Just when you thought it was safe to make predictions, chess happens. Magnus Carlsen was well on his way to a solid and professional tournament win at the GM Group in Biel. He was +3 undefeated with a full-point lead and only three rounds to go. Suddenly Swiss hero Pelletier broke his neutrality and beat the Norwegian teenager in round seven. That dropped Carlsen into a tie with Radjabov, who was waking up after five straight draws to start the event. I'd predicted a surge from the top seed, but I'd forgotten to factor in the automatic full point Radjabov gets against van Wely when he has black. The many-time Dutch champion has a head harder than a five-year-old Gouda and insists on trying to bash Radjabov's King's Indian in some wild lines. van Wely tagged Radjabov when it counted at the World Cup in 2005, but this year it's been payback. This was the third win for Radjabov this year. For van Wely it's been EEEEEE!97.
In yesterday's eighth round things really got messy. Carlsen lost again, this time in a spectacular game by van Wely. (Carlsen obviously should have played the King's Indian.) van Wely got a pile of kingside pawns for a knight. In the end it didn't look close and the pawns, four connected passers no less, cruised to victory. The elegantly patient 21.Qh6! is a star move. Onischuk moved into a tie for first with Radjabov on +2 by beating Avrukh's Grunfeld. The American found a very nice pawn grab 27.Qxe7! and his technique brought home the full point.
Pelletier won again to move to a pleasantly surprising plus score. He beat Bu Xiangzhi with a massive wall of pawns and sent China's finest back to the negative score he had after the first round. Rather remarkably, considering the interesting chess he's been playing, van Wely is still in last place! Grischuk outplayed Polgar and was headed to victory in an unusual N+2 vs N endgame with connected pawns. That sounds easy, but there was exactly one trap in the position and Grischuk fell into it. There's a very cool stalemate trick after 61.Kf3? Ng4! and it's a theoretical draw. Amazing to see this in real life. 61.f5, giving up a pawn, forces a complex win.
Going into today's final round, Onischuk and Radjabov are tied for the lead with 5/8. Carlsen, Pelletier, and Polgar are chasing a half-point back. Carlsen can right the ship with a win with white against Radjabov. The Azerbaijani took one of his patented rest days with white in round eight against Motylev. But this time he can't be blamed since he looked clearly worse when they agreed to the draw on move 16. Onischuk has black against Motylev and Polgar has white against Pelletier. May the best American win!
Polgar's Ng4!!! deserves a front page headline, it will be in chess literature for centuries to come as Polgar's immortal move.
'chess happens', ha-ha that's hilarious.
Carlsen is crushing Radjabov after 26. Qd6.
And Carlsen shredded Radjabov.
Onischuk on the other seems to be slightly better but heading for a draw.
I think there are a few attacking games which I'd rate higher in the Polgar immortal stakes. That being said, Ng4!! is an absolute corker.
I think there are a few attacking games which I'd rate higher in the Polgar immortal stakes. That being said, Ng4!! is an absolute corker.
It's interesting how Carlsen switched from 1.d4 to 1.e4 with ease - against the incredibly strong Radjabov.
I imagine almost anyone who felt there were real chances to save the game would play 61...Ng4 just for psychological reasons.
What's the latest on Carlsen-Radjabov?
Carlsen beats Radjabov in 28 moves and shares the tournament victory with Onischuk, while Van Wely seems to rack up another victory against Bu.
Now Alexander Onischuk and our friendly little monster are going to play the tie-break, right?
carlsen-radjabov 1-0, so Magnus the Great wins it all I guess. Tied with Onischiuk at 5.5, but I have a feeling Carlsen's tiebreak is better as he beat Radjabov.
Bu is hoping for some kind of miracle like the one Judit pulled out of her sleeve yesterday, right?
Grischuk's 54.- h3 amazes me :)
After losing two games in a row, playing a must-win game against the top seed of the tournament is not the easiest thing, not just for a 16year old kid but even for a champion.Congratulations to Magnus,the tie-breaks will be very interesting as Onischuk showed great strength in this tournament as well.
After losing two games in a row, playing a must-win game against the top seed of the tournament is not the easiest thing, not just for a 16year old kid but even for a champion.Congratulations to Magnus,the tie-breaks will be very interesting as Onischuk showed great strength in this tournament as well.
i think grish blunder is a headliner,cause he was a winner in every line but 61kf3!is worst than mate in one by kramnik because polgar had only 2!!!pieces and the king just one square to go.he could spot that move by excluding moves!!!!!judith was just hopping that she can pull a cheapos.even in bad form grish he could win it all by winning against radja and polgar after he outplayed them badly.may be is better that way that is not in top form right now.
The two winners with 5.5 points, A.Onischuck and M.Carlsen, had 5 Whites and 4 Blacks.
Runners-up T.Radjabov and J.Polgar with 5.0 points, each had only 4 Whites in their nine games.
This well-known problem goes on and on marring tournaments results.
Radjabov doesn't need whites. He would be happy if he has blacks for all nine games!
Carlsen has just won the tournament in the Armageddon game after a very wild rapid (15) and blitz tie-break. It was impressive to see him play the queen sac 40...Qxg1+! immediately to win the game.
Onischuk had his chances (he really should have won game 1 of the tiebreaks, and he did beat Magnus in the blitz tourney before the main tournament) but well done Magnus.
Magnus Carlsen is nothing but "The Great"! He absolutely deserves the title and I'm really happy for Yanick also. Judit Polgar was also very good. Loek Van Wely's late start was exciting also.
