Svidler's Black Attack

Svidler won with Black yesterday and drew with White today to win the World Cup event. Chucky also beat Pono with Black and secured the 3rd spot for the candidates. So, the guaranteed spots are for Svidler, Grishchuk, Ivanchuck, Carlsen (ratings), Aronian(ratings), Kramnik(Ratings), Anand or Gelfand (loser of 2012 WCC). That leaves only the wild card player.

I still think Carlsen will boycott since he doesn't like privileges for the World Champion. If so, the 3rd ratings favorite is likely up for grabs. Even Topalov might get it apart from Rajda and Karyakin...

Never mind, I forgot the final is 4 rounds. I stand corrected :-)

Regarding the rating spots, they are based on the average of the July 2011 and January 2012 rating lists. The situation is as follows:

July 2011 list: Karjakin 2788, Kramnik 2781, Nakamura 2770, Ivanchuk 2768, Topalov 2768, Mamedyarov 2765, Ponomariov 2764, Gashimov 2760, ... Radjabov 2744 (behind Gelfand and Grischuk who are already qualified)

Current live rating list: Kramnik 2791, Topalov 2768, Ivanchuk 2768, Radjabov 2767, Karjakin 2763, (Svidler 2760), Gashimov 2757, Nakamura 2753, (Grischuk 2749, Gelfand 2746), Ponomariov 2743

There are still several events to be played (at least Bilbao, Tal Memorial and London) but by now the race seems to be between Kramnik and Karjakin, with advantage Vlad.

As to Topalov: Will he play at all in the remaining months? Maybe the European Team Championship in November (I read that Nanjing is, at least, postponed until 2012). If he does NOT play he can qualify if Carlsen 'boycots', Karjakin loses another 15 points, and Ivanchuk loses a little bit (or beats Ponomariov). This would be a "bad case scenario", the worst case scenario is a candidates event in Bulgaria.

I didn't correct you. You did :-)

He wasn't ahead of Karjakin and Kramnik. He tied with Karjakin and Kramnik for joint 3rd-5th.

Svidler was first. Morozevich 2nd.

He isn't there yet. But hopefully he will be.

Grischuk was third on tiebreak, as can be seen for example on the official tournament site. It was quite a big difference with regards to prize money, otherwise I guess it didn't matter much:

http://www.russiachess.org/content/view/6944/

Apparently the Moscow - St. Petersburg games aren't rated (they announced it at the opening ceremony). It's been an odd event in general. We've become so spoiled with events in Russia that it's a small shock to the system to get one with no video and a broadcast of only 8 of the 10 games live. Plus at the moment there aren't even any photographs...

bad defeat v Karpov, that is.

Remember that Svidler clinched the title with a round to spare, so the 0.5 winning margin is deceptively small....nevertheless, he has been among the game's elite for 15 years and hasn't received the fanfare that players like Moro or even Naka (who he is +5 against with no losses) have received despite being among the elite for a far shorter time than Svidler.

The full story is: In an earlier WCh game, Karpov got nothing with 14.Nb5. Then he won convincingly with 14.h3, but a few months later Timman repaired the variation with black against Karpov:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesslike.pl?gid=1068504
All these games are from 1986 (the year I graduated from highschool). In a Dutch team competition game I got the same position on the board and won rather easily with black (my opponent was a few hundred points lower-rated); back at home my deja vu feelings were confirmed.

Now Ivanchuk's 14.Bf4 seems to be a novelty but maybe not an improvement, his compensation for the pawn may well be insufficient (not saying that he's lost).

I wonder if Leontxo wasn't quoting from story I first saw at Whychess which is quoting from a new book in Norwegian that relates this tale.

Anyhoo, the whychess site has nice article describing this.

http://www.whychess.org/node/1904

It seems to me you're right, although he only mentioned a norwegian writer, not the whychess site. He was much more focused into the education and way of work Carlsen has compared to the spartan way of life of old soviet style Kasparov. In any case, nice radio!

Well, they are both blonde :)

ChessBase's coverage of the World Cup has been pretty uninspired. That report's just the official report - http://chess.ugrasport.com/?p=3673 - with the English cleaned up a bit and a few photos from the official site added. Having said that, I can very much understand not wanting to put in too much effort for reports on an event that goes on every day for 3 weeks...

Your statement is quite illogical even by dailydirt standards. the job of qualifiers is to produce 'credible' candidates not the other way round.

Chessbase got their act together and corrected the photo caption, finally. They now call Maria a WGM while in reality she's only a WIM but I can live with that ;)

Yes, thank goodness we have powerhouse Grischuk (2749) instead of the weak patzers Ponomariov (2743) or Kamsky (2742).

Ponomariov is so bad he even dropped below 2700 in early 2005!

And Kamsky? What a joke! He might even drop out of the top ten on the next rating list...

But back then (April 2005), Ponomariov's Elo 2695 was good enough for world #20 - with one exception (he was 21st on the Oct 2007 list) Pono stayed in the top20 for the last 10 years.

@Matt: Correct!

I know you're trying to be controversial with that statement, but avoid sounding ignorant. Kamsky made it into the most recent candidates. That alone made him a very eligible player for the next cycle. If Ponomariov makes it to the penultimate round, he's also to be taken seriously, regardless of what you may emote.

I always imagine people like you being asked to repeat that right into the face of the mentioned players.

You would shrink from the assignment like the cs little violet that you are.

Is it so difficult to realize that this post is ironic, ken h?
Over the years I have commented many times on the high frequency of ironic comments being taken at face value on the DD. A cultural thing I spose.

OK, chesshire cat. The last line bends the cred a little.

You are funny, ken h. I certainly wouldn't mind repeating that to the faces of the mentioned players. They'd have no trouble recognizing the sarcasm and having chuckle at Anand Nair's "sounding ignorant."

Excellent! I support your post in every way!

I agree with you.

The criticism wasn't about favorites prevailing rather than outsiders reaching the final stage, but about calling Ponomariov and Kamsky "crap". Kasimdzhanov was an outsider who had ONE big success in his entire career - before and afterwards he is/was just a respectable GM (Anand's long-term second for a reason) but no world-top player. Ponomariov was an outsider or rising star when he won back in 2002 - but subsequently he established himself as a world top player who is not, at least not much weaker than Svidler or Grischuk (Ivanchuk is a story by itself). Kamsky was a surprise winner four years ago, but he is also extended world top (even though IMO he didn't quite reach his former level after returning from retirement, at least not consistently).

If you had instead written "I am glad my favorite players have qualified for the candidates event", noone would have criticized you.

Hear, hear, ken h, but I'd extend your caveat against disparagement...to everyone from experts to flat-out beginners as well.

Ah, Anand Nair, you've changed your tune. I'm with you...the 128-player knockout format is not a good way to pick three candidates (and a TERRIBLE way to pick a "world champion"). This year's top three are all terrific. There are several others that would have been great picks too: Ponomariov, Kamsky, Gashimov, Radjabov, Karjakin, Nepomniachtchi, Mamedyarov. But something like a double RR or longer matches among a smaller group would be an improvement.

Ken, very, very wise words. Thank you.

From where I stand, the 2000 elo level is something to solemnly respect. The statistical resistance to moving beyond that is considerable.

"On his way to the World Championship, Mikhail Botvinnik wrote that he had to learn 'to defeat players who are outstanding even among masters, in other words, to beat grandmasters'". Then he had to learn to beat the top grandmasters. Exactly as you say. Thank you. dk

dude - uff da was clearly being sarcastic - vent your ire on anand nair who clearly made an illogical and insulting (to the players) statement

I realize it. You're just late to the party.

(Thanks David. I'm not trying to issue words of wisdom. Just trying to remind a few people that we're dealing with real people here - not cardboard cut outs).

"ChessBase's coverage of the World Cup has been pretty uninspired."
Chessbase now has an article on "people who made it possible": http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7545
"I want to express my admiration for the professional and creative work of ChessBase," wrote the Press Officer of the event. "Your brilliant reports helped the entire chess world enjoy the events in Khanty-Mansiysk during this tournament." Not at all, Nick [Nikita Kim]. The organisers of the World Cup went to extraordinary lengths to provide us with any assistance we needed. For this we thank you and look forward to a similar cooperation in future events."
A bit further down they show the difference between Fominikh and Sharevich: Fominikh wears a sleeveless brown blouse :) .

Sometimes CB just takes your breath away :)

I find the quote from Nikita Kim even more amazing. Assuming that it's authentic, didn't he recognize the writing of his own team or was he actually deeply ironic?? That being said, I guess Chessbase did reach a wider, or at least a different audience than the event homepage - and there's not much wrong with giving late but due credit to those who, along with the players, ran the show in KM.

At Tal Memorial, Svidler seems to replace Wang Hao who is apparently still suffering from heart problems - I don't think the organizers would or could un-invite a Chinese to make room for another Russian.
If Grischuk had won the final in Khanty, they had to choose between a Russian champion from St. Petersburg and a World Cup winner from Moscow ... .

Moronic post....just like the Kramnik fanboys in 2007 saying Vishy's title wasn't real b/c he hadn't won it in matchplay...they were silenced when he thrashed Vladdy a year later.

Anand went years winning every big tournament and was then called not elite because he hadn't become World Champion. You can't have it both ways. Anyone who knows chess knows that Anand is more than worthy to be World Champion.

Considering the existence of wch matches in such short succession it is pretty good. Atleast we will never know how the others (in the contemporary workd) would have fared with the wch matches going on. Here is the break down anyway

2008 won linares, mainz and the bonn wch. Did not win amber, Mainz , corus and Bilbao. That's 3 out of 7. Pretty good considering one was a wch match.

2009. Won leko-Anand rapid, azerbaijan vs world(winning team) Dint win world blitz, linares, Zurich rapid, amber, Mainz, tal memorial. That's 2/8. Less than expected.

2010. Won wch with topalov, Dint win corus, Nanjing pearl, Bilbao, london chess, arctic securities. That's 1/6. Less than expected but one was the wch match

2011. Won anand-shirov, botvinnik, anand-kazim rapid. Dint win tata steel, amber. That's 3/5. Pretty good with 3 more chances.

Great lineup (though it'd be interesting to see Topalov again...). It appears they're trying to give Nepo some good exposure to the top players, as he's certainly one of the most promising young players around.

Nepomniachtchi may have been invited (also) because he was Russian champion when the field was put together.

As to Topalov: I don't think he was 'under consideration' for Tal Memorial, nor would he accept an invitation to an event in Russia. His inactivity may be partly because his favorite events (Linares, MTel, seemingly also Nanjing) don't take place this year. However, he was apparently invited to Bilbao - the tournament homepage states that [Vallejo was invited] "because the five other players in the top ten have unavoidable professional or personal commitments for those dates". At the time of writing, these were Kramnik, Karjakin (both with very busy schedules), Topalov ("personal commitments?!"), Mamedyarov and Ponomariov (both play at the European Club Cup).
Will Topalov play at the European Team Championship in November? If not, we can start assuming that he has silently retired ... .

Of course Anand is a worthy world champion but his performance outside the WCC has not been very good. V poor when compared to Karpov or Kasparov perhaps it stands comparison with Kramnik Spassky or Petrosian? Perhaps not. More frequent WCC matches ?? but much shorter. He is more first among equals than clearly the best player - never dominant in classical chess. For all that a worthy WCC who will be tough to topple in match play with a very balanced all round game utterly professional and virtually flawless judgment. Also appears a great person to have as WCC.

hmmm cannot imagine anything that Levon has to say about anything than chess could be remotely interesting just like kasparov. At leat in
Levons case its not his fault people ask him. Ability in chess is evidence of well ...ability in chess period. Its like those old soccer annuals when they would ask a player what his favourite colour, meal, tv programme etc was.

I think Nepo has a better chance of upsetting at the Tal Memorial than Vallejo has at Bilbao (which is what I assume you meant, since Vallejo isn't playing at the Tal Memorial). In any case, it's a heck of a gauntlet he's got to run, virtually all of the top players in the world right now. Just wish it was a double round robin, but you can't have everything. Should still be a great show, and hopefully the players will bring some of Tal's creative and fighting spirit to the games (which, if I remember correctly, they generally do in this tournament).

In the computer age, there will be no no one dominant player. The age of dominance where hours of preparation can only matched be hours at the other end is no more true. That is the reason Kasparov dominated since his preparations for the match can be endlessly reused in the tournaments. Nowadays all the hours spent on openings is just used in that one game and you have to start all over again. So it is not possible that wch dominates in both matches and tournaments at the same time. Well Carlsen has done well in tournaments but hey quit the cycle stating clearly that he wants to concentrate on tournaments. In spite of that Anand has done reasonably well. Granted he dint win classical events for a while, but ok he came in shared first or second in several. Just that the point system in London dint give him first for eg. His rating has been on the rise and he is currently at his career best.

Such a rumor might spice up Bilbao even if it isn't true ... .
I am actually somewhat skeptical: Dennis Monokroussos is a "highly-respected chess blogger" (no disagreement from my side) but IMO it's safe to consider him a fan of Nakamura. I do not mean to imply that he is willing to create a rumor "at least three people away from an original source", but that he might be interested in spreading it.

The timing is quite 'peculiar': just before the first round of Bilbao (the Carlsen-Kasparov connection was revealed right before Nanjing) and also at a moment when the "Nakamura brand" may have lost some appeal - due to his relatively poor results in Bazna and Dortmund and due to his decision to skip the World Cup. On the other hand, this could be the moment to (finally) realize/admit that Kris Littlejohn as sole assistant isn't enough against the world top.

BTW, first prize in Wijk aan Zee was "just" 10,000 Euros - probably not enough to pay Kasparov. But of course he also got an appearance fee, plus appearance fees for Bazna and Dortmund, plus appearance fee and/or prize money for Bilbao - plusplusplus Rex Sinquefield!?

Kasparov and Nakamura appear to have similar personalities - I can see them being a much better fit than Kasparov and Carlsen.

And 6you know that how exactly?

Yea, that's a rumor worth tracking down. In hindsight, though, you have to wonder if true, why has Hikaru not shown much improvement since December 2010. His opening repertoire was wide and probably as deep before that date. What has changed there?

You are right. His performance with white in tournaments has been pretty abysmal for someone with his rating. He is already thinking about Gelfand next spring. He will not win with white unless his opponent takes chances. He is preparing d4, but not playing it in any tournaments.

"Some good results" is basically one good result in Wijk aan Zee. And maybe the match against Ponomariov, but IMHO Nakamura didn't really impress at that occasion.

