Just a note for those of you following Essent today. Update later. At the half, Polgar and Mamedyarov lead with 2.5/3 while Topalov and Sokolov are in the cellar with 0.5/3. Can Topalov mount another of his amazing comebacks? Even if he wins all three games in the second half he'd need some luck to get a share of first. He has white against Mamedyarov in today's fourth round. This Dutch blog has some video and photos.
Update: Two more decisive games today. Polgar wins again, dusting off Sokolov with black in a trademark Polgar out-of-nowhere kingside attack. Kasparov: "Hard to believe Black could generate an attack on the king in that position. ..Re5, ..Rg5, you have to admire the aggression." The funny looking 17..c4 is definitely a star move, slowing White's development at the eventual cost of a pawn. Difficult move.
Topalov notched his first win by beating Mamedyarov in a powerful effort. He grabbed a pawn and held on, squelching all attempts at counterplay to reach a winning bind. If you are analyzing with a computer you might miss why Mamedyarov was sure he had a perpetual check at the end. 50..Ng7+ looks like the refutation of 50.Kh5, but 51.Qxg7+! Kxg7 52.Bh6+ Kg8 53.Rd8 is mate! Spectacular.
Polgar now leads Mamedyarov by a full point with an impressive 3.5/4 score. She has white against him tomorrow and black against Topalov in the final round.
The most interesting thing is that Topalov has some theoretical chances to finish first and some practical chances to finish shared first.
Topalov-Mamedyarov is a closed Ruy Lopez that has been analyzed to well into the end game, though. Difficult to avoid a draw for either side if there are no blunders, and the best that Topalov can then achieve is an even score if he wins the last two games, not enough for a shared first.
I think the psycho aspect of the game is Mamedyarov plays very solid to entice need-win Topalov to overextend. Indeed, let that happen!
http://www.volkskrant.nl/sport/article362649.ece/Elista_spookt_nog_steeds_door_mijn_hoofd
Goooo Topi:)
Should be won for Topa.
What do you think of the Polgar game? I don't have an engine with me but I think 25...Nd5 would put pressure on the white king
Nd5 played! Can she sac the rook on g2 now?
I think that Sokolov is a pawn up :)
Judit wins, good for her!
After Polgar's win, Topalov can relax. He doesn't have any chances for first place anymore.
wow, pretty tactical win by the real queen of chess :-)
Polgar showing the benefits of her spawning break. (No Mig, we will never let you forget that one.)
yeah, that Topalov interview in Volkskrant has already been ridiculed at chessgames.com
Particularly the last paragraph of that Topalov interview is as ludicrous as the last paragraph of the latest Kirsan interview.
ROFL, the last paragraph is hilarious! :D
Bravo Topa !
will to win is Topa's main quality
Topa wins after bad king move by Mamed... Now Judit leads by a point with two rounds to go. Could be her career best tournament result!!
“I’ve lost the match, and I accept that. But the occurrences in Elista still haunt my thoughts. At night I dream about Kramnik. I dream that he has accepted my offer of a rematch in Sofia. Or that we’re strolling side by side in Moscow, after which we visit a fancy nightclub. The strange thing is though, that we are the sole two visitors…”
:O
^^^ Translation of last paragraph of interview in dutch paper.
wow, the cat-and-mouse game that Mamedyarov played made Topalov the cat
"fancy nightclub and sole visitors" ?
is Topa gay and he has fell for Kramnik ?
Let me suggest Judit would have no trouble raising money (or getting the financial backing) for a FIDE you-pay-to-play Championship Match with Kramnick. The public interest would be phenomenal!
Mamedyarov lost thread with Qa5, Qe1... he forgot that Q was there to defend g-line against Rd7 and hit on f7 weakness..otherwise it was dead equal..
well, as Reuben Fine said "all games are decided by some petty tactics that one side overlooks"
well, just correct myself, Mamed was under pressure, no way equal, and he cracked just as Topa in their previous game. If, say, Qe7 instead of Qa5 Topa still has Bf2 followed by Ra6-Ra7 and again he penetreates along g-rank hitting f7.
