Elsewhere in the penumbra, the two strong round-robin events of the SPICE Cup in Texas are well underway. Results, games, lots of photos and more are all somewhere in the interminable sprawl that is Susan Polgar's site. (But no PGN?!) Akobian, the only American in the A group, is in last place after four rounds. In the B group, 14-year-old Ray Robson is looking for his third and final GM norm. He's off the pace right now with 2/4. I think he needs six points for the norm.
Antwerp is hosting the Inventi Tournament, probably the strongest classical event held in Belgium since the 1988 Brussels World Cup tournament won by Karpov. There was a very strong SWIFT rapid and blitz event there in 92 as well, a KO won by Adams and with several memorable wins by Anand. Last year's InventiChess event was a Cat. 12 won by Bu Xiangzhi. This year Sutovsky leads over Bacrot and Timman after five rounds.
In just a few short years we've gone from barely having any chess video to too much to watch without quitting your job. This is why I love transcripts. ChessBase comes through with one of the long Kasparov-Carlsen interview appearance on a popular Scandinavian talk show. Good stuff.
Did Karpov run out of time in both games? He was in pretty bad shape in both of them, but the first one seemed to end pretty abruptly.
Actually the Inventi Tournament has "all it takes": Bacrot, Sargissian, Sasikiran and Sutovsky from the 2650-low 2700 ELO range, Stefanova and Muzychuk for photo shots ,:) , Timman for nostalgic value (for him this tournament seemed to be more attractive than the Dutch championship), Howell and local talent Bart Michiels from the young male generation. Still it is virtually ignored by all major sites, maybe it would need a scandal to get some more media attention? It doesn't help that the tournament site is one of the worst I ever encountered (no round reports, no games from previous rounds, no currrent standings) - the only site providing coverage (for those who can read Dutch) is http://schaakfabriek.be .
BTW, Timman is not third, but 9th with 1.5/5 - seems he also has trouble competing with the younger generation. But Howell does worse: 10th and last with 0.5/5.
Another glimpse from other news: Anish Giri won the Dutch championship - a rather weak event this year, but which other country has a teenage champion? Maybe Italy ... .
Don't get me wrong, it's understandable that most sites focus on K&K. Mig has the best reason for it, Peter Doggers from Chessvibes also literally wrote "I won't be travelling to Antwerpen, there seems to be a gig in Valencia".
I found some SPICE games here:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=69709&crosstable=1
PGN for spice available through monroi.com and chessgames.com
Karpov just won game 1 with 8 seconds down on his clock. I think we can classify the chess in this match as 'rusty'.
why rusty? they both played well today
garrys ra3 was a good chance to confuse matters much like karpovs ra3 - the only move that gives any kind of practical chances to fight for a win
Let me see. So far we have got:
2 time forfeits looses for Karpov.
1 amateur level tactic lost for Karpov.
1 blunder in time trouble for Kasparov.
Seems to be as rusty has you can get.
I think Karpov lost all three on time, technically. He was already lost in two of them. Not sure that's contrary to your point, but you generally do have mistakes in decisive games.
Karpov's win was a decent game all-round. No horrible blunder to go from drawn to losing by Kasparov. His final move made it impossible, but White was already clearly superior by then. The other game today wasn't a blunderfest either. It's the sort of final position you are okay with letting your time run out in, really. Black is just dominated. But nothing great. At least Nf6+ was a little eye candy in game two, if not terribly difficult. I just hope Karpov's been practicing his blitz because otherwise tomorrow is going to be embarrassing.
Btw my review of yesterday didn't post last night and I just noticed when I started work on today's games. Sigh. It's up now.
I'm not even sure any more that it's more good than bad that they are playing these games at all. Anyway, nice to see Anatoly at least win one game. Still expect further embarrassment in the blitz games but you never know with blitz - anything can happen. Could get lucky in a couple of games and then...
I've looked at them for a while now and think both of today's K-K games were pretty good. Garry thought so as well, if he can be trusted. Certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Not that that's a great endorsement, but after day one it's a big improvement. Karpov's clock deal I just don't get though. He's the one who's been playing. He finished equal last in Zurich a month ago but I don't know anything about his clock handling there. I wonder if he flagged a lot there, too.
As for blitz, well, Karpov lost a match to Maghami in February. Kasparov's been fighting for top spots online with Morozevich, Leko, Nakamura... Unless some vintage K vs K inspired magic comes up, it could be bad. On the other hand, Karpov avoided finishing last in the Tal Mem blitz last year with wins over Mamedyarov and Grischuk. But as you said, it's blitz, and there's little profit in predicting it.
@Thomas: I knew Timman wasn't in third in Antwerp. He's just a more relevant player to mention as a participant than whoever was. I rarely post more than once a day so I have to make choices. No top-20 players, lousy website, no angle or inside info. I mentioned it. Giri had a nice performance, but none of the top Dutch players were there. 2500 avg. tournaments usually don't make my radar when there are other things going on. Sad that even the Netherlands, with such a great chess tradition, can't put together a decent championship these days. Shows that even where considered strong, chess is always on the brink.
"Kasparov's been fighting for top spots online with Morozevich, Leko, Nakamura... "
Do tell!! Please?
@Mig: I know - and mentioned at the end of my post - that you, as well as other sites, have to make choices. I understand that the K-K match takes priority, here and elsewhere - but it is slightly odd IMO that even in this "other" thread more than half of the comments are about Valencia ... . The other odd thing is that only Chessbase is recurrently criticized for making choices (or for choosing wrongly in anyone's subjective opinion).
"I knew Timman wasn't in third in Antwerp." I thought so ... but your initial post may have been misleading. In any case, he has problems keeping up with the younger players (but can do well in single games), so experience and peak career strength isn't everything - parallels to Karpov in Spain (Valencia + San Sebastian)?
As far as the Dutch championship is concerned, it's the financial crisis ... : The prize fund went down by about half, the tournament was moved from Hilversum (middle of the country) to Haaksbergen (small village near the German border), most top players weren't interested.