The tie-break could have gone either way. The scale mostly tipping in Oni's favor, though, but Carlsen is an ok winner as he played some of the best (and some of the absolute worst) chess of the tournament.
And speaking of the tournament: am I right in thinking this was a pretty good one? Interesting games and relatively few unfought draws. Anyone know what the total drawing percentage was?
Magnus Carlsen is nothing but "The Great"! He absolutely deserves the title and I'm really happy for Yanick also. Judit Polgar was also very good. Loek Van Wely's late start was exciting also.
Gene Wood, don't post nonsense; of Radjabov and Polgar's four wins, three came with black.
Biel didn't invite anyone too solid--- Carlsen, Grischuk, Polgar, Van Wely, and Radjabov(perhaps the most drawish but too high rated to be content with draws). Really nice tournament in terms of tightness and drama. I am sure the games were interesting too.
After Carlsen lost to both sides of the theme "extra piece vs advancing pawns" I thought he would be devastated. But he wasn't. He came back in great style. High drama. Big tournament. Worthy winner.
After Carlsen lost to both sides of the theme "extra piece vs advancing pawns" I thought he would be devastated. But he wasn't. He came back in great style. High drama. Big tournament. Worthy winner.
With regard to Polgar's Ng4!:
Grischuk was at a decided disadvantage in that ending, as he did not grow up with two almost equally brilliant siblings, playing with chess pieces at the kitchen table like other children play with dolls.
Bravo, Judith!
How about Magnus The Magnificent. Once again he impresses. After losing those two in a row, I thought it was unlikely he would do well in the last round - at best a draw. As stated above, to beat the top seed in the final round and someone who will be major opposition for the long term at 16 is spectacular. He will become the youngest world champion to date and in time, will be mentioned in the same breath as Kasparov, Fischer, Capablanca, Tal etc.
I was shocked at Magnus two losses, not only the fact that he lost against two of the lowest ranked players but especially the bishop sac against Yannick was unforgivable. Very surprised to see that he won the tournament but I guess that is magnus, he can pull it off when he's got the knife on his throat, like he did in the match against Aronian (multiple times hehe)
indeed a good performance by Carlsen, but don't forget that he got a free point from Motylev.
One should forget because of all that "Hurray, Carlsen is the greatest" stuff that Onischuk also tied for first. Aren't there any Onischuk fans here?
Mefisto wrote:
"but don't forget that he got a free point from Motylev."
I don't think Magnus played exceptionally well, after all he lost 2 games but the manner in which he crushed Radjabov and then went on to win the whole tournament was unexpected. That is why people are excited, because he came back when most people had left him only slim chances to win.
Of course it was a great performance by Onishchuk, but it is only natural for a "kid" to receive all the hoopla.
Carlsen did not win the tournament. He won the title of the the tournament. The tournament he tied for first with Alexander Onischuk, the American GM.
Indeed, Carlsen won in the tie-break the tournament from the Ukrainian born and raised and taught chess, but currently leaving in US chess player :-)
parsnips, don't post nonsense. Besides, you are incorrect; Onischuk is Russian, not American. Also, the player you first mention is Magnus Carlsen, not Carlsen.
I would like to ask the administrator to remove your post.
Moreover, your grammar is hideous.
Moreover, your grammar is hideous.
dontpostnonsese,
Onischuk is Ukrainian, not Russian. So please stop posting nonsense.
I would like to ask the administrator to remove your post.
i would like to ask the administrator to remove this post.
Jesus fellas. Get a life.
dontpostnonsense, your grammar is not perfect either! lol
"Also, the player you first mention(ed) is Magnus Carlsen, not Carlsen".
As a person who speaks English as a second language, I feel that I used complete, concise, and correct language in my sentences. Feel free to communicate more drivel 'dontpostnonsense', it is entertaining to say the least.
If it's going to come down to grammar and punctuation, I think that probably 90% of us should stop blogging...myself included.
That both winners had one more game with white than with black as well as the fact that Radj and Polgar had most of their wins come with black doesn't mean much unless one compares ratings performances with black and with white for each player and/or how well their particular white/black opposition was playing in this tournament. If you face Avrukh, Bu and Van Wely with white will you do better with white than the guy who has five whites that include Carlsen, Radjabov and the two Chuks?
Thinking like that is actually really misleading, because it's of course not the caliber of the players you face with each color, but about facing the players with maximum Rpwhite-Rpblack with white and those with minimum Rpwhite-Rpblack with black. I did some number crunching earlier and found that on average the Rp with white in Biel was 40 points higher than with black, which roughly should translate to 1.5 points in a nine round tournament. That however is also misleading because Rpwhite-Rpblack is all over the place, depending on which players you look at. Onischuk for example did over 200 points better with white and Motylev the exact opposite. 4 GMs show a significant plus when playing with white, 2 with black.
The lesson? When evaluating statistics on the basis of 9 games, it is easy to come to all sorts of insignificant conclusions. I would like to ask the administrator to remove my wisdom teeth.
There are generally two ways to avoid players having more white games than black games and vice versa:
1) Play a double berger. Not a bad solution at all, but it means there will be fewer participants, and maybe the format creates a different "feel" to the tournament. Also less room for organizers to wedge in upcoming talents and local heroes.
2) Have an odd number of participants, meaning there will be one walk-over each round, effectively wasting one day (takes 10 days to play nine rounds, not counting additonal rest days.) Hardly an elegant solution.
The 9 round Berger system has a flaw, but fwiw I don't think this flaw is enough to warrant its death.
Yeah, and the second problem with scenario #2 is that probably nobody wants to have a day off on the last day. Like you, schweinhund, I think it's a flawed system that doesn't warrant death.