Kamsky beats Anand! Kamsky beats Anand! After three losses in a row, the top-ranked American takes out the tournament leader in a very smooth effort. Not dead yet! Adams beats Ivanchuk, Topalov headed for a draw unless Tiviakov blunders. Carlsen beats Naiditsch with black to take the lead in the B Group.
Yeah Naiditsch made the only move in the position that lost. Quite funny to see the engine evaluations go from 5 threads of +3 or more to -8.
Way to go Gata! You know, until recently I never had any chess player I particularly rooted for, but ChessNinja, and following the World Cup and now Corus, has certainly made me into a Kamsky fan. It's going to be an exciting couple of years watching him gear up for the championship cycle.
And Mig, I haven't forgotten you, I'll send you that t-shirt picture soon, really!
I thought it was a remarkable line that Kamsky played, with his king all by itself in the middle of the board, and unable to castle. It took some precise play to bring home the point.
Kamsky's Bh3 was a nice move. And a win to Adams, hurrah - what could beat that?
I am thinking Anand either underestimated Kamsky or "oversetimated" him (i.e. played against the Kamsky of yesteryears, who was a tough opponent for him), and thus was psychologically at a disadvantage from the start. He did not play the real Kamsky of today.
If I am right, with his silly retraction into a infantile mindset, and choice of a poor opening experiment, Anand practically 'resurrected' the old Kamsky over the board. That is the only 'achievement' of Anand today. It was junior Anand playing Junior Kamsky from early 90s.
According to Sonas, Anand plays QG like a 2800 player, especially when he declines it, but in this game he accepted the gambit (always a poor choice) and ferreted out a very opening novelty that was not aggressive. He essayed a line (with Qe2 and Qf1) that didn't work out.
That said, I must say Kamsky played the whole game very simply and logically and WON ! All credit to him.
Didn't Kamsky "own" Anand back before his retirement, or am I badly misremembering? I thought Kamsky took Anand out in a match in the '96 FIDE cycle. Perhaps Anand beat Kamsky in the '95 PCA cycle?
Adams strikes again and against Ivanchuk who had a good record against him. 7 a4 and 8 g4 !! pretty aggressive stuff.
He only need beat Vishy with black for an impressive hat trick !
Hats off to Kamsky- 3e4 ! and as for Vishy, I don't why he's not playing the Nimzo/Queens Indian
aha, what did I tell you? I had a gut feeling that something like this would happen.
Spider's back! I like the way he created holes in Ivanchuk's position early, then slowly worked his way into them. Those one-square Queen moves remind me of the game he won last year against Topalov (at Wijk also, I believe, and in a similar line w/ g4).
Kamsky played great, showed he can play with an advantage - now he needs to work on his openings so he gets the advantage more often.
"Anand practically 'resurrected' the old Kamsky over the board. That is the only 'achievement'of Anand today. It was junior Anand playing junior Kamsky from the early 90's."
Ashok, I really like this evaluation of the game. After playing over the moves myself, in my mind, it sums it up nicely.
Just to put things in perspective, Anand is still tied for 1st whereas Kamsky is still tied for last.
I don't think anyone is saying Kamsky is now the hot favorite to win the event. The question coming in was whether or not he would be able, perhaps ever, to recover the form required to compete with the world's best again. There could be no better indication that the answer is "yes" than beating an in-form Vishy Anand. That answer won't change now even should he lose the rest of his games. Great news for American chess and chess in general.
Of course I'm also selfishly motivated because I predicted he would win at least another game, although I wouldn't have bet it would be against Anand. And I don't put any credence to Anand somehow being paralyzed by memories from over 10 years ago. He's a seasoned pro and the most consistent player in the world.
peach, You're absolutely right, and I would be one of the last people to denigrate Anand's abilities at the board. This is just one game in particular.
Like many others I'm enjoying Kamsky's comeback. I wasn't a "fan" of his in the past, but that had to do more with issues regarding a certain relative of his. Now that it seems he is no longer in the picture, that makes appreciating what Kamsky is trying to accomplish much easier.
quote: but in this game he accepted the gambit (always a poor choice)
haha:) I remember back in high school, many decades ago, being taught that taking the pawn on c4 was a mistake as it ceded the center. From memory, I think White was not supposed to play 3.e4 immediately though, because 3..e5 gave black a good game. That was accepted opening knowledge over 30 years ago and things have changed a bit since then.
