Or bits and bobs if you prefer. A brace of little items to play catch-up on that wacky chess thing this blog is supposed to be about.
GM missing, sort of. Peruvian Grandmaster Julio Granda Zuñiga was reported missing a week ago. The Peruvian newpapers managed to work themselves into quite a tizzy until family said he was okay eight days later. There had been reports of mental problems (not the first time) but now they say he's just stressed and needed to get away for a while. He should move to Beverly Hills. This isn't the first time the GM/farmer has vanished mysteriously. In 1998 he was kidnapped and beaten after publicly quitting a political group and later retired from chess to farm. He returned in 2002 to play regularly and maintain a 2600 level.. The 38-year-old recently qualified for the FIDE World Cup.
US champion Hikaru Nakamura finished equal 2-3 in the category 17 Karabakh tournament, finishing ahead of big names like Ivanchuk, Dreev, and Bologan, beating the latter two. There's an interview with Hikaru at the official site, part one and part two. I'm sure he'll have some comments in his annotated game for Black Belt next month.
We expect to have a full on-site report up soon at ChessBase.com, but I'll mention Magnus Carlsen's best result since he made a splash at Corus last year. The Norwegian wunderkind has been lagging a bit, but scored 8/9 at the Gausdal tournament last week for a performance rating of nearly 2800. Fairly weak opposition by Karjakin / Nakamura standards, but Carlsen, just 14, is a few years younger yet.
New FIDE world champion Veselin Topalov won't be playing in the Nov. 26-Dec. 17 World Cup. "'I don't think I will join the World cup championship. In the near future I plan to take a rest and write a book,' Topalov told Russian daily Sport Express."
Thats the best Topy can do. He know he cant beat some solid positional master like Kramnik in a match , so avoiding him is the best choice.
So is Nakamura giving up his dream of becoming world champion or at least making it to the 2700's?
One could infer that from his remarks. But it wouldn't surprize me if the kid continues to play and go to college. Why didn't they ask him that specifically?
Hikaru was already thinking about going to college when I interviewed him last year, before the 2005 US Champs. But with his good reslts lately, one would think he would stick with the program.
Howard
I hope Topalov is not catching the World Title disillusional bug. You know, the "I have the World Title now so I will just run for cover and avoid as many tournaments as possible."
That is what happened to so many recent chess champions. Kramnik and Ponomariov got it too.
I think there is a big difference between choosing not to play in the World Cup and choosing "to avoid as many tournaments as possible."
Remember he's already signed to play in the Corus event, where he will face very hard competition. If he went a year without playing at Corus, Linares, Dortmund or at least one other similar top level event, that would be one thing. But to skip a quicker time control unusual format like the World Cup doesn't seem like he's avoiding things.
Respectfully,
Duif
Sadly, there isn't anyone willing to pay millions of dollars to a chess prodigy coming out of high school, unlike sports such as basketball, so for a bright kid like Naka it's rational to go to college instead of continuing in chess.
does anyone else notice that at the Samba Cup both the 2700's are in places 9-10 of 10 players?