Juniors in Chubut, Teams in Novi Sad

"Nothing like watching an Englishman trot out the Grand Prix and then a Blunt Force Trauma Attack straight out of the Julian Hodgson handbook. 13.Bd1 14.Rf3 is very classy caveman chess. Black deserved the pain for that spectator queen on a6."

Agreed. I love it when they play the Grand Prix.

"Delchev forfeited against Conquest when his cell phone went off at the board. I blame the coach."

Huh? What should the coach do? Ask all of his players before the match "are your cell phones switched off?". Search their pockets to make sure? While I am not eligible for high-level team events, I would not appreciate such treatment but claim that I am responsible and old enough myself - and take 100% of the blame if I ever lose a game in such a way.

Another short game was Vallejo Pons-Laznicka 1.e4 1-0. The Czech player was late, and (this being an official FIDE event) zero tolerance rules apply. Should the coach have checked at Laznicka's hotel room, if necessary wake him up at 2:00PM because the games start one hour later?

Other bits and pieces:
- Today's round will have Armenia-Azerbaijan, in the women's section. Probably there will be no short draws in this match?
- Topalov will play GM Miladinovic (ELO 2547) from Serbia2

Was it the Grand Prix Attack? I thought the GPA required either 2f4 or 2Nc3 and not 2d3... the white knight doesn't get to c3 until move 11 and the bishop never goes to b5 or c4.

2d3 suggests it's more of a KIA.

The expression on Stephen Gordon's face is priceless - and I know he said it was just a nervous reaction but even Ivan smiled (grimaced..?).

The save by Stu Conquest against Cornette was great as well. I hope he does well, he had a great start with 3/3 (including that Delchev win).

Seems to me that Topalov played in round 4 too (drew with Black against Georgiev.) So two games.

How about Victor "The Terrible" almost 80 years old chugging along! Loved the Von Pretzel Gambit against Volokitin. He claims his ability to keep going is due to eating oatmeal for breakfast and taking lots of walks. What a guy!

"muddling along on plus scores with 3 and 3.5, respectively". Raising the bar quite a bit?

what say mig about the humpy issue?

Laznicka was 5 seconds late. Long as FIDE stays in Bizarro World these anti-chess desicions will keep coming.

After 22 moves, 30 min left on his clock, Aronian is in deep trouble with black against Bacrot who has a strong attack right now. Watch it live on Playchess.com

Your excellent articles are never x-referenced in Susan Polgar's blog ... and she doesn't welcome questions as to why not.

Why is this?

Defaulting players for not being present at the start of a game or a ringing phone is rather draconian. If any punishment is required, a time penalty seems more appropriate to me. Which clever bods came up with these silly measures anyway?

We could have added Conquest-Delchev to our rich fund of games.

@Mig:"David Howell..instead of both playing at the ETC..I keep wondering at the relevance of this event".

Because the world junior champ gets a spot in the world cup? Nice plan-B I guess, in case they don't make it the regular way..

Wow, that 20...Ba8! move in Sutovsky-Svidler was very nice. Like Ivanchuk, Svidler sometimes shows so much class, that you keep wondering why these two players have not been able to fulfill their potential in Supertournaments and World Championship (Lack of killer instinct? Unwillingness to work as hard in chess as other top players? Trouble to perform under pressure?). I don't know, but when these players are in good form, is definitely a pleasure to watch.

Ah, and this guy Rybgashimov is winning a lot of games lately! He is going to be number 5 and number 6 of the world in the upcoming November list. Putting jokes aside, hopefully he will stay in the top for a long time and keep up the good play against the big guys (unlike Mamedyarov, Jakovenko and even Radjabov lately) once he starts receiving invitations to top tournaments.

Topalov was sick and that's why he skipped some games
Vallejo Pons was very unhappy about zero-tolerance rule

Bacrot-Aronian and Sutovsky-Svidler were indeed nice games to watch

Is the novelty 17.f4 in Bacrot-Aronian ?

Why in the blue blazes do Azerbaijan, Armenia, or Israel are part of a *European* competition? Or, to put it another way, why Madagascar and North Vietnam are not?

FYI. Yu Yangyi is a 15 year old GM. Please do some research before writing.

FYI, the shi**y WJC lists him as UNTITLED so the media has just been copying their error.

ah and its all explained he was granted the Title GM after the event had already started (WJC) so he is technically still GM elect for the remainder of the tournament... so do your own research.

I just checked the Google cache of his FIDE page. As of Oct. 22, the date of the cached page, he had "none" for title. Now it says GM.

Yu Yangyi was awarded his GM title at the latest FIDE congress:
http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/4148--titles-approved-at-the-80th-fide-congress-
The congress [the same one deciding or semi-deciding on venues for WCh match and candidates matches] took place October 11-17. The link I gave is time-stamped October 19 10:24, and apparently it took a few more days to update other FIDE pages.

