Kramnik-Topalov in Elista in Septemeber!

Chess truth for today...for Anand, deflection is a thing of great beauty. For Van Wely, deflection is a thing of sheer horror!

Interesting to see Anand and Topalov win on opposite sides of the same opening. Can any opening specialists give a quick summary of how the games progressed, from a theoretical stand-point?

Can someone with an up to date games database check for me what Carlsen's results are like against Karjakin? Have they played? How recently? That sort of stuff. I'm curious.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1327850
is i think the only Carlsen vs Karjakin game so far.

It ended in a tie.

Hey, Lahno finally won a game! Nothng else too surprising. Leko got another draw and Topalov and Anand won...
I also thought it was amusing that those two won on opposite sides of the same opening, but none of it relaly makes sense to me anyway, especially in the Anand game, how he declined taking the b8 rook with a fork earlier, and then he did a few moves later after shuffling a bit...Then Re2 instead of Rxe4, not taking on h4, etc. Good stuff though.

Hi, It´s good to see that Kamsky will continue to play besides his result at Wijk. I love comebacks so I hope he achieves the top ten again.

Not quite following the Corus ,but it looks Mickey Adams is playng great after many days :)

It's good to see Kamsky's current remarks and his outlook toward future events. I wouldn't think anyone could find fault with his resolve or work ethic regarding chess. Well, maybe Garry...

Adams scores for England again!

And he's playing some great stuff I might add- remember he has more blacks than whites in this tournmament yet is perched near the top of the table.

Samer, 27 Nd5+ forces the Black King away from the b-file, but Nc6+ followed by taking the R@b8 would have allowed the King over to help in the defense. (27 Nd5+ Kd7 28 Bb5+ and takes the better Rook. I don't see a clear line for 27 Nd5+ Kd8, but then the c8 square is extremely vulnerable, and Black is quite tied up. Maybe Ra1-a4-c4-c8 is all that's needed then.)

I think 30 Re2 is an effort to restrict the Black Bishop (not letting it get to the d2 square and Q-side) and keep the idea of getting to the c-file open. If 30 Rxe4 then 30 ... Bd2 and the Bishop can get to the Q-side to help the defense, potentially taking the b4, b6 and c7 squares away from the White Knight & Rook. Of course, 31 b4! kills that idea, so either there is some other justification (Likely!), or Anand goofed in Van Wely's time-pressure.

Anyone else got something?

Also for Samer, the Corus website has some commentary up about the games, now. Anand was very happy with 30 Re2!, so I gotta think it was justified somehow. Not sure how, though....

"It's good to see Kamsky's current remarks and his outlook toward future events. I wouldn't think anyone could find fault with his resolve or work ethic regarding chess. Well, maybe Garry..."

I think Kamsky's progress to date shows just how difficult it is to make a comeback after a long absence. This would be true in any sport, and not just chess. Obviously, he's playing at a level good enough to defeat 99.999% of humanity. But in a tournament involving the top .001%, it still isn't good enough.

I'm sure he'll be working/studying hard over the coming months. The problem is that the other top players keep working too, and they don't have any catching up to do. Nevertheless, I am rooting for him, and it would be wonderful to see him return to the top 10.

Is there any additional info on the Kamsky-Anand 0-1 game? I am interested to know why Black played a variation, which is considered refuted, and why White didn't play the refutation Bxb4, taking a free pawn in the early opening? This refutation has been known for a decade (and unknown to about 20 grandmasters who practised it with both colors, including Karpov, for another decade prior to the refutation), with hardly anyone playing it as Black, after the game Knezevic-Ilincic 0-1, at a Yugoslavia championship, where we played together.

Ilincic-Knezevic 1-0, I wrote wrongly. It is strange what after midnight hours posting can result in.

Of course, I am hoping someone asks them and they both reply "I didn't know about this game". This would add to my internal story, of how a simple move, winning a whole pawn, was missed by a whole generation of IMs and GMs for many years.

Memory deteriorates with old age. Here is the game I talked about: 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Ba6 5. b3 b5 6. cxb5 Bxb5 7. Bg2 Bb4+ 8. Bd2
a5 9. O-O (recommended by Karpov in one annotated game) ... 0-1 (Bacrot-Anand, Corus 2006, r8). Not Kamsky, so I missed the posting place. Apologies.

Jovan, you mean Bacrot - Anand, not Kamsky - Anand. I don't think at this level they may not be aware of Bxb4. There is probably an improvement for black somewhere.

To Jovan Petronic:

I assume you are referring to Bacrot-Anand (rather than Kamski-Anand). I checked in the recent book by Yrjola and Tella on the QI, and the suggest 10... Nc6(!) assuming that Black "has compensation" after his 15th move in the game Belakovskaia-Mastrovasilis (see below). I'm pretty sure Anand was aware of this when he played this variation.