In any case, IF they already work together since 12/2010, Dennis Monokroussos may turn out to be wrong: "My [DM's] prediction is that if the story proves true and they make it work, the American will his 2800 within a year." In nine months Nakamura went from Elo 2751 to 2753, three months and three events (Bilbao, Tal Memorial, London) remaining, 47 points missing for the time being ... .

Also, what is meant by "working with Kasparov"?
-- the exchange of some email?

Hard to say. While have a cache of strong opening novelties is important, there still is room for fighting spirit and sheer tactical acumen to manifest itself. Carlsen is noted for winning games in the middlegame--not necessarily starting out with a big edge from the opening. The best tactician should be the best player. You never know when the next great player will emerge.

One issue is that few players adapt a maximalist strategy: taking risks to win as White and as Black. Without that full commitment, a player is not going to reach 2851

He had sort of a unfortunate pairing, getting his first round White against Carlsen. Once the Ruy Lopez Berlin was chosen by Carlsen, there wasn't much that Anand could do to alter the result.

Aronian also had an undesireable pairing, but he did what he needed to do.

The winner of the tournament is likely to be one of the Big 3: Anand, Aronian, or Carlsen. I expect the winner will be the one who totes up the biggest score against the outsiders (Nakamura, Ivanchuk, and Vallejo).

This will be an interesting test for Nakamura, as there are no Dutch players to feed on. Only Vallejo is an obvious "customer", but Nakamura has to face the Big 3 six times, with equal colors. If he wins, or finishes either at +2 or within a half-point of 1st Place, then Nakamura will have gone a long way to dispell doubts about his ability to compete against a compact field of this level.

If the rumors about Kasparov are true, then the 2 Nakamura--Carlsen games might be of particular interest. kasparov might be particularly motivated to share some Top Shelf novelties, just for the satisfaction for a bit of revenge

Utter crap (re: once the Berlin was chosen).

Utter crap (re: once the Berlin was chosen).

"The best tactician should be the best player." ?

Not true. Botvinnik and Petrosian, to name just a few prominent players, were fine tacticians, but not the best of their day. They played strong positional chess supported by enough tactical implementation to succeed.

I agree that the importance of opening preparation is overestimated: it's necessary because everyone does it, at the same time this means that no single player can claim a big advantage compared to his peers. Recently there is actually some tendency to avoid the most topical lines (which, after some tactical fireworks, may result in a forced draw or sterile position) in favor of less ambitious setups (1.c4, d3 lines against the Ruy Lopez, etc.) which result in equal but playable positions. This also means that, IMHO, Kasparov's role in that respect is a bit overestimated: he was dominant at his prime, but now others use the same approach and put in the same amount of hard work.

"The best tactician should be the best player." Along with kenh, I disagree. The most universal player should be the best player - someone who is equally comfortable in attack and defense, tactical fireworks and slow positional maneouvring.

"maximalist strategy: taking risks to win as White and as Black. Without that full commitment, a player is not going to reach 2851"
Also not completely true: Kramnik relied heavily on the white pieces - this has changed a bit recently, but he has been well above 2750 for many years. Karjakin is also much stronger with the white pieces. And Radjabov is as opposite as it gets: aggressive and ambitious with black, rather tame with white (71% draws).

Overall, your picture seems a bit Nakamura-centric: He is a great tactician who (if you look at some of his losses) lacks world-top positional skills. His "maximalist attitude" includes failing to accept that a draw can be a logical and legitimate result. That's why his Elo is "just" 2751 rather than 2780 or 2800. Whether Sinquefield's money and Kasparovian magic can reduce or eliminate such weaknesses (little room to capitalize on his strengths even more?) remains to be seen.

Noted for future, cc.
Thx.

A way to assess the reliability of engine evaluations in endgames might be: Do the variations make sense (in endgames, engines are less likely to come up with strong surprising moves that most humans won't even consider)? Does the stronger, supposedly winning side make any progress within the engine search depth?

Engines are also relatively weak or unreliable in other endgames: opposite-colored bishops, queen vs. rook and pawns with a fortress for the weaker side, ... .

mishanp, I would rather like to go knowing 99% of theory than knowing nothing relying on my skills to calculate everything OTB. ;) It is next to impossible specially when you are against an opponent who has the advantage of knowing like 90% of theory. But I understand Anand's concern. When you know 99% you tend to play from your memory rather than checking out all the lines OTB to ensure everything is ok as when you know 90 or less percent of theory.

But yeah when you assess positions at such deep levels using your memory and calculating power, you can't be as accurate as a computer, and Anand could well have missed some lines arising out of different sequence of moves. I can think of one position where Anand would have wanted Qb7 instead Qc6?? But other than that, to me everything else looked best or forced from black point of view. I think mostly white had the option to dictate the course of the game.

But even 17...Qb7 instead of 17...Qc6 would have made any difference since this particular game went 18.e5 Nd5 19.Nxd5 Qxd5. as the Queen is displace to d5 anyway. so wonder what he meant by he got himself into trouble. 20...Qb7 instead of 20...Bg7???

Thanks for the report! Nakamura has reasons to be disgusted about his play for not seeing a move like 25.Bc6. If you aspire to become a world champion in this day and age, you can't miss such moves. But I think he is a bit ambitious when he judges the resulting position within a few minutes after the game that it is winning for him. The move may not be something completely unanticipated by Anand. Had he played on in that position against Anand, he would have more disgusted with himself for not winning a possible K+Q+B+2P vs K+Q+4P?? May be Hikaru can show us how it is winning? ;-)

Replied where? According to the computer Bc6 is +/- which isn't winning but better.

It is ignorance rather.;-) The position may be completely winning for him against his chess partner who helps him out. I think soon he will come to understand Anand's skills when he studies his games.

Which computer? At what depth? And what is the line?

And does the computer show a winning plan here for my below line that black can get almost forcefully? 25.Bc6 Kf6 26.Rxd7 Rxd7 27.Bxd7 Bxb2 28.Be8 Qe7 29.Qxb5 Bd4 30.Qxc4 (not completly forced though) 30...Bxf2 31.Bxf2 Qxe8 32.Qe4 Kg7 33.Bd4+ f6.

He replied to one of his fans. Look into ChessVibes report for round 2. ChessVibes also give analysis that show Bc6 is not winning

"Of course" (or: as always) Nakamura replied via Twitter. Not his first strange, ignorant or arrogant Twitter comment ... . There was a rather analogous one after his drawn Olympiad game against Kramnik - the Russian chess scene (was it Shipov in particular?) wasn't amused: Nakamura was worse, though not quite losing in that game and suddenly claimed that he missed a win.
If Kasparov is now coaching Nakamura ... guess modesty, politeness and respect for fellow world top players aren't part of his lessons ,:( .

That's a warrior's response.

True. Chessok game annotation with deep Rybka, or annotation with pure computer help for that matter, is one example of some wrong assessment of positions. But I don't just rely on computer moves alone. So don't you worry, about me or my chess skills. Nakamura will look into my lines if he gets to see them!

But why all this support for him from nowhere all of a sudden? Is Kasparov really behind the scenes??!! ;) ;)

more than likely. At any rate, I don't much care. Bc6 is clearly a better move though my amateurish eyes can't find a win after it.

Not :-(

Vishy lost to Chucky... Maybe he got distracted after seeing Carlsen lose...

Well, at least two more world champions lost today: Ponomariov and Petrosian :)

Right! Geez, I feel a lot better now.

Yes, but there's one winner for every loser - so winning is as fashionable as losing!

BTW, current world blitz champion Aronian did not lose, and former KO champ Kasimdzhanov scored a convincing and fairly spectacular win (against IM Maier, Elo 2352).

I'll bet Hikaru Nakamura hates being called 'Naka.'

Sierwan basically said Ivanchuk is in big trouble after his ...Bxe3 move and Benjamin agreed with him. They then tried out several variations and concluded that White has a clear plan to improve the position and black has the only option of d5 which opens up Vishy's bishop on d3 and will lead to disaster. So their conclusion was Vishy is clearly better. As I said in my earlier comment I was using my Houdini x64 engine in parallel and it dint see much although but I never trust engines in their evaluation. And then as it happens Vishy just missed Black's ...Bg4 intermedzo move. Benjamin pointed out as to how it can be an illusion since until black's knight was on g6, there was no ...Bg4 possibility and that is why white had an oversight or rather missed this move. But the moment it was exchanged and black's rook appeared on ...g6, now all of a sudden ...Bg4 is obvious deflection of queen from control over the e5 pawn.

Earth to Simple Pole etc.!

World Champion Ponomariov?! You must be on planet Ilyumzhinov.

Ok, interesting, thanks!

Note to self: Do not attempt humor on Internet.

Indeed. Remember that most of your readers consider thinking a pointless exercise.

Uh...no, he won it fair and square over Ivanchuk (who had beaten Vishy in the SF)

Huh?!

You must be talking about Ilyumzhinov's funny dice rolling contest in 2000...but "World Champion"? The knockouts are not a satisfactory way to pick three of eight candidates to battle it out for the right to challenge the champion, but to put such a lofty title on a circus like that is silly

Give it a rest. This isn't an audition for Groundhog Day.

Your opinion...doesn't make it fact or true. Bottom line is that he won the title, dethroning Vishy. I'm sure many top players would disagree with your disrespect of that title.

Well said.

Before you embrace your Naka too deeply, you should consider the other side of it, pioneer: that Magnus, according to Yasser and greg Kaidanov on ICC, is more or less winging the openings these days instead of the excellent opening prep he demonstrated in Nanjing after working with GK. And because he is letting his prep slide, they surmise, so he's entering games w/o novelties as well.
He spent a chunk of time this game trying to figure out how to come out the opening, and didn't find it. The result: he made it relatively easy for Hikaru to reach equality. That was also evident timewise when watching the game proceed on ChessOK.

Yes I did hear the comment on Carlen's opening preparation on icc and I agree. I dont see Carlsen's strength in the openings at all. He firmly believes he will outplay his opponent from equal positions but he has to realize that it is only possible against the low 2700 whom he beats consistently. He will feel even more miserable now since the person who is giving points to everybody in this tournament is the one against whom he lost. btw a very interesting game from Anand, the Karpov style... keeping all pieces on back ranks and only marching king to g4 and finally everything comes alive.

Not too impressed, Pirc. All the competitors easily outplayed Vallejo, and we would expect the world champion to do so too. Carlsen had a little accident.Vallejo did not exactly go for the throat in this game. How impressed are you with Anand's performance so far?

Groan.

;-)

When will you be celebrating your 13th birthday? We'll all send ya a card with the world champ's mug on it. In your case, it better be the current champ by then.

:-)

Bah, when one's opponent simply blunders a piece after having a winning position, nobody takes pride in winning a game or claims much credit for it. Not me, not Vallejo, not anyone. That is not disrespect.
Vallejo got the three points, that's obvious. It is also obvious that he is a great player.
It is a moot point whether getting mauled by the field is actually a good experience for the player toughening them up for harder competition) or a nasty psychological blow (as happened Short when he played top Grandmasters too early).

Oh, I am not saying Paco should take pride in the win.

But TIME is a factor in chess too. And if you consume virtually all of your time to gain a winnning position, then I think it is fair enough to say that the blunder resulted from bad overall play, if one considers time management an ingredient of the performance.

So positionally speaking, Carlsen may have "outplayed" Paco, but he did so by investing (too) much.

It's like a Boxer who wins 11 rounds by giving his all and then is knocked out in the 12th because he has no power left. You could argue as well that he "ouboxed" his opponent - but at what cost?

I simply think that all this talk about Paco shouldn't play at the GP etc. is just disrespectful. No matter how the game against Carlsen was won.

Pacos record against the GP field is
1-7-21 (wins, losses, draws).
Nakamuras record against the GP field is 1-5-18.

So Nakamrua doesn't belong there too?

It's time to accept the maths of chess: organizer = money = tournament = living for the chess players = right to invite wild cards as they choose.

Criticizing the selection of Pacos is pure disrespect for the people who put their money into chess that the lights don't go out completely.

If I was the sponsor, such behaviour by the chess community, especially by people like Mig, would be very alienating.

Unfortunatelly, you never know in advance who will have a bad time over the board who not.

I remember Naiditsch winning Dortmund and Gustaffson coming close, Smeets close to winning Linares (I think), etc.

Especially in Dortmund and Wijk aan Zee a lot of players (Van Wely, Stellwagen, Smeets, Naiditsch, Gustaffson, Maier, etc.) are simply there because of sponsors wild cards.
But the same is true at many other tournaments as well, just that usually a russian or so is selected from a broad field of good players.

Talking about Vallejo:
He was a constant at Linares, he knows how it is to be beaten by the best. His ego wont suffer too much, after all its a difference if you get outplayed by the #1 - #7 or by the #50 - #60.

I recall streaks of 5 or more losses by Shirov, Kamsky, Ivanchuk - all of which did suffer from a "blown ego".

I hope Paco will draw a few more games and maybe win another one.

The only thing I really didn't like was the unfair treatment Paco is receiving for his involvement in the GP - especially on the ICC and here by Mig.

Well, you're right, commonsense, and looking back at big tournaments historically, you can find some majors one by a (now) less-than-famous grandmaster.
People come prepared or step up for the home crowd. It happens all the time in many sports.

That is a different argument from the financial one, of course, but they're both respectable.
Vallejo is favorite among Spanish-speaking chess fans, of which there are many, so why not insert him into the equation if it will make for better theatre?
Two lower-rated hometown favorites would be pushing it in such a small field, but regardless of how he beat Carlsen, Vallejo has a full point already, and as far as I'm concerned, he's made a mark.

Well, he might well pull something off. All the players will try to beat him because they will want to keep up with the others, and they might well take too many risks or take him for granted in the process- and after all he is over 2700 and quite capable of beating anyone given a chance.

Well, let's see how he handles the heat today. Nakamura seems to think he can afford a little aggression before castling against him.
Maybe they should rename it "Slamming Paco (twice)" instead of "Grand Slam Masters Final".

Exaggerate much?
Kasparov-Anand 1995... enough said.

LOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!

That private match?? And duck afterwards fearing defeat?? enough said.

Want more? Kasparov-Kramnik 2000!

I think Nakamura was lucky to win today! I might be wrong but I thought Pons had him. I wouldn't be surprised if he said he is disgusted with his play.

Hmmm., looks like "getting" sarcasm is not your strong suite :-)

The greatest player on earth lets off Aronian with a warning playing White. This shows that the World Champion also has a heart...

