I keep forgetting to post this. The Americas Continental Championship ended last week and sent seven players to this year's World Cup in Khanty Mansyisk, Russia. As feared, there was again a big playoff for the final two spots and it resulted in a few upsets. Several favorites and a few of the teen hopes were in the eight-player rapid (15'+10") playoff. The top seeds didn't make it. Nor did Leon Hoyos of Mexico or Emilio Corbova of Peru. (I believe they both got GM norms, however. For Leon Hoyos it was his last, which makes him the sixth Mexican GM ever, if you include Carlos Torre.) The two qualifiers were Peralta of Argentina and the unheralded Everaldo Matsuura of Brazil. They overshadowed their better-known compatriots Felgaer and Vescovi, respectively, with impressive 5/7 scores. Gulko, who made a late run in the main event, finished third in the tiebreaker.
The other five qualifiers were a little closer to the script, with the exception of Venezuelan IM Eduardo Iturrizaga. They are Granda Zuñiga, Ivanov, Akobian, and Lima. They all finished with 8/11. Kudos to my ICC Chess.FM homeboy Var Akobian. The 128-player World Cup is scheduled to begin on November 23. The updated regulations for qualification and more are here on the FIDE site. There are 20 rating qualifiers and they are already known since it's based on the average of the July 06 and January 07 rating lists. Have they been published anywhere? Topalov and Kramnik are already at the end of the cycle. The rest of the Mexico players are automatically in for some reason. All would be in by rating, so this takes seven spots away from qualifiers and takes them from the rating list.
After much laborious copying and tabling, here are the 20 rating qualifiers by my count. (If someone else already has this up somewhere, please don't tell me.) The Mexico players and Topalov are in italics. The rating list takes priority over qualifiers for the World Cup, so that's good news for anyone who may have missed the cut in their national or continental event by finishing behind anyone in bold type. Note that Kasimjanov and Malakhov are tied for the final rating spot. They go to two decimal places to break ties, info not publicly available. I only looked at the top 40 or so the Jan 07 list, so there's an off chance that someone who plummeted out of the top 40 from July 06 makes the top 29 on average.
Rank |
Name |
Jul-06 |
Jan-07 |
Avg |
| 1 | Topalov, Veselin | 2813 | 2783 | 2798 |
| 2 | Anand, Viswanathan | 2779 | 2779 | 2779 |
| 3 | Kramnik, Vladimir | 2743 | 2766 | 2754.5 |
| 4 | Aronian, Levon | 2761 | 2744 | 2752.5 |
| 5 | Leko, Peter | 2738 | 2749 | 2743.5 |
| 6 | Ivanchuk, Vassily | 2734 | 2750 | 2742 |
| 7 | Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar | 2722 | 2754 | 2738 |
| 8 | Morozevich, Alexander | 2731 | 2741 | 2736 |
| 9 | Svidler, Peter | 2742 | 2728 | 2735 |
| 10 | Adams, Michael | 2732 | 2735 | 2733.5 |
| 11 | Gelfand, Boris | 2729 | 2733 | 2731 |
| 12 | Radjabov, Teimour | 2728 | 2729 | 2728.5 |
| 13 | Ponomariov, Ruslan | 2721 | 2723 | 2722 |
| 14 | Navara, David | 2719 | 2719 | 2719 |
| 15 | Polgar, Judit | 2710 | 2727 | 2718.5 |
| 16 | Shirov, Alexei | 2716 | 2715 | 2715.5 |
| 17 | Grischuk, Alexander | 2709 | 2712 | 2710.5 |
| 18 | Akopian, Vladimir | 2713 | 2700 | 2706.5 |
| 19 | Bacrot, Etienne | 2707 | 2705 | 2706 |
| 20 | Kamsky, Gata | 2697 | 2705 | 2701 |
| 21 | Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter | 2693 | 2689 | 2691 |
| 22 | Sasikiran, Krishnan | 2681 | 2700 | 2690.5 |
| 23 | Short, Nigel D | 2676 | 2691 | 2683.5 |
| 24 | Carlsen, Magnus | 2673 | 2690 | 2681.5 |
| 25 | Jakovenko, Dmitry | 2667 | 2691 | 2679 |
| 26 | Van Wely, Loek | 2675 | 2683 | 2679 |
| 27 | Karjakin, Sergey | 2679 | 2678 | 2678.5 |
| 28 | Harikrishna, Pentyala | 2682 | 2673 | 2677.5 |
| 29 | Kasimdzhanov, Rustam | 2672 | 2682 | 2677 |
| 30 | Malakhov, Vladimir | 2691 | 2663 | 2677 |
| 31 | Vallejo Pons, Francisco | 2674 | 2679 | 2676.5 |
| 32 | Georgiev, Kiril | 2685 | 2661 | 2673 |
| 33 | Rublevsky, Sergei | 2667 | 2677 | 2672 |
| 34 | Almasi, Zoltan | 2672 | 2669 | 2670.5 |
| 35 | Dominguez Perez, Lenier | 2658 | 2677 | 2667.5 |
| 36 | Tiviakov, Sergei | 2668 | 2667 | 2667.5 |
| 37 | Eljanov, Pavel | 2651 | 2675 | 2663 |
It's a straight-up knock-out with two-game mini-matches with tiebreaks on the third day. The final match, which will determine the challenger for Kramnik or Topalov, is four games.
Wasn't this event supposed to be based on round-robin mini-tournaments in the first phase? I think it is a pity that they switch back to the full knock-out lottery.
