Well, damn. Hikaru got knocked out by Ganguly in the first round after being unable to break through with white today. He was joined by Volokitin, the two biggest upsets of the first round so far. Lautier and Bruzon can still steal that honor. Of the eight Americans, three are out, three are through, and two are in tiebreaks.
Motylev's 25-move demolition of Roiz was the most diverting game of the day. Movsesian revived the ancient tradition of the spite check upon being eliminated by Paragua, if the score is correct. Neat, I just now stumbled onto a very cool stalemate trick that was missed by Miroshnichenko. I added it to my report at ChessBase, link above. White Belt #152 contained a puzzle with a very similar theme, so it was fresh somewhere in my mind. Check it out.
I was appalled when I saw that move from Movsesian. Most unsporting behavior.
And Miroshnichenko was knocked out. Ouch.
People who are appalled by certain chess moves should probably relocate somewhere with more sunshine.
sacateca, play out the game in question move by move first, comment after that ;)
Not that I am against your suggestion -- it is quite sensible ;)
The only way I could understand that "spite check" (if the score is correct) is if Movsesian picked up his queen intending to move it somewhere else, then changed his mind and decided to give up before he put his queen down, and in an attempt at humor dropped the queen on g2.
Isn't it nice that Azmaiparashvili will now be able to dedicate himself fully to his administrative duties...? ;-)
The drama in the tie-breaks is unreal, one blunder in a blitz or rapid game and your tournament is over. There is a certain absurdity to it. It has the same feeling as the shootouts in the World Cup (of Soccer).
Movsesian is a boor with 40...Qg2+. What was his purpose with playing that move? mouse slip?
Go Philippines!
Go Macmac beat Dreev!
Well, there you have it. GM Yuri Shulman of USA is the first player in this World Cup to advance to the next round without winning a single game. All 7 games of his match against Zvyagintsev were drawn, he had black in sudden death, the rest is history. Izoria-Erenburg and Nikolic-Navara blitz games were blunderfests that would make even a 1600 player squirm. I guess pressure gets even to the top level GMs.
In round 2, there are three pairs of under-2600 playing each other, so we're guaranteed at least three representatives of the 25xx crowd in the top 32. As for the favourites, all top 20, save for poor Akopian, made it in.
Being appalled again a chess move is ridiculous. Probably Paragua thought it was funny and was laughing afterwards. Also it's interesting for the crowd when people do such things. I just don't see how something like that is "insulting", it's not as though Movsesian is assuming that Paragua will now blunder. I'd say it depends more on his behavior when he makes the move, if he makes it while shrugging and kind of smiling, then you know he's just messing around. People have done this to me on rare occasions before resigning and I've never thought twice about it.
"Isn't it nice that Azmaiparashvili will now be able to dedicate himself fully to his administrative duties...? ;-)"
Indeed!
Greg Shahade, you are right that it depends on the behavior of the player when making such a move. Unfortunately we do not know the details of this particular case.
Come on, such a spite check is an old tradition that is meant as humor and acknowledgement of defeat. At least that's how I take it. Plus, Sergei is a nice guy and unless there was some tension off the board between them for some reason I don't see him doing it out of ill-will.
Mig, shouldn't it be called "humor check" then?
If Paragua was in a very serious time trouble (like a couple of seconds or less to make the last move), Qg2+ would have the advantage of being unexpected and would actually create a chance to win on time (after most other moves, Paragua would play hxg6+ automatically). I have no idea how much time he actually had.
On Nakamura, Do you people think he underestimated Ganguly? Did too much ICC bullet chess hurt his play?
At least he will be back soon in ICC.:)
Nakamura seems to be on a plateau in 2005, which is reasonable considering his rapid growth the year before. And Ganguly is a stronger player than his rating might suggest.
I think there's no time trouble issue (30 secs added). And as for Nakamura, not that it can be considered a great surprise, Ganguly was almost 2600 and he'll probably surpass this barrier soon. Regarding the effects of blitz, well, it's possible, but these effects were also present when he made great results.
Aside from the fact that the FIDE time controls gave Paragua a 30 second bonus per move, if Paragua had played the illegal move hxg6+, he would have suffered only a bit of embarrassment. The arbitor would have stepped in, and restored the position, and Paragua would have been forced to make a legal move. Coffeehouse blitz rules would not have applied.
Perhaps if Paragua had eschewed the capture of the Queen, Movsesian might have been able to play a check or two. But even such a major blunder would not have been enough to save the game for Black.
One scenario: Movsesian could have (in his own time pressure) picked up the Queen, THEN decided to resign...and simply dropped the Queen on the g2 Square, with the electronic board recording that as his final move.
Posted by: dcp23 at November 29, 2005 13:53
If Paragua was in a very serious time trouble (like a couple of seconds or less to make the last move), Qg2+ would have the advantage of being unexpected and would actually create a chance to win on time (after most other moves, Paragua would play hxg6+ automatically). I have no idea how much time he actually had.
hey guyz,watch out for Filipino GM named Mark Paragua. He has upsetted GM Movlasian in the first round. HE's on his way to another upset, against GM Sergev this time