You might be able to dig up all the results elsewhere eventually, but I'll try to encapsulate them here with some thoughts. It's a great event but I felt a disconnect due to the haphazard website. The reports, when they appeared, were of tremendous quality. Insightful and informative, kudos to authors Johannes Fischer and Eric van Reem. The problem was not having a single place to find out the results and see the games at a glance. You had to go to the live games pages and figure things out yourself, although this was largely ameliorated by the inclusion of the players' point totals next to their names on the live pages. Still, there was a lot of hunting around.
In the GRENKELEASING Rapid World Championship, Vishy Anand beat Teimour Radjabov 5-3, winning both games on the final day to pull away after a tight and sloppy brace of games. It was a fun and fighting match, but the quality was poor for this level, even for rapid chess. Anand's new ideas and play on the black side of the Semi-Slav were notable, as was his futility against Radjabov's Sveshnikov. As Kasparov and others have pointed out, Vishy often has trouble against it and he went to 3.Bb5 in the final game, which he won when Radja went overboard in a must-win situation. Radjabov looked nervous but occasionally scrambled brilliantly when Anand let up. Not to criticize zeitnot endgame play, but in game 7 black could have saved a draw with an unusual perpetual with 38.Nxh6!, as pointed out by Kasparov on Playchess.com at the time.
Per the site report, Anand has now won seven of these matches in a row, incredibly, and nine overall. His rapid dominance has been shakier of late (Bruzon fought him to a standstill in Leon this year) but winning is winning and few would bet against the 36-year-old Indian in a rapid match against anyone. Next year he'll defend his title against Rustam Kasimdzhanov, who won the mighty Ordix Open with an undefeated 9.5/11. Mamedyarov, who had promised to win this event after he choked at the end of the Chess960 the day before, was foiled only by tiebreaks. He also scored 9.5 despite losing a spectacular game to Morozevich.
In the shuffle chess match, the Clerical Medical Chess960 World Championship, Levon Aronian deposed Peter Svidler in his second try. He used the same formula as Anand, winning both games on the final day to win 5-3. The last game showed one of the unfortunate hazards of Fischerandom, a position that can be lost for Black almost immediately without perfect defense. White had massive threats after move three or four and Svidler resigned on move 13. Pablo at ChessVille figured out my convoluted method and entered all the games through Fritz so you can download them here and replay them in ChessBase. HIARCS 10 and Shredder 10 can analyze them. (I'm not sure if ChessBase recognizes some UCI freeware engines as capable of Chess960 in order to put them on the engine menu.)
According to the site, sponsorship for the event has been guaranteed through 2013, which is always good to hear. Maybe they could branch out into classical chess... I very much hope more games will become available. There are currently only a handful from the Ordix Open at the official site.
- Anand scored +31=8-1 in a simul. Aronian scored +16=3-1 in a Chess960 simul.
- Shredder won the Livingston Chess960 computer tournament.
- In Chess960 the program Spike beat Svidler 1.5-0.5 and Shredder went 2-0 over Radjabov.
- Harikrishna beat Naiditsch in the U20 Chess960 match. He was down 0.5-3.5 but came back on the second day to win 4.5-3.5.
- Kosteniuk defeated Paetz in the women's Chess960, 5.5-2.5
- Hort and Portisch tied the veterans Chess960 and Hort won the blitz playoff 1.5-0.5
- Bacrot won the FiNet Chess960 Open with 9.5/11 undefeated and will face Levon Aronian in next years match.
- Kasimdzhanov won the Ordix Open on tiebreaks over Mamedyarov and will play Anand next year. (Not confirmed, going on the results charts.)
- Anand beat Radjabov 5-3 in the GRENKELEASING rapid match.
"as was his futility against Radjabov's Scheveningen"
I think you mean Sveshnikov.
Wow, you got here fast, about 15 seconds after publishing. Yah, Scheveningen on the brain with the NH tournament, thanks.
From the tournament website report:
This time Anand avoided the Sveshnikov and he later said “he was surprised to see how difficult it was for White to equalize in this opening”.
----------------------
I was expecting Anand to play 3) Bb5 in Game 5 itself... a bit surprised that he did not prepare anything against the Sveshnikov which was to be expected from Radjabov..
Anand has clearly not been at his best of late.. at times he played carelessly in this match (justifiable over-confidence?).... as in that game he lost with White.. he must be getting bored of winning these rapid titles.