Naka said his goal was to hit 2800 this year, so we will see. He's got a shot at it with strong performances in Bilbao and at the super strong London Classic, which has quickly become a highlight of the chess calendar. I guess he will play in the Blitz in Moscow in Novemeber (?), but I don't know of any other "serious" events between now and the end of the year that will give him a shot at 2800. No Nanjing this year I know.

I thought that 2800 goal by some certain time was a rumor. Or did Nakamura say that?

Nakamura said so himself after winning Wijk aan Zee - "I hope to break 2800 by the end of this year":
http://www.tatasteelchess.com/history/recent/year/2011/report/13
Besides (currently) Bilbao and (December) London, he will also play the classical part of Tal Memorial. So it's still possible - but somehow I don't think he anticipated his Bazna and Dortmund results when he made the ambitious statement quoted above ... .

true but where else to go? Dennis Monokroussos does a great job.

Chessvibes ruined itself with a cruddy website.

that's a good question. it's tough to find the right balance between informative and entertaining... i'll have to check monokroussos out. thanks for the tip!

I know it's horrible. Mig violating our rights and all.

In terms of information, whychess.org has quickly become part of my daily chess diet (and by now I got used to the somewhat confusing site design which may have inspired Chessvibes). The only downside: the fact that Colin McGourty writes a lot for whychess means that mishanp has little time left for chessintranslation.com ,:) .

Of course there's also Chessbase which, in any case, offers quantity.

For discussions, this place may still be fine - but we have to do it ourselves without help or keywords from Mig. Maybe he could offer a new thread (headline) every now and then even if he doesn't have time or inspiration to write something himself? Otherwise we might end up discussing the London Classic in this World Cup thread which has grown to 700 comments ... .

"We love you"? Have you even met the man? Unfortunate incident but let#s keep it real!!

phx, is that supposed to make sense? who said anything about rights?

i guess it's my fault for continuing to come back hoping for something different.

Dear 'what', no pun intended, but what can I honestly say, except that I respect you, and understand you position.

This very second, my mother is dying, nurses at home, hospital beds, I am not kidding... Life is no joke.

Love is a very spiritual thing and yes, the chess world does love Vasily. I am not a bible person, but there love can be translated as charity. Or generosity of heart. I am someone who uses this term love, and it is a very individual matter. If I were to put the highest standard as to how I label or view relations, to me, a friend is the one that I think is overused. Not much different. Folks throw the term around. A friend, to me, is someone you can call in the middle of the night, and that listen rather than dismiss.

Forgive me if I offend anyone, and yes, there is great fondness for GM Ivanchuk, his vulnerability, his fragility, his strength, his nerves, his genius.

Again, but hope no one is offended. From where I stand this morning, life is a marvel. We all are borne, we all die, we all love, and sometimes hate, but we all get some type of chance....

Nurses on the way, let me run. I love, and for that, I have no apologies. Some folks can be counted on to laugh at me, others appreciate, and that is life.

Peace to everyone here. dk

All very well said, thank you. Having read most of the major classics on Illusion, Control, Power, and Depersonalization such as by read Wendell Berry, Chomsky, Canetti, Jacqes Ellul, Mumford, I can concur. All is fine here, take care Daily Dirt folks. dk

"Have the senses of the body their delights, while the soul is left devoid of pleasures?...Give me a man in love: he knows what I mean....But if I speak to a cold man, he just does not know what I am talking about..." Augustine, Tractate in Johannes 26, 4.

Classics on Illusion...have you tried the Mulapariyaya Sutta or Brahmajala Sutta?

Thank you. Nice to meet you Uff. Yes, all that. I spent two years reading the first six books of the Bhagavad-Gita. Sometimes it was all too much to read three lines without feeling like I needed to smoke three packs of cigarettes. And I do not smoke (lifetime runner). * I was almost a Fulbright to Japan, learned the Puja in Sanskrit, etc. * My guru lived with Maharishi in India for eight years, two in a room with no light, food through the slot in the door. * I told her that I was willing to pay any price for awakening, and the next day the lawyers started calling. Within three months, I lost everything. Leave the forty million and be out by five pm. Literally. * I went back to chess after all that... had not played since 1973. Chess is among the little that remains after the collapse. dk

You weren't skeptical of text that was awakening you to the virtues of smoking?

Any idea how Sanskrit and gurus ended up being the path to chess? They seem to be virtually exact opposites...are they really?

LOL! Yes Re1/Qe2 are the 'approved' moves, and I have been playing the MB for twenty years with good results, BUT you must understand that White has an inferior position after 10,,, a6. You just have to count on being able to whip up an attack out of almost nothing:)

Chessbase Magazine had an opening article a couple of issues ago, but it was literally no help. It concluded that Black ha insufficient comp for the pawn in that line.

Having said all that, it does lead to an interesting game, and I still enjoy playing it.

Oops. Obviously meant White has insufficient comp for the pawn.

I went back and double checked this. The article is in CBM 140 and is pretty thorough. Written by Moisenko, and covers both accepting and declining the gambit. After 10 ,,, a6 he gives four moves: Qe2/Re1/Qf3/Kh1.

His overall analysis seems to be somewhat pessamistic towards the White side, but does say that white has a lead in development and the Black king remains in the center for the pawn, and that a "deep knowledge and sharp tactical eye" are necessary to play either side.

I will shut up now :)

The interesting thing is that at this stage, Anand and Aronian may not be too concerned with vying for 1st Place, and so they might not press too hard when they play their 2nd leg against Ivanchuk. Carlsen will play maximally, in the hopes of stealing the tournament from Ivanchuk. Then again, maybe Anand and Aronian will be motivated for revemge.

Thanks, Dondo - very helpful. I'll have to track down that issue.

I did suspect it's not "good" for White, but I get to have all the fun. I'm looking for the best ways to keep up pressure and keep play alive, and of course to be better prepared than my opponent - you've found the resource for me.

It's interesting, even Chessbase is not consistent in their statements:

http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7583

"Time control: 90 minutes/40 moves + 30 minutes + 10 seconds/move starting with the first move."

http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7585

"Time control: 90 minutes/40 moves + 60 minutes + 10 seconds/move starting with the first move."

Frankly, it's hard to believe both got into such time trouble without having any kind of increment...

The tournament homepage, quoted by DOug, must be right!!?
Incidentally, this is (close to) what Danailov wants everywhere:
http://www.chessintranslation.com/2011/02/danailov-chess-should-either-change-or-die/
Q How, in your opinion, should chess change so as not to die?
Danailov: [Sofia and football/Bilbao rules everywhere] "And finally, we need to reduce the time control. A game should last no longer than four hours. The 30 seconds a move increment (and any increment in general!) should be abandoned. That’s essentially deprived fans of the enthralling spectacle of time trouble."
Perfect on planet Danailov would be 30 minutes without increments to finish the game. And he wants to become FIDE president ... IMO even Ilyumzhinov is a lesser evil.

Thanks for the explanation. I see and start to believe.

Great game from Ivanchuk. The blacks all huddled up in one corner around their king, but they couldn't protect him. Wild attack.

No it was a sacrifice as Bilbao commentators tweeted "Anands idea of sacrificing a pawn was interesting, but good defense from nakamura"

Thanks for info. Anand is having some difficulty imposing himself on this tournament. The Berlin seems to be being used against him a lot, maybe his opponents feel that it is the best way to stop him displaying his strengths (well, it is also simply a popular opening now).

Not just that, it is also something Anand himself uses. So if he sees that is a good defense against e4, then its not a bad idea to emulate him. A nice video interview by Anand on icc facebook page http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaNMU2aNQoA on his game against Carlsen reveals some nice details on how these players approach an endgame. Anand mentioned that he recollected Kasparov vs Kramnik Tilburg where some precise moves were necessary and he pretty much nailed that to get the draw with Carlsen.

Regarding imposing himself on the tournament, he has always tried to get something out of the opening and then just play the position that comes. If its a draw, its a draw. Today he did have a nice idea of an interesting pawn sacrifice. But Nakamura just defended well.

I can't speak for all Naka fans, but the main reason many of them were "shouting the house" was because so many haters were regularly spewing out idiotic comments about his ability and worthiness against top players. Now that many of them have been silenced after his win in Wijk aan Zee, the atmosphere has become more civil.

He still has an outside chance of winning Bilbao, BTW -- he has Vallejo with B and Magnus with W...of course, he could lose both those games as well.

Does Naka rhyme with cracka? Or does it sound like the plastic snapping teeth?

Does Hikaru refer to himself as Naka?

Should we refer to you as Pion?

(not sure if that would be pronounced Pie on or Pee on)

Haha, pion means "pawn" in Dutch! We would have to ask GM Hikaru Nakamura how he prefers to be called himself in short - maybe "Naka" is at least better than the silly "H-bomb" which the London organizers still use. To me, Naka seems no more or less odd or impolite than Pono, Moro or Nepo (Leko doesn't have such problems at all ,:) ). BTW does anyone know if the current leader in Bilbao actually likes to be called Chucky??

"Michael Adams, Alexi Shirov, Peter Leko etc. who belonged to elite at certain point in time but failed to remain there for longer."
Huh? Adams was top10 or close from 7/1998-4/2007, Leko from 1/2000-11/2009, Shirov from 1/1992-1/2004 - apparently ten years isn't enough? A nice source to quickly check such facts is the German site http://www.schachchronik.de/ratings/spieler.php .

As to Nakamura, at least our blogmaster - after many months - brought up the good ol' all-caps NAKAMUUUUURA! again. And if Hikaru wins in the end, Mig might even blog rather than just tweet about Bilbao?!
Nothing at all 'wrong' with Nakamura's win against Aronian, but it was the first "regular" win against an established elite player in three elite events. Beating Nisipeanu, Georg Meier and Vallejo doesn't count as much, and his second Dortmund game against Kramnik was played under very special circumstances. What does "elite" mean? If it means top5 or more, Nakamura still has something left to prove - at least in terms of consistency.

As to his manners, his Twitter account still has room for improvement: claiming he was completely winning against Anand, blaming his loss against Ivanchuk on the time control - when the opponent had the same time control, the same time trouble and also played some second- or third-best moves. For a winner, it's relatively easy to show good sportsmanship - but that ain't enough ... .

Yeah, I noticed myself as soon as my post appeared ,:) - in the given case, "writing Naka ..." would have done the job without quotation marks in the original. But your reply is also an example of something I don't like: quoting something out of context. No big deal here, but relevant and rather unfair to the person (often a GM) quoted at other occasions.

BTW, who are you to refer to yourself in the third person? Or did you discuss your post with the entire faculty on a Sunday morning (European time)??

We apologize, but our royal connections are not something we can discuss on an open board.
We refer you to the columns of Mr Winter for further examples of this practise.

"Short will likely try some of the more offbeat stuff in his repertoire."
Hah!
Seems like half of Nigel repertoire is offbeat, cc!

I don't base my sense of Hikaru's place in world chess by virtue of wins alone. Nor do you, I didn't think.
Holding elite players to draws ain't easy, either. Many people appear to be incapable of doing it. ;)

As to shortening names, some are more natural than others. I see that lots of white-bread American folk have trouble with them longer ruskie names - or any long name for that matter.
Even Russians have trouble with Ian Nepomniachtchi - so why not shorten it.

Nakamura.
Is that so hard to pronounce or long to utter?
Does it make one an 'insider' to say the man's last name without the last four letters?

For soytn, it doesn't have the mellifluous tone of Pono or Moro, or Nepo.

Ahh, Nepo. Why doesn't he just make that permanent? ;)

True. I am aware that Nigel has a huge book collection, and they're not there for looks.

I'm not too surprised about today's result contrary to what you said earlier. But it's cool that he pulled if off with something hidden away for years.

That should tick off Garry, and send him off to the research dept.!

Yep, a draw against an elite player is an achievement - but it doesn't necessarily mean you're an elite player yourself because somewhat weaker guys also manage it at least sometimes even with black, e.g. Short and Caruana (Corus 2010) or Wang Hao (Tata 2011). And while Leko is/was clearly an elite player, Nakamura and his fans probably don't consider him a role model [simplifying a bit for the sake of argument, I am not a Leko hater].

On shortening names, on this and other blogs it's a matter of writing rather than speaking/pronouncing. Let's forget about Nepomniachtchi (BTW I read that he doesn't like "Nepo" and suggests that we should call him Ian if we have trouble with his full last name). In the other cases, it comes down to whether it's wrong to skip four letters (mura) but OK to skip six (mariov or zevich).

Another complicated case is Vachier-Lagrave ... . It would be wrong to call him Vache (cow in French, though it can also mean luck in colloquial French), I often write VL but wouldn't pronounce it ... .

Vash e ay Lagrav or Vash e err Lagrav - either way it rolls off the tongue.

I must (have to) agree with Ian.

Nakak ak ak ak ak ak is what I hear.
Like that?!

As for Hikaru's playing... I'm not just talking about the draws in this tornament (as the New Yorkers say), but everything since Wijk aan Zee. Sure it's a bit inconsistent, but few other people can make a claim for staying power at that level.

Could Max Vachier-Lagrave have done the same to date given the chance since Tata Steel? Morozevich since the Russian Championship? Wang Hao since Tata Steel?

Arguable perhaps. You have the stats.

Again, I meant writing rather than speaking. Chess fans should be used to Russian/Soviet names - likewise, fans of long-distance running must be used to African names, but do say or write Geb when they mean Gebrselassie ... .

As to Hikaru: As I wrote before, it all depends on what is considered elite. Nakamura himself said that he wants to cross 2800 by the end of this year and wants to play a role in the next WCh cycle. Presumably he "planned" to qualify by rating, now he depends on Sinquefield's money and the unpredictable outcome of the bidding procedure. These are very high standards, his own standards ... .

"Given the chance" is rather non-trivial: This year he got as many or more invitations than anyone else. In a way, he was treated as a top5 player while he is still "just" one of maybe 15 top10 players. What will happen next year? He shouldn't be re-invited to Dortmund, new organizers' standards are that the two bottom finishers (this time, Meier and Nakamura) will be replaced by someone else.

There were a few earlier games against Aronian where Anand didn't know what he was doing ...

To some extent may be. But it was uncharacteristic of Anand to play too quickly in a critical position and blundered with a move like 24.Qf5. A few moves before also he played fast. Since the tournament is more or less over for him with this random-element-favorite-player-promotion football scoring system, may be he was not motivated to defend the position to a draw.

When anti-Anand systems are in place, Anand should choose to participate only in normal scoring system in the future.

Motivation factor likely. He is sharp in calculations. No one ever can beat him in that!

You are trying to hard, chesshire cat, to put Anand down. Please don't bring the old folks, they are weak compared to todays players. But remember, the recent beating Aronian had from Anand!