Nowadays the QGA is pretty popular and 3.e4 is a respected reply to it. Rublevsky (recent russian championship winner) plays the Black side of the QGA almost exclusively against d4/c4, and Anand has been playing it successfully as well for many many years.
I'm looking forward to some analysis of that game, as I'm not sure exactly where Anand went wrong. I don't think it was 2..dxc4 though.
I'm certainly rooting for Kamsky. He has balls of steel to be attempting a comeback after so many years. Kasparov said that five years in terms of top-flight chess theory is a lifetime, so Kamsky was almost two lifetimes behind when he came back, not to mention badly rusty.
Beating Anand is never easy. Anand is one of the slipperiest opponents of all, almost always able to wriggle out of bad positions.
The Corus analyst - again !
Adams - Ivanchuk:
The Corus analyst on the front page:
"Chuky’s 27…Nc5?! was wrong, since now White could have played 28. Qd2! followed by Rf1-f6 with a nice edge."
1. You cant give a move ?! when you state that the move is WRONG. Why the exclam?
Only analysts and columnists not quite sure of what they are talking about use ?!
And the weak columnists use it very often.
2. Dd2 would not be move 28. (In that case a senseless move) First 28.Bxc5 Rxc5 - THEN 29.Qd2
But why the exclam after 29. Dd2...
Black plays 29.b4 cxb4 30.Rc4 and there is nothing abvious for White, even if a kind of initiative.
WHO is the Corus analyst?
Ducking his name on the page? Why?
ADAMS BRINGS THE SMACK DOWN! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
Here is an other "analyst":
Mike Crowther on the TWIC.
His analysis are pathetic.
Harangues of moves from other games.
The cheapest way possible of getting away with an analysis.
In Naiditsch - Carlsen he states:
"Already things have gone horribly wrong for black."
But not a word, not a sign about WHERE did it go wrong.
That is normal for Mark Crowther.
He is apparantly just an other "analyst" scared to death to explain the readers where it went wrong for one of the parties. There are thousands of them in the international chess media world.
Due to lack of insight and capacity.
Why does he not hire an analyst who knows what he is talking about....
Full crisis in TWIC's bank account?
Please, have pity with us, Mr. Crowther.
Noe more harangues after tomorrow.
It is fair to be out of money.
That has happened to more important personalities than Mark Crowther.
But are your auditive faculties still ok?
Pay no attention, Mark. Most of us know how time consuming your job is just to collect all those games every week, then post them so we can freely download them. Plus you do so much more on top of that.
Stany, Mark's site isn't so much about analysis but weekly games, summaries of notable games, and highlights of what has gone on in the chess world in the past week. When he says "already things have gone horribly wrong for black", take that as a challenge to find out for yourself where things have gone wrong.
If you lack the knowledge to find out where black went wrong, that's ok because you'll have at least increased your understanding of the position somewhat if you've applied yourself to it. And if you are still frustrated, then search for other sites that have the information you're looking for. Consider the analysis, and then the search, as all part of the learning curve. Keep it up and in another year you'll have a much better understanding of the game.
In the meantime though please don't be so judgmental of someone who does us all a great service by providing us with so many quality games. I,for one, would truly miss Mark's site if he elected not to continue with it.
regards,
There seems to be a bit of confusion. Mark Crowther has provided a tireless and largely uncompensated "news wire" service to the chess community through THE WEEK IN CHESS for over a decade.
He's never claimed to be an analyst, and that's not the purpose of the site. He provides the moves for lots of games, usually in PGN format, quickly and accurately.
If you're looking for the games from the Romanian Championship or the Keres Memorial or the Rilton Cup, TWIC will almost always have the scores available in PGN before almost anyone else.
When there is commentary, it's usually provided by IM Malcolm Pein, whose Chess Centre now sponsors Mark's pages.
But "brief comments" are just that--a few brief comments. Not deep analysis, and never claimed to be.
