The field of sixteen is complete for the world blitz championship final in Israel. The qualifier produced more than a few home-town surprises considering the caliber of the visiting players. Israeli IMs Zoler and Livshits made it, along with Israeli GMs Smirin, Sutovsky, Erenburg, and Roiz. Talk about home team advantage! Bareev, Milov, and Dlugy were a few of the favorites who didn't make it out of the qualifier. The actual results of the qualifer aren't up on the site, just the names of those who made into tomorrow's main event. No idea if any games will ever appear anywhere.
After the way Carlsen demolished van Wely in a blitz match of four games I'd have to rate his chances for a top-four finish highly. I'll take him, Smirin, and Gelfand against the rest of the field the way the locals seem to be inspired by the media attention. Sure, Svidler and Anand are Svidler and Anand, and Radjabov is quick on the draw, but the Magen David seems to be shining brightly in Rishon this week. Let us know your experiences with the live broadcast. I couldn't care less about live video, but it would be nice to have a PGN file of games at the end of the day.
Update: Well, it looks like the locals used up all their good karma on the qualifier. The winners were Grischuk first over Svidler after an armageddon tiebreak game. Anand, Gelfand, and Polgar followed according to ussr in the comments. I only have around half the games, TWIC has others, let's hope more come. Messy fun. Full standings at the official site, which was down most of the day.
Mig,
NPR serves one up to the chess demographic: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5770290
Feel free to delete this comment, apologies if already posted etc.
Does anyone know exact date of Aronian-Carlsen match? Is it positive the match will take place in Norway?
i was wondering the same thing. and what about the other matches?
Matches? What matches? Other than Ilyumzhinov's casual mention that Turkey might be interested, I've heard nothing at all about the candidates. Certainly nothing concrete. Is there some Norwegian news? Certainly that would seem the most likely match to find sponsorship, considering Carlsen's youth and fame.
The live video at the blitz championship is very good quality, I must say. You can't really follow the games with it. The board broadcast is okay, if blinky and with various glitches in which board is which and such. A few lost coverage early. It's frustrating not to know the scores and standings. The main site has been unavailable (503) for a while.
how do you see the video?? All I get is video square with a blue margin and the text "cast tv" on the side. I thought the video wasnt working?
Doesn't work for me in Firefox, but works in IE. At least it did for a few games, even between the games with people walking by.
Thanks, IE does work, and the quality is excellent.
I am at work and cannot access the site.
Who won?????
Radjabov was killing people when I had to leave for work.
Dunno. I have around 40 games so far, ten or so with Anand and Svidler and a hodgepodge of the rest. Anand had 7/10, Svidler just 5.5/11. I think Grischuk was 6.5/8 at one point. Nothing approaching coherent standings. The broadcast site is a kasheh right now, saying all games are Radjabov-Bacrot and showing none! Ah, bandwidth.. The official site is still unavailable. Sad.
Thanks for the quick update, Mig.
Grischuk won , on Tie-break against Svidler.
Source?
Video on official site. Closin g ceremony just finished. 3. Anand 4. Gelfand 5. Polgar
source: TWIC
Right. Thought maybe you got through to the crosstable they are trying to put up on the official site. Thanks.
I saw only one Grischuk game, where he wiped the board with Magnus Carlsen.
How did the Wonderboy do? I kept hearing about how great he was at blitz but he didn't even manage a Top 5 finish.
that was the last round. the wonderboy didnt do too well. i saw him blunder against Ghusisvili (sth like that)
the week in chess already has some games. check how polgar crushed anand with black!
I think Carlsen finished at a respectable 8th.place or something today. He can surely perform better results I think, it was not his day today. He is also not to experienced with world class blitz chess tournaments at the age of 15. But anyway he won 2-0 over Anand at Glitnir Blitz, Iceland, january 2006. He also won the final 2-0.
He beat Radjabov today in a wild game. He also beat Polgar in a wild game. Opening moves seem to have been lost though.
[Event "FIDE Blitz WCh"]
[Site "Rishon Le Zion"]
[Date "2006.09.07"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Carlsen, M."]
[Black "Polgar, J."]
[Result "1-0"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "r2qr1k1/ppp2ppp/4p3/3n4/2pP1BPP/P1N5/1P1Q3R/2K2R2 b - - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "48"]
[EventDate "2006.??.??"]