Anti-Anand systems indeed. You grow worse by the day.

"This year he got as many or more invitations than anyone else. In a way, he was treated as a top5 player while he is still "just" one of maybe 15 top10 players. What will happen next year? He shouldn't be re-invited to Dortmund"

How many other "top 5" players have won a supertournament this year? Please. There is no invitation Naka received this year that he hasn't earned.

Pirc, I have never met you, but I already know your profession. You are a press officer for Wall Street. The "old folks" were rather strong, you will find. And that was in any case irrelevant to the point I was making.

Sonas or someone wrote an article in chessbase with statistical data that the short draws or agreed upon draws are drastically down compared to old days. But yet a dumb scoring system like a 3 point for win is now introduced. And what is the justification?

What's it got to do with Anand?? And why does it affect him more or less than anyone else? He had a bad tournament, it happens, no need to make excuses. Surely that Vallejo 1-0 is some mistake, site is down or something.

Nope, apparently Nakamura did flag on move 40 - see comment by "editors" at Chessbomb: "Time loss: confirmation by Chessdom journalist on site".

The bullet king with such time problems?? Suppose he IS getting old : )

True to some extent, but ... how many invitations did Karjakin get after winning Corus A in 2009? How many invitations did Mamedyarov get after finishing shared first in Tal Memorial last year?
Granted, sole first is more impressive than shared first - and Nakamura's 9/13 was better than Karjakin's 8/13. But in both cases, the answer to my question is ... zero.

BTW, "He shouldn't be re-invited to Dortmund" wasn't my opinion, but a reference to organizers' standards or rules.

I guess Nakamura simply thought that he already made the time control - this happens to amateurs, but shouldn't happen to professionals.

Of course it has to do with Anand. Because he is the world champion and the top player. Who else can be the most affected other than Anand?

Chess is a game of skill. Winning a tournament is a sort of attestment of this skill for so long, I mean, assuming no game fixing was involved in tournaments. Now clearly a chance factor is introduced by means of this 3-1-0 system.

World candidate tournament is another example of chance. Please do this to test my theory. Invite some people for a pure game of skill where you are an expert. No one will come to play with you. Ask those same people for a game of skill and chance. They will immediately agree. Why? We're not here for fun but we're here to decide who is better. What should matter - skill or majority opinion?

So it is becoming like - Dilute the system, Dilute the throne!

DId Corus A in 2009 have the world's top 4 rated players in it? I don't think so. Neither Kramnik nor Anand were there.

Now, Mamedyarov, I totally agree with...he should have gotten more respect after winning the Tal (albeit shared first)...although neither Carlsen nor Anand were there.

But neither has the marketablility of Naka, and neither won their tournament ahead of the reigning world champion.

>>> But yet a dumb scoring system like a 3 point for win is now introduced. And what is the justification?" <<<

If a win is worth more than two draws is simply a matter of taste.
If a win is that much harder to achieve in chess than a draw is a matter of taste as well.
If a win is that much more exciting as a draw is - right - a matter of taste.

There are good arguments for the 3-1-0 and there are good arguments for the "traditional" scoring system. And there are good arguments against both systems.

In the end it is a matter of how you weigh each argument and what your personal preference is.

If I pay $$$$$$ for some chess players to move pieces on a board, then I choose the scoring system I like. Whether that is 3-1-0 or 5-2-0 or 2-1-0 doesn't matter.
If they want my bucks they play my system.

Many chess players have made a living by drawing. I don't blame organizers who help players make a living by winning.

If there is a guy who has +0 -0 =5 and another guy is +2 -3 =0 then I thank the latter one for the spectacle he put on and place him in front of the dull =5 guy.

That iy MY personal opinion. You are entitled to yours.

But you are right, the 3-1-0 system is full of chance. The chance to climb the rankings by actually beating someone.

Other than that, it requites MORE skills to climb the rankings with the 3-1-0 system than with the "traditional" system.

As for mathematical chance, there is not more and not less in either system. Because the game is still played over the board in both cases.

There's not much that's happened to amateurs that hasn't happened to professionals.

Inb4 "He didn't really beat Carlsen and Nakamura."

Hi Leo, sure, Anand wouldn't make such excuses after the event. And me neither! ;) I complained about the 3-1-0 before the event. I complained about the double round robin world candidate before the event. So what you see now as an excuse is a continuation of my existing complaint!

3-1-0,
It is organizer's choice and all those are fine. But I only wish we have a different rating system for a 3-1-0 scoring. Like we don't include the rapid ratings into the regular rating.

I didn't (mean to) say that Karjakin's win in Corus 2009 was "exactly the same" as Nakamura winning in 2011 - just that it should have been worth more than zero invitations. The tournament was by no means weak: it had five top 10 players (Ivanchuk, Carlsen, Morozevich, Radjabov, Movsesian) plus Aronian who was #11 at the time. Ivanchuk and Morozevich were out of form (5.5/13) but not as much as Grischuk (4.5/13) and Shirov (4/13) this year - which partly explains Nakamura's monster score. Movsesian later turned out to be a tourist in the top10, but did finish shared second. In retrospect, Corus 2009 may have been the first sign that Karjakin (then world #27 and just #11 in the Corus field) has potential for more, which he proved in the meantime.

Marketability ... sure. Though in terms of playing style, Mamedyarov is no less attractive than Nakamura - and IMO it's time to forget about his Aeroflot cheating accusations, an incident rather than something systematic as in Topalov's case. Nakamura is "more marketable" because he is American, maybe also because he is Asian American, and arguably due to his provocative presence on the Internet. Fair enough, but IMHO a bit unfair to "Soviet" players.

Even though I am a Naka fan, I am glad for Vallejo. There is no reason a super-GM should be disrespected the way Paco was before this event started. Beating Carlsen, Ivanchuk, and Naka is nothing to sneeze at. Period.

No, his best legacy would be to beat Gelfand, then beat Carlsen in the next cycle...then he'd probably move ahead of Karpov in the GOAT discussion (but still behind Kasparov).

Well put!
The half point for a draw method is relatively a new idea in the long history of chess. At one time (late 19thC IIRC) you were just asked to replay the game, the draw was worth nothing.
Drawmeisters were in for a very long and tough tournament in that era!

One should NEVER forget the Aeroflot cheating accusations until Mamedyarov apologizes.

Videos are here: http://www.bilbaomastersfinal.com/en/final-de-maestros/videos/

I was watching the live feed yesterday and they were as surprised as everyone, although they only kept saying "Paco won!?" for a long time as LG was interviewing Carlsen (btw he couldn't believe it neither) Nakamura's face was a poem but what can one do? Those are the rules, it's a stupid and unfortunate incident, maybe even worse than dropping a piece or a checkmate in a better position because of zeitnot. Btw, Vallejo was clearly better before, it seems, and only during his own zeitnot did he got the worse position, not lost in any case. I hope Nakamura recovers well for today's game; maybe the whole tournament will make people and Vallejo himself take him more seriously and try an assault at the top. I don't know for sure if he belongs there, but he's certainly better than his current rating (WC U20 and so on)

Also, for the spanish listeners and the curious, i took the link from the official site. Open this
http://ams01.egihosting.com/11831?MSWMExt=.asf
in VLC or whatever other player with streaming capabilities and you can have the live video without java "interferencies"

PS what two games from Carlsen and Aronian!

1975.

To qualify to play Anand, Gelfand (#15) beat Grischuk, Kamsky, Mamedyarov, Ponomariov, Karjakin, Jakovenko, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Judit Polgar... or rather: or since you like numbers... #5, #8, #9, #10, #14,#27, #29, #49 (Judit!). And of course the ratings are irrelevant.

Well, the World Cup was one of the qualification events for the Candidates, if that is counted one could just as well count the four Grand Prix tournaments he played when he finished below the top ten there. But I don't see any reason to take two game blitz feasts seriously, it would be fun with a World Champion that is ranked around #20, maybe people would finally stop thinking that World Champion by default must equal best player in the world.

I won't disagree, but still find it odd that Topalov and Mamedyarov are treated differently.
In Topalov's case, cheating accusations were a campaign by his manager, he/they benefitted from that campaign, they keep repeating them whenever given the chance. And all this is accepted or at least tolerated, and didn't prevent him from getting tournament invitations.
Mamedyarov's accusations were made in the heat of the moment, and he punished himself by dropping out of the event. Sure, it doesn't deserve a beauty prize, but it was an incident - nothing less and nothing more.

I'm with you on that last one re: Boris Gelfand. That's a gauntlet.

LOL. You're killing me! ohmygod.

I guess the difference for me is that i'm consistent. My two least favorite players are Topalov and Mamedyarov both for the same reason. And if I *EVER* run an invite tournament... I would never invite these two characters even if they *paid* me to play.

OK, good for you that you are consistent (no pun intended!). But many organizers, and many chess fans are less consistent.
Even you - or others thinking the same way - might run into a problem: What if a sponsor (I guess you don't have the money yourself?) says "I will provide the money it takes IF Topalov is participating"? Not very likely at present, but quite so a year ago ... . I believe that you would still be consistent, but others in your place might not be!?

Don't you think that this "adjustment" to the time difference would be especially hard in the early stages of the Bilbao games?

However, he started Bilbao with a win against Nakamura.
His loss against Vallejo was probably due to over-optimistic play, at least that's what GM Romain Edouard wrote in his analysis of the game. Probably in hope of another Vallejo meltdown.

His loss to Carlsen was expected, Carlsen has a long history of beating Ivanchuk virtually every time they play and that has nothing to do with problems to adjust to time difference.

His losses came with the black pieces, which is nothing stunning either.

We shall not forget that after the traditional scoring, Carlsen had won the tournament outright.
And we shall not forget that Carlsens stupid play against Vallejo, where he consumed all his time to setup his blunder that robbed him a full point (or three in the 310 scoring).

So YES, Ivanchuk was robbed. But not of the tournament victory. He was robbed in Sao Paulo.

Didn't Invanchuk stay in the meantime in Frankfurt where he traveled the next day with his wife?

This point needs to be emphasized: "In general, the idea to divide the tournament on two continents is stupid and does not improve chances for quality chess."

Because Carlsen is clearly better than him and owns him (with either W or B) -- as was the case here, and earlier this year in Bazna as well. That's why.

They don't do it for the quality chess, but for the quality prize money.

What does "clearly better than him" mean? In terms of rating he is clearly better than lots of people but he doesn't kill them like that, time after time. Ivanchuk has reasonable results against people that Carlsen does not "own", so for me, it's a mystery. He genuinely plays several levels lower than his best against Carlsen, time and time again. Not disputing the great play of Carlsen, either.

Yeah, it's strange, Ivanchuk has been unbeatable for Anand and Kramnik the last five years but they have both lost to him and drawn lots of games, while Carlsen has 8 wins and +6 in the same period, and that includes many games from before Carlsen reached the top 10.

Also against Radjabov does Carlsen have a big plus while he's never beaten Gelfand. But Gelfand is regularly crushed by Radjabov (+0 -4 =3 in their last games). Not to speak of the Aronian-Anand mystery. Head to head results are hard to draw conclusions from.

Hard to imagine a stronger tournament ever than Univé with Giri, Vachier-Lagrave, Polgar and Kramnik :)

Ivanchuk's score and play against Carlsen is a mystery, probably "something between the ears" as a Dutch saying goes. But it isn't the only mystery:
- Carlsen also owns Topalov: same story, it isn't just that Topalov loses, but how he lost in quite a few games
- Aronian owns Anand
- Kasparov used to own Shirov ... of course here a plus score was logical, but not +17=15-0
Maybe most mysterious: Svidler does, or did own Nakamura. They haven't faced each other in a while, next stop for both is Tal Memorial.

I wonder if Anand has been helping Koneru (of course we'll never know for sure unless she wins the match)...looking forward to that title match.

I doubt Anand will waste his time with Humpy. She's a decent player with a good memory, but a definite underdog against someone as classy as Hou - this is kinda like a Federer-Nadal matchup when Fed' used to be #1.

if two players want to draw, there will be no stopping them. Therefore, any written provision is silly.

There are still many other ways for two willing players to tacitly arrange a draw. The most common method is to concoct a position which engenders a (relatively plausible) 3-Fold Repetition of Moves. Often, this can be achieved by a "Perpetual Check", or perpetual harassment of some other piece.

Occasionally, the players who want a Draw will play down until "Bare Kings" are on the
chessboard. That's a draw via insufficient material. Less frequent are dry by the 50 Move Rule, or Draw by Stalemate.

The advent of the Sofia rules has led to an increase in the number of Draws reached by Triple Repetition.

So, don't worry.

For the record, I would not object to Draws by Agreement * after * Move # 60.

Anti-Draw rules seem to have a slightly positive impact in reducing the number of Draws. They are more effective at prolonging the length of the game, in terms of # of moves played.

Thus, it is sometimes easier for Top players just to play 40 moves or so, chopping wood so as to end up with a sterile, equal endgame position.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Carlsen insist on that silly 3-1-0 "Soccer Style" scoring system--the implementation of which would favor him

Yeah, like in the Grand Slam final where he scored +2 while Ivanchuk scored +1 and he still had to play blitz tiebreak.

Perhaps"Soccer scoring" does seem to suit Ivanchuk as well. With respect to Bilbao, the exception serves the rule. On balance, Carlsen benefits from such scoring artifices...when one considers the likely composition of the rest of the field in that Candidates' event.

And yes, I'd be satisfied to see Carlsen hoist by one of his own petards.

In any case, the field is mostly set:

Svidler, Grischuk, Ivanchuk

Loser: Anand/Gelfand World Championship match

Carlsen, Aronian, and some other high rated dude

I suppose if Morozevich gets a slot, he'd benefit from the 3-1-0
Wild Card pick by organizer....

Naturally, Carlsen will say that it all was rigged by the Russians, sounds just like the style of guys like Fischer and him, right?

"They just announced that Carlsen's agreed to play in the next Candidates' (!),"

Not quite. He has signalled interest in playing iff a) The proposed format is kept, and b) FIDE presents the players with rock solid contracts (meaning no more arbitrary changing of rules, venues, dates and what have you).

Formally he hasn't qualified yet, so there are no formal agreements. It's a signalled interest, nothing more.

"Naturally, Carlsen will say that it all was rigged by the Russians, sounds just like the style of guys like Fischer and him, right?"

Yeah, except it's a figment of your imagination.

It's also a much stronger tournament than events like Biel and Bazna, Bilbao comes close but then Carlsen didn't win that with any huge margin either. The difference is so small at the top that it's hard to predict who will win, just like it's hard to predict who will win Tal Memorial (maybe Aronian or Nakamura?).

