The visiting team has moved to within a point of the Chinese squad in the Taiyuan Scheveningen event after seven rounds. Vescovi continued to implode by losing a not-worse endgame in terrible fashion. Jobava is the standout so far and won with a nice exchange sacrifice in the seventh round after the pawn-pushingest opening you'll likely to see in a while. There's a nice photo gallery at the official site here; just click the numbers under the photo on the right. Unfortunately it's all in Chinese so it's hard to say who is Hu.
Magnus Carlsen is getting both praise and scorn for losing his last-round game to a lower-rated opponent at the Norwegian championship. Agdestein won and so the two again tied for first and will again meet in a playoff for the title later this year. Some people in the comments here were under the misconception that Carlsen played aggressively to win with black (he needed only a draw to guarantee the title), some mistaking the opening for a Budapest Gambit. (Black played ..e5 before White played d4.) All I see is that he got a clearly worse position, tried a dubious sacrifice and lost. I didn't see any point at which he could have gone for a clear drawing line instead. Black's position before 23..Nxf2 is quite bad already.
Dortmund 2006 begins on July 29: Arkadij Naiditsch, Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian, Peter Svidler, Peter Leko, Boris Gelfand, Michael Adams and Baadur Jobava.
Comments
Conspiracy time: did Carlsen lose deliberately in order to get another free training session with Agdestein?
Posted by: Alex Shternshain at July 18, 2006 13:16
Not by the looks of the photo shoot afterwards. He looks completely dejected.
Posted by: Mark at July 18, 2006 13:44
The Essent tournament starts at the 20th of October. Not this month, unfortunately.
Posted by: Oscar at July 18, 2006 13:48
According to a rumour on the chessgames.com Magnus Carlsen page, he had made a bet with (his sort of trainer) GM Peter Heine Nilsen that he should score 8/9 in the Norwegian championship. Add that to your list list of conspiracies.
The story goes on and says that because Magnus lost the bet he now has to spend a whole day at an art museum in Amsterdam or something (which he truly hates).
Posted by: Young Sun at July 18, 2006 16:45
Thanks Oscar. Started out thinking Dortmund and my brain somehow fried. That's what happens when I take a few days of vacation.
Posted by: Mig at July 18, 2006 17:07
Does anyone know why Anand has stopped playing in Dortmund? at one time he was a regular.
Posted by: JaiDeepBlue at July 18, 2006 18:20
He is getting old.
Posted by: peach at July 18, 2006 18:50
For a second I thought you were talking about me and my mistake about Essent. Then I saw it was about Anand and felt better. Then I remembered Anand and I are the same age.
You're only as old as the woman you feel, as the saying goes. So I'm only 30, nyah.
Posted by: Mig at July 18, 2006 19:09
The idiot in question was me. I started observing the game about move ten and stupidly did not check the first moves since I thought I recognized the position from the Budapest Defense. My sincere apologies to GM Carlsen for questioning his opening choice. In any case, it was a great result for the brilliant young man regardless of the last round.
Posted by: Andrew Dimond at July 18, 2006 22:46
Don't forget that the very nice Biel tournament starts on Saturay, just in case you can't wait the extra week for Dortmund.
Looking through the photos of the Taiyuan tournament on the Chessbase article, I notice that they're using the wrong Georgia flag--instead of the red-and-white-with-crosses flag, they're using the purple one instead.
Posted by: Daniel at July 21, 2006 14:06
Off topic:
Seems like all hell is breaking loose over on the uscf forum right now. Sam Sloan has been elected to a one year term on the uscf board. People on the forum aren't very happy about it and are predicting all kinds of doom and gloom (when they aren't gnashing their teeth and pulling out their hair). Ms. Polgar among others has posted quite a diatribe against him. Since there hasn't been much red meat on here lately, I thought I'd let ya know where the buzzards were currenlty circling.
Posted by: Quixote at July 21, 2006 21:16
Here's the url for the uscf forum
http://www.uschess.org/forums
but you have to be registered before you can access the "uscf issues" board where the sh#t's going down.
