All you need is a little dyslexia to see this event is very similar to the old PCA world cup rapid events (and squint so you don't notice Kasparov, Anand, and Kramnik aren't playing). The ACP is finally putting on a show after several years of adding up tournament points and cereal box-tops. Kudos to them for getting it off the ground. The top point-getters, along with a pair of sponsor nominees, are playing in this rapid KO in Odessa, Ukraine beginning tomorrow and lasting four days. The semi-final and final matches are on Monday the 8th. The official site is now up here. Apparently there will be live games there and/or at RusChess.
The favorites are Morozevich, Leko, Ivanchuk, Gelfand, Shirov, Radjabov, and Bacrot. Black Belt annotator and 2005 US champion Hikaru Nakamura is the youngest player in the field and is playing in his third event since a long break for college. As the penultimate seed he might be paired with either Morozevich or Ivanchuk in the first round. Welcome back! Hikaru is currently polling =2-3 to win the event, tied with Radjabov behind Morozevich. Well, he has won clear first in his other events, so why not? (He just repeated as North American Open champ in Vegas.) First prize is $40,000. [Pairings are now up. It's Nakamura-Gelfand in the first round, tomorrow in the latest game of the day, 11:45am EST.]
Misha Savinov sends us this pic from tonight's opening ceremony. Hikaru Nakamura on the left and India's Pentala Harikrisha on the right, showing that he drew Alexander Morozevich in the first round.
Anand, Kramnik, and Aronian qualified but are going to be in Wijk aan Zee a few days after this ends and apparently didn't want to have to sprint over. Radjabov, Shirov, and Bologan are playing in both (Bologan in the B Group).
I think this is actually Nakamura's third event since he came back from college: he played the National Chess Congress in November and the North American Open a few days ago (and won both).
It will be interesting to see how well Hikaru does in this tournament. Faster time limits seem to be his forte, which is kind of scary when you consider his results in classical chess. Of course, his opponants aren't the usual suspects.
Go Smallville, er, Nakamura!
HI-KA-RU! HI-KA-RU!
20 minutes plus 5 seconds increment is like slow motion for Naka. He will triumph.
Go Leko!
Leko through over Sokolov.
Rublevsky through over Naiditsch.
Shirov won game one over Smirin.
Good job updating the website promptly, guys! Nice not having to fight to piece things together from the live applets.
Shirov through.
What about Nakamura?
http://worldcup.pivdenny.com/en/ has an excellent match summary.
The fate of the second game was decided already before the 20th move, after Ivan Sokolov played a disastrous opening and obtained a lost position. Therefore, Peter Leko advanced to the quarterfinals with 1.5-0.5 score.
Leko-Sokolov
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Bc5 4.c3 f5 5.d4 fxe4 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.Nxe5 Qd5 8.O-O Nf6 9.Bf4 Bd6 10.c4 Qe6 11.c5 Be7 12.Nc3 Qf5 13.Bg3 Be6 14.f3 exf3 15.Rxf3 Qh5 16.Qe2 Bf5 17.Raf1 g6 18.Qc4 Rf8 19.d5 Nd7 20.Nxd7 Bxd7 21.d6 Black resigns.
Nakamura went out 0-2. Bummer for the americans but not terribly surprising. Gelfand has the chops to parry Naka's enterprising style.
Wow, it seems like Nakamura really blundered the second game towards the end.
D.
How much playing has Nakamura really done against somebody Gelfand's level?
Morozevich FTW!
Re: Dimi's comment:
Wow, it seems like Nakamura really blundered the second game towards the end.
I think it should be borne in mind that he was in a must-win situation, since he'd lost the 1st game, so he had to go for broke; a draw would've still sent him home...
RF
I think it is really cool that Hikaru had such a theoretician as Gelfand on the ropes out of the opening and in a standard game(match rules aside) would have won or drawn. It's better than "Japanese mythology"
Morozevich is not playing?
Sorry, I found the schedule!
Nakamura out. Comprehensively beaten in game 1 very hard to hold against 2 bishops and gelfand was clinical. In game 2 got some chances (from nowhere)after being out played in the opening (he doesnt seem to worry about this) but missed a trick towards the end when he pushed his passed a pawn very natural move but losing.
Hi Mig,
Speaking about "My Great Predecessors": I have the first 5 English volumes, and I heard other editions (Russian?) had plenty of photographs.
If so, why are they missing in the English version?
Thanks!
Pedro (a.k.a. KK)
Nakamura's nemesis : - Gelfand.
Finally Nakamura shaved off that stupid partial mustache. It looked like he had some dirt on his lip.
Basically each publisher decides that sort of thing, KK. Photos and extra pages have an impact on the cost (and price) of the book, so it's a business decision made market to market. Many other versions of the MGP series have photos. The expensive (30 euros retail, compared to the 25 dollar English one) Spanish hardback of Vol 1, for example, includes over 60 pages of photos as the end, several of them rare and unusual from (I assume) Russian archives. I hadn't seen many of them before.
funpoker,
I'm sure you meant to compliment HN, but I don't think you achieved the desired effect. It's good to see excellent chessplayers looking sharp.
With the handle "funpoker" I doubt it was meant as a compliment.