Also, his opponents will be of higher quality and more focused (so less chances of him getting easy endgame wins from dead even positions). This is not to say that Carlsen doesn't deserve credit for eking out wins from nowhere but, for example, those two games Kramnik drew and lost (where he should have won and drawn, respectively) - I don't see that happening in a WC event.

So for Carlsen to be considered favorite in the candidates tournament, he would need to work hard on gaining advantages in the opening - not something he has enjoyed working on.

Finally, I don't believe that switching to a tournament format is the only reason he's willing to reconsider. Two main reason imo, are - firstly, he probably didn't expect to receive so much flak from fans and commentators for 'chickening out' last time; secondly, he is getting stronger and Anand weaker (and perhaps less motivated too), so if he does qualify he probably has a slightly better chance in a match again Anand.

"those two games Kramnik drew and lost (where he should have won and drawn, respectively) - I don't see that happening in a WC event"

Kramnik just didn't bother and let Carlsen get some free points. Or maybe not.

"So for Carlsen to be considered favorite in the candidates tournament, he would need to"

I don't think he would need to much, hard to see some other player as more likely to win than Carlsen who has won 9 of his 12 latest tournaments. Still there are many with chances in such a strong field so maybe 35% that Carlsen wins.

Apart from that I think Carlsen really was surprised that so many called him a chicken and didn't understand at all how he could be so critical of FIDE for changing their rules and inserting that knockout. But I don't believe in the "he knew he has no chance against Anand in 2012" explanation. I'm sure Carlsen sees himself as the strongest player in the world and would expect to win a match against anyone already today.

It would be more interesting when someone like Jeff Sonas comes up with numbers. Assuming Carlsen does agree to play, so far we have 5 names for the next candidates tournament - Carlsen, Svidler, Grischuk, Ivanchuk, Gelfand. And maybe Kramnik and Aronian (based on rating) with Radjabov/Karjakin/Nakamura as the organizer's nominee.

As for chances in a match against Anand, no 2700+ player will have "no chances", but to pick Carlsen as favorite in a *match* against Anand based on his *tournament* results is a stretch imo. Even their classical head-to-head results in tournaments isn't a reliable indicator (Anand should be more of a favorite in a match than say, over two games in a double round robin event) but those results are the least one should look at before saying things like "[Carlsen] would expect to win a match against anyone already today".

"those results are the least one should look at before saying things like "[Carlsen] would expect to win a match against anyone already today""

I think Anand would expect to win a match against Aronian in spite of having gone 0-5 against him the last years. The 2800+ players are just not the type of guys that tell themselves "I will have to come up with some excuse to withdraw from the World Championship because I'm not good enough to win it".

[quote]secondly, he is getting stronger and Anand weaker (and perhaps less motivated too), so if he does qualify he probably has a slightly better chance in a match again Anand.[unquote]

You believe that. But does Carlsen believe that? OR do the top chess people believe that?

If so, would we be seeing a tournament for candidates or championship? Would people be asking for reasonable champion privileges be scrapped? At least their actions prove otherwise!

If I were to judge players by the recently concluded bilbao games, I would rate Anand as the top most performer! Because I would use move quality which is what would scare your opponent when you sit across the table than your game results. Also by move quality I don't just mean matching Houdini moves which you can probably do if you had prepared well enough and drive the game your way. It is about your ability to match computer moves when position gets unclear or unfamiliar.

Now the system is manipulated by this candidates tournament (anti-Anand system!!). So Anand has no option but to win against Gelfand. And he will!!

professor, let me illustrate my point to you.

If a 2800 rated strong computer, Anand, Kramnik, Carlsen, Aronian and Nakamura were to play a double round robin, the strategies of the human players would be draw against the computer and to try for win against other human opponents. Why? Because that is how it is! You can't possibly poke a hole in computer play. The 2800 rated computer may not even finish first if the scoring is 3-1-0! This is one of the drawback with the tournament system.

Who would be the most feared player for you if a match is to be played? The tournament winner or the computer?

So professor, you can't base your conclusion on the mere tournament results. The computer did it part as long as it showed a 2800 rating performance! It is a matter of concern only when the computer does a dumb move!

There is some evidence Fischer was correct. A probit study in my office/pigpen somewhere supports his assertions. Curiously the player who possibly suffered most from "Soviet collusion" was posited to be Reshevsky not Fischer.

Agreed!
Or use the old way of immediate replay, same colours, as a "Bronstein" 20min plus 10secs. If still a draw then W gets his/her heart's desire of a draw and 0.5 point but B gets 1.0 point, rationale being B has had to draw both games, statistically harder esp amonst the elite.

I guess you're not including the epic 40 game private blitz duel between Carlsen and Naka.

Which comment are you referring to? I mentioned Mr. Nakamura and Blitz days ago. I said then that in the private blitz match between Magnus and Hikaru, Hikaru got the short end of it, and it wasn't close. Tell me if I'm wrong.

Generally, I believe that - when it's really on the line - Vishy Anand, Boris Gelfand, Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, and maybe Teimour Radjabov are the elite of the elite in Blitz, w/o prioritzing their place, because at this date, any choice of one over the other is arguable and solvable only by more than one direct competition.
It doesn't matter so much to me who placed in what order in the 2010 World Blitz. My conclusion derives from everything we've seen over the past three or four years.

I agree that Anand does not have a clear edge against Gelfand, but it so happens that when Anand gets motivated to win, it becomes virtually impossible to stop it. He also has a proven great team that works with him. This is the reason, why I would give a huge edge to Anand over somebody like Carlsen. How will Carlsen handle his seconds, does he know how to bring about the best from those who work for him? Apparently Carlsen has very little experience here. One can say he has been great in tournaments, true but he has never experienced the nerves of a wch match. How will you play in a situation, where you know that if you lose, it will be several years before you fight for it again. When kasparov was young, he proved that he has what it takes to be wch. Similarly carlsen needs to prove it, but until then, some questions remains unanswerd. How will you play when you and the whole world has had their mind on that one big event for close to a whole year and finally the moment comes, The wch match is just such a huge stage, no tournament that Carlsen has played comes remotely close to the pressure of a wch match. Much of the above are reasons why Carlsen is not a favorite in a match against anyone who has experience in wch matches let alone against Anand. Before the Anand Topalov game, Carlsen mentioned that experience does not count for much in a ChessVibes interview. That clearly speaks volumes about his immaturity. He simply did not want to accept, since that would mean he is rating his chances in such a match much lower. Only time will tell whether Carlsen has the ability to handle all of the above extraneal factors in a wch match. Carlsen can play great chess, we all know that, the question is can he play the same under those different conditions, when your opponent has focused all their energy and time in preparing for you. I hope to know in 2013

Leo, will not be around for next couple of days so will get back later..

Of course it's early to make predictions after one round, but after today another possibility is that Kramnik repeats his Dortmund performance to join the 2800+ club. Giri twice lost with the Grunfeld against Kramnik, today his KID also got busted. Kramnik also has a big plus score against Polgar (+20=19-1, all formats combined) - a bit less meaningful than it looks because many games are from the last millennium.

What do you mean with "past performance"? One edition (2009) was a draw festival, with Tiviakov being the (unlikely) first as he won THE decisive game against Polgar - ahead of drawmasters Ivanchuk(!) and Giri. But this was exception rather than rule.

I meant that each of them has stepped up and either won a recent (past year) tournament, or performed very well in World Cup play.
They should all be sharp, with the possibility of doing well.

I think problems started before that like 21... b5?? perhaps at this time 21... exf4 might have been advised.

Correct, but Kasparov wants no part of Carlsen or Kramnik...would be interesting if it ever happened, though.

Thanks for info, Thomas, interesting stuff.

That is very interesting Thomas. Thank you much.

Hah! I don't know about the twin brother thing. Up close those two cats are VERY different looking, but the translation is appreciated.

Maybe Vlad would be interested in answering my question above! No one else is taking a shot at it.

Nice one Thomas! (Or actually two!) mishanp has a rival :-)

Thanks - of course any translation cannot (or shouldn't) be nicer than the original ... . Actually mishanp, using his other name Colin McGourty, has some excerpts on Whychess, I guess independently and relying on Google translation (or does he have another assistant who understands Dutch?).

Something funny and IMO somewhat odd that I didn't yet translate: the organizers aren't _that_ happy with Kramnik's results!!?? The report continued: "Thursday the fight in the crown group continues. With a one point lead Kramnik's chances are excellent, but we put hope from the fact that he still has two blacks. It has to go wrong just once, and the fight for first place is again open." Hmmm, London or Dortmund organizers would be more enthusiastic about a favorite playing better than expected?!

Regarding Vachier-Lagrave and Giri: I missed the chance to compare them more closely last January in Wijk aan Zee ,:) . Of course only Giri has a half-Asian face, but on the photo it really took me a moment to realize who's who!

Thomas, I think they just want a close fight for first place rather than Kramnik winning on cruise control. That would generate more excitement. Not very odd!

I see your point, and that's certainly what the organizers (or more precisely, whoever writes the round reports) mean. But who says that Kramnik will just be cruising? I don't know just how much it means to him, but he needs at least one more win to reach 2800 (it seems that 2/3 will put him at 2799.6, rounded up to 2800 on the next rating list).

Generally, is an impressive one-man show less memorable or exciting than a close race for first place? Would Bilbao have been less exciting if Ivanchuk had kept pace till the end? Was Saratov boring because Morozevich finished 1.5 points clear of the rest? But the icing on the cake was that it had another less obvious or hidden hero: Tomashevsky, +3 score, TPR 2808, now Elowise live #15 ahead of the more well-known or established Russians Nepomniachtchi and Jakovenko. Similarly, Hoogeveen would benefit from some decisive non-Kramnik games.

In any case, it's funny to compare the Hoogeveen and Dortmund homepages, those Germans may have gone a bit over the top as the tournament went on:
"Kramnik with dream start"
"Kramnik clear leader" (with 3.5/4)
"Kramnik unstoppable" (4.5/5)
"Kramnik wins for the 10th time, setting a record for eternity"

It does matter to him. Kramnik remarked on his last round loss to Nakamura in Dortmund that he wanted to win so badly because a win would put him over 2800 (this explanation was given in answer to why he took such risks in that game).

With cruising I meant what you call coasting - is this British-Irish vs. American usage? I remember Mig using it in "my" sense ... .

If the organisers wanted a close fight for first place, they shouldn't invite (just) one player who is considerably higher-rated than the rest - there's always the "risk" that he might dominate the event. It isn't Kramnik's fault that he started with two whites - a blessing which can become a curse if you do not win these games. It isn't Kramnik's fault either that noone else managed to win a game so far.

As to Dortmund and Kramnik's final game against Nakamura: I don't know which interview CAL|Daniel has in mind. I remember reading that Vlad's main motivation was trying to score +6 which he hadn't ever done before in his career. It won't happen in Hoogeveen, when was the last time a player scored 100% in a serious event?

Yeah makes sense: cruising is smooth sailing at sea, enough wind but no storm; coasting is slowly and safely heading towards the harbor.
If the organisers wanted the best for Giri, maybe they should have invited Anand, Aronian or Carlsen rather than Kramnik? Though one classical game at Tata Steel is rather meaningless ... .
And Biel didn't make similar comments about Carlsen because they didn't expect much from Pelletier in the first place!!??

I wonder if I am the only one that quit reading chessvibes after their terrible site redesign?
I used to read it daily now i've been only handful of times since the terrible redesign.

It is true, most businesses feel they HAVE to redesign every now and again to "stay fresh", and sometimes they get it wrong. The old design was way better.

I don't hate (I'm not going to hate on, heh) the site redesign at ChessVibes. The old one may have been better for info organization, but it was an eyesore generally - really, it was not aesthetically pleasing.
I'm sure it's still a work in progress, and Peter probably wouldn't mind hearing your feedback, so don't be strangers. He wants to get it right. He does have competition!

You're going to get Hari's and other folks in a knot by reminding them of Vishy's past and present vulnerabilities, as they'd like to believe he is either the best ever, or one of the best ever.
And indeed, he may fall into the later category, but that would still be over the dead bodies of a number of very strong individuals in history.
And that is as far as I'm gonna take it.

Some of us would like to see Vlad take the crown back from Anand, if only temporarily, just to prove that he is Anand's equal. If nothing else, you have to give the guy credit for enterprising, if risky, chess of late, and the motivation to play better than just good enough to justify invites.

The new one is the eyesore. My handles can't handle it for the 15 seconds it takes to read a tournament report before they well up with tears from the pain of the "aesthetic" design. As for his competition, they should thank him. He is driving many customers away with this new site.

Eh? Too much clean white space for you? Specifically what?

Agree with you entirely. The redesign is awful. The old one was MUCH better, great site.

Great pity, too, that he discontinued the approval/disapproval thing; it was really interesting. The trolls there were getting hammered.

"Giri thought that he had been clearly better, but Kramnik strongly disagreed. 'Here I have two bishops and an extra pawn, then I must be better', said Giri at one moment. 'Not at all' was Kramnik's answer. 'As a matter of fact, I have two knights'"

Giri never had two bishops and an extra pawn in the game so I guess they must have discussed some possible line between move 16 and 22 where white somehow wins a pawn while keeping the bishop pair.

You can usually translate "mooi" with "fine".
Thanks for the report.

Perhaps "extra pawn" was a mistranslation of "passed pawn"?

Even then it cannot refer to a position that occurred in the game itself - Giri had to surrender the bishop pair to obtain a passed pawn.
As to translation issues: the Dutch word "mooi" can have many similar but not identical meanings such as beautiful, nice, great, fantastic, ... . It can even be a bit sarcastic as in "dat kreeg je mooi voor elkaar" = 'you did a nice job'.
And if mishanp (who used other bits and pieces in his Whychess report) reads this: A less poetic translation of what Vachier-Lagrave did would be "he lifted his hands into the air" - the Dutch 'hemel' (as the German equivalent Himmel) can mean either sky or heaven ...

It probably won't be the last time ever if "rating inflation" continues. When was the first time we had four players above 2700? Seems to be July 1992, well within my own chessic lifetime ... .

Will Kramnik (again) go all out with black against Polgar tomorrow? As he has already secured first place, it's similar to the final round of Dortmund - with one difference: a draw will secure 2800 on the next rating list (even though he will fall back to 2799.6 for a few days).

Thanks, that was my assumption - sky/heaven is the same in lots of languages (including Slavonic ones), and even in English you can talk about e.g. "looking up to the heavens"... Couldn't resist that translation, though :)

What is Kramnik's schedule for the rest of the year? I assume he's playing in London, but don't know anything else. He's almost guaranteed a spot in the Candidates with this performance (Karjakin pretty much has to top 2790 unless Kramnik collapses before January). Congrats Vladdy :).