Yu Yangyi seems another example of becoming GM without ever being IM (or even FM?). BTW, other names include Tatiana Kosintseva and Ben Finegold - but not Ray Robson whose final norm was a few days too late. And, far down the list, Lenderman is mentioned as conditional GM - I wonder why, rating is not the issue (he crossed 2500 on the July 2009 list).

On the relevance of the event: Maybe it is partly just tradition - it was put on the agenda when not many players at that age were even GMs, let alone world top players. Then it may be odd to abandon it from one year to the other?

It still is an opportunity for, in particular, young players from "exotic" countries to meet rather strong global competition. Names coming to my mind are GM Eduardo Iturrizaga from Venezuela and FM (GM elect? *) Jorge Cori from Peru. And it may also be a social event - BTW, boys and girls tournaments are held together at the same location ... .

The only oddity is that it collides with the European Team Championship. Not the first example of scheduling conflicts, lack of communication or miscommunation between FIDE and European Chess Federation ,:(

*Jorge Cori recently obtained his final GM norm, but still has to beat 2500 in terms of rating.

Alert for the Fischer fans - an article on Fischer by Martin Gardener

Bobby Fischer: Genius and Idiot
Notes of a Fringe-Watcher
Martin Gardner

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/bobby_fischer_genius_and_idiot/

Sorry about the Fischer article I posted above - that is such a bad article! - Gardner (he of the SciAm puzzle fame) is such a strident skeptic/atheist/materialist that he makes bald hyperbolic assertions, more to shock than enlighten.

I understand he is just trying to give "his take" on Fischer as a whole, in 12 paragraphs, but still, if I'd read it completely, I probably wouldn't have posted it.

Back to your regular Sunday programming...

Yeah, I can see from that article that Gardner seems to use "idiot" as literally a synonym for "believer" - in ANYTHING of a religious, quasi-religious or even speculative nature.

He goes out of his way to mention the (purported) religion of all his targets - even when said religion is the norm for their culture, so there's no reasonable reason to mention it (i.e. he labels Bobby's Japanese wife a "devout Buddhist," for instance).

That's kinda like a flip-side of Bobby himself, labeling people, "The Jew this" or "the Commie that."

Well, I'm glad at least I now know that Gardner is still alive. That came as a bit of a surprise.

Too typical of "skepticists" of Gardner's ilk. Annoying pricks.

Tomorrow is the day when the enemies meet each other. Armenia vs. Azerbaijan.

caleague, Milman played in Copper State, but didn't earn a norm there. Is his title conditional just because he played in a tournament where there were shaky pairings? Why should be be punished for that?

Two notes on the European team championship at Novi Sad
1. The overall individual leader after 6 rounds is GM Jon Ludvig Hammer of Norway with 5 points of 6 and a rating performance of 2873.
2. Topa appears to be slightly out of form. He has so far scored 2.5 of 4 points with a rating performance of 2710. He now has 2805 on the live rating list, and is only 4 points ahead of Magnus Carlsen.

"From today's games, Aronian and Shirov had an interesting draw - maybe Aronian missed a win somewhere, but it wasn't easy. But my favorite is Feller-Werle on board 4 of France vs. Netherlands. Was this another piece of French home preparation, after Bacrot's win against Aronian in the previous round?"

Hi Thomas , i don't think so , for Bacrot-Aronian it was home preparation , Bacrot talks about it on the website Europe-Echecs in a French interview , he says that he was really not fan of this f4 very risky move , but that he with some of his friends analyzed that despite Rybka saying it's good for black , it was clear to a GM that the position was unclear and very complicated and that it was very hard to find the correct moves on the board during the game for the black player , and that is why Bacrot decided to use that (risky ) idea

But for Feller playing a great game today , it was not really opening preparation but rather a decisive mistake with Bh8 by Werle that lost the game , otherwise the game was about equal after the opening

Does anyone know whether the Delchev-Conquest game will be considered for rating purposes? And what about late arrival? Is it a forfeit (walk over) or a loss (for rating purposes?)

Duncan

I thought as much Thomas.

I don't think a player can overrule the arbiter. But it's becoming a farce. Especially the late arrivals when your opponent is just a few meters away from his board....maybe he had a WC emergency.

FIDE should make a 15min allowance.

Duncan

The penalty for arriving late should be the loss of time in itself and nothing more , just start the clocks at the proper time and invite responsible GMs to the tournaments.

caleague, Milman was not denied a norm at Copper State due to manipulated pairings. He didn't score well enough to earn a norm (didn't even play the last 3 rounds). His final norm came after that in a tournament in NY.

