It's never to early to start making silly lists! Best games and worst games (by a player who should know better) so far? Aleksandrov already has the worst move award wrapped up, who's contending for second prize? Aronian's demolition of Sokolov was wildly entertaining. Kasparov admired Akopian's finish against Zhang Zhong yesterday. Most surprising player, biggest disappointment? Get your early nominations in now. As for the best looking players, the competition is already over.
Those are the reigning champions of most of North America right there, Canada's Pascal Charbonneau on the right and the incredibly handsome Alexander Onischuk on the left.
Comments
What is this I hear that 2 famous GMs had a fight last night over a player? If true, this could seriously dent the title chances of one of the top teams.
TCG
Posted by: The Closet GM at June 1, 2006 07:31
The worst game of the Olympiad, perhaps history, is Repkova-Kosteniuk from Round 7. The worst move of the game is 58.Nf2???
Here is the game:
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. g3 e5 7. Nf3 Nbd7 8.Bg2 Nc5 9. O-O Be7 10. Re1 Bg4 11. h3 Bd7 12. Bg5 Bc6 13. Nh4 g6 14. Bh6
Nfd7 15. a4 a5 16. Qd2 Ne6 17. Nf3 g5 18. Nd5 Rg8 19. h4 f6 20. hxg5 fxg5 21. Nh2 Rg6 22. Ng4 Nd4 23. Qd1 Bxd5 24. exd5 Qb6 25. Be4 O-O-O 26. c3 Nb3
27. Ra3 Ndc5 28. Bc2 Bf8 29. Bxf8 Rxf8 30. Bxb3 h5 31. Ne3 Rgf6 32. Nc4 Qc7 33. Re2 h4 34. Bc2 hxg3 35. fxg3 Nd7 36. Ne3 Rf3 37. Kg2 g4 38. Nxg4 Nb6 39.Be4 Qf7 40. c4 Rf1 41. Re1 Rf2+ 42. Kg1 Kb8 43. Bg6 Qxg6 44. Nxf2 Nxc4 45.Rf3 Rc8 46. Qd3 Qh6 47. Ng4 Qh3 48. b3 Nb6 49. Qg6 Ka7 50. Nf2 Qd7 51. Rf7
Qd8 52. Qg7 Rb8 53. Rd1 Qc8 54. Rc7 Qf5 55. Qg4 Qf6 56. Ne4 Qf8 57. Rf1 Qd8 58. Nf2 Qxc7 59. Qe6 Qc5 60. Kg2 Nxd5 61. Ng4 Qc6 62. Kg1 Re8 63. Qf7 e4 64.Rd1 Nc3 65. Re1 d5 66. Nf6 Rd8 67. Qe7 Qd6 68. Qg7 Qe5 69. Rf1 e3 70. Nh5 Ne2+ 71. Kg2 Qxh5 72. Qc7 Qg5 73. Qxa5+ Kb8 74. Rf3 Rc8 75. Qb6 d4 76. Qd6+ Ka8 77. b4 Qd8 78. Qg6 Qd5 79. Qf6 d3 80. a5 0-1
BPF
Posted by: Ben Finegold at June 1, 2006 07:46
Hands down the most surprising player of the Games is Viktor Laznicka from the Czech team. Never heard of him before.
Posted by: penguin_with_visor at June 1, 2006 08:29
But Mig the really important title is
Who Caught the Biggest Fish?
Posted by: tommy at June 1, 2006 08:37
Does anyone know if Beatrice Marinello arrived in Turin as a representative of USCF and who has she been supporting.
Posted by: tommy at June 1, 2006 08:40
Tommy,
I think this answers you question in some way:
http://www.uschess.org/bgfideelectionletter.pdf
Regards,
Mark
Posted by: Mark at June 1, 2006 09:38
http://www.kosteniuk.com/chesspics/rating.php?r=1
For anyone who wants to judge female chess players on looks, rather than chess ability. :-p
Posted by: KB at June 1, 2006 09:59
As for "Worst Move", Alexandrov should be noted for his ...Bc8 against Kramnik, but same player pulled another lemon in round 1 against Williams. In a simple pawn-up endgame, the 2800 GM left a Bishop en-prize. Gotta see it to believe it.
Go to the Round 1 games, and check out Belarus-Wales.
Posted by: Alex Shternshain at June 1, 2006 10:02
Sorry, that should have been "the 2580 GM" ... he's not that highly rated.
Posted by: Alex at June 1, 2006 10:03
Truly a bad game. But if I hadn't known who played it, I would have guessed Ben Finegold and Stephen Mohammed. That aura of unapologetic hacksterism.