Kramnik will also play Tal Memorial - funny that this is often overlooked (you're not the only one), maybe because it doesn't do much non-Russian PR.

Karjakin will play Tal Memorial and the European Team Championship (Kramnik - and initially also Karjakin - wanted to skip that one). As he was seven points ahead of Kramnik in the July list (2788 vs. 2781), he needs to narrow down the Elo gap to 7 points - whatever that means after Kramnik's remaining events. Also to answer Ben's question above: 2700chess.com also lists forthcoming elite events about a month in advance.

Does the race for the rating spot give Kramnik extra motivation? Last time it mattered (second half of 2009), he won Dortmund (+3) and Tal Memorial (+3) and scored +2 in London, despite a first-round loss against Carlsen. One year later/earlier he scored 50% in Dortmund and Tal Memorial, and +1 in London - plus winning Bilbao (outlier) and a solid but not impressive Olympiad result.

"Karjakin will play Tal Memorial and the European Team Championship (Kramnik - and initially also Karjakin - wanted to skip that one)."

Karjakin says he was supposed to play in Nanjing - which was part of the reason he decided not to play in Bilbao and he wasn't considered for the European Team Championship. His "clarification" (of an earlier statement saying he never refused to play for the team) is here: http://chess-news.ru/node/4327 It's all a bit messy as at a meeting Bareev apparently said Karjakin didn't want to play as he wanted to increase his rating instead...

I didn't do research myself, and don't have such a good memory ... . At Chessvibes (thread on the Tata 2012 lineups) Alfonso mentions Corus 2001 which had ALL top 9 players, and Linares 1993. For 10 player events, it's most probably Tal Memorial (is Poikovsky, catering to the 2650-2750 crowd, the only competition?) but which edition?

BTW, I know very little about events more than 30 years ago, i.e. before I played and followed chess myself.

How much effort would it take to study the latest world chess event result and compose a few paragraphs to get comments rolling again? Not that much for Greengard as he's been doing it for years. But not only has he neglected to maintain his blog, he's also making it clear that he'd much rather beat off on Twitter than pretend to care about the Daily Dirt. Just shut down the blog and get it over with, you celebrity-fluffing 1800 poseur. Ninja is dead as Gaddafi.

Mig is taking the easy way out tweeting instead of writing at any length, so there's some truth to what you say. Get's me down, too. If there was another blog as good as this can be, I'd be off to it.

The last blog entry is dated Sept. 17th. You're a patient man, cc.

OK, for the sake of argument, doesn't one take on a certain responsibility when running a blog?
I think a blog's definition is something like: continuous stream of invective and/or commentary around a pet subject, and administered via the Internet.

Lord knows there are thousands of wasteland blogs - started one curmudgeonly day in a jump on the ol' bandwagon, never to see another keyboard stroke.
That ain't bloggin'

Mig's done a good run of invective here. All I'm saying is that the energy appears to be directed now toward one-line zingers and rebuttals at the expense of this ongoing, but sputtering b l o g.

And it's too bad. We have fun here when it's fresh, don't we?

Hey, if Svidler wins a few games with black at Tal Memorial, comments here will again be on-topic!? Will this motivate him? ,:)
Somewhat similar to Kramnik's motivation for doing well in Hoogeveen, revealed in a post-event video interview at Chessvibes: During the tournament, Ilya Levitov called him saying that he needs to gain some Elo for Tal Memorial to attain category 22. Though it wouldn't surprise me if Vlad was just joking and making this up ... .

Yes Thomas, Mig does seem to have a "thing" about Svidler: are both "tooth" men or trenchermen maybe?

And yes Vlad was being humorous, he does have a dry and at times cutting sense of humour: no doubt his delightful French wife has had an added civilizing influence to an already fine person.

I see on the current rating list Radjabov has made a dramatic surge +29 Elo pts whilst Kamsky has made an equally dramatic drop.
Is Radjabov to be the next to make the 2800 mark?
Anyone know who he is working with?

I don't know what you mean with "tooth men or trencherman", but Mig Greengard and Peter Svidler are ICC buddies. Moreover, Svidler seems to be one of the nicest guys in the chess scene. Jan Gustafsson (on his German-language blog) also has nice words about him - they are ICC colleagues as well as Bundesliga teammates.

As to Radjabov: yes he had two consecutive great events, World Cup and European Club Cup. Somehow I still don't think that he will be the next 2800er. I would rather pick Karjakin, maybe Nakamura, maybe someone who still has a rather long way to go like Giri or Vachier-Lagrave. Of course I could be (proven) wrong ... .

Re: the next 2800 player who might still have a long way to go, my money's on Nepo; the Tal Memorial in a few weeks, where he's low man on the mighty totem pole against established superstars, may give us a peek as to whether I have a clue or not...he's a mere 2718 in a field whose average is a ridiculous 2775!!!

Uh, oh, I see a crack in the facade, cc. Even you are getting a bit frustrated - and that's a clue for Mig.

Mig? Are you there?

How many drachma do you want to put on Nepo? I personally see at least five guys getting to 2800, if they ever do, before he does.

The tweet forgot nothing. When MG sets out to bury someone (usually on orders of Kasparov), facts must be set aside.

Don't know that drachma are worth much these days...but if I had any I'd wager some on Nepo against his peers (e.g., Giri, MVL, Caruana) at least; obviously there are a bunch of others, already established, who have an inside track approaching 2800. I just think he's the most promising of the young crowd - though Nyzhnyk's certainly an even newer star to watch - and has the potential to go all the way.

Hmm, what do you mean with "young crowd"? Maybe Karjakin (*12/1/1990) is old compared to Nepo (*14/7/1990), and Vachier-Lagrave (*21/10/1990) less promising [along with Ken H., I would disagree]. But what about Carlsen (*30/11/1990)?

As Thomas indicates, you have forgotten one very prominent 20 year old in Sergey Karjakin.
Now, if you see all this potential in Ian N. because you see something in his play that is superior to what you see in the games of the others mentioned, I won't be able to argue with you because I'm not that good. Otherwise, tournament results and individual match-ups don't necessarily put Ian toward the top. Winning Aeroflot '08 and the Russian Championship last year is notable for sure, but he didn't walk away with them. In fact, he went to a blitz playoff with Sergey in the Russian Ch. Le Quang Liem has overall equaled what Ian has done, and is probably at least as talented.

Seven days out of ten, I don't see Ian beating either Karjakin or Carlsen. Vachier-L. would at least draw him at will. I'll give you Caruana - for now. He's younger yet. And of course so is Giri. And at the rate Anish is progressing, you won't get a lot of votes there.
Ilya looks a little scary right now, but we should at least wait until he joins the 2700 club.

Thanks (Ken H, Uff Da, Thomas) for your comments; one thing I think we can all agree on is that the upcoming (in a couple of weeks) Tal Memorial will be a slam-bang affair, as well as a legitimate test of Nepo's potential against world-class competition. Should be interesting, to say the least. Average rating of 2775, indeed! Yowza...even getting a 50% score would be a triumph!

Yep. No doubt the swashbuckling may end up being a curse against very strong opposition. Or maybe not. Lots of crowd-pleasing players have been at/near the very top (Morozevich, Topalov, Kasparov, Tal, etc.)

As usual, there's a fantastic lineup for the Tal Memorial this year. A little lower in rankings perhaps (in 2009, the lowest rated of the ten was #13 in the world; this year there's #15, #16, and #24), but more fiery, crowd-pleasers. It'll be fun to watch how Nepomniachtchi and Nakamura fare against the highest levels. Nakamura has been putting together some great games against these guys, including, at times, wild tactical melees, interesting openings, great long-term strategic planning, and strong endings. Too bad he has such a tendency to get distracted by poker, beaches, bars, etc. or he could be a serious contender for best of the best. Nepomniachtchi is still just testing the waters at that level.

The next few years will tell us a lot about these spectacular young guns we'll see at Tal: Nepomniachtchi, Nakamura, Karjakin, Carlsen. (Carlsen and Karjakin have been at or near the top for so long it's easy to forget how young they are!)

Interesting way, Ken H, of describing what I guess could be called chess talent, at least in part.

Could you elaborate on this "calculating" you speak of? Perhaps give an example. Are you talking about the talent of going through a number of moves and variations of moves several steps beyond an actual board position?

Of course if one has this talent then one can go thru a number of board positions.

But then you mention positional knowledge. What is that about and how does it differ from calculating? Is this sort of like some learned generalization of board positions that enable advanced players or older players to short cut the necessity of going thru the more laborious calculating?

Thanks.

Randy, I'll defer to a very good explanation by Israel Gelfer in his Positional Chess Handbook:

"The evaluation of given position falls under two headings: quantitative and qualitative. The former involves the simple counting pf pieces and pawns and, as such is fairly straightforward and objective (my note: this is calculating). The latter is concerned with more abstract concepts like mobility, control of space, color complexes, key squares, open lines, coordination and the like. It involves the judgement and weighting of several elements. What are weaknesses? How are they provoked? How are they avoided? What is the ideal square for a piece in a given situation?"
(my note again: this is what is meant by positional understanding).

Former World Champion Vassily Smyslov's positional understanding was such that he hardly had to think about where the pieces should land. You could say that it was more or less ingrained in his unconscious. He used to talk about just letting his hands do the work of placing the pieces (as opposed to putting much hard thought to it). His hands would almost always be right.

Keeping it topical, Peter Svidler has a reputation for a fine positional understanding of the game.

Of the former (calculating) skill that Gelfer mentions, some people are either born with or have developed it (or both) to an such an extent that they can visualize outcomes much quicker and more accurately than the average bear (person). That doesn't necessarily mean that they see further into the future. It means they take their acute tactical ability and apply it with a speed and accuracy that is beyond us mere mortals.

Le Quang Liem, at the age of 20, is renowned for that. In time, if he further develops his positional understanding, he'll be an even stronger player.

Calculating skill mostly comes at a relatively early age. Positional skill generally takes time and study to develop. Alexander Alekhine's early games are filled with brilliant tactical melees and calculating tours-de force. As he got older, he won games with positional understanding as well. That's when he became World Champion. Before that, he could not past Jose Raul Capablanca, who had a very deep positional understanding.
A contemporary GM once said something like, 'I understand Alekhine's tactical ideas. I just don't know how he sets up for them.'
'Setting up' is positional understanding.

Gelfer goes on to ask: "How does one go about capturing or controlling squares, diagonal, files? In what positions is it desirable to seek exchanges? In what positions is it best to eschew them? How can you ensure the proper coordination between pieces?"

A concrete example: GMs 'know' from experience that in the Sicilian Najdorf the dark-squared bishop is very important for the player with the white pieces, and that one should know why and where it goes, and not part with it w/o good reason.

A senior master I know has told me more than once that to understand a particular opening, I should play over published games to see 'where the GMs are putting the pieces.'
Doing so helps you see patterns not just for that opening, but for ideal piece transfer and coordination.

As happened before to mishanp (guess this is what you mean?)

I was also forced :) as Peter Doggers doesn't want semi-anonymous authors, but had no objections whatsoever. It doesn't really make a difference that mishanp is Colin McGourty, Thomas has a last name and chesshire cat's real name might be Peter O'Donnell ... .

http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/four-winners-in-bad-wiessee
http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/top-seed-tiviakov-wins-first-panama-chess-open
Not clear yet what will be next - generally I might specialize on internationally relevant German and French chess news as I can read original sources and contact people in their language. But my Spanish was also good enough for the second story.

Go Thomas!

Didn't realize you had become a contributor! My congratulations! No better man.
(It is not O' anything...it is Walsh : ) )

Well, I limited myself to an ironic comment on her blog which passed through moderation - she (or whoever actually runs her blog) didn't recognize that the compliment I made is a poisoned pawn :) .

Some German pride related to the 'official' topic of this thread: the new Svidler is Arkadij Naiditsch who scored 4/5 with the black pieces, including wins against Ponomariov and Radjabov. The list of players who did NOT manage three wins with black on board 1 is rather long: Aronian, Radjabov, Topalov, Ivanchuk, Svidler(!), ...... .

At some points of his career on could say similar things about Kramnik, when playing Sicilan (Classical and Pelikan-Sveshnikov) and Semi-slav, including Botvinnik's while still drawing several games in 20 or less moves with white as for example, in Linares 97 (I happened to be there so maybe my example isn't exactly objective as I remember how mad I was seeing the guy playing such incredible games with black only to draw with white the next day without even breaking sweat; what can one do, admiration comes with expectation)

Loek?

Those are the words of a very confident individual, and you don't say such things unless you can back them up.
Magnus can back up those words.

Hey, this is a bit over the top - particularly considering the ICC report on the European Team Championship:
"One of the most infamous team tournaments in the annals of chess has to be the Buenos Aires Olympiad of 1939. Halfway through it, Nazi Germany invaded Poland and War was declared - meanwhile at the Olympiad, Germany also beat Poland to take the gold medal.
And that's how far back we need to go for the last time that Germany won a team gold in chess"
[They are actually a bit wrong, according to Olimpbase the match Germany-Poland wasn't played but the result was set as 2-2 by default]

Yes. As a Pole, I need to support the German against the American :)

Hi Thomas,
Well done!
I liked the style of your articles and the games you chose. Your chess-journalist star rises as another wanes (el Mig)!

An American can make such a joke, a German couldn't ... . But it's no big deal, actually I was rather more puzzled about the ICC report - they could also have mentioned the biggest recent German success in team events: silver at the 2000 Istanbul Olympiad, at a time when Russia was still dominating and everyone else just fighting for second place.

Now that the "football atmosphere" on German chess blogs, including Gusti's, has faded away, discussions focus on why this success gets hardly any attention in mainstream media. As I also wrote in German, one reason could be that Jan G. is the only "character" or "personality" in the German team (loosely comparable to Giri, van Wely or even Aronian and Topalov) but doesn't play board 1.

It doesn't get mention in the mainstream media because no chess accomplishment does.

Hou Yifan, but close.

As for chess media attention to the German team, maybe that will happen now, but apart from Naiditsch, who is opinionated, but not flashy, few German players have recently shown up in elite events. Gustafsson gets around, but rarely in the closed elite events that grab all eyes and ears.

Georg Meier got some exposure in Dortmund, so he's a recognizable name outside Germany now, but these things take time even for us close followers, much less the wider chess audience.

Who in Europe has heard of Robert Hess or Samuel Shankland?