[Event "Ch Yugoslavia"]
[Site "Belgrade (Yugoslavia)"]
[Date "1998"]
[Round "3"]
[White "Ilincic Zlatko (SCG)"]
[Black "Knezevic Bojan (SCG)"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Eco "E15"]
[Annotator ""]
[Source ""]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Ba6 5.b3 b5 6.cxb5 Bxb5 7.Bg2
Bb4+ 8.Bd2 a5 9.Bxb4 axb4 10.Qd2 Qe7 11.Qg5 c5 12.Qxg7 Rg8 13.Qh6
c4 14.bxc4 Bxc4 15.Qd2 Bd5 16.Qb2 Nc6 17.O-O Kf8 18.Nbd2 Ne4
19.Nxe4 Bxe4 20.Rfc1 Qd6 21.e3 Ra5 22.Nd2 Bxg2 23.Kxg2 Qd5+ 24.f3
f5 25.Nb3 Rb5 26.Qe2 Ke7 27.Rc2 Na5 28.Nc5 Rbb8 29.e4 fxe4 30.fxe4
Qg5 31.d5 Qe5 32.Rd1 b3 33.axb3 Nxb3 34.d6+ Ke8 35.Nxb3 Rxb3
36.Rc8+ Kf7 1-0

[Event "It"]
[Site "Korinthos (Greece)"]
[Date "1998"]
[Round "9"]
[White "Belakovskaia Anjelina (USA)"]
[Black "Mastrovasilis Athanasios (GRE)"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[Eco "E15"]
[Annotator ""]
[Source ""]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Ba6 5.b3 b5 6.cxb5 Bxb5 7.Bg2
Bb4+ 8.Bd2 a5 9.Bxb4 axb4 10.Qd2 Nc6 11.Qg5 Ra5 12.Qxg7 Ke7 13.Qh6
Qa8 14.Qd2 Ne4 15.Qb2 d5 16.Ne5 Nxe5 17.dxe5 Qa6 18.Bxe4 dxe4
19.O-O Bxe2 20.Re1 Bf3 21.Nd2 Rd8 22.Nxf3 exf3 23.Qc1 Rad5 24.Qg5+
Kd7 25.Qf4 Rd3 26.Qxf7+ Kc8 27.Rac1 Qb6 28.h4 R8d4 29.Re3 Rxe3
30.fxe3 Rd3 31.Qxf3 Rxe3 32.Qa8+ Kd7 33.Kg2 Re2+ 34.Kh3 Rd2 35.Qf8
Rd5 36.Qf7+ Kc8 37.Qxh7 Kb7 38.Qe4 c5 39.Rf1 Qc7 40.Re1 Kb6 41.Qf4
Rd4 42.Qf6 Qc6 43.h5 Rd2 44.Rg1 Qe4 45.Qxe6+ Ka5 46.Qf7 Qe2 47.Rf1
Qg2+ 48.Kg4 Qe2+ 49.Kh3 Qg2+ 50.Kg4 Qe2+ 1/2-1/2

Niv

I remember reading a Chessbase magazine issue, where a gm commentator classified a5 as a dubious move, or even mistake, also referring to Bxb4 as a refutation.

Not sure so much about the Belakovskaja-Mastrovasilis game, as Athanasios (if I am not mixing him with his brother, also a gm) has a trend of playing dubios opening variations, for reasons unknown to me. I am happy that women follow theory and improvements so well, on the other hand.

Anyway, I would not be surprised if super gms don't know or forget something, there is so much information that it is impossible to filter and memorize it all.

I will try to check some interviews that may have been published during Corus, maybe someone mentioned it somewhere.

The interesting background of this variation is that Bxb4, followed by Qd2 and Qg5, with a double attack, was not mentioned for 10 years in any publication analysis, not even as interesting, until Ilincic unleashed it.

Other similar surprise moves are often covered in great detail.

This position after 10... Nc6 attracted Fritz and my attention for a few minutes and I can say that it is might be better for white but that it is very sharp. Here is one attractive, if pointless, line. 10...Nc6 11.Qg5 Ba6 12. Q:g7 Rg8 13.Qh6 Rg6?! 14.Qf4?!(Qd2) Rg4 15.Qh6 (Qc1 N:d4!? unclear,Qd2) N:d4!?(Rg6)16.N:d4 R:d4 17.B:a8 Q:a8 18.0-0 Ng4!!(Ke7 Nd2) 19.Qh7 Qd5 20. e4 Qc5!! 21.Qg8+ Ke7 22.Qxg4 B:f1 23.Kf1 Qc1+ 24.Kg2 Qb2 25.Qg5+ Ke8 26.Qg8+ Ke7 27.Qg5+ Ke8 = Obviously this line is pointless in a way(unless white was trying to gain time on the clock by repeating!) but I think it gets high marks for sharpness nevertheless.