Posted by: ahab at June 1, 2006 10:36
Finegold should know, I guess, but seeing all these "the 2580 GM simply left a Bishop en prise" sort of comments makes me think it's just more of the DGT board hijinks, rather than moves the players actually played.
Yes, we know Alexandrov's ...Bc8 was actually played against Kramnik, and why. But what of the other alleged incidents (Repkova-Kosteniuk, and Belarus-Wales, to cite just 2)?
Just because Finegold and other commenters may have gotten the scores after the fact, from a secondary source rather than the notoriously unreliable Olympiad site itself, does NOT necessarily make those scores accurate. After all, anyone who ever taken a serious look at a chess reference book is familiar with the phenomenon of mistakes that replicate like viruses, because the mistaken score (or equally often, mistaken note) was simply copied from some earlier, "authoritative" source...and so on, and so on.
Simply browsing the Internet this past week, without even looking for Olympiad coverage, at whatever site I've happened to land, I'm constantly seeing people post comments like, "Look at Zudickovich vs Tuchusov, from Rd. 3, Board 2, Backscratchia vs TseTsestan. White left his Queen en prise 3 moves in a row, and Black didn't take it."
Well, for sure there are some weakies playing in this Olympiad....But still, after reading here on Dirt how some of the game scores from TOP players got (mis-)rendered by the "sensory boards" in the early rounds, I advise viewing ANY game score from this event with a skeptical eye.
Yeah, technology is great, but...this "sensory board" thing seems to be one area where the technology still has a ways to go to catch up with us humans. (And it's nice to know there are still areas where that is true!)
Posted by: flyonthewall at June 1, 2006 10:50
It was confirmed on chesspro.ru that the blunders in Alexandrov-Williams, Kramnik-Alexandrov and Repkova-Kosteniuk are indeed genuine blunders -- and not DGT board hijinks.
Posted by: Alex Shternshain at June 1, 2006 10:58
Most surprising player: Viktor Laznicka was already mentioned. Also David Navara and Bu Xiangzhi are performing very well on board 1.
Most disappointing player: Sadly (I am from Spain), Alexey Shirov.
Most beautiful games: Navara-Svidler, Petkov-Hillarp_Persson, Carlsen-Adams, just to mention a few.
Posted by: eristoff at June 1, 2006 11:52
Jobava-Bu was a nice game:
[Event "37th Olympiad"]
[Site "Turin ITA"]
[Date "2006.05.30"]
[Round "9"]
[White "Jobava,Ba"]
[Black "Bu Xiangzhi"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2646"]
[BlackElo "2640"]
[EventDate "2006.05.21"]
[ECO "D15"]
1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 a6 5. c5 Bf5 6. Bf4 Nbd7 7. h3 e6 8. e3
Be7 9. Bd3 Qc8 10. O-O O-O 11. b4 b6 12. g4 Bxd3 13. Qxd3 a5 14. a3 Re8 15.
Rab1 axb4 16. axb4 bxc5 17. bxc5 Bxc5 18. g5 Nh5 19. dxc5 e5 20. Nxe5 Rxe5
21. Rfc1 Re8 22. Bd6 Ne5 23. Bxe5 Rxe5 24. f4 Re8 25. Kh2 d4 26. Qxd4 Rd8
27. Qe5 f6 28. gxf6 Rd2+ 29. Kg1 Qxh3 30. f7+ Kf8 31. Rb8+ Rxb8 32. Qxb8+
Kxf7 33. Qb7+ Kg6 34. f5+ Kh6 35. Qxc6+ g6 0-1
Posted by: albert at June 1, 2006 13:45
I would definitely mark Anand as the most disappointing. Only one win, and it came against an FM...
Posted by: Alex Shternshain at June 1, 2006 13:51
Among the most surprising players i would like to mention Gabriel Sargissian, who i think has been an assistant of Aronian, he´s 1. reserve for Armenia and has played every round so far. Also the reserve player of the chinese woman team, Hou Yifan, she´s only 12 and if she continues like this she might be as good as Judit Polgar in 10 years!?
Posted by: Aðalsteinn at June 1, 2006 15:02
I don't know what happened in the Nakamura-Agrest game, but Swedish team captain GM S. Brynell was not happy, writing in the Swedish "Chess Forum" (http://www.schackforum.se/)
"Evgenij fick än en gång möta 6.g3 mot Najdorf. Nakamura tycktes stå lite bättre men Evgenij försvarade sig säkert. Det verkade sedan som Nakamura mest spelade på att utnyttja Evgenijs sämre tid, men de risker som amerikanen tog gav snarast Evgenij vinstchanser. I ett komplicerat slutspel enades de dock om remi. I slutfasen uppförde sig Nakamura som en omogen barnrumpa (klockdunkningar etc.). Han är faktiskt arton så man tycker han borde ha växt ifrån sådant beteende. "
ICC'er Eeek(*) informs us that a 'barnrumpa' is not a good thing.