Not having tiebreaks in Ordix open is nonsense. Mamedyarov deserves a tiebreak with Kasimdzhanov for playing against Anand next year. If Mamedyarov plays next year, it will definitely be more entertaining and more challenging for Anand.
Fischer Random rapid matches shoul be played two games a day using the same position to avoid problems like in this match's last game. The games should be played on the same day and the second game should start imediatly after the first game to avoid giving the chance to prepare for that especific position.
Something like that is done in checkers, where opennings are balloted.
Fischer Random rapid matches shoul be played two games a day using the same position to avoid problems like in this match's last game. The games should be played on the same day and the second game should start imediatly after the first game to avoid giving the chance to prepare for that especific position.
Something like that is done in checkers, where opennings are balloted.
[1]
Yes grandmasters tend to get into early opening trouble more often in chess960 than in traditional chess1. The primary reason is the GM's are UNFAMILIAR with these initial position.
A merely secondary reason is that some chess960 initial positions offer more opportunities for quick strikes by White. Note tho that Black can certainly defend against these threats.
[1b] Similarly in chess1, Black can defend against White's queen (Qf3,Qh5) and bishop (Bc4) and knight (Ne5,Ng5) all trying to attack Black's famous weakness at Pf7.
[2]
The chess960 rules used by the Chess Tigers in Mainz are unnecessarily contaminated with hold-over thinking from traditional chess1.
In chess960, after the first player begins the game by moving a White piece, the second player should get to decide which color the second player wants to proceed as. Some people call this the "pie" rule.
If 1. c24 is too strong an opening ply, the second player simply chooses to be White. This punishes the first player for failing to make White's first ply be any move that gives both colors even chances. Problem solved.
[2b] As a practical matter, to avoid having to rotate the board or switch chairs, the second player could return White Pc4 to c2, then play the exact "mirror" ply with Black, here meaning c75. Thereafter the game proceed normally.
[2c] The name "pie" rule comes from an analogy. We are reminded of the mother who tells her son to cut the last piece of pie in half, but who then lets her daughter choose whichever half the daughter prefers: fairness.
[2d] The pie rule might not have been appropriate for chess1. In chess1 the range of opening moves is so severely limited and so thoroughly studied -- that under pie too many chess1 games might open with too narrow a range of moves. Chess960 has thousands of plausible opening moves, few of which have been deeply studied.
[3]
Svidler surely knows that in chess960 one must assess initially undefended pawns when one first sees the new setup. Perhaps Svidler was tired or got lazy, and he did not bother to do this. Had Svidler assessed initially undefended pawns, the threat of Nf3g5 attacking Blacks Pf7 would have been obvious.
Thanks.
Gene Milener
http://CastleLong.com/
Gene, you are clearly a big fan of Fischerrandom Chess (or Chess960, whatever is the currently prefered name) and since you have written a book on the subject, that's not surprising.
I have no interest in any chess variants, but I believe that it should be possible to promote them without denigrating chess, but unfortunately your choice of words often seem designed to demean chess.
I for one would be gratfeul if you could phrase your comments more carefully and in particular please don't refer to chess as 'chess1' - it's like slapping every chess fan in the face.
I have created a new variant called FischerRandom2000.
From now on, chess960 is to be known as "OldFischerRandom".
Kasimdzhonov or Mamedyarov next year?? only point of interest would be whether the final score would be 5-3 or 6-2.
Anand - Fritz would be much more interesting... but since that is unlikely to happen, i guess we will have to wait for Carlsen to grow up and Anand to grow older before we see him lose his title..
I have written extensively to refute Bobby Fischer's negative perspective that chess960 (FRC) is somehow "better" than traditional chess. There are major important things about chess that traditional chess has taught us, things that chess960 could never teach us.
Without traditional chess, we would not comprehend how near to perfection humans could learn to play chess from a start position. The in-depth study of why certain known variations lead to stronger positions later in the game has advanced greatly our knowledge of dynamic play. We have a much better understanding of how a subtle advantage in one phase may transmute to another kind of advantage in a later phase.
There is nothing "demeaning" or "denigrating" about traditional chess, nor about anything else, in my post.
I never use the term 'chess1' in conversations that do not involve chess960 as part of the context. In context the term helps clarify the distinctions between the foundational concept of chess (these pieces on this board) versus particular implementations of that concept.
