next qualifier from the World Cup is taken. So unless Bacrot fails to finish in the top ten, it's 11 of the 16, not 10 (or 13).
Kamsky out :-(
grischuk is playing very impressive chess. Maybe this is his tournament..
Kamsky lost r4.2?
Draw, so he's out. The highest he can finish now is ninth. Places 9 and 10 still make the candidates matches, and #11 will likely make it as well depending on how Bacrot does.
1. Kamsky fought valiantly, but he's just not sharp enough to tame those 2700+ beasts. Next round, he's got Gelfand or Dreev, also not a walk in the park.
2. Carlsen-Bareev go to rapids. Need I remind you the Norwegian teen is 4-0 in rapids so far?
3. Is it just me, or was Aronian lost at some point against Vallejo? Tomorrow he'll play his first set of rapids; Vallejo had two chances to practice, and he's also 4-0.
4. A big boo to Sakaev. Back against the wall, draw in 17 moves? What gives?
5. Van Wely, on the other hand, maybe SHOULD have taken a short draw. His demolishing by Ponomariov was most impressive.
It's funny how they keep with the knockout system in rounds 4 onwards, as they could easily revert to a mini-swiss of some kind. Doing so would give a more accurate ranking of players at the end, which presumably is the main reason for the tournament(?)
Yes, Sakaev made peace rather early in a must win situation, didn`t he? I had to think long about the end position. White is better, but the draw offer from black seems premature?
You never know. Sakaev may have had a bad cold, or realized he was off form for some other reason, and decided to save some ELO points.
Sakaev has always struck me as a pragmatic, and possibly somewhat depressed individual, if I may be permitted a personal note (I saw him play in Beer Sheva circa 1999).
An observation: Rublevsky qualified to the World Cup by scoring 8.5/13 in the 2005 European championship. His toughest opponent there, Najer, was rated 2615.
In the World Cup itself, he beat a 25xx player, then a 2663 (Sasikiran), then 2600 (Jobava, which should have been Akopian, had the latter shown up), then Sakaev who's ranked 37th in the world at 2668.
So, the first player to qualify to the 2007 Candidates cycle did so after meeting only two opponents in the Top 100, and none in the top 36.
Talk about "luck of the draw!"
I disagree with the Chessbase report that Carlsen let Bareev "off the hook" with "25.f5?", I doubt that Black can have any problems whatever White does considering his fabulous bishop and White's airy king. Carlsen is doing very well to take Bareev to tiebreaks anyhow.
Aronian-Vallejo was a way too typical blunderfest. 34.Kd3? (34.Rxd5 was a must, but still hard) a6?? (34..Rh3+ 35.Kc4 Kc6 and White is mated!) Oops.
I say fabulous bishop at that point, liability in that same color bishop endgame. Seems that Rc5 instead of Rc8 was more accurate though, if he plays a4 then carlsen can play Rc8 with a near winning endgame. But then again, chess was not meant to be played with only 30 seconds a move.
How funny that there is no thread about Kirsan's new 1 million dollar rule... Mig, are you already afraid to hear what I think about that ?
Mig, I'm not sure if you wrote the most recent world cup report on Chessbase, but it says "America's top GM is out", which is certainly far from the truth. Kamsky can still certainly finish in places 9, 10, or 11, meaning he'll have a good chance to make it to the candidates matches. True, he's "out" of the running for first place, but he's still "in" the contest for candidates spots.
Also, I agree with Rouslan that there should be a story about this million dollar rule here on ChessNinja. As tiring as it may be to keep running through grievance after sad grievance against FIDE, it's still important to maintain awareness of everything that goes on and encourage open discussion.
It's been discussed in the thread about Kok's campaign http://www.chessninja.com/dailydirt/archives/campaign_season.htm but perhaps deserves a new thread, I don't know.
Krazy Kirsan's rule is so outrageous that it merits its own thread. His justification? Big politics tend to favor the better-sponsored candidate anyway, so why not go ahead and make it official? What a wacko.
I have come to conclusion that "Kirsan's rule" shows he is very vulnerable against the rival bids (or at least he thinks he is). The rule is meant to kill the competition; it is the largest sum they could have requested.
I have come to conclusion that "Kirsan's rule" shows he is very vulnerable against the rival bids (or at least he thinks he is). The rule is meant to kill the competition; it is the largest sum they could have requested.
I have come to conclusion that "Kirsan's rule" shows he is very vulnerable against the rival bids (or at least he thinks he is). The rule is meant to kill the competition; it is the largest sum they could have requested.
Grischuk and Pono in the finals.
I just read the interview with Aronian at the tournament site http://www.worldchesscup2005.com/main.asp
The whole interview is translated clumsily into English, but I was just wondering if anyone has a guess as to what the last word of this quote is supposed to mean:
Fisher, in spite of that I consider him to be the greatest player of present time, seems a little borried.
Boring maybe?
Mig and acirce and others.
I dont understand these comments about the Carlsen game. I assume you mean the first game of the day, one with Carlsen as white. you guys are talking about move 25. but Carlsen had the game won at move 43. dead won. so whatever he played at move 25 would be OK with me.
Anyway Carlsen had Bareev Smashed !! Blown out of the water. dead killed etc. and carlsen let Bareev off the hook on move 43 Qf8. it should have been 43 Qf7 !!! the triple exclams are mine. haha.
anyway. look at this one. Carlsen is good. too bad he missed this move. but it shows he had a dead winning game up to move 43. But Carlsen was super short on time. remember this is a fast game. and he would have found it for sure with more time. the kid is good.
I am talking about the game Carlsen Bareev Dec 8 the first game of the day.
I thought for sure that Mig would talk about this missed opportunity in his blog.
Tommy
Since I posted that yesterday I was talking about yesterday's game :-) I agree with you about today's, what a pity.
yep Magnus rocks. I love the kid's play. He should have taken out Bareev, but hey, maybe its not so bad the rep of the old brigade swindled a win here. Carlsen has all the opportunities in the world ahead of him. Bareev has but a few shots left at the WC I feel. I feel for poor Grichuk today. Think he blundered and gifted Gelfand the game. Hope he comes back strongly tomorrow.