¨Sorry Manu, that is no penalty at all. ¨

Exactly the point , the player is using his time the way he likes it , like it should be.

¨What if all the players showed up late? Nice picture of empty chairs.¨

No problem , the way chess is broadcasted so far has to change anyway , all you need is to actually have the handshake , the hour is irrelevant or to be more precise another element that contributes to the drama of the fight.
We would not lose anything by letting players arrive at their will , the way things are now we are losing games..
This is chess , not synchronised swiming...
And there is always the right of the sponsors to not invite the player who abuses of this tolerance , if that´s the case.
Personally i don´t think it would be a problem at all, on the contrary , this things usually adds to the tension of the reports and the excitement of the press .
I still consider the phone loss to be be very fair , though.

¨If the player has showed up on time and made a move, let them do whatever they want to do. They can go upstairs and party with their sweetheart, who cares?¨

That would be having a very poor idea of what needs to be broadcasted and what don´t , players must remain on sight during the games , if someone wants to be alone during a chess game is not our problem .

In his just-finished game vs. Papaioannou, Shirov demonstrated yet again why (when he is at his best) we all love him. Just look at the crazy position after 44 Qc8! Magic.

Politics and chess politics aside, Armenia scored an important victory against Azerbaijan today to make the tournament completely open with two rounds to go. They as well as Russia are suddenly on top together with the Azeris, and Ukraine is now in striking distance (though with a very bad second tiebreak - coming from way behind after losing in the first round against Switzerland).

To me it seemed that Azerbaijan would have been content with a 2-2 today to secure first place - and it backfired. Now they probably hope for a 2-2 tomorrow ... between Armenia and Russia.

Regarding the late rule... I think it is absurd in many ways
1. Very few other sports have such a late rule loss (for comparisons sake). Tennis has a grace time of 15 mins and so on.
2. For those who are complaining about people in top tournaments arriving late, i completely understand. So any player who wants to play a super tournament can have it in their contracts that if they arrive late or dress badly there is a penalty or whatever. There is no need to have these rules in every tournament.
3. Winning the point from such a forfeit is almost as bad as losing it because lets say in a 9rd tourney a person plays brilliantly and his 4nd round opponent arrived 5 seconds late, a 9/9 score sadly doesnt get him a norm.
4. Chess is the only game where the penalty for coming late is inbuilt in the game itself. in other sports its just an inconvenience. When there is an inbuilt mechanism, I see no reason to change it.
5. Many people wont be comfortable with waiting for 1hr to claim a point and an opponent arriving 58 minutes late is indeed infuriating. So 1hr can be reduce to 15-30mins. I think 15 or 20mins is just perfect.
6. Its a bigger shame for our noble sport to see how hou yifan lost a game in this years chinese championship when she was early.
7. Seinfeld RULES!!! :)

On players arriving late, I largely agree with Luke (and had written similar things before about photographers). If both players arrive on time, at least the first move by white and black can be documented, as well as the handshake (or refusal thereof). Probably more than that, because hardly any player will take a chance arriving just 5 seconds before the round starts ... .

Another solution would be to allow press on the stage until all players have (bothered to) arrive? But even if they are only allowed to cover the start of any game, their ongoing presence might be disturbing to other players whose game is already well underway. So, if given a choice, I wonder what GMs would prefer - zero tolerance to late arrivers or extra tolerance to photographers.

BTW, if you are late at the train station (even seconds to minutes) your train may already be gone. What's wrong with considering tournament chess as boarding a train or even a flight (you have to be at the gate ahead of the scheduled departure)?

Zero (0.0000) tolerance is another story. It may be meant to make players adjust to new rules, or to avoid ambiguous situations. Imagine an arbiter who is about to forfeit a player and then thinks "oh wait, he is just entering through the door". The same player would be forfeited if
- the arbiter doesn't know him
- the arbiter forgot his glasses and cannot see clearly what happens 20-50m away
- he happens to be hidden behind another player arriving late (giving an advantage to tall players as Kramnik and van Wely?).

An unwilling Topalov showed up in round 2.
He played 4 games with a performance of 2710.
Seems to have lost 8,3 points.
Today he did not want to play, and Bulgaria lost to Denmark.
If he plays the last 2 rounds and loses only 4 points more, Magnus Carlsen will be the world's no 1, by doing nothing.
But I guess Topalov is already fed up (see his face when Delchev's phone rang) and packing his luggage.

"What's wrong with considering tournament chess as boarding a train or even a flight.."

All these comparisons. What's wrong with considering it a date? Who gets up and leaves after five seconds?

"Zero (0.0000) tolerance is another story. It may be meant to make players adjust to new rules, or to avoid ambiguous situations."