Essentially, what this boils down to is that Topalov gets a free slot into the WC match (as he will play the winner of the knock-out lottery). I wonder what Kramnik (or Anand, for that matter) thinks about that...
The players are getting accustomed to this new format. There weren't many upsets in Khanty-Mansinsk last time.
At last, Topalov will have to play a match to earn his revenge.
Topalov and Kramnik are not allowed to play in the World Cup as they are directly staged into the match stage as per FIDE website.
http://www.fide.com/official/handbook.asp?level=DD106
GM Manuel León Hoyos
http://www.torre64.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3619
León Hoyos is indeed the number 6 of Mexico.
For some information on Carlos Repetto Torre see the Oxford Companion to Chess.
I think Mamedyarov is qualified as Junior World Ch, therefore both Kasimdzanov and Malakhov should be qualified by rating.
I think Mamedyarov is qualified as Junior World Ch, therefore both Kasimdzanov and Malakhov should be qualified by rating.
The rules say only the 2006 world junior ch is in automatically. (Andriasian) Mamedyarov's second wjch was in 2005.
Thanks Miguelito. This is the first place I have seen the list of qualifiers and I am glad to be among them. I had no idea whether I needed to participate in the European Championship in Dresden in order to qualify, nor could anyone official tell me. In the end I decided not to play and to take a chance. That is not quite how it should be.
Sorry for telling, but I posted this list several days ago, on chessgames.com, July 21st actually.
I also spotted something that might be a mistake on your list, for my list looked like this:
Kasimdzhanov, Rustam 2672 2682 2677
Malakhov, Vladimir 2690 2663 2676,5
Kasimdzhanov is ahead, by 0,5 points, as Malakhov was 2690, not 2691 in July 2006. But it doesn't matter for Malakhov, as he qualified to the WCC in the Euro Champs 2007...
I also realized the reason for your mistake: Trusting Mark Crowther ;)(http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/ju2007.html)
Usually, Mark publishes an early edition of FIDE's rating lists, but I'm pretty sure FIDE will use the final version of their july 06 and january 07 lists. For instance, you had the wrong rating of Tiviakov as well, since you didn't use the final january 2007 list - "luckily" it didn't matter, Tiviakov only reached 32nd place...
Here are correct averages from places 29 and downto average of 2660 ...:
Kasimdzhanov, Rustam 2672 2682 2677
Malakhov, Vladimir 2690 2663 2676,5
Vallejo Pons, Francisco 2674 2679 2676,5
Tiviakov, Sergei 2668 2682 2675
Georgiev, Kiril 2685 2661 2673
Rublevsky, Sergei 2667 2677 2672
Almasi, Zoltan 2672 2669 2670,5
Karpov, Anatoly 2668 2668 2668
Dominguez, Lenier 2658 2677 2667,5
Zvjaginsev, Vadim 2675 2658 2666,5
Lautier, Joel 2675 2656 2665,5
Onischuk, Alexander 2668 2663 2665,5
Naiditsch, Arkadij 2664 2663 2663,5
Bareev, Evgeny 2683 2643 2663
Eljanov, Pavel 2651 2675 2663
Sargissian, Gabriel 2667 2658 2662,5
Dreev, Alexey 2666 2658 2662
Timofeev, Artyom 2657 2663 2660
it doesn't make any sens to me that rublevsky is not qualified 4 the world cup.after he kicked out ponomariov,he entered in the last(best)12 players in the world(8 candidates at that time +the 4 automatic qualified from last cycle)and now he is not qualified for world cup???meantime navara,van wely,pentala are automatic qualified??stupid system.
Rublevsky certainly is one of the "winners" of the last edition of FIDE's championship lottery - at the time of the Euro Championships (just before the candidates this year), the regulations were not published, and now when they are, there's nothing Rublevsky can do, since FIDE already has "chosen" their players by choosing the appropriate rating qualifier lists ("randomly", as no rules state which lists shall be used). Hopefully, for Rublevsky and his fans, the FIDE president will pick him for a green card...
I don't think it will really matter who has qualified until about a month before the event because that is when FIDE will stop changing the rules.
great picture
http://bp2.blogger.com/_Q0lTtPVTG40/RqzvIJQEB0I/AAAAAAAAFN8/oxnbSYK-Coc/s400/Polgar+108.JPG
This post is completely off-topic. In today’s news, there is a report of the death of Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007). One of his most famous movies was The Seventh Seal, in 1957. Set in medieval times, during an outbreak of bubonic plague, the film was noted for its recurring metaphor, in which a knight plays chess against a black-robed figure representing death.
According to film historian Gerald Mast, the knight challenges Death to a game of chess, knowing the inevitable result but obviously playing for time. In one scene, the knight confesses to a priest how he challenged death to a game of chess and reveals his strategy, only to find that the "priest" is actually Death. Meanwhile, the knight’s squire treats all this as a bitter joke. Since we all play chess with death, the only questions about the game are how long it will last and how well we will play it.
A moment of silence for the film-meister.
National Lampoon parodied that brilliant concept (playing chess with Death) in '72, after Fischer-Spassky, when they ran an article titled, "Bobby Fischer Teaches You How to Beat Death."
That article also had one of the only realistic (well, sort of) chess graphics I've ever seen in something aimed to entertain a non-chess audience. It was a chessboard diagram (the right-corner square might even have been white!), but all the pieces were placed on it at weird angles, overlapping more than one square, a big jumble. The caption read: "Position after 26....Knee to corner of board."
Have no enough money to buy a house? Don't worry, because it is available to take the loan to work out such kind of problems. Thus take a term loan to buy all you want.