Difficult to defend position and Mamed couldn't.
Strange Topa dreams. When strolling around in Moscow's nightbars there must be Gejssen as the barkeeper.
"Or that we’re strolling side by side in Moscow, after which we visit a fancy nightclub. The strange thing is though, that we are the sole two visitors…”
Has NYC's defunct Ramrod opened a branch in Moscow? ;-)
well, last before last theory, maybe Mamed just miscalculated, he did not see that Ng7+ falls to Qxg7+ and Bh6+ and mate to follow..
but then he must have thought that he was winning after Rd7-Rg3+ ?? and played Kf8 so as to allow Rd7 ! (Ng7+ Kh6 Nf5+ forking the Qs)...
any thoughts ?
... any thoughts ?
Posted by: Ovidiu at October 26, 2006 14:20
Why are you asking us? I thought the only commentary you respected came from iron monsters. Have a nice chat to Rybka about the position...
Nice game from Judit with black. Hope she wins the whole thing.
Such a pity. Mamedyarov got over-ambitious and tried too hard to win in an equal position.
Another nice win by Polgár.
>Why are you asking us? I thought the only commentary you respected came from iron monsters. Have a nice chat to Rybka about the position...>
no need to be rude, I was not asking about what Mamed should have done but about why he did what he did, i.e. trying to understand the player not the game
I assume he did not see Qxg7, otherwise he would have not played out the whole sequence with Rg3+ etc.
if so then sweet revenge for Topa, the trap was not for the fox but for the hunter !
Judit has an absolutely abysmal score versus Kramnik. While it is likely that she has improved her positional play, and has become a stronger, more solid player than she was when she most of those games, it is clear that her style does not match up well with Kramnik's. If they played a match of length, it could be an absolutely lopsided result.
Tomorrow's game against Mamadyarov is key: If Judit manages to hold, then she'll have clinched (at least a share of) first Place, ahead of Topalov. That will take a bit of the pressure off. If she manages to win against Shak, then she can achieve an epic performance by beating Topalov, and finishing with 5.5 from 6.
I'm not sure if a 6 game tournament would qualify as a record breaking Tournament Performance Rating, but it would be a grand acievement.
If I recall correctly, Polgar had terrible results against Kramnik and Kasparov, and poor results against Anand. Even her results against Karpov weren't very good, I don't think (even though his rating wasn't much higher than hers, on average, throughout her career). I'm tempted to say her play just isn't well-rounded enough to cope with the greats.
On the other hand, we haven't seen very much of Polgar 2.0 in recent years, who, as Doug has pointed out, is a more solid and positionally competent player. She used to get invites to just about every supertournament, but that's not happening anymore (more likely, she is just turning them down). So we really don't know whether she has patched up her style sufficiently to withstand the world's (very) best.
Judith played an excellent game today.
She won from a similar position that Sokolov lost against her in the first round (pair of bishops for in a blocked postion for white and chances for king-side attack for black). However he did it with the help of Sokolov (in both games) who took too much risks in his desire to win, while she just waited and would have taken draw.
Poor Sokolov, I feel sorry for him, it seems that chess just doesn't work for him.
It seems Danailov has appeared at Essent (or left Topalov's body, at least). Cf.
Evidently, he has a high-tech key to the toilet in his hand.
It is interesting that Polgar has a poor record against Kramnik, but an excellent record against Shirov, who, after all, defeated Kramnik in a match. It just goes to show that among the elite, each of them have certain "tough" opponents, and that their head-to-head records are not transitive.
Sorry, didn't work the first time. Here's the link:
http://www.essentchess.nl/2006/foto_kroon4.htm
Danailov has panicked after Topa's dream of wandering thorugh nightclubs only with Kramnik.