Posted by: Quixote at July 21, 2006 21:19
Were it not for his being a racist Pokémon-porn peddling child molesting felon, Sam Sloan would probably be a reasonable USCF Board member.
Do you have any idea how much it hurts to lose a match to someone who plays 1.g4?!
;-)
Posted by: Bill Brock - Chicago at July 21, 2006 22:00
Didn't Sloan challenge Mig to a grudge-match, too?
Posted by: greg koster at July 21, 2006 23:08
Bill, you really played a match with Sloan and lost? (Aren't you 2100?)
Now if only someone could dream up a way to get the guy who posts here using the handle "tgg" -- Dirt's version of Sloan -- to sit for a match against me!
Posted by: Jon Jacobs at July 22, 2006 00:09
Bill, you really played a match with Sloan and lost? (Aren't you 2100?)
Now if only someone could dream up a way to get the guy who posts here using the handle "tgg" -- Dirt's version of Sloan -- to sit for a match against me!
Posted by: Jon Jacobs at July 22, 2006 00:10
Can you say "choke"? I can...won the first game easily, then botched two totally won positions.
Posted by: Bill Brock - Chicago at July 22, 2006 03:55
FM Al Chow turned me on to a line from Adorjan's book Black is OK Against Utter Crap.
IMO, 1.g4 d5 2.h3! is virtually forced; otherwise, Black gets massive comp for the sacrificed pawn. 9.Qxa7 is crucial.
[Event "RGCP Grudge Match 2005"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2005.06.25"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Sam Sloan"]
[Black "Bill Brock"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Opening "Grob: Fritz gambit"]
[ECO "A00"]
[NIC "VO.11"]
[Time "23:39:38"]
[TimeControl "4500+0"]
1. g4 d5 2. Bg2 Bxg4 3. c4 c6 4. cxd5 cxd5 5. Qb3 Nf6 6. Nc3 e6 7. Qxb7 Nbd7
8. Nb5 Rc8 9. Nxa7 Rb8 10. Qc6 Qa5 11. Nc8 Qc5 12. Qxc5 Bxc5 13. b4 Bd4 14.
Nd6+ Ke7 15. Rb1 Kxd6 16. e3 Bb6 17. Ne2 Ne5 18. Nf4 Ra8 19. d4 Nc4 20. Ra1
Na3 21. Kd2 Rhc8 22. Bxa3 Rxa3 23. Rhb1 Bf5 24. Rb2 Ne4+ 25. Ke1 f6 26. Nh5
Rc7 27. Ke2 Bg6 28. Nf4 Be8 29. Kf3 g5 30. Nxe6 Bh5# {Black wins} 0-1
Posted by: Bill Brock - Chicago at July 22, 2006 04:00
To be fair...here's my imitation of Phil Mickelson on the 18th.
[Event "RGCP Grudge Match 2005"]
[Site "205 W. Randolph, Suite 400, Chicago"]
[Date "2005.06.25"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Brock, Bill"]
[Black "Sloan, Sam"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Opening "QGD: Albin Counter-Gambit"]
[WhiteElo "2042"]
[BlackElo "1931"]
[ECO "D08"]
[NIC "QG.02"]
[Time "23:33:29"]
[TimeControl "4500+0"]
1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4 4. a3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Nge7 6. g3 Ng6 7. Bg5 Qd7 8.
Bg2 Ngxe5 9. Nbd2 Nxf3+ 10. Nxf3 f6 11. Bf4 g5 12. Bc1 Bg7 13. O-O Qd6 14.
b4 Be6 15. c5 Qd7 16. b5 Na5 17. Nxd4 Rd8 18. Bb2 Bd5 19. e4 Bc4 20. Nf5
Bxf1 21. Qh5+ Qf7 22. Qxf7+ Kxf7 23. Bxf1 Rhe8 24. Bc3 b6 25. cxb6 axb6 26.
