Leko and Karpov drew two more swapfests in the Miskolc Rapid yesterday. Leko played 1.d4 again and kept a small edge into another endgame. White finally got a pawn but in exchange Karpov was guaranteed a perpetual or an easily drawn Q ending. Game six was a Semi-Slav with some creative exchanges and another draw. ZZzzzz.
The two game rapid match between Carlsen and Svidler at the Spitsbergen Chess Festival was considerably more excitement. Svidler won the match by winning with white with a spectacular bishop and rook sacrifice on move 13. Fritzy sez Black could have drawn with 15..Kf8 instead of 15..Kd8, but that would have been a shame for everyone except for Carlsen. 15...Kf8 16.Bd6+ Kg8 17.Re7 Kh7 18.Qxf7 Rg8 19.Be5 Qxc2 20.g3 Qc5 21.d6 If White wants to play on, although now it's anyone's game. (Or White can just force the draw with 21.Qxg7+ Rxg7 22.Rxg7+ Kh8 23.Rxg6+ Kh7 24.Rg7+ Kh8 25.Rg5+) 21...Qxe5 22.Rxe5 Rf8 23.Qe7 b6 24.f4 and Black has hopes of unwinding.
Vassily Ivanchuk rolled to a 10/11 win in the Odessa-Istanbul Cruise g/15 rapid tournament.
The Russian championship starts today in Tomsk. The top seven finishers in this brutal event move on to the superfinal. Tkachiev is playing, the same Tkachiev who won the French championship a few days ago! When is the Kazakh championship? Is there a list of people who held two national championships simultaneously?
today leko-karpov wasnt boring karpov managed to save the game. R+R+B against Q+R i was sure he would lose it at one point but he managed to build a fortress. i'm curious has karpov every played QCA before this match? i dont remember.
7 draws and 1 decisive game.
I am not impressed.
You are far too demanding, Frank. Be grateful for the decisive game!
Never mind Karpov and Leko. There is a guy destroying everyone on Playchess calling himself "Fischer on Kaspy," and obvious play on words destined to make fun of Kasparov's latest book. He has listed himself as a GM, claims he's Bobby Fischer on his profile, and has Iceland as his home country.
1) Isn't there a policy about fraudulent claims?
2) If he is not a fraud, have the Playcess people checked his IP address to see if it belongs to an Icelandic ISP?
3) Could this be the real Bobby is it some hack?
CA
[Couple of grammar mistakes on previous post.]
Never mind Karpov and Leko. There is a guy destroying everyone on Playchess calling himself "Fischer on Kaspy," an obvious play on words destined to make fun of Kasparov's latest book. He has listed himself as a GM, claims he's Bobby Fischer on his profile, and has Iceland as his home country.
1) Isn't there a policy about fraudulent claims?
2) If he is not a fraud, have the Playcess people checked his IP address to see if it belongs to an Icelandic ISP?
3) Could this be the real Bobby or is it some hack?
CA
I find Fischer revenants far more boring than the Leko-Karpov match.
If this were a standard time control match, Karpov would not have blundered in 3 games, and then we would have been treated to a satisfying 8-draw finish.
Err, in "game three," not in "3 games."
No matter the incentives provided for aggressive play, shrink the football/soccer goal to the size of an ice hockey goal and a good high-school squad would routinely draw against a world all-star team.
In chess this week one of the world's top players mustered a single win in six games against a 55-year-old inactive player rated far below him. And that win, so macuga reasonably argues, would have turned into a draw at standard time controls. So tedious are these games (and many, many more like it) that they are putting one chess enthusiast/blogger to sleep.
It would be a mild surprise but hardly a shock if Kramnik-Topalov ended in twelve draws. After such a spectacle, what corporation would want to associate its name with top-level chess?
Maybe, because opening theory routinely stretches out past the twentieth move, the probability of a decisive result, i.e. the "goal" in high-level chess, has shrunk to the size of a bread-basket. The Sofia Rules and scoring incentives can't magically bring about a decisive result from a dead-drawn position. Whining about drawish play is ineffective and nearly as irritating as the draws themselves. Maybe it's time to widen the "goal" by introducing Chess960 opening positions into the game.
Abe Yanofsky won the British Championship in 1953. Also in 1953, he tied for first place in the Canadian Championship with Frank Anderson. Since co-countries count, then maybe co-championships do as well. I believe that Yanofsky was studying at Oxford at the time, so it wasn't simply that Commonwealth partners get an entry.
Maybe it doesn't count because Britain is more than a nation.
Eh, if it had been two fighting players, we'd have had a fighting match. Leko and Karpov just happen to be two of the most drawish top players, which is why it's bizarre they were invited to play against each other.
If you match up a drawish player against a fighting player, you can still end up with a good match -- since at least one side is taking risks. But if you take two drawish players, the result is a predictably sterile match with no risk-taking at all.
Replying to Greg Koster:
It will be time for chess960 the moment any sponsor decides to support it.
If I had the skills to recruit sponsors I could do something more constructive to advance chess960 than just wishing out loud it would happen ;-)
BTWay, draws in chess960 may be generally more interesting than draws in traditional chess1. We see new positions very early in the chess960 openings. We see differing basic strategies applied to different types of initial setups, here are just some of the interesting issues:
[1] When go hypermodern v. center occupation with pawns?
[2] What factors determine the best wing to castle to?
[3] What is the best way to develop a knight that starts on c1 (or f1), toward or away from the center?
[4] How much earlier should a rook become involved in a game where rooks begin on or near center columns?
Chess960 might be attractive to a sponsor who has evidence that his event would be welcomed by chess players.
Millions of games of "Chess1" have established countless paths to the early draw. And where such paths exist, players will use them. Even players with outstanding "fighting" credentials tread the short-draw path when it suits their purpose.
Chess960 would move players from their well-manicured lawns and paths (Pride and Prejudice) and place them in the midst of a wild, trackless, scary forest. (Hansel and Gretel).
it seems that people want to change rules to games when they fail to succeed with the current ones.