Underway! Three players are down one after white scored three ones yesterday. A bit busy these days, will get some reports up later.
Hot and cold chess today in Elista. Four draws, two of them of negligible interest on the board. Grischuk calmly neutralized Rublevsky's favorite line of the Scotch and they split the point after just 18 moves. Recapturing on e4 with the knight instead of a pawn didn't impress. Grischuk keeps his one-point lead and takes the white pieces tomorrow. Much more bizarre was Bareev's delayed offer to Leko on move 15, three moves out of theory, likely after realizing that 15..e5 is very strong for Black. Kasparov figured 16.Bg5 would be required. Leko was happy to get a free day with black and his one-point lead. Going down 2-0 in one of these matches is pretty much a death sentence.
The other two games offered more than enough compensatory compensation to compensate for those two lead zeppelins. Shirov played the hot pawn sac in the Queen's Indian against Aronian, obviously not wanting to waste any time leveling the match. It got really wild when he tossed 13.g4 on the fire. Aronian responded in kind and there was full-board action. Aronian decided to give up his queen with 19..Bb7! getting great activity with his pieces. Another way of looking at it was that the alternative 19..Qc8 is a move only a computer would love. (Kasparov called it a great game; about 19..Bb7 he simply said Black had no choice.) Aronian chose the sac and the initiative over White having a rook on the 7th and a menacing queen. Shirov managed to exchange a pair of rooks before Black could double on the d-file, after which the white rook is a spectator. I thought Aronian might even be playing for more until 27..Nxe3, after which only White has chances. White might have tried 32.e4 with e5 and e6 to come to shake up the black position. Aronian found some clever maneuvers to get at the white king and force a draw. Tremendous fun and creative play from both players, just like their first game.
Gata Kamsky played yet another round of survivor and yet again came through in a scramble. Gelfand was really massaging the dubious-looking black position on all fronts for a while, but at some point he just failed to put his foot on a gas. GM Fedorowicz thought that 21.b4 was trying for too much. He kept waiting for Gelfand to get his Nc3 into the game since it didn't look like there was much Black could do. 30.Qb6 looked very strong as well. In mutual time trouble, where Kamsky always seems to shine, Black got his first glimpse of counterplay. It was enough to liquidate the rooks and reach a drawn endgame. Gelfand pushed his a-pawn for a while and could have played longer draws with 49.Qb8+ or 49.dxe5 but preferred to force the draw immediately.
I keep looking at these Kamsky games and I can't figure out whether he's become an anti-positional savant whose horrifying positions really aren't bad at all, or if he's just incredible at defending dubious positions. One cute move the computer looks at is 38..Bg3+, winning the exchange if White captures the bishop because Qxb8 comes with check. 39.Ke2 is fine, transposing into the game, but it would have been annoying in zeitnot. Now we'll see if Kamsky can do something with the white pieces. He can't keep getting zilch with white and hoping for time-trouble magic with black the whole match. Or can he?
Q sac or blunder by Aronian?! Only time will tell...doesn't look to me like he's got sufficient comp; what do others think?
Q sac or blunder by Aronian?! Only time will tell...doesn't look to me like he's got sufficient comp; what do others think?
Aronian's compensation is very little, but then, so am I!
It seems like the Fritz-Junior match in Elista is drawville, I predict the computer match to be all drawn games, boring...
Put Rybka in the fight!
Bareev must be resigned to losing or else not feel well; why else would he agree to a draw after only 15 moves, with White, a point behind in a short match?!
Richard,
The question is, why would he be an hour behind on time in a even theoretical position, not filled with complications?
Perhaps this is a reason (thanks firebyrd):
http://achessworld.blogspot.com/2007/06/round-two-at-elista.html
Good position for Shirov now (after move 30). The knight wants to jump to f6 or h6 I suppose.
And it seems all tied up across the board. Drawing round, though Aronian-Shirov was kinda fire on the board for a while.
Gata seems to have all his defensive resilience still firmly intact too, but I guess that's the type of thing rust really can't shake *grins*
checking whether comments get uploaded..
Peace...