I am sure that in 1425 when some people kept using the name 'chess' for the radically modified game we love today, there were many who preferred the traditional rule set and who took offense.
We can live and let live.
Thanks.
how many years before we see our first opening's theory book of Chess 960??
i can almost visualize how the first chapter would explain the same old 'basic ideas' of opening's (development, space, etc..) from a modern 960 perspective... a bit like completing a full circle
guess we could still have King Pawn and Queen Pawn openings
Mig: "As Kasparov and others have pointed out, Vishy often has trouble against it.."
This is of course true, but GK himself often used to try and avoid the Sveshnikov... Here are the first few moves of his last three games against Leko:
Linares 2003: 1) e4 c5 2) Nf3 Nc6 3) Nc3 Nf6 4)Bb5 etc.. drawn in 33 moves
Linares 2004: 1) e4 c5 2) Nf3 Nc6 3) Nc3 e5 4) Bc4 etc.. drawn in 19 moves
Linares 2005: 1) e4 c5 2) Nf3 Nc6 3) Nc3 e5 4) Bc4 etc.. drawn in 31 moves
(same 4 moves in 2002: Russia - World against Leko, drawn in 45 moves... there are more such games if you need additional proof)
His attempts to avoid the Sveshnikov did not prove too successful against Leko but he still prefered this to the Sveshnikov himself...
Quote 'The chess960 rules...are unnecessarily contaminated with hold-over thinking from traditional chess1'.
Gene, if you didn't intend that to sound degrogatory then I'm afraid it did to me.
We've had this discussion about the use of the term 'chess1' before at the ChessExchange forum, so I'll try not to belabour the point here, but even in the context of discussions about chess960 there really is no need to call chess 'chess1'.
Therefore, I find your insistence on using the term chess1 when no confusion of meaning exists to be provacative. If you do not intend it to be so, then you should be aware that other people may also feel as I do.
In 1425 chess was not an established international sport known and enjoyed around the whole world, so I don't think your attempted analogy works. Nonetheless, I guess we can agree to disagree and live and let live. I wish you success with your book and I hope that chess and chess960 both enjoy a higher profile in the future.
The Ordix open was really fun to watch. There were so many gms that loosing one game meant in most cases that you had to play the next game at a table rather away from the stage.
Moro played game after game on the stage, but lost to Ruck after he had beaten such players as Mamedyarov and Sargissian. After that loss which seemed rather avoidable to me he was out of the race for first.
As for me there were about 15 players who could have hoped for first place before the start of the tournament. So you needed a good share of luck and full concentration from game to game to come in as first.
Mainz was really fascinating!
http://www.fide.com/news.asp?id=1091
I think Gene M in his comment:
"The chess960 rules used by the Chess Tigers in Mainz are unnecessarily contaminated with hold-over thinking from traditional chess1.
In chess960, after the first player begins the game by moving a White piece, the second player should get to decide which color the second player wants to proceed as. Some people call this the "pie" rule.
"
is forgetting an important point (note: In Mainz the player had 5 minutes before the beginning of the game to valorate the position). CHESS960 WAS CONCEIVED AS A VARIANT OF CHESS!!
What chess fans like about Chess960 is the possibility to avoid opening theory but still playing chess, so for example in an endgame, the best player either in normal chess of Chess960 would be the same. The ability to understand the positions (rather than memorizing) is more rewarded than in normal chess, etc...
Rules like the "pie rule" Gene proposes is in other words making this variant a game completely different to chess. It is like say: "Oh, what I dont like about chess is ...", so, "lets change chess to my way" ... in the future, some people who believe that GO is better than Chess, would make fusion attempts to incorporate elements from GO to Chess, as well as some people who like tennis as well as table tennis would try to incorporate into the latter a rule to allow volleys in table tennis, etc...
You can change and mix sports, Gene ... and try to find enough fanatics to your invent. But also remember the reasons people would like to play Chess960 as an alternative to chess.
The dirty truth is, the Sveshnikov is an extremely resilient defense, and offers white virtually no advantage at the higher levels -- against a good specialist.
Referring to Ordix and FiNet, one of the German bulletins posted on the official site says that Mamedyarov won the most money, Euro 6,500, by virtue of his two second places.
Winners Bacrot and Kasimdzhnov won less.
Shirov and Bareev won only a few Euros, even a couple of the local German players won more. I presume that refers to prize money only excluding any appearance fees or similar.