The Bosna tournament starts in Sarajevo today with Mr. Excitement, Alexander Morozevich, leading the field. The other participants are Sergei Movsesian, Lenier Dominguez, Ivan Sokolov, Artyom Timofeev, and Borki Predojevic. It's a double round-robin. Somewhat oddly the field is almost identical to last year's. Dominguez replacing Nigel Short is the only change. Movsesian won last year while Moro finished even after winning three blacks and losing three whites. TWIC gives this link as the official site but I can't find anything about the tournament yet.
I guess this format, launched to prominence by Linares and then picked up by MTel and elsewhere, is mostly popular due to the thrift of having to pay expenses for fewer players. With Linares there was the feeling that since these were the best players in the world, a double round-robin added rigor (no color imbalance) to what was almost a tournament world championship. But in lesser events I'd rather see nine rounds with ten players and ten rounds with six. Variety is the spice of life and all that.
IMHO after Kasparov retired Wijk has become much, more interesting than Linares. That is-I agree with you Mig, more players=more excitement.
Btw, have you noticed how good Movsesian plays recently? He has won 1st or 2nd place almost in every tournament he has played in a year or so, including Wijk Group B.
On the top right it says "Međunarodni turnir 'Bosna 2008'" which links to the tournament section at http://www.skbosna.ba/?jezik=bos&x=47.
Btw, have you noticed how good Movsesian plays recently? He has won 1st or 2nd place almost in every tournament he has played in a year or so, including Wijk Group B.
Posted by: playjunior at May 23, 2008 09:40
Yes, Movsesian is on a tremendous roll these days. His live rating (http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~ha/toplist.php) is 2727(!), making Movsesian the World #15 based on live ratings.
Anyone got a link to the live games for this tournament?
Thanks
:-)
Movsesian is indeed on a roll; my theory is all his diligent work to prove he's not a tourist starting in 1997 has finally started to pay dividends.
Everyone goes to their first World Championship as a tourist/spectator, Sergei!
The official site doesn't seem to have content yet except for sponsorship links, which shows they have their priorities in the right order, unlike any American tournament organizers...
I disagree with the "more players, more interesting" theory. I'd rather see Kramnik and Anand play two games with each other than Kramnik-Anand in round 2 and then Anand-Movsesian or whatever.
This tournament seems set up to provide Morozevich with about a 90% score and a 2800 rating...most overrated field ever. You heard it here first.
his tournament seems set up to provide Morozevich with about a 90% score and a 2800 rating...most overrated field ever. You heard it here first.
-- Posted by: gmc at May 23, 2008 13:48
Well last year Moro faced almost the exact same field (with Short instead of Dominguez) but finished only even, with three Black wins and three White losses(!), a disaster.
Like you said, against a field of 2600s like this you would expect Moro to put up some 8/10 or 9/10 score.
geez..number 15 in the world that and a number will get you a CUP OF JACK SQUAT gymowhatever
I had admired Moro's games but by this point in his career he has won nothing of super GM signifance, he will never win the wc and he will never win a grand slam so what he does is really irrelavant from a historical standpoint although once in a while he will win a pretty game, Frank Marshall was winning twice as many in his days and gave his soul to win the the WC, unsuccessfully unfortunately. God Bless you Frank I enjoyed studying your games more than anyone else's.
john, Moro's win of last Russian championship was tremendous. There his usual 2900+ performance included wins over Grischuk and Svidler.
John darius,
pray tell, who's left that's still worthy of our attention?
Apart from the fact that he's currently at +2 after only three rounds, take a look at this list:
http://www.chesscafe.com/informant/informant.htm (The Most Important Novelty of Chess Informant 100)
Morozevich is listed three times, more often than Anand, Kramnik, Topalov & Ivanchuk combined. Not bad for an "irrelevant" player.
Marshall won twice as many games Moro? i don't know about that but he surely played against 20 times weaker opponents.
Capablanca, Lasker, Alekhine were 20 times weaker?
LOL.
Mig appears a bit confused about the format of the tournament: it is basically designed to ensure that the Bosna Club has a strong team in the European Club Championship. Each participant will play at least two games in the Bosnian League immediately after the event, thereby ensuring qualification for the European Club Championship.
The Nige always has to be a spoilsport.
True, though. Good job at the Kings tournament so far Nigel!
Apart from the fact that he's currently at +2 after only three rounds, take a look at this list:
http://www.chesscafe.com/informant/informant.htm (The Most Important Novelty of Chess Informant 100) Morozevich is listed three times, more often than Anand, Kramnik, Topalov & Ivanchuk combined. Not bad for an "irrelevant" player.
-- Posted by: trm at May 25, 2008 18:
And now Morozevich is +3 after 5 rounds after having beaten Timofeev today. Moro's +3 =2 -0 is a 2919(!) TPR so far.
And in about four weeks when we see who won the Chess Informant Best Game Prize for Informator 100, it may very well be Morozevich's tremendous win over Sakaev from the Russian Super-Final last year. In the yearly poll of Russian experts for 2007 Game Of The Year, Morozevich-Sakaev finished just a whisker behind Kramnik's win over Morozevich (him again!) from the Mexico City WCC for second place (Aronian's -incredible- win over Anand from Linares 2007 won 1st place by a large margin). So either way, it looks like Morozevich will be a participant in the game that wins the next Chess Informant Best Game Prize.
Like you said, not too bad for an irrelevant player. :-)
Moro's rating difference to Kramnik has become amazingly low. Where will he play next? Where will Kramnik play next? (Dordmund or is WcH before that?).
carlsen has been infected with lekovitis! in a rapid match! Is it treatable?Stay tuned!
Re: "carlsen has been infected with lekovitis!"
- And this only hours after Chessbase.com prophetically(?!!) characterized him as a "former chess prodigy"... The fall from stardom is short and brutal these days.
What's with the Ne4-c5-b3 manoeuvre in game 2? It looked rather toothless to me, and what followed didn't exactly change my impression. Was it an early cop-out, or does the knight actually do something useful there?
wooooooooow something going reallllly wrong! ulf andersson won a game with the black pieces!!!! and it happened in the most drawish tourney on history!!!! this man had passed through 4 fide lists without a loss between 2006 and 2007 (but with less than 10 wins too, playing an average of 2400)!
playjunior, Dortmund is June 28 - July 6. Kramnik will be playing there but not Morozevich. The whole field will be Kramnik, Mamedyarov, Leko, Ivanchuk, Van Wely, Nepomniachtchi (great to see Nepo moving up to the more high-powered events), Naiditsch, and Jan Gustafsson.
I don't know where Moro's playing next.