The one and only reason this has been implemented is that is was a personal demand from the FIDE president. Its purpose is to save him from risking being put in a situation where he might lose face. It has nothing to do with the sporting content of game whatsoever. If so, first priority would be to have a decision on the board. Today, this is relegated to second priority.

Above, Thomas asks: "Huh? What should the coach do? Ask all of his players before the match "are your cell phones switched off?"." and "Should the coach have checked at Laznicka's hotel room, if necessary wake him up at 2:00PM because the games start one hour later?"

In team events perhaps these *should* be responsibilities for the coach/captain. An individual's performance is a component of a team score. Shouldn't the coach/captain do his or her best to minimize non-game influences on the team score (e.g., cell phones going off, no shows)?

Question: Can a team make substitute a player at the last minute? That is, could a player be on standby in case another player is late?

I'm very glad to see Jon Ludvig do so well.

Forfeiting a player for being late makes sense in principle. The question is the implementation.

The old 1-hour rule had its origin in the use of mechanical clocks -- you could tell that an hour had elapsed as the flag would fall.

There is a logic to the 1-hour rule...and it is also a plus that it is 1) well-established and 2) easy to observe.

Using a shorter time period requires that everyone knows the exact start of the round (not just the printed times) and then there is the issue of less exact evidence on clocks (especially if not digital).

Also, there is the issue that what is good for a small elite player round robin or 24 player swiss of top players...is not the same ideal solution for a field of 300 amateurs.

Zero tolerance sounds great for two 2650-rated professionals. Zero tolerance sounds lousy for 2 1800-rated amateurs.

And...it is ludicrous to forfeit someone for "not being at their board at the start of the round" when players have been forfeited for 1) being 10 feet away, 2) being at the arbiter's table to get a working pen -- these things did happen!

The solution seems to be...if you are running a small elite tourney...to have everyone check in at the arbiter's table prior to the round.

If the round starts at 1 PM....then check-in should be 12:45 to 1 PM. If you check in at 12:53 and then need to go to the restroom...or get a pen...or just stretch your legs...FINE. You have arrived. You are present.

Players need to know what they can do to protect themselves. Do you really want to forfeit someone because they were talking to the arbiter a minute early?

This nonsense of "I see him and he was at the board a minute ago but oops the gong has sounded and he's three feet away so I win" has got to stop.

Switzerland, with 78-year-old Viktor Korchnoi on first board, is in tenth place. Cool.

This is getting fun!
Bulgaria (no. 4) has now been passed by both Denmark (no. 23) and Norway (no. 29). And this without the presence of Magnus Carlsen!

Surely this is not what Bulgarian team captain Veselin Topalov had envisioned? Woahahahahahaha!!

PS. Topalov series of draws has dropped him within 3.9 points of Carlsen. The 18-year-old Grandmaster may well find himselv rated World No. 1 on LiveRating by the time Tal Memorial starts -- without having to lift a finger. :)

Oh, I almost forgot:
Norwegian master, Jon Ludvig Hammer (rated a mere 2585), is the top performing player at the European Team Championship.

His performance rating? A whopping 2838. Easily surpassing Topalov’s...

Of course Bulgaria's very high seeding is somewhat misleading, because it is VERY much influenced by Topalov's high rating. Their rating average with Topa is 2673, without him it would be 2602. Put differently, the gap between Topalov (2813)and Cheparinov (2667) is 146 points. Next on this list is probably Armenia with Aronian (2773) vs. Akopian (2698).
Even a Topalov in top form (and playing every match) could win only one game ... . Of course it is also unfair to put all the blame on him for the poor team result, because 4 out of 5 Bulgarian players underperformed. So surely it's not what the Bulgarian team captain (Petar Velikov, not Veselin Topalov) has envisioned ... .

Moro is a gift for the fans and a punishment for the trainer.

Any word on that Anand-Karpov rapid match?

October 29:...i´m talking about chess and not soccer u stupid idiot, please don´t answer my post directly, you disgust me. -manu

August 6: ...people who like calling names are usually cowards. --manu

(n.b. manu does not actually LIKE calling names, so he is NOT a coward.)

A useful command on ICC is '+censor ', which allows one to avoid the distraction of having to read the posts of annoying trolls, while still participating in the general kibitzing. I really wish that a similar command was available here. Telnet has its advantages.

In other news:
It was announced today that Magnus Carlsen has signed sponsorship deal with Norwegian stock broking firm Arctic Securities worth approx. US$ 350 000 over the next two years.

Robson beat Howell in round ten of the World Junior Championship with a nice French Defense. He's currently no.5 in the standings but 1.5 pts behind the leader. Lenderman's at no.9.

A 13 move Sicilian draw between the 2 top finishers is very lame in my opinion.