Round three today with Gelfand-Anand the flashback heavyweight matchup. These two veterans were playing crucial games against each other as far back as 1990. Gelfand used to be Anand's nemesis in those early days, but Vishy caught up quickly and Boris hasn't taken a full point from the current world #1 in well over a decade. But just about all of those wins were with white. Mamedyarov takes the white pieces into his first-ever game against Vladimir Kramnik. The young Azerbaijani treated the last world champion harshly when he stuffed Topalov at MTel a few months ago, and both of his first two games were decisive. We'll see if he's got the brass pawn pair needed to take a swing at the champ.
Alekseev knocked Carlsen out at the 2004 Lausanne Young Masters tournament and they haven't met since. Now Carlsen has the higher rating, but not the higher score. Alekseev is tied for the lead with Kramnik on +1 and is a tremendous attacker when given the slightest chance. That leaves us with Leko-Naiditsch, which we wouldn't expect to see many fireworks. But they have swapped wins in the last two years in Dortmund. Last year Leko pushed the German's Bogo-Indian off the board in short order.
I hear Kramnik and Anand are relieved that the winner of this tournament doesn't have to play a match against Topalov for the Dortmund title. But stay tuned on that. Speaking of, drop on by to listen to Jon Speelman on Chess.FM.
"I hear Kramnik and Anand are relieved that the winner of this tournament doesn't have to play a match against Topalov for the Dortmund title. But stay tuned on that."
LOL Oh, that is sooooo funny :)
Vishy,
look at his clock !
Mig: ...the winner of this tournament doesn't have to play a match against Topalov for the Dortmund title.
Yes indeed, I noticed that too. Clearly an omission. Blame it on the poor organization of the event.
Nice to see Kramnik playing some aggressive stuff with Black today...
D.
It is never too late. A few more rounds down the road another Bulgarian delegation will ensure that the winner of Dortmund will be declared the finalist and will play a short match with Topalov for the title, possibly, in Sofia.
mig the troller
@DaneDude, was he blitzing? Details pleeeeease..
Big Vlad and Anand undoubtedly saving their energy for the tough task ahead...figuring out the new FIDE World Championship Cycle.
I am almost sure I could hold the Carlsen-Alexeev endgame with black :)
what are the time controls for the games?
D: A few more rounds down the road another Bulgarian delegation will ensure that the winner of Dortmund will be declared the finalist and will play a short match with Topalov for the title, possibly, in Sofia.
That sounds interesting. I like the idea. As long as they don't have
to dump $2M for that pleasure -- the days of chasing the
"Wild Goose" for major sums are over.
D.
Did anyone notice that Ivanchuk is heading for the number two spot on the FIDE rating list? He's 2729, expected rating change +33 and he may very well win another 10 points in Foros.
Wow! Vishy had 1:35 left on his clock and Gelfand had nearly run out.
I would have liked Vishy to go for complications and see if Gelfand would crumble rather than force the draw.
"The young Azerbaijani treated the last world champion harshly when he stuffed Topalov at MTel a few months ago"
You mean the last FIDE Champion. Topalov has never been the World Champion.
Rumor has it that Anand said he will refuse to play Topalov in any WC Challenger match if he is not within 10 rating points of him:
"I find it reprehensible to stoop to such depths to play such a vulgar opponent. 2772 is hardly world championship challenger caliber, especially for such a piss-ant like Topalov. However, to show fair play I would gladly consider Mr. Kramnik a worthy opponent should FIDE decide to grant me the same 'incentives' Mr. Topalov provided for his inclusion in the next WC Cycle."
Meanwhile, Kramnik again stated that he could handle Topalov - or any challenger for that matter - and still give them game odds in a 12 game match.
More at 11.
"The wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'"
Considering that if Kramnik and Anand decide to refuse the "challenger match with Topa after Mexico" and I am quite sure that other 3 Russians Svidler, Moro and Grischuk would also support then quite possibly 5 out of 8 players can oppose the new FIDE plan. [May be Gelfand can also support these 5, even for the old USSR's sake!]
This new plan is so stupid and irritating, it must be trashed before it does further damage to the Chess World. May be even Russian and Indian Chess federations can also oppose the plan considering that these 2 federations have a very large number of FIDE member players.
Oh God! Somebody should do something.
Regards
Amit
Did somebody realize that lately, Svidler has taken over the role that Leko used to play: Draw every game! If we look at Svidler's last 5-6 tournaments, he has been drawing his games again and again, may be more than leko or everybody else!