Shankland, isn't this the guy who beat Peter Leko? One lucky punch (with all due respect, it was a lucky punch) may mean more than anything else he has achieved in his career.
The opposite may also be true - Moldavian GM Svetushkin is now 'famous' because he blundered against Morozevich. I compiled a list of forthcoming minor events (Swiss opens) for Chessvibes, and those with Svetushking playing might get extra attention ... .

As to media attention for chess in general, it also depends on the country: The Netherlands where I live have regular coverage of Wijk aan Zee on the sports pages (at least the major newspaper I subscribe to which also had an article on the ETC). It was frontpage news when the Dutch team became world champion in baseball - and this is as exotic as it gets this side of the Atlantic Ocean!

In the USA, do "people on the street" know that Nakamura won Wijk aan Zee? What about Kamsky winning the world cup and doing well in the candidates event? If there's a difference, it might relate to thee players' personalities!?

Absolutely true, and always will be. There are too many sports and cultural events consuming the attention of Americans. It's Baseball and (American) Football; then Hockey. Everything else is small-time fractional.

It does have a little to do with personality, but accomplishment must come first.

Hikaru Nakamura evidently needs more than being as good as he is to get national media attention. His past off-putting behavior might have been enough to secure a 'bad-boy' rep in the national media (as the Hollywood agents say, 'bad publicity is better than no publicity), but I guess it wasn't enough to get him into Time or Newsweek mag. Or maybe it was that Americans (well, no one) really appreciated the fact that the 'bad boy' rep meant poor sportsmanship.
Thankfully for him, that's looking like a thing of the past.
Robert Fischer was the last to achieve national renown, if not quite household namehood.

If Magnus Carlsen was American, he might be peering out from magazine covers because of his accomplishment to date at such a young age. After all, he has already been the feature story of an issue of New Yorker magazine.

I think Sam Shankland would make Georg Meier work hard for a win.
I realize you might fight me on that!

No real argument here: beating a player that is roughly 100 points lower-rated can be hard work with uncertain outcome at any level - the highest one being Carlsen vs. Vachier-Lagrave.

But Meier demonstrated that he can handle Americans who are at least nominally stronger than Shankland: Robson and Shulman at the Spice Cup, (Caruana at the ETC), and he even had Nakamura on the ropes in Dortmund.

BTW, I guess Meier is or was as unknown in the USA as Shankland in Europe. This may change now - not just because of the ETC but primarily because he is studying in the USA.

LOL. I guess I was just baiting you again. Indeed, I could live to eat those words. Meier has been doing pretty well.

The Carlsen - Vachier Lagrave thing is fascinating. In light of recent comments about Hikaru, I wonder what Magnus thinks of Max's understanding of the game, since Max has clearly been more of a nemesis.

By the way, by most accounts Fabiano is I-talian, as our southerners say; only secondarily American.

You could add that one parent is Italian.

He didn't even change federation from USA to ITA until after he was a 2600 GM

Svidler lost with black, and noone dares to leave an off-topic comment :)

maybe when nakamura wins a game... ?

Svidler beating Nakamura is nothing special: according to chessgames.com his score against him is now +8=5, so Nakamura is even trailing behind the "Tal score" (equal number of draws and losses).
Aronian once said "I play the Marshall if I don't mind a draw, and the Berlin if I want to win" - but my impression is that he didn't 'necessarily' want to win today, it just somehow happened ... .
And Carlsen failed to win with black :) [Nepomniachtchi is excused given the rating difference] - it seems that Magnus was rather happy with a draw even though he was better towards the end of the game?

I think Magnus thought the better of pushing against Vlad.
Today's games went down more or less as they would be expected to; that is, Peter Svidler's grasp of the Gruenfeld is superior to that of Hikaru and most others. Puzzles me why Hikaru challenged in that vehicle.
And Magnus, with the black pieces, came out of the opening not favored (because he doesn't spend as much time on the openings as others - and as he probably should), and then showed his great skill in clawing back to at least equality.

By the way, Matt, what's not to like about Magnus? He's quiet, respects his opponents, speaks the truth, and has a good sense of humor.
If it's his clothing and other money-making adventures that bother you, ask yourself if you wouldn't find something like that lucrative and fun - esp. for a chess player?
Most of us don't get such chances. Magnus had/has to go for it.

As for Anand, I'd like to see his psych profile. Also, I really don't know how good he actually is. That I remember, it's been a while since he destroyed all opposition in an elite tournament - and perhaps because because he doesn't feel comfortable doing that. A very nice guy, maybe he only rises to the occasion when he needs to: for the W.Ch, to score "well enough" in competition ... something open to conjecture.

A bit like my clothing growing cool again, being largely unchanged since 20 years or so.

"It speaks volumes when you can lose a gazillion tempi in the opening against Kramnik and still have him happy to repeate positions against you with black :D"

It speaks volumes about what? About Carlsen? About Kramnik? Or about chess in general?? I go for the last, and it may be specific to certain openings - you are more likely to be punished in a sharp Sicilian ... . Another story is whether Carlsen (or anyone else) will repeat this setup if the opponent had the chance to analyze it at home.

Correct: Carlsen's openings have been dodgy for quite some time, with the odd exception.
Which only makes one more impressed with the middlegame skills allowing him to not only get away with it, but score well, against top opposition.
Meanwhile Anand and Gelfand - the World Champ and his challenger - would hardly be worth a mention in this tournament (except as also-rans) if not for their illustrious histories!
And Nakamura might well be responsible for several burst blood vessels (not his own).

A little bit of all, but mostly about the fact that he gets a worse position after the opening and still he is the one pushing for a win in most games. He reminds a bit of Topalov, with this constant strive for winning and complications, although with a different style (and less reliable openings, btw) But I don't think he will repeat today's or yesterday's openings against anyone soon :)
It was good to see Anand defending a though position today with his usual precision. Have to see him pushing someone yet. Certainly Gelfand and him won't be showing their best in openings, hiding cards and so on but perhaps they have also planified their physical condition to peak later, during their match, the same way strong football teams get ready for the important matches for the Champions League (at least for the Spanish ones I know that's true) That would be even more important for mature players i guess.

Technically, Anand is still close to winning Tal Memorial - just half a point behind the leading group. Of course that's because noone could break away from such a strong field, but I still wouldn't rule out that Vishy wins one or two of his remaining games against Ivanchuk, Carlsen, Nakamura and Gelfand(!).

More relevant: while Bilbao 2011 was a bad event for Anand, he was close to winning his four previous events - always second place, always gaining rating points (not easy when you already have 2800) in Wijk aan Zee, London, Nanjing and Bilbao 2010. Best combined performance of anyone in these four events!? Dare I say including Carlsen who was dominant in Nanjing, benefitted from football scoring in London and was less impressive in the other two tournaments ... .

"Anand is still close to winning Tal Memorial - just half a point behind the leading group"

Yes, but Anand has more whites than blacks so he might need +3 to actually win if Carlsen or Karjakin (or Nepo) will reach +2, since number of black games is the tiebreaker and the 1990s have five blacks. Nepo has both Karjakin and Carlsen left and anything can happen in those games.

The ultimate cause why VL dropped below the magic 2700 was his result at the European Team Championship: four draws followed by three losses against Cheparinov, Movsesian and Karjakin. Each by itself was no disaster, just as it is 'allowed' to lose against Kramnik.

I also hope to see him bounce back, leaving the 2700+ club (at least on some live rating list) has happened to others before: Ivanchuk, Morozevich, Shirov, ... . The problem for him might be future invitations, as he has Elo-wise fallen behind players his age or younger who compete for the same spots - not just Carlsen and Karjakin, but also Nepomniachtchi, Caruana, Giri and Le Quang Liem.

"According to Houdini, the entire chessplaying world misses opening, middlegame AND endgame subtleties every game."

It has become a "comedy show" to watch their games with live computer comments. The greatest praise is when they play 'like a machine', as opposed to 'suboptimal'

The modern times "chess-greats" merely battle eachother by shuffling the pieces around and waiting for the opponent to blunder something during complications and (positional or time) pressure.

But the art of chess which started with Morphy and Capabalanca has not died, only that its flag has passed into the hands of greats as Houdini, Rybka, Stockfish...

Re: quality if openings. Yes, I wrote it tongue-in-cheek; I would certainly not mind Carlsen being able to be a little bit better than slightly worse out of the opening - as white.

On the other hand: even if it's not a deliberate strategy (and I don't think it is), giving the initiative to the opponent or (involuntarily) tempting him to launch an attack may sometimes be an equally effective way to get chances for a win than mounting pressure from move 1. The defensive skills of the best players these days are quite amazing, so if someone is forced to defend from the get go, it's often very hard to break through on this level.

Possibly it can be likened to story about the Wind and the Sun competing about who could make a man take of his coat in the shortest amount of time. When the Wind blew all it could, the man just held his coat closer and tighter and would certainly not let go no matter how hard the Wind blew. But when the Sun started to shine and warm the man got so hot under his coat that he eventually had to give in and take it off ...

Being "nice" to your opponent is a bit like doing what the Sun did to get its way. :o)

I think Carlsen genuinely does not prepare to the level of the other top players, especially now that he receives no help from you-know-who. Maybe it bores him. Perhaps for that very reason he is getting fighting middlegames where he can just play better and win. In this way he reminds me of Petrosian or Karpov, who often played nondescript openings only to wrestle their opponents to the ground later (yes, Karpov got openings help, too).
Ovidiu, I agree with you about the comedy show- watching games online is a pain with all the 1200ers jumping up with computer lines.
But I think your criticism is a little unfair; you have to take into account that the level of play at the top is very close, unlike in the old days where Capa could easily positionally outplay his opponents. That is a real rarity among top players today. Much of today's subleties are hidden. But computer analysis has led to a lot of shuffling and very careful play to avoid prep, that is fair to say (one reason why we are seeing so much QGD- though I like that opening).

Ivanchuk never left 2700 on official rating lists. On live lists he went to 2699.4 for a single day, one could hardly give two rats ass about that.

Forget about Houdini and the likes, Leo. Ask me, and I will be happy to explain it all to you.

One rat's ass is quite enough, isn't it kuk?

Anyway, note that I prefaced my earlier comment about Carlsen's missed opps by writing "according to Houdini."
We could all frame a kibitzing observation in that way and take no shame from it. It's just a reference point -- and a better one I'll add than 'my 1200-rated brain thinks he should castle long,' but less reliable than the word of a player rated 2700+ (maybe less) who sees more than any current chess engine.
Isn't the very recent Kramnik v. Carlsen (and before that, Kramnik v.Vachier-Lagrave) a good example of a modern game full of sacrificial combinations and positional subtleties that chess engines don't fully appreciate, but would be a delight to the spirit of Paul Morphy?

Right, and I think we'll all eventually believe that Carlsen is every bit the equal of Petrosian and Karpov for positional mastery.
He'll have to stop being bored by the exercise of looking for opening surprises and refutations if he wants to be world champ someday - I think. The talents at the top are just to close to being equal to allow for laziness.

I'll stick with two thanks. The obsession with ratings is a mystery.

Winning with black against a super GM isn't a lucky punch, Thomas. Show some respect.

I'm on record (a while ago) complaining about the same thing, Cal.
It's not so much about the fact that Max dropped below a number - although that is evidently a significant number to many - as that he may not get invited to elite events again until he either wins a tournament or claws back up the rating ladder.

I generally agree with you on "obsession with ratings" - but it is a fact, maybe a sad one that chess fans and hence(?) organizers are obsessed with ratings.

When Ivanchuk briefly dropped (just) below 2700, people even suggested that Hans-Arild Runde - who had a monopoly at the time - should violate his own rules and still list him on the live rating list. And everyone 'knew' that he would be back in the 2700 club sooner or later. Somewhat the same story for Morozevich, but it took him a bit longer.

Vachier-Lagrave isn't exactly a fan favorite, and some people (not me!) may rather think that he isn't _that_ good after all ... . @Ken H.: Which tournament(s) would he need to win? Something like French championship probably isn't enough - but winning tournaments also means gaining Elo points, currently he is seven points below the magic 2700.

" hence(?) organizers "

I don't think that has very much to do with the so-called "obsession" with rating - organizers certainly should consider the ranking system we have in chess when they decide about invitations; ratings make the selection of participants more fair, not the opposite. Strike out the entire "hence" is my "editorial" advice. (You put the question mark there!)

Furthermore, the chess fans aren't much more "obsessed" with their sport's ranking system than fans of other sports - your favourite player's ranking is even more important in some other sports, like for instance snooker (where there are huge advantages linked to your ranking in the previous season, in particular for the world championship where _all_ the top 16 are pre-qualified, but also during most of the season.

But since chess has a rating system which offers a bit more than the typical ranking system, and because most chess fans are also chess players (with a personal relationship to their ratings), it's not that odd that there's more than a slight interest in the rankings.

I could've wished that the average chess fan was a bit more educated about what the ratings mean, but until I do something myself to improve that, I guess I don't have any right to complain too much about that either. :o)

Once again, since you didn't read it the first time, Ivanchuk was never below 2700 on an official rating list. On the 100% irrelevant live rating list for a SINGLE (that is one) day he dropped to 2699.4 -- this is in no way comparable to Morozevich who dropped to 2693 ON OFFICIAL LISTS (you know the ones that matter...).

How are live ratings different from official ratings, in any other way than not being official?

And btw, for some official purposes "live" rating does matter - for instance in getting FIDE titles; you can even get the GM title based on being 2501 "live" (assuming the norm requirement is fulfilled). Guess you didn't know :o)

Hmm. So Moro fell back *seven points* below 2700 at one time.

Thomas: Biel (again) is one, and that open in Moscow is another. I've forgotten the name, but the one Le Quang Liem won a year or two ago.

But we already get it from Thomas.

Beginning to think it will become the Annual Dirt. With posts under 140 characters.

I do not criticize the rating system, it's the best and most objective one we have. I do criticize "interpretations" that 2701 is way stronger than 2693 or even 2699 - while noone would make the same distinction between 2721 and 2713.

@Ken H.: Aeroflot, actually won by Le Quang Liem 2010 AND 2011 - which meant an automatic Dortmund ticket no matter what his rating is. But given Vachier-Lagrave's "propensity to settle for the draw" (your words) I wonder about his chances to win such a strong open.
Biel sounds better, is it already certain that he will be re-invited? Switzerland (as a partly French-speaking country) likes to have a French player in the field. Bad news for VL that France doesn't have a single strong classical event - despite up to three 2700ers, as many or more than in England, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Romania and Bulgaria (who all do or did have supertournaments).

Yea of course I knew but I guess you didn't know Ivanchuk was a GM.

