Nigel Short made it look easy from the start and Magnus Carlsen needed every single second to do the job. In the five-round Sigeman sprint, Short started with three wins, took a rest day draw, and finished in style by beating second seed Sokolov with black in the final round for a sweet 4.5/5 score. In the León Magistral Rapid final match, Ivanchuk and Carlsen exhausted the four rapid games and the two blitz tiebreakers. Carlsen had white in the 6"-5" armaggedon blitz game and won to take away the title Ivanchuk won beating Anand last year.
Carlsen would have finished things a little earlier had he found the cute 38..Ra5! winner in the second blitz tiebreak game. It was notable he switched away from his Dragon to a Sveshnikov after getting tagged for a loss the second time around in the match. Ivanchuk, who plays anything and everything, got his rapid loss in a badly played Dutch in game four when he only needed a draw to clinch the match. 11..e5 is one of those moves that you're taught you should play as soon as you can manage it, but Carlsen correctly surmised his kingside action was faster than Black's queenside play. Ivanchuk did get his share of the play, however, at least briefly. I'm not sure why Carlsen didn't go for the typical clamp with Na4 on move 13 or 14, must be some reason. Nice clutch win regardless, and good sharp chess all round.
Youth was served in León, but in Malmö a finer vintage was uncorked. Short really plays some good chess when he's relaxed these days. As long ago as 2000 he told me he much preferred playing in nice conditions and having fun on and off the board instead of bashing and being bashed in elite events. It does sort of make you wonder how well the former world championship challenger might do were he to get back to the grind. Gelfand is just a few years younger than Short's recently turned 44 years and the Israeli looks headed back to the top ten on the next list. On the other hand, the grind isn't really a grind for some people and I don't think Gelfand is ever happier than when he's working on chess.
Bettin' money that Mig will pontificate shortly, but I have to wonder how many more years the sponsers will be willing to pay for Leko spank-a-thons?
http://www.lekoanand.hu/eng/4.html
Well, in a way that should be the point of these matches, to put the local hero up against the best and brightest stars (who bring more attention). It improves Leko, in theory, and Anand, Kramnik, and Carlsen draw more coverage than guys from the second tier Leko would be expected to beat. Of course it would be nice if Leko could at least win a game now and then... Plus, after the guys he's faced in the last three editions he can only go down unless Topalov (no friend of Leko's manager Hensel) shows up.
Saaaayyyy, pretty insightful there Mig! Now I really do wonder where things will go from here.
I'm guessing Ivanchuk next.
Moro would be very interesting too.
perhaps Aronian, so the spanking can continue?
or maybe karpov or korchnoi. This way he can actuall beat a champion. Lots of publicity too.
He already played (and defeated) Karpov in the inaugural edtion.
Obviously, it was not meant anything close to literally. But Short's 56-move effort against Tiger Hillarp Persson's Najdorf was anything but a "rest day draw." The nice thing about having a five round tournament, in fact, is that the players'd have to be seriously out of shape to worry about conserving energy.
"He already played (and defeated) Karpov in the inaugural edtion"
One win in eight games against Karpov wasn't much though and the last years he hasn't won a single game, not even against Carlsen that he always plays well against.
Do I recognize someone in ao? Anyway, you could also say he beat Karpov without losing a single game if you want it to sound better.
"you could also say he beat Karpov without losing a single game if you want it to sound better"
He doesn't lose much, still strange that he wins so rarely. It is rapid chess after all and he should be the more motivated player in these matches. Two in 32 games isn't much.
hi
does anyone understand the last few moves of Leko-Anand Game 7 Miskolc Rapid ?
24.dxc6 Rxd1+ 25.Bxd1 Kd6 26.Ba4 Bc1 27.b4 a6 28.b5 axb5 29.Bxb5 Ba3
After 26 Ba4, what is going on ? On chessgames, people think it is an incorrect scoresheet : http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1546390 but the same scoresheet shows up in Chessbase's commentary without comment ?
What is the point of Bc1 ? etc....
Maybe he is simply a slightly weaker rapid player than his esteemed opponents, I don't see the mystery.
ao is helping me make my point with still more info.
Leko is being sponsered in these nice matches, but how much longer will they put up with his poor performances? He won one match vs. an aging Karpov (winning one game) and he's lost all the rest of the matches (three), winning only one more game in all those combined. Two wins in 32 match games? Versus four different players? They'd be better served to sponser Judit! She'd just lose too, but she'd probably win a few more individual games.
I can only wonder how on earth Kramnik drew Leko in a WC match. Must have been struggling with illness or something. Not that he wins many games either. I guess Fischer/Karpov/Kasparov spoiled us with their dominance. Back to the Botvinnik days!
Hooray for Nosher, that's what I say.
This thread was about Nige and Magnus, no?
Well, in the absence of an article on the Anand-Leko match, I "hijacked" this one, sorry.
Carlsen beating Ivanchuk is not really news right now as Chucky is in one of his periodic tailspins.
Nigel's feat is quite newsworthy and I applaude his fine result. He should even have gone +5-0=0, but that would be asking an awful lot of any player. As he himself has indicated, he does really well when he's relaxed and takes long breaks.
"He doesn't lose much, still strange that he wins so rarely. It is rapid chess after all and he should be the more motivated player in these matches. Two in 32 games isn't much."
Or 5 in 40, if you count the first match, and why wouldn't you? Still not too much though...
