A new event, the "NH Tournament" will begin on August 19 in Amsterdam. Named for the NH Hotel chain, this event is another Scheveningen team tournament, which have been increasingly popular lately. This time it's the "Rising Stars" team versus the "Experience" team in a double round-robin of classical chess (40/120' + g30'+30"). Each player on the winning team gets €2000, the losers get €1000 each. The top scorer among the youngsters gets an invitation to the next Melody Amber tournament, a tasty plum.
Rising Stars: Sergey Karjakin, Magnus Carlsen, Daniel Stellwagen, Jan Smeets, Wang Hao.
Experience: Alexander Beliavsky, Ulf Andersson, Artur Yussupow, Ljubomir Ljubojevic, John Nunn.
The Rising Stars team will be allowed to use earplugs to block out the sound of creaking bones. It's probably going to be a rough ride for the veterans. I'd say +6 for the kiddies. I'd have to peg Big Al as the most likely to make at least an even score, although his active style (also Nunn and Ljubo) may also work against him compared to the guys who were already famous for being ultra-solid 20 years ago (Andersson, Jussupow née Yusupov). There's only one rest day and these whippersnappers are tough. My pro chess consciousness started in the 80's with guys like Nunn and Ljubojevic playing in events like the GMA World Cup tournaments. We'll see if they still have some tricks up their dusty sleeves.
This is why Ljubojevic was warming up in Villarrobledo the other day. The games of the NH will be shown live and there will also be a streaming video transmission, although I'm not sure of the form and format of that yet. I hope it's in the commentary room and not of the players picking their noses. Chess webcams, ugh.
Youth shall be served, for dinner.
Ulf is still quite hard to beat.
Mig:
I must say that your writing style has become more colorful lately, probably the influence of your new girlfriend. Witness e.g. Clutching to the extra pawn like an issue of playboy, creaking bones, failing eyesight, getting hard to distinguish between rest days and playing days etc.
Mig, a glance at Youssoupov's face sheds some doubt on the relevance of the 'e' you put at the end of 'née' since it denotes a feminine form. Sure enough, many letters are silent in French, but they are not meaningless...
It is intended as humor. Men don't usually change their names when they get married, or at all.
Those oldsters ought to thank the youth for playing, they aren't just experienced they are geriatric. It will be an easy whitewash.
Highest score for the veterans? If I had to bet, I'd choose Nunn.
Né/née: Men don't usually change their sex.
Mig, thanks for the link to the official page. They've done a great job with the website.
I have a video of Ljubo playing in the last round of the 2002 Olympiad in Slovenia. I love to watch it. (He doesn't pick his nose)! I hope they do show the players.
I predict Ljubo will have a plus score. After all, he has been practicing. :)
Hey, Mig. kind of loses a lot in the (mis)translation, eh? Perhaps you might care to put an explanation of each and every pun in those tags of yours. LOL. I wonder if Shakeshaft ever had this sort of problem.
By the way, with the possible exception of Beliavsky, all of the codgers are going to suffer, bless them
I'd love to see one of those Andersson games full of whirling,swirling,swooping knights. (with apologies to T.M.)
Nice of the older generation to donate elo points to the kids.
I doubt it is going to be as one sided towards the youth as the speculation is currently running. The GM's of the older generation were all top players back in the day, and Im sure very dangerous today.
You might be right Parsnips, but Carlsen dispatched Beliavsky in 20 moves at Wijk this year.
... where he was clearly out of shape. Even Kateryna Lahno, who had a horrible time in Wijk aan Zee this year, got a win over him...
(which, hopefully, seems to be over - she scored a 2700 performance recently at the North Uralsk Cup)
Is this Nunn's first event since his "retirement?"
It's good to see him playing again.
-Matt
By the way, it's nice to see such a big international event taking place in New Hampshire...
Oh. Nevermind...
:)
Matt (a.k.a. Globular): Good one!
I just hope that this time Nunn makes all legal moves.
I believe the veterans are being seriously underestimated here. Each one of these players has been among the elite in chess. I personally feel Yussupow is going to score quite well and that the veterans have about a 50/50 chance of winning this. They are not what they were, but they are still dangerous.
Yes, I wouldn't be quite so confident as some about the youth winning this easily. The strongest two players of the ten are obviously Karjakin and Carlsen, but I certainly wouldn't take either Stellwagen or Smeets to beat any of the oldies in a match.
The veterans took a +2 lead with Black in the first round! Andersson held Karjakin to a draw in typical style and Ljubojevic the same against Carlsen. Ljubo could even have tried playing on against Magnus after the latter blundered with Qe1? But great start to the event, I thought the youngsters were big favorites. I still think they'll win but now it's going to be close.
I think that fatigue will take its toll, and the oldsters will fade in the late rounds. So if the vets are to win (as I hope), they'll need to build a big lead in the early rounds.