No Danailov in the dream ? No.
I had forgotten about their 1999 match in which Shirov crushed Polgar. But going into that match, she had a substantial edge in their games.
Shirov beats Kramnik, Kramnik beats Kasparov, and Kasparov beats the hell out of Shirov.
who says that chess in rational ?
Oy, did Danailov asked for a game 5 forfeit from Polgar so that his Topaboy has a chance to catch up?
Judith -- her performance is phenomenal. I am so glad for her.
Cheparinov is doing quite well too.
D.
Funny combination by Shaka. With the king on h8 instead of f8 it would have been succesful?
With the king on h8 it would be the same (to answer my own post ;) The combo is way to strange to keep the thoughts clean.
>Funny combination by Shaka. With the king on h8 instead of f8 it would have been succesful?
No, the same, Kh5 Ng7+ /Qxg7 Kxg7/Bh6+ and Rd8#
must have been quite a shock for Shaka when he realized that instead of winning he was to be mated !
Cheparionv played today a perfect, textbook, game
of some 30 moves against GM Ian Rogers.
A quick lesson on how to punish a player who makes too many pawn moves, loses tempos and doesnt castle in the opening.
Have a look at, it is funny.
Mig wrote
> The funny looking 17..c4 is definitely a star move, slowing White's development at the eventual cost of a pawn. Difficult move.>
Mig, it is the same idea as Sokolov's f4 and c4 against Judith's pair of bishops in the first round of this Essent tournamnet.
It is a thematic move, not a "funny" one, just as thematic is the king side attack in such position, see also the play of Plogar-Sokolov in the first round and the Judith keep firing on the f4 loose pawn so as to keep black bound to defense so as not organize for the k-side attack.
From a Chessmetrics perspective, a 5.5/6 score for Polgar would be the around the 20th-best tournament performance of all time, right around Topalov's San Luis performance, which had been the best since Kasparov at Linares 1999.
The Chessmetrics performance rating of 2840 represents the rating we would estimate for her if we had no evidence other than this one event. Of course the raw performance rating would be way above 3000 but that's the whole point of my calculation, to take the # of games into account. Even a 5/6 score, which would be a mere 2807 instead, would be only the third 2800+ tournament performance since 2002 (the others being 2838 for Topalov at San Luis 2005, 2806 for Leko at Dortmund 2002, and 2802 for Topalov at Linares 2005).
Isn't Karpov's Linares 1994 the best ever tournament performance ? and if not which is ?
Kasparov's Linares 1999 ?
The former, I am almost certain, Ovidiu.
"must have been quite a shock for Shaka when he realized that instead of winning he was to be mated !"
I'm surprised Topa saw it when he played Kh3 (though he could have made perpetual as the last exit). Suprised because the combination is much longer than the one he missed against Kramnik.
I think Sokolov missed himself somehow to move his pawns with d5, e4, c4. Dunno for which train he was waiting.
>I'm surprised Topa saw it when he played Kh3 (though he could have made perpetual as the last exit).
Likely he saw it when he played Rd7.
He was better and pressing, he would have not allowed /Rd7 Rg3+/ after which all is forced and perpetual, draw.
Shaka however apparently missed when he played Kf8 "tempting" Topa to play Rd7.
Kh8 instead of Kf8 would have held better. Interesting that after .. Kh8/Rd7 Rg7 (defending f7 pawn) Bh6 (attacking the rook) and now Rg3+ leads to draw..the bishop already in h6 makes a great deal of difference allowing the combo to succeed
Kh8/Rd7 Rg7/ Bh6 Rg3+ /Qxg3 Qh1+/ Kg4 Qxe4 /Kh5 (or Kh3 and perepetual)
Qf5+ / Qg5 Nf4#
Qf5+/Bg5 Ng7+/Kh6 Qg6#
but then of course Topa would have not played Bh6 in the case of ..Kh8/Rd7 Rg7 but Re7 followed by Re8+ etc.