Nxg7 Kxg7 27. f3 Nb3 28. Re1 Nd4 29. Kf2 Nc2 30. Rc1 Nd4 31. Bb4 Rd7 32. Bh3
Rf7 33. Rc4 Nxb5 34. a4 Nd6 35. Bxd6 cxd6 36. Rc6 Rb8 37. Rxd6 Ra7 38. Rd7+
Rxd7 39. Bxd7 Rd8 40. Bb5 Rd2+ 41. Ke3 Rxh2 42. g4 Kf7 43. Kd4 Ke6 44. Kd3
Ke5 45. Ke3 Rb2 46. Bd3 Rb3 47. Ke2 Kd4 48. Bb5 Rb2+ 49. Kd1 Ke3 50. Bc6 Rb4
51. Kc2 Rc4+ 0-1
[Event "RGCP Grudge Match 2005"]
[Site "205 W. Randolph, Suite 400, Chicago"]
[Date "2005.06.25"]
[Round "3"]
[White "Sloan, Sam"]
[Black "Brock, Bill"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Opening "Grob's Attack"]
[WhiteElo "1931"]
[BlackElo "2042"]
[ECO "A00"]
[NIC "VO.11"]
[Time "23:39:38"]
[TimeControl "4500+5"]
1. g4 e5 2. Bg2 h5 3. d4 exd4 4. g5 Bb4+ 5. Kf1 Nc6 6. Nf3 Bc5 7. b4 Bxb4 8.
Nxd4 Nxd4 9. Qxd4 Bf8 10. Nc3 c6 11. Rb1 d5 12. h4 Ne7 13. Bb2 Qc7 14. e4
dxe4 15. Nxe4 Nf5 16. Qd3 Be6 17. Re1 Qd7 18. Nf6+ gxf6 19. Qxf5 O-O-O 20.
Qxf6 Bb4 21. c3 Bc5 22. g6 Qd3+ 23. Kg1 Qd2 24. Rxe6 fxe6 25. g7 Rhe8 26. c4
Qe1+ 27. Kh2 Bd6+ 28. f4 Qd2 29. Be5 Bxe5 30. fxe5 Rd3 31. Rf1 Qe3 32. Rf3
Qe2 33. Rxd3 Qxd3 34. g8=Q Rxg8 35. Qxe6+ Kc7 36. Qxg8 Qf5 37. e6 Qf4+ 1-0
Posted by: Bill Brock - Chicago at July 22, 2006 04:04
How about a voluntary posting tax. A dime or a quarter per line. When the fund gets to $5,000 or so, invite Mig and Sloan to a charity grudge-match. If Sloan loses, the money goes to "Save the Children." If Mig loses the money goes to ____ ?
Posted by: greg koster at July 22, 2006 08:34
Thanks for posting the games, Bill. By the way, night before last I lost a tournament game to a woman for the first time. When I told my wife about it she said, "I hate to say it, but I'm glad you lost."
Posted by: Jon Jacobs at July 22, 2006 11:01
Mig would rip Sloan to shreds and so would Brock given another shot. Sloan is horrible. I remember once seeing an 1800 friend of mine play him in a blitz tourney. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6? 3. Ne5 f:e5?... my friend rattles off the win in under thirty seconds. Sloan looked so shocked that he lost with that nonsense because apparently Sloan plays that line on the regular. Dido 1.g4?! =/=+(I guess probably = since it is a developing, but move. I don't know if TDs gave me the option to start my black games with the pawn on g5 or on g7, which I would select.) I guess the key in those sort of situations is to not get too provoked. Treat it like a dubious move at some other point in the game and even less important than that.
Posted by: DP at July 22, 2006 13:49
Sam Sloan made the headlines of the mainstream NY Post in the 1980s for a case of lurid sexual deviance and wife-for-hire shenanigans. Can anyone find this cover? It was a real lu-lu. The details are so seedy and grimy they are beyond the pale of anything I can possibly remember. The basics are: bought a wife, made her do things in bed she didn't want to do, she ran screaming to the cops.... great NY Post cover! And as for chess... any press is good press. :D
Posted by: Mark Ginsburg at July 22, 2006 22:20