[EventType "blitz"]
[EventCountry "ISR"]
1... b5 2. g5 a5 3. Nxb5 Rb8 4. Nc3 Rb3 5. Nxd5 Qxd5 6. Be5 Reb8 7. Qf4 Qd7 8.
Rc2 c3 9. bxc3 Rxa3 10. Kd2 a4 11. h5 Rab3 12. h6 Rb2 13. hxg7 Rxc2+ 14. Kxc2
a3 15. g6 Rb2+ 16. Kc1 hxg6 17. Rh1 Rb1+ 18. Kxb1 Qb5+ 19. Kc2 Qe2+ 20. Kb3
Qb2+ 21. Kc4 Qe2+ 22. Kb4 Qb2+ 23. Ka4 Qc2+ 24. Kb4 Qb2+ 25. Kc4 1-0
If they can do live video for a multi-table blitz event, can they do it also for Kramnik-Topalov? It's great watching the players in action.
Final standings (but of course, Grischuk won by winning the tie-break game - it wasn't decided on SonnenBerg.)
__Name______Points__S.B___Wins
01 Svidler______10.5___72.75__10
02 Grischuk_____10.5___72_____9
03 Radjabov_____10____67.25___8
04 Anand_______10_____64.7___8
05 Polgar_______9.5____67_____7
06 Gelfand______9.5____63_____8
07 Bacrot_______8______62.5___6
08 Carlsen______7.5____51.5____5
09 Erenburg_____7______46.5___6
10 Sutovsky_____7______45.5___4
11 Gaunashvili___7______45____4
12 Roiz_________6.5____41.25__5
13 Smirin_______6______40.5___2
14 Gurevich_____4______29_____3
15 Zoler________3.5____24.75__2
16 Lifsh**z______3.5____18.75___2
The live video was purty darn cool.. I especially enjoyed Anand chatting at the end of one game to I think it was Smirin (not sure). I thought they were analysing blind with the fingers moving all over the board, but of course they might have been talking about lunch! If only the piture was a bit bigger, and you could follow the action on the board. Hope they get something going for future important matches. Also watched Carlen demolishing Polgar. It was great to have the video and the board side by side in different windows, but they weren't always in sync. Carlen can really calculate, he navigated a Polgar conjured abyss with seconds on the clock. Great stuff. Radjabov again beat Anand I think.
Also saw Polgar hang a piece, against Roiz I think. Just moved a B onto a capturable square, and even left it there when it wasnt captured the first time around! I dont feel so bad hanging my Q every now and then in Lightning!
Of course blitz is more entertaining to watch on video than classical chess when the might not move for ten minutes. But if you can put all the bandwidth into following just one or two boards you could have a large and sharp enough imaged to actually follow the game. Barring that, having the display board NEXT TO the video screen would be good. Then you're not missing anything. That's what Playchess can do; putting it on the web is a different matter.
There will be plenty of video for the FIDE world championship in Mexico next year, but with an emphasis on after the round interviews and analysis, not live. Getting wrap-ups with interviews and post-mortem footage up an hour or two after each round will be the challenge.
It is a shame -given the popularity of blitz- that this event had such a poor coverage, a list of players who lacked notable ausences among the best blitz players in the world. Even Grischuk with his victory, didn't seemed too happy, according to the picture in the official site:
http://www.fideblitz.com/images/stories/ccm4_hm_grischuk1c960_400.jpg
Just in case, when I meant "poor coverage", this is directed to the organizers of the tournament and administrators of the official webpage, not to Mig or Mark in TWIC.
Actually, most of chess events held in Israel have had poor coverage, including the World Cup in 2006.
I feel pity for the organizers who manage to find huge money for the prizes and organization, but fail to provide good internet coverage.
The live broadcast of World Blitz Champ was a big mess- we could watch the games in live, but no results, pairings, crosstable, etc.
Althou the live video was entertaining.
Dutch and German organizers are the best in running World Class events, in my opinion.
Dunno if Grischuk´s picture from the official site was taken in Israel or it´s from another event...
Looks like the end of the road for Anand. Maybe , the beginning of the end of the road.
And if not the beginning of the end, at least the end of the beginning.
Refresh my memory, Greg. Churchill? Einstein? I'm even thinking, Faulkner...though I think it was from a political figure not a literary one.
Churchill.
I think (though not sure) after Rommel got kicked out of Afrika.
Churchill in November 1942 after the battle of El Alamein. Al wins a bulldog and a box of cigars.