>> Suprised because the combination is much longer than the one he missed against Kramnik
Not sure which combination you mean, Rxg5+ with the queen comming down to c7? The big difference there, he was trying to keep Kramnik from visiting the restroom and often moved quickly without calculating properly.
Not in Game 2 yet, I think, lwolf.
Ms. Polgar appears to be 'in the zone'. That was a really nice game she played - strategically and tactically. If she can continue to play like this, she may become a fixture in the top 10 again.
>The big difference there, he was trying to keep Kramnik from visiting the restroom and often moved quickly without calculating properly.>
Neither Kramnik nor the other GMs watching saw the combination.
It is about how the mind works : we select and focus on the essential, the central, and discarad the trivial, the peripheric, and that's why we are, usually, so smart so fast. It is a quality which now and then fires back.
In that game all action was on K-side, it was difficult for a human player to take seriously a
Q-side move (Rxg4 Bg7/ Qc7 ! + -).
Those players who would routinely consider such unlikely moves would be off mark and waste precious time in 99 out of 100 situations.
It is just not worth it over many games or moves.
Some who compose chess problems make use of this habit of mind by deliberately creating chess problems where the soulution is the most unlikely to consider move. Like a pawn move on the opposite side of the board to where the "action" takes place or a King move right into place where checks can follow etc.
Sam Loyd, an american chess puzzles composer was
famous for such problems.
Well Judit rocks as always, both as a person and a chessplayer. Its funny GK should say that its hard to believe Black can generate an attack against the Black king. Funny because I could say the same about countless attacks by the Master himself, so if he was surprised, its the highest praise indeed. As for Topalov, the man is back! Beautiful game, very complex, and cute little tactics at the end, very precisely calculated. Hope he bounces back and keeps entertaining us over the board.
white king of course.
>Its funny GK should say that its hard to believe Black can generate an attack against the Black king>
yeah, weird comment from GK, maybe he is missing chess and try to convince himself that usually it is isn't as gratifying as Polgar's ripping off of Sokolov in this game
The attack was thematic in such position.
Sokolov tried it himself against Judith in the first game after blocking the position with f4 and c4 ( the same type of position and a Q+B attack on K, but the position translated one file to the right, it was an 1.e4 opening)
"The attack was thematic in such position.
Sokolov tried it himself against Judith in the first game after blocking the position with f4 and c4 ( the same type of position and a Q+B attack on K, but the position translated one file to the right, it was an 1.e4 opening)"
I think it looks a bit surprising because both pawns, c4 and e4, are weak. But White needs too many moves to put pressure on them, whereas Black organizes an attack with rook, bishop and queen. Nevertheless, Sokolov always had drawing chances, but missed the best moves in time trouble.
I love Judit, but so far she has beaten Sokolov twice (which we wouldn't even think of as anything extraordinary if it was done by Kramnik or Leko) and an obviously rather demoralized Topalov once with white. Let's see her win one more before giving her the crown.
Great interview with Topa in De Volkskrant! Amazing content. Thanks dirtbag.
"Was Kramnik my opponent or was it Kramnik assisted by a computer? To keep him as much as possible at the board I purposely started playing fast. Sometimes too fast. The blunder by which I lost the ninth game, was the result of a decision which was taken too fast."
Topa has still a long way to go to cope with his loss. Blaming Kramnik seems silly. It sounds like the Mexican dog.
Topa will give Judith today a tough ride. 1.e4 is announced.
Just read the interview with interview with Tophead in chessbase. The guy comes across like a whining school girl - Kramnik can do this Kramnik can do that. The stuff about Kramniks play after game five is positively spooky. Is Tophead the only person who had not noticed Kramnik's return to form prior to the match? Where did chessbase get that photo of Tophead its hilarious - he looks like a psycho. Tophead needs a long rest