Posted by: Mark Ginsburg at June 1, 2006 18:56
here is a rough translation:
Evgenij met 6.g3 against Najdorf. Nakamura seemed to stand a little better but Evgenij defended safely. Nakamura most played on using Evgenijs poorer time, but the risks the American took gave Evgenij profititable opportunities. In a complicated finish a draw was agreed however. In the final phase Nakamura behaved as an immature barnrumpa (a poorly behaved child) He is actually eighteen so one thinks he should have grown from such behavior.
Posted by: fluffy at June 1, 2006 20:22
Best Name: Socko Bartosz (Poland)
Worst Barnrumpa: Nakamura
Posted by: greg koster at June 1, 2006 21:06
Unless Nakamura wins the rest of the games, I would have to put him on the most disapointing list.
He can't beat players ranked 200 points lower than himself. He has played poorly in his last three events, starting with the US Champ. As a Naka fan I am worried for him.
Posted by: Stephen Gordon at June 1, 2006 22:38
Mig,
I think you meant to say Canada's Pascal Charbonneau, the sexiest GM under 50.
And, yes, Alexander Onischuk is handsome, but he has incredibly poor taste in shirts.
Posted by: inky at June 2, 2006 00:36
Re: Greg Koster's "Best Name" choice of Socko, Bartosz of Poland. I believe the last name may sound funny (as in "Sock it to a person", but it is really spelled in Polish as Soc'ko, pronounced somewhat like "sochko". Polish words often have those funny accents, among others, above "c".
Fortunately, Bartosz Soc'ko has been performing above his 2606 rating (2630, I believe)
Posted by: Lukasz Pruski at June 2, 2006 00:50
I was a first class "barnrumpa" at times when I was 18 and I bet quite a few of the fans wringing their hands over Nakamura were too. In the words of the great Edwin Starr "let he who is without funk cast the first stone".
Posted by: whiskeyrebel at June 2, 2006 01:24
Biggest dissapointment: Alex Shirov
Posted by: marc at June 2, 2006 03:35
biggest disappointment: A.Shirov
Posted by: marc at June 2, 2006 03:37
biggest disappointment: A.Shirov
Posted by: marc at June 2, 2006 03:38
Anyway, let's get back to the real story. Which two famous GMs, and which player?!
As to Nakamura - make the games blitz-style, you'll get blitz tactics. Makropoulos must be proud. But if this Olympiad produces nothing else learning the word barnrumpa has been worth it all.
Posted by: rdh at June 2, 2006 06:48
How about most hilarious opening blunder by someone who at 2331 ought to have known better.
[Event "37Chess Olympiad 2006 general"]
[Site "Turin, Italia"]
[Date "2006.05.28"]
[Round "7"]
[White "Pacheco, Marco"]
[Black "Bachmann, Axel"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2331"]
[BlackElo "2414"]
[PlyCount "24"]
[EventDate "2006.05.21"]
[EventType "team"]
[EventRounds "13"]
[EventCountry "AUT"]
[WhiteTeam "Peru"]
[BlackTeam "Paraguay"]
1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. c4 Bg7 4. Nc3 O-O 5. e4 d6 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O exd4 8. Nxd4
Nc6 9. Be3 Re8 10. f3 Nh5 11. Qd2 Nf4 12. Rfe1 Bxd4 0-1
Posted by: gg at June 2, 2006 09:02
1- Biggest suprise: Kramnik's 2800+ performance
2- Biggest punishment: Anand's -20 ELO
3- Biggest donation: Alexandrov to Kramnik
4- Biggest candy to barnrumpa's: Grischuk to Naka
5- Oldest "don't look at me": Korchnoj
6- Hottest "look at me": Anna Sharevich
7- Hottest girl sort by continents:
Europe: Regina Pokorna & Sophie Milliet
Oceania & Asia: Arianne Caoili
America & Africa: Zapeda
8- Hottest mom: Firuza Kazimdzhanov
9- Ugliest Look: Anand's, Where is my cheese?
10-Most non-bullet proof outfit: Kamsky's orange T-shirt
11- Best internet coverage: Mig's pages
12- Worst internet coverage: Mig's pages
13- Best re-start: Bessel's Kok campaign for the next FIDE'S Presidency...
Posted by: A cosi at June 5, 2006 09:35