That one was weird but exciting. Adams took a 3-0 lead and it looked like it was going to be a disaster, insofar as a rapid result can ever be a disaster. But Lékó came back and made it 3-3. Then two draws and the match was tied 4-4.
"I can only wonder how on earth Kramnik drew Leko in a WC match. Must have been struggling with illness or something."
Oh, please.
Well, Kramnik _was_ struggling with illness, but so what? Very few people were able to beat Lékó around that time, perfectly healthy or not.
Between his last loss in Dortmund 2003 and his first loss in Dortmund 2005 he lost exactly ZERO classical games to a player other than Kramnik.
And the first thing he did after Brissago was to win Corus outright, including by beating Anand with black.
Some pushover, right?
He's not the same player today, but still a solid top tenner. A few losses in _rapid_ matches, while not encouraging, don't tell us otherwise.
"Between his last loss in Dortmund 2003 and his first loss in Dortmund 2005 he lost exactly ZERO classical games to a player other than Kramnik."
That also sounds a little stronger than what it actually was, even if I in principle agree with acirce's "defence" of Leko.
Between those two events two years apart, Leko played an amazing 80 games - or 40 games per year. Still a great achievement, but it would've been even more impressive with a "normal" activity level; Peter Leko is one of the top players that play the fewest games per year - and it's been like that for many years already.
Well, yes, he didn't play all that much, and of course 14 of those games were the match against Kramnik, so no wonder he didn't lose to any non-Kramniks there.
I could have put it in terms of number of games, but I wanted to emphasize the time frame. He was nearly unbeatable for a while. (I.e. the point wouldn't have been the same if it had been many games within a much shorter period.) Of course people forget this nowadays - it's several years away! :)
And I'm sure somebody will point out that he may not have won an earth-shattering number of games either, but that's also beside the point. He didn't win many tournaments, but since he was extremely hard to beat, he would not have been a pushover for anyone in a match.
Nosher : Red wine + rest = victory
"Hooray for Nosher, that's what I say."
Just don't say it to him....
"It does sort of make you wonder how well the former world championship challenger might do were he to get back to the grind" - this really is a classic refrain from chess players - "look how brillaint I am considering I dont work at chess".
But its doubtful - your chess level is what you are at any time and "what if" is irrelevant eg if I had a better memory, stronger nerves, better spatial awareness or (one of Shorts comments) if I had been brought up in the soviet chess system (!) all these are a bit pathetic. You dont hear tennis players saying well if I practiced more because everyone knows that intense practice is a basic part of success in professional tennis.
What they do is analyse their game, alter trainers, advisers, life style etc of course easier to do with the huge amount of money in that sport. Botvinik and more recently Kasparov identified intense analysis of your own games plus refreshing of opening repertoire as a key part part of maintaining chess strength into the 40's and 50's. Incidentally for how long was Short in the top 10?
No mention of the National Open in Vegas? I know you're not into the US weekend swiss thing Mig, but the likes of Van Wely, Bareev, Fressinet, Sargissian, Petrosian, etc. it had a decidedly INTERnational feel.
Akobian and IM Sevillano tied for first. IN the final round (6) Sevillano defeated Bareev with black in a Benonni to climb into first.
Results:
http://www.vegaschessfestival.com/results/2009/results.php
> Incidentally for how long was Short in the top 10?
My somewhat incomplete database says he first showed up in the Top Ten in 1987, reached his peak #3 in 1989, and reached the Top Ten for the last time (so far) in 1997.
acirce - Let's dispense with your Leko-apologist rubbish...
"Very few people were able to beat Lékó around that time, perfectly healthy or not. Between his last loss in Dortmund 2003 and his first loss in Dortmund 2005 he lost exactly ZERO classical games to a player other than Kramnik. Some pushover, right?"
You omit the fact that he had four "decent" tournaments where he placed 2nd and tied for 2nd-3rd, but omit the fact that he was SPANKED at Dortmund 2003, won only a handful of games in the four (that's "4") "decent" tournaments leading up to Brissago, and that he drew every single game in Linares 2005. Inspiring indeed. Since 2005, dismal results.
"He's not the same player today, but still a solid top tenner. A few losses in _rapid_ matches, while not encouraging, don't tell us otherwise."
You've got to be kidding. You admit my point but don't want me to tell you so? Riiigggghtttt..
Solid top 10-er? I don't buy it and I predict he'll never see north of 10 again after this 2009. He only got north of it in the first place due to Ivanchuk, Svidler and maybe Shirov's erratic performances.
I omitted the fact because of course everyone has bad results now and then. If you want to go back further you'd also have to take his win in Linares 2003 and his win in the Dortmund WCh qualifier in 2002 into account, among other things that wouldn't fit your agenda. But I was talking about his form closer to the time of Brissago specifically, since that is what you brought up. There was a long period during which nobody except Kramnik was able to beat him even in a single game. Like it or not.
"won only a handful of games [...] drew every single game" -- already addressed. I wasn't trying to say he was a new Kasparov. Just that he was extremely hard to beat.
"solid top 10-er" -- he has been rated in the top 10 on every list since January 2000, except April 2002, where he was 11th. So I simply don't know what you mean when you say it was only due to Ivanchuk's, Svidler's and Shirov's bad results. As if that would make it worth less in the first place. He is more consistent than they are. I thought that was supposed to be a good thing, not a bad thing. Anyway, I only consider ratings to be very rough approximations of strength, but again, this consistency of Lékó's has very few matches.