The León rapid tournament is underway. Anand barely survived Bruzon in the first match, eliminating him in a blitz game in a match that took eight games. (Four rapid and then tiebreaks.) The Cuban is no pushover, but Anand's rough patch in Turin seems to be continuing. The other semifinal was today between Topalov and Vallejo Pons. Topalov won the first two games and drew the third to lock up the match. He then lost the worthless fourth game in 20 moves. The final between Anand and Topalov is Sunday. ChessBase has the pictures event press dude Zenon Franco is sending out promptly. Kudos.
From game one, Topalov-Vallejo. Topalov missed a quick forced win with 40.Bxh6!
I rather mourn the loss of what used to be an Advanced Chess event. It was never implemented well, but I thought the idea had potential. A slower time control and the ability to see the players' screens in real time and see their full analysis files later would add a great dimension to the game. It would be like looking into a GM's head a little. Why can't the ChessBase folks build such a viewing ability into Playchess? Skip the wooden pieces entirely. Give them one boad to play on and another board or two to analyze on with an engine and database cranking along. All visible to spectators online. Every variation recorded into the score. Cool.
Thinking about it for another minute, it would be good even without an engine. Just providing an analysis board that can be seen by spectators would be fun. I'm not sure how often they would use it, but in a longer game having an analysis board or two would be helpful. Both would follow the current position. Then when you make moves on the second board, the third one follows. Then you can make moves on that third board for subvariations. Again, all added to the score. At least 60'+30" control, preferably longer. Otherwise they'd just ignore the analysis boards halfway through.
Comments
I agree with you entirely, Mig, concerning Advanced Chess. But maybe the GMs do not want us to look inside their heads? Not even a little?
Posted by: Charles Milton Ling at June 10, 2006 19:09
Very true. I was outraged when Kramnik refused to release his game files after playing in one of these events. I thought that was the entire point. But he apparently felt it would give away too much of the direction of his opening investigations. He eventually let one game out, I believe.
I could imagine GM's masking and spoofing their variations to throw others off the track, at least in the openings. So it wouldn't be of much use to fans, I suppose. But we all have databases anyway.
Posted by: Mig at June 10, 2006 19:23
Anand wins easily 2.5 - 1.5.
He probably could have won the last game as well but chose to draw. Impressive performance after clearly off-colour against Bruzon.
Posted by: JaiDeepBlue at June 11, 2006 15:06
Personally, I found the Advanced Chess games boring and stale. Chess needs errors to produce resuts, as a fan watching games (as opposed to a theorist studying them) I would prefer to see action! In fact, some of my favorite games are when a lower rated player gets crushed by a GM.
The old books are full of games like "White: A. Alekhine, Black: An Amateur", they're fun to watch.
-Matt
Posted by: Globular at June 15, 2006 09:33