Like many chess fans, I am very grateful to Mark for scouring the chess 'verse each week to find all the games that he provides.
If you're looking for analysis, check one of the GM sites, and you'll probably find something much more to your taste.
Respectfully,
Duif
Mark's site is superb. It is the best thing that has happened to chess since I began to follow the game 15 years ago.
"Garry Kasparov called the surprise result a blackout by the Indian, comparing it to Anand's loss to Kasimdzhanov in San Luis last year. "This game says little about Kamsky but a lot about Anand. These things happen to Vishy sometimes." (from Chessbase)
Why is Kasparov comparing this loss to the one against Kasimjanov?
According to New In Chess (2005/8), Kasimjanov prepared the 18. Bh5! novelty after a lenghty process. It is excerpted here - http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/ (and scroll down).
I get the feeling that Kasparov and Kamsky don't exactly think very highly of each other.
Think GK's analysis of the game is spot on, looked a horrible opening from anand. his pieces looked so uncoordinated, i kept waiting for a profound event on the board that would show the depth of his idea, but nothing ever came. looked like a GM vs Amateur game if you didnt know the protagonists.
Yah, I feel Garry's been unfair to Gata overall, despite the obvious horribleness of his three of his losses. His win over Gelfand was very nice and Gelfand is no pushover at all. Nor is Anand, obviously. Clearly it wasn't Anand's best moment, and it takes two to make someone look that bad. Part of it must be their past antagonism and then there is the fact that Kamsky's big weakness now is theory, the phase of the game Kasparov put so much emphasis on. "He has no openings" is about the worst thing Garry can say about someone!
He did fess up that once Kamsky gets to a decent middlegame he's doing fine. But he hasn't managed to survive the opening too often. Actually he's an interesting test case in how critical the opening is. Not that Gata is Capablanca, but his experience has gone a long way to answering all those old debates about what would happen were Capablanca (Morphy, etc) reanimated today and dropped into a tournament. Openings really, really matter.
Look's like Anand mistakenly thought that Kamsky would be satisifed with a draw here... Anand has been playing very tough games and was propably not waiting for another one.
Kamsky probably took advantage of this and was able to focus on the endgame right from the start.
Yeah criticising Mark Crowther because your "hero" lost. Crowther runs imho the finest chess resource on the net, and makes no claims to be an analyst. Websites have come and gone but TWIC is still there.
Kasparov's comments on Anand:
GK was more wordy after the loss to Kasim - said something about -How can we possibly be surprised that Anand is choking, he generally does...-
Which is probably a little bit unfair but Anand does have a way of losing games he shouldn't lose, and the game to Kamsky is no exception. Anand played a couple of matches with Kamsky (lost in Sanghi Nagar, won the next match but I forget where that was held) in the 90's. I don't think their overall score is lopsided.
The QGA is fine. Anand just got too cute, too complicated, and too passive when he should have just been neutralizing the center and making a draw.
Kamsky may not be world-class anymore (TPR of 2600 after R8), but he's still a decent GM, and Anand didn't respect that I guess. That's the only explanation I can think of for leaving out ...e7-e6 in that position for so long.
I don't know why there would be bad blood between Kamsky and Kasparov. Couldn't be because Kamsky accused Kasparov of poisoning his food at Linares, could it?
(Yes, I realize that was from another time, and probably came from Rustam more than Gata.)
And here's one more defense of Mark Crowther. He's done such a tremendous service with TWIC over the years, it's hard to conceive how much work goes into producing a coherent site which presents chess news and results from around the world. Crowther sometimes makes a few comments on games he's posting move by move, but he never claims to be any world-beater.
I don't know why there would be bad blood between Kamsky and Kasparov. Couldn't be because Kamsky accused Kasparov of poisoning his food at Linares, could it?
(Yes, I realize that was from another time, and probably came from Rustam more than Gata.)
And here's one more defense of Mark Crowther. He's done such a tremendous service with TWIC over the years, it's hard to conceive how much work goes into producing a coherent site which presents chess news and results from around the world. Crowther sometimes makes a few comments on games he's posting move by move, but he never claims to be any world-beater.