Mark,
where did you get that quote from Anand from?
I have never heard him using such harch language.
As far as I can tell (after 8 rounds of Aeroflot), Ivanchuk is at 2772 right now.
His remaining games are:
White vs Dominguez
Black vs Shirov
White vs Svidler
3 wins (however unlikely that is) would put him at 2786.
As far as I can tell (after 8 rounds of Aeroflot), Ivanchuk is at 2772 right now.
His remaining games are:
White vs Dominguez
Black vs Shirov
White vs Svidler
3 wins (however unlikely that is) would put him at 2786.
Fide should better replace Topalov by Ivanchuk in the current WC cycle.
Besides, the current plan is already 2 days old, time for a new proposal.
Probably more importantly, if Ivanchuk draws his remaining games he *will* jump to #2.
3 draws --zzzzz
Turn to the 'Aerosvit-2007 Round 8'
Look at these 2 games:
Rublevski vs Ivanchuck
Van Wely vs Eljanov
http://www.ukrchess.org.ua/aerosvit2007/Pgnview/aerosvit2007r08e.htm
Great chess!
Foros will not be counted in July rating list, IMO. Too late for results submission.
You might be right, but I think it's borderline.
Carlsen's position looks horrible. It's amazing that Ivanchuk has been able to get such a high rating while doing pretty badly against the top players. I think it testifies to the supreme difference (even more than suggested by the ratings) between the elite and the rest. Both Ivanchuk and Morozevich get most of their points from the rest and give it to the best. Maybe if other top players were more active, they could push their ratings to new heights.
Kramnik is amazing. Just look how he slowly devours Carlsen like Kaa hunting for bandar-logs ;-)
Looks like Carlsen facing a lot of torture from Vlad the Impaler......
I am not sure you are right about Ivanchuk. In Morelia without _any_ preparation he looked pretty adequate.
Kramnik is world champion with white.
The catalan looks only in his hands like a terrible weapon.
http://www.fide.com/ratings/tourney.phtml?field1=14100010
check against who he has been playing...
only 5 of those opponents where under 2600.
Ivanchuck is playing top chess and deserves to be among them
To be under 2600? :-D
By the way, he made 75% in his 4 games vs. 2700+ opposition. Not bad.
The latest rumour said that Ivantchuk hired Danailov as his manager
Magnus resigned?
Yes. He could not face having to make suc a horrible move as Bd2 and wait for his d5 pawn to fall after xb8 and Qd7... Great game by Vlad!
Yes. He could not face having to make such a horrible move as Bd2 and wait for his d5 pawn to fall after xb8 and Qd7... Great game by Vlad!
Mefisto,
I think Mark just made that up as an illustration. Anand, though he might really feel that way, is far too gentlemanly to respond like that on the record.
Magnus resigned because there is no defence to the threat of Nc6 winning a piece. If Rb6, then simply Nxb5 wins a piece; or Qa8+ (Qe8+) wins the Rook in two moves. Anything else simply drops the Bishop.
Oops. Thought it was White's move.
Anybody have on hand Kramnik's PR with white since Olympiad. It must be ridiculous.
Ivanchuk exchanged his queen for rook and knight. He'd never took so frivolous adventure vs 2700+ :-(
Anand= wow!
Naiditsch without support from his sisters is hopeless...
Bad game by Carlsen. A telegraphed win by Kramnik.
Looks like Chuky's plan with sacing the queen was to get some experience in fortress building.
Chuky's plan with sacrificing the queen was to win. But his opponent managed to avoid the knight fork during 100 moves, which wouldn't have been possible in a one min game on playchess. Quite motivating for him to play with 1st place on ranking list as a goal, therefore he takes some risks.
Chuky is our future Korchnoi. As strong as 40 as Korchnoi, as good in the role of a "could have been world champ", loving chess more than all, and he'll probably play till death.
No politics, no calculations, no goals, just chess as a true love.
"Chuky's plan with sacrificing the queen was to win."
I don't think so. Chuky was nailed by Dominguez last year in the Capablanca Memorial. In so far he knew what was going on. Watching the game I think Chuck gave Dominuez a lesson how to defend,
Good game by Kramnik. A telegraphed loss by Carlsen.
"It's amazing that Ivanchuk has been able to get such a high rating while doing pretty badly against the top players."
http://members.aon.at/sfischl/pu2700.txt
http://members.aon.at/sfischl/po2700.txt
Did you just start to follow chess this year?
Historically Chucky under performs against weaker opposition, the opposite of what you are implying.