It is somewhat interesting to note that Gelfand has not had a single decisive game in the standard time controls. He is the only player in the entire event with this distinction.
Hotep,
Maliq
Maliq: It is somewhat interesting to note that Gelfand has not had a single decisive game in the standard time controls. He is the only player in the entire event with this distinction.
Apart from Kasim :-)
I don't like the Bareev-Leko draw at all. A point down and with the white pieces, you'd think Bareev would be out there intent on taking no prisoners. Hello? You're on the road to a world championship in case you forgot!
Chessbuff,
I suspect that Bareev is just happy to be here at this point and considers himself to be playing with the house's money after upsetting Polgar. Indeed, he showed no fighting spirit at all today, and one is hard-pressed to fault Leko for accepting the short and easy draw and taking the white pieces again while still holding a one-point lead.
Hotep,
Maliq
Chessbuff,
I suspect that Bareev is just happy to be here at this point and considers himself to be playing with the house's money after upsetting Polgar. Indeed, he showed no fighting spirit at all today, and one is hard-pressed to fault Leko for accepting the short and easy draw and taking the white pieces again while still holding a one-point lead.
Hotep,
Maliq
Perhaps, Bareev just wanted to get something on the scoreboard rather than end up on the receiving end of a sweep. Nevertheless, this early draw against white must give Leko's confidence a big boost. My pick was Leko anyway and so why am I a bit disappointed? For those of you who know opening theory more than I do ( means all of you! ),you might assess the position at move 15 as +/= with a pawn fork on e5, a rook on the c file, the bishop pair, maybe a knight hop to b5, and more space for white. Heck, it might even be a +-. Somebody in Elista cheer up this young man!
Upsetting Polgár? I think it was pretty clear that match could go either way; I said before it started it was very unpredictable but that Polgár was slight favourite. Have we forgotten who Bareev is just because he has been in bad form lately?
Definitely looking like something was wrong today. I doubt it was really just lack of fighting spirit however, or he would have offered a draw without first spending almost 1½ hours trying to find some promising way to go for more. Once he had done that, offering a draw in an even position was not necessarily that irrational even if it meant wasting a White.
Wow! Shirov-Aronian was one of the most interesting and exciting games played in such a high level event. It needs a deep analysis and useful comments from experts to be understood. The position has been looking extremely unbalanced and full of traps for both of them. I like the way Shirov plays and the blood bath he is trying to create. Aronian keeps cool and everything under control. I think both of them need a quick draw tomorrow after such a heavy game.
Does anybody know whether there are any security apparatus operating at Elista? Are the players scanned for listening devices? Is the area monitored for "sign language"? Just curious. The games have been fantastic.
Artin: Shirov may need draws, but he won't play for them. He needs to come back soon if he wants to qualify in such a short match.
Assuming (and this is a big and IMO, incorrect, assumption) that Bareev feels like an overachieving underdog, it still does not explain why a man of his opening knowledge and experience spent an hour and a half thinking in a position that was theoretically well-known, with no visible dangers for himself or possible complications that his opponent could create. If anything playing with house money, Bareev would be more likely to go va-bank and try some spectacular sacrifices or play at least something with little time on the clock.
Here is our answer from press conference:
Leko: "I analyzed this game at home, there is a draw in every continuation...Such positions are only won on kindergarden level. We have serious chess and if it's a drawn position, then we draw."
In other words, Leko's good choice of opening neutralized any possible aggressive play for White. Bareev, knowing the position was drawn unless he came up with something astounding, spent an hour searching for that something. There wasn't anything to be found, so he offered a draw quite logically.
No matter what Leko says, it's rather hard to believe that, after so few moves, everything could be analyzed to a draw! There's plenty of play left, especially with so many pieces still on the board. Sounds to me like he was just saying something that wouldn't sound insulting to his opponent, maybe so as to be complacent to him for being so "nice" to him as White, with a minus score in the match.
It's not that everything peters out to a draw it's that in this position there is no real good sound approach for white to try. Leko prepared the position at home, so it's unlikely he would have gone for it if he thought otherwise.