@Ken yea it was pretty amusing to read Grischuk's comments on Moro's 2693 rating when they played the World Cup.

"I do criticize "interpretations" that 2701 is way stronger than 2693 or even 2699 - while noone would make the same distinction between 2721 and 2713."

But that's hardly the essence of people's so-called "rating obsession", is it? Everyone with the slightest grip understands that 2700 or 2800 or whatever are utterly random figures whose meaning change continously and have meaning only relative to the players (i.e. their ratings) in one, specific rating list.

(For my own live ratings (RIP) I simply needed a cut-off for very simple, practical reasons; I won't take any responsibility for whatever nonsense people choose (or are led to) read into specific numbers or "magic" limits.)

As a matter of fact, FIDE's own handbook includes some absolutely nonsensical ideas about mapping certain skillsets to certain, fixed rating numbers; the entire norm and title system is seemingly anchored in a belief that ultimately will make (some) people think that 2705 is fundamentally different from 2695, which obviously is bollocks. But FIDE had a similar "dilemma" as I had: they have/had to draw a line somewhere.

And between me and you, Thomas - I don't have a clue what CAL|Daniel's beef is with live ratings ... :o)

Yea, Aeroflot. A gauntlet, chock-a-block with the latest rising and established GMs from around the world. If you win that - not once, but twice - you'll be renamed "Scary."
That's my nickname for Le Quang Liem.
Vachier-Lagrave has held his own there, finishing near the top, but he settled for one too many break-even deals (euphemism, heh) to win the thing - and I do think he is capable of it. Maybe he should hang with LQL for a few weeks to soak up some extra ferocious will-to-win 'tude.

"Everyone with the slightest grip understands that 2700 or 2800 or whatever are utterly random figures whose meaning change continously and have meaning only relative to the players (i.e. their ratings) in one, specific rating list."

"utterly random"?!

...have meaning only for "one, specific rating list"?!

That's a pair 'o mighty strange notions, Mr. Frogbert!

Strange notions? Nope. Not if you try a bit harder to understand what I'm saying. (I might add that "meaning" should be read as "precise/exact meaning", but anyway...)

What would be your _reasonable_ interpretation of the statement you quoted, Uff Da? :o)

[Context is, amongst other, Thomas' post that I responded to.]

There was another (German) example of what I consider rating obsession: Before the European Team Championship, some people harshly criticized that Buhmann (2612) rather than Khenkin (2630) was selected for the team - mostly journalists who always criticize the federation and quoting Khenkin himself using the same strictly numerical argument. As if there are no other consideration such as who's (considered) the better team player coping well with the status of reserve player ... .

I understand your practical reasons for 2700 as the lower live rating limit - but indirectly (deliberate or not, like it or not) you did contribute to the hype around the magic number 2700. Equally logical would have been to make it a top30 live list, with a floating lower Elo limit (2712 as of today, 2670 back in January 2006).

As to "CAL|Daniel's beef with live ratings": I guess he is an Ivanchuk fan, who considers it very meaningful that the day he fell below 2700 didn't coincide with the last game of the last rated event in this particular rating period.

Hah! If I'd have known, I would've worn me waders.

Oh look, Nakamura just got hosed.

Tough soul-crushing life at the top, innit? If he is a wise man he will not get a downer but will rather reflect on the enormous achievements he has under his belt already. To be among the top 10 of your profession and the champion of a large country, all in your 20s, is impressive by any standards.
As long as he doesn't get bitter about it all (if he gets stuck in a rut that is) like so many other examples in chess history... many life lessons can be drawn from the latter!
He could a lower strength event and beat up on everyone if he wanted to taste winning ways again. Or I'll give him a match, 10-0 and 250 moves for the entire match should cheer him up!

Anyone willing to bet on a game 9 happening? Humpy Who?

An Ivanchuk or Shirov would shrug shoulders after such a result and move on, but Nakamura and his fans expect more all the time!!? Yet, by now it's safe to say that Wijk aan Zee - impressive as it was - was sort of an outlier. Tal Memorial isn't, cf. Bazna and Dortmund.

Of course it could be worse - Ken H. pointed out that Vachier-Lagrave left the 2700+ club (at least temporarily), now he has Naiditsch for company: 0/4 at the Spanish Team Championship after some pretty bad blunders, notably 30.-Rd6?? against Shirov. 31.c5!! 1-0 ooops, the other black rook was on b6 ... quite a Svetushkin
( http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1645919 for those who don't remember). [VL scored 2.5/4, beating Naiditsch with black in a wild Sicilian that 'should' have finished with perpetual check]

Egads. Arkadij must have had something else on his mind, or maybe a hangover after the ETCC! He'll recover.

help mishanp!!

CC "what has been the real effect of this Kaspy collaboration?

"things get worse before getting better" this is what happens when you try to change your style(even your life-style !) : for a while you play worse than before because you deprive yourself of your old-routines (old routines which got you stuck at some level and which now you destructure (some) of the premises upon which they were built in order to create other routines anew, takes time).

so, we can't say yet anything except that now Nakamura wants, tries hard, to change and that's why he plays worse than before.

Aren't there enough openings of good standing that Anand and Gelfand can use now to demonstrate how strong they really are (or aren't), and still hold back others for the W. Ch.?
For example, why not hit the Tal Memorial with guns blazing and king pawns flying out the gate like they used to was, and save your usual QP offerings for the big show?

So I'm seconding your sentiment:
"What is going on with Anand? You can only use this "he is saving his efforts" thing for so long."

Indeed, why bother showing up, if not just for the appearance fee. Place-holding ain't cutting it.

My opinions:

Gelfand - maybe his entire tournament would have been different if his wild game against Carlsen in the second round had finished with a different result. "Three results" seemed possible, and it's no shame to lose against Magnus. His next game against Karjakin was a genuine offday, for the rest he was as 'solid' (drawish) as anyone else. So you (and others) may be a bit too harsh on him.

Anand - just one year ago he had a series of fine (though not excellent) results: consecutive second places in Bilbao 2010, Nanjing, London and Wijk aan Zee. Altogether better or more stable than anyone else, including Carlsen who played the same four events. Bilbao and Tal Memorial 2011 were less impressive to put it mildly. But the recurrent "he hasn't won a classical tournament in ages" - while true - is a bit of a misleading simplification!?

Kramnik - On Chessvibes someone wrote (about Nakamura after his loss against Ivanchuk) that he shouldn't be judged by a single tournament. I will get back to this below, but methinks it also applies to Kramnik. Nothing at all wrong with him in Dortmund and Hoogeveen (in terms of result, quality of play and entertainment value), in between a seesaw Russian Championship, before an 'acceptable' Wijk aan Zee. So one bad event now shouldn't be enough to write him off - granted, there was also Amber (but I don't take rapid and blindfold all that seriously). And in Kazan, he was as successful as Aronian ... .

"Who is the real best player?" The easy answer is Carlsen, but for the time being he is still 'just' the best tournament player. And Aronian isn't far behind - forget about Kazan where Carlsen didn't show up ... .

Nakamura - tricky business. Don't judge him by one tournament - this goes both ways, enthusiasm after Wijk aan Zee (e.g. "only a matter of time that he'll cross 2800") by now seems premature. And Tal Memorial was - at the end - just a bit worse than Bazna and Dortmund.
I do not see much evidence that he is changing his style (like Kramnik did, which might explain some of his shaky results). For the time being, I tend to say he is "stuck where he is" - but he seemed stuck at a certain level before in his career before eventually making further progress.

Thorough, as usual. Friends do not call you a botanist?

Indeed no wonder that at ChessVibes with their nice flair (exception made for website themes) got you as a contributor. I would put Carlsen a little bit over Aronian if anything because he was really pushing in almost every game and may have as easily won a few here but the only ones that count are those with a 1-0 (or a 3 if you're in football crazy Spain) at the end. Can we get a match between those two instead of Anand-Gelfand? Just kidding, but it also shows how fast top chess can move and how much we need a really working World Championship, not a rigid thing in which the champion from 3 years ago plays someone who won a tournament 6 months ago... Not that I have a problem with the Gelfand-Anand match, nor that I think we should have something like those Vegas WC which weren't convincing at all. Just pointing out that this system is better but not really enough.
I think Nakamura will recover from this slump but still can't see him as a top 5 player. Time will tell, although I think Giri or Vachier-Lagrave will eventually get stronger than him. Kramnik still seems to me as the one who "understands" the game better but is in trouble with tactics. Is it a temporary thing, a motivation problem or just time catching up? And if so, is it that strong, or will he be able to adjust? Can't wait for London!

PS I know things are the way they are, but if Kasparov and Carlsen would have found a way to work together for longer, how would have the norwegian fared in these recent tournaments? Here he was many times worse after the opening and still pushing at the end; if he was to push from move 1 from an equal position instead of from move 15-20 from an inferior one, it's safe to say his results may have improved.

First, for all practical purposes (hopefully also prize money) I subscribe to the idea that Carlsen and Aronian shared first in Tal Memorial. When you get the same number of points in a round robin, any tie-break criteria feels more or less random to me.

Secondly, talking about "just tournament player" appears somewhat meaningless. Chess is played in tournaments. There is no alternative "match" circuit. Even a single 12-game match doesn't give any proof of who the better "match-player" is.

IMHO Topalov's 6-6 (including one forfeit win) and 5,5-6,5 against Kramnik and Anand say basically _nothing_ about who the better match player is. If they replayed any of those two matches, the result could've been a different one. Unless players frequently play matches of a reasonable length, we will never get any statistical background for talking about this or that player as a strong or weak "match player". Matches aren't a practical format for playing classical chess, as it's simply too time-consuming.

Also, with what appears to be the current scheme (and Anand's interpretation - or his fans' interpretation possibly) - the World Champion only plays 12 games every second year that have any importance. Or on average 6 games per year. Since he's the only player that plays more than "one successive" 12 game match, he's also the only one that get a tiny little bit of training in that format.

Gelfand has maximized his match-playing options over the past 5 years (without resorting to organizing training matches himself) - and that has yielded three 6-game matches (two in 2007, one in 2011); for anything shorter than 6 games I find the term "match" totally ridiculous and void of meaning.

Topalov has played one 8-game match and two 12-game matches since 2006. Kramnik has played two 12-game matches since 2006. Aronian has played two 6-game matches, both back in 2007. Kamsky played two 6-game matches and one 8-game match. Grischuk like Gelfand also managed to get three 6-game matches in this period.

These are essentially the (top) players involved in multiple matches over the past 6 years - and without the "2007 candidate matches", another one-hit-wonder from FIDE, the list would've been much shorter. For those with absolutely most exposure to match play (and I still don't count 4-game knock-outs, where recovery is virtually impossible if you fall behind) we get to roughly 30 games over a period of 6 years; the average for the guys I mentioned above are maybe 16-20 match games (in matches of distance 6 or more).

Ca. 20 games in 6 years - compare that to how many tournament/other games these players play: the average elite player plays around 40-60 games per year, or 240-360 games over 6 years.

That's the significance and the status of "match play": We lack any kind of empirical data about who's good or bad at match play. Chess players play tournaments, and elite players play round robin tournaments. That's reality, and it's like that for a reason. Practicality.

Another issue is that head-to-head approaches ("cup") to finding a World Champion who's "The Best Player in the World" when there are 4-5 players that are very close at the top, can easily be shown to be flawed and not very suited for the proposed task. But that's a slightly different discussion. Another one is: do we really need the type of World Champion that we had in the past? And if so, why? (I'd appreciate more than "tradition" as the answer here...)

That's easy. 1) Money. The WC match is the one format that's attractive and understandable enough to attract money to chess. If you add the extra dimension of prize money to your analysis than you will find out that for those who participate in them, the few WC match games make more money than the hundreds of tournament games.
2) Chess. A tournament never goes as deep as a match. Look what Kramnik's 2000 win did to chess openings. Look what Anand's win did to Kramnik's phlegma. Deep preparation by the world's best chess minds is interesting. It leads to insights that change the way we look at chess.
3) Ego. Carlsen can grab as many last round wins as he likes. The definite answer he can only find with a match.

Frogbert, Carlsen objects to the WC "privileges" (viz., the current WC is automatically seeded into the finals), but that's precisely what makes the World Championship matches so attractive and valuable. The challenge match approach gives the title more prestige than any single WC tournament would. Most of the top players (not including Magnus) like the idea of a WC title that has more signficance than simply being the winner of a strong tournament.

In the meantime, Chessvibes wrote/confirmed that the prize money was shared between Carlsen and Aronian - fair enough, I find it half-annoying half-amusing that some people there (Carlsen fanboys?) put Magnus well ahead of Aronian and earlier [Bazna] Karjakin.

Yes, tournaments are chess players' regular bread and butter - steak and sauce or champagne and kaviar for the better ones. That's exactly why matches are special: they are rare, always a lot at stake (except training matches) and require a different approach - even more emphasis on opening preparation, finding the right team of seconds, winning when it matters most, nerves are important ... . Based on his tournament record, Carlsen might do well on the last two points, but (as you said yourself) opening preparation isn't exactly his strength.
I tend to disagree with you that Kramnik-Topalov and Anand-Topalov had 'random' winners, notwithstanding the fact that a possible rematch could - of course - finish with a different score. In both cases, the winners prevailed under pressure and (as often against Topalov) somewhat ugly circumstances.
BTW, it should be possible (and interesting) to organize a strong four-player event with two 6-game matches, even including tiebreaks it doesn't take much more time but a bit less money than a typical round-robin supertournament. Why isn't it done? Maybe because this is reserved for WCh events ... .

Anyway, the issue was whether Carlsen is "the real best player", or rather by how big a margin. If we use a larger sample (six events), his tournament edge over Anand is less clear: He finished ahead of him at Tal Memorial 2011, Bilbao 2011 and Nanjing 2010, but behind him at Wijk aan Zee 2011 and Bilbao 2010. London is a special case - he was first on football score, but tied on classical score and lost their direct game. A matter of taste whether Carlsen's overall score would be 4-2 or 3.5-2.5 ... .
Vs. Aronian there are less data: tied at Tal Memorial and Wijk aan Zee, Carlsen won Bilbao. We can add one more event from last year when Carlsen won Nanjing, and Aronian finished shared first at Tal Memorial - "advantage Carlsen" but not "game, set and match"!?
In Elo terms, this all translates into a difference of 20-25 points - you're an expert on how much, or how little that means :) .

"In Elo terms, this all translates into a difference of 20-25 points - you're an expert on how much, or how little that means :) "

The last time Magnus was officially rated below 2800 was over two years ago.