The grasshopper beat the master in the Norwegian championship. Magnus Carlsen (15) defeated his old trainer Simen Agdestein (39) to take the clear lead on 6/7 with two rounds to play. Last year the championship required a playoff and then a rapid playoff between these two and age and treachery overcame youthful energy after six games. It's great to see the two greats of Norwegian chess battling it out this way - playing in the championship and playing hard against each other. Karpov and his old trainer Furman played three short draws on the rare occasions they met over the board. When you think about it this was a bad deal for Karpov.
The Chinese team has a three-point lead in the Taiyuan tournament, mostly thanks to Vescovi's collapse for the visiting team. The Brazilian has a half point after five rounds. Jobava and Ni Hua stand out with 3.5/5. 50% of the games have been drawn so far with no short draws at all. 24.c4! in Wang Hao-Vescovi is worth a look.
Like everyone else, TWIC is having trouble getting info from the Tomsk rapid tournament. Karjakin and Rublevsky lead a powerful field that includes Morozevich, Bologan, Kasimdzhanov, and Ponomariov. The day's games can usually be found here. Crosstable (Russian) here. This is the 10th Izmailov Memorial and the Tomsk chess club bears his name. (Petr, Peter, Pyotr...) I believe he was the first Russian Federation champion in 1928 and was executed in the mid-30's along with, well, just about everyone. He beat Botvinnik in a few games (bad career move) but was never allowed to play in the USSR finals. There was a short article on him in a German chess magazine in 1998. Anyone with more on him?
Comments
That's Magnus Carlsen (15) mig!
Posted by: rob martin at July 14, 2006 13:36
Yah. Funny, I checked to see if Agdestein had his birthday yet this year (yes) but forgot to continue with Carlsen. November 30.
Posted by: Mig at July 14, 2006 13:40
Mig, small correction:
- Magnus is, as rob martin correctly points out, still 15 years old (Nov 30 1990).
- Agdestein has not really been Carlsen's trainer in years, and that is also repeatedly pointed out by the former national soccer player. They used to have some training sessions together on a weekly basis after his tournaments to go over his games, but that's it. The last 2 years or so, he has spent much more time with Danish GM Peter Heine Nielsen, so if anyone is to be called his trainer, it's him. It should also be noted that Magnus is the type of guy who works 90 % on his own, without any help from others. That's one reason why he decided to decline a training offer from Kasparov & co.
Posted by: EeEk at July 14, 2006 13:45
Yes, Petr Izmailov was the first Russian Federation champion in 1928 (22 y.o. at the time). He graduated from Tomsk University and then worked as geologist in Siberian taiga. He was executed in 1937 (by the way, for some reason Soviet chessplayers were more or less lucky - not many of them were killed or directly repressed at those unlawful times).
There are two huge articles by Boris Voronkov at ChessPro site (in Russian) that include some information about him:
- http://www.chesspro.ru/book/rc29.shtml - about the 6th USSR championatship (1929). It is not clear (even his own son does not know it) why Izmailov did not take participation in the final stage of that championship (he was one of just 4 winners of semi-finals having defeted Botvinnik) - see the tables at the end of the article).
- http://www.chesspro.ru/book/rc31.shtml - about 7th USSR championship (1931). Izmailov - Botvinnik game from semi-final (annotated by Yury Averbach) can be found there. It was his last tournament.
Posted by: Valchess at July 14, 2006 18:57
Have a link to the Wang Hao-Vescovi game? My chinese is not up to finging it on the official site:>
Posted by: Chris Marks at July 14, 2006 19:12
To Chris Marks:
A PGN file of the Taiyuan games can be found at TWIC.
I ran the Wang-Vescovi game through Fritz this morning and gave special attention to 24. c4. It's an interesting move, but the position seems unclear to me and seemed unclear for some time. Relying on Fritz didn't help, either. In following Fritz' variations, our silicon friend would say it position was favorable to one side and then other and back again.
I'd like to hear some other views, but I don't think White had the game won until Black played 31. Ke6?, three moves before resignation.
Posted by: Wild Bill at July 14, 2006 21:33
To Chris Marks:
A PGN file of the Taiyuan games can be found at TWIC.
I ran the Wang-Vescovi game through Fritz this morning and gave special attention to 24. c4. It's an interesting move, but the position seems unclear to me and seemed unclear for some time. Relying on Fritz didn't help, either. In following Fritz' variations, our silicon friend would say it position was favorable to one side and then other and back again.
I'd like to hear some other views, but I don't think White had the game won until Black played 31. Ke6?, three moves before resignation.
Posted by: Wild Bill at July 14, 2006 21:40
needing only a draw to clinch the title, it looks like Carlsen lost his last round match against the number three player. He and Agdestein are tied at 7 points, so I guess we can expect another title match in a couple months?
Posted by: shams at July 15, 2006 15:42
I say, good for Magnus for going for the full point in the last round! Playing to win in -every- game is the attitude I think we'd all like to see in our champions. May his elders take some inspiration from "the kid."
Posted by: Ashish at July 15, 2006 19:17
Ashish, you are very right. I haven't seen the game score but you have to think he avoided something drawish.
Posted by: shams at July 15, 2006 21:27
He played the Budapest gambit as black and was duly punished. I don't know whether to call it youthful inexperience, admirable fighting spirit or just being cocky playing someone rated 200 points below him. I'm inclined to just defer to his judgment on how to play chess for obvious reasons, but it certainly seems a more sound choice of defense would have been wiser in such an important game.
Posted by: Andrew Dimond at July 16, 2006 01:30
Carlsen declined a training offer from Kasparov? Wow. That sounds like a budding Fischer.
Posted by: macuga at July 16, 2006 16:52
Playing the Budapest Gambit, declining Kasparov offer for training.... WOW, sounds like youthful arrogance to me. Hope Carlsen picks up Fisher's chess brilliance instead only the arrogance. Training is important, no matter how good player you are. After the hammering the Indians took at the Olympics, nice to see that some of them are off to training (GM Ganguly with Shirov, and GM Chanda with Ehlvest).
Posted by: Ajit at July 17, 2006 22:22
The list of all Soviet champions, with links for crosstables, is available at http://members.aol.com/graemecree/chesschamps/ussr/index.htm
But it does not mention Izmailov, nor a championship in 1928. Is the table incomplete?
But there is also a trivia question:
Which player was world champion before being national champion?
(look for the answer in the link above)
Posted by: edu at July 19, 2006 10:31
