July 2006 Archives

Something about the air in Biel does something for Alexander Morozevich. Yesterday he won his fourth game in a row to move to a full-point lead in the GM tournament with 5/6. Yes, he's clearly the class of the event and has a habit of putting up outrageous scores when he's a top seed. Still, when he's on a roll it's something special. In round six he played a speculative piece sac against Bruzon and finished things off nicely when the Cuban couldn't find the best defense. (Both 35..Bf5 and 35..Qb5 look like wild king hunts.) Radjabov is in second and Carlsen is third. Today is round seven. Live games.

[Update: Yipes! Carlsen beats Morozevich in the 7th round to tighten up the event considerably. Moro ruined a fascinating game with 27.Bg7??]

Things are considerably cooler in Dortmund, where all the games were drawn, most of them tamely. Aronian was held rather easily by Kramnik, failing to get revenge for the drubbing Vlady gave him at the Olympiad, although I'm sure his gold medal salved that wound nicely. Kramnik "lost" the draw this year and started with two blacks. Today is an off day, oddly, so we have to wait till August 1 to see the "white Kramnik" who was so deadly in Turin. It another Olympiad rematch with an opponent he stomped there, last year's Dortmund winner Naiditsch.

Kramnik-Aronian was actually the longest game of the day, an accurate sequence of exchanges not without interest. 23.Bxh7+ was an eye-catching possibility that looks like it only leads to a repetition draw. The other three games totaled maybe 20 moves out of theory. Svidler-Leko contributed five moves to human knowledge in the Najdorf. 21..Qa5!? looked interesting. Naiditsch-Gelfand did similarly in the ultra-theoretical b5 sac line of the Najdorf. Black had no interest in playing on in a very precarious position with 23..Rf8. Jobava's clever exchanges left Adams with little to play for in the endgame.

It's a very short sprint so get your popcorn and find your seat quickly. The official site was down during the round but is back up now. Eight players meet in a single round-robin so it's a mere seven rounds. A pity, really. Last year there were ten players and Arkady Naiditsch won a shock upset clear first place with just +2. In just seven rounds +2 practically guarantees a share of first. Players: Aronian, Leko, Svidler, Kramnik, Adams, Gelfand, Jobava, Naiditsch.

In the first round Gelfand and Kramnik played a disgraceful 19 move draw after exchanging a handshake and two pawns. What a joke. Not that you're going to have Sofia rules in a tournament organized on the fragile Kramnik's home turf, but 19 moves in the first round with a board full of pieces? I hope Gelfand gives some of his paycheck back to the sponsors.

Leko beat Naiditsch in a smooth central control game. He denied every attempt to complicate and finally pushed his pawns forward. Adams won a pawn against Aronian but the rook endgame was drawn. The game of the round was Baadur Jobava's loss to Svidler, and I put it that way because the young Georgian - who qualified to play here by winning Aeroflot - had several opportunities to force repetitions but he kept pressing. Eventually he lost control and went too far and couldn't hold the endgame against Svidler. As Kasparov has often said, what separates the top ten is their resistance.

A tough loss after a very creative effort by Jobava. Kasparov poked his head in to watch a few times at Playchess.com and sounded quite impressed with White's aggressive play. I can just see Gelfand looking at it and smirking, "Nice game, but I got a free day and a half point and what did you get?" Ban the draw offer! And thank god for qualifiers with some fire in the belly.

Leko hasn't played since March and it was important for him to get off to a good start. Apparently there is a side match between Germany's Elizabeth Paetz and America's Irina Krush. Get your NY rally caps on. The first game was drawn.

From the doomed romantic department. Came upon this position while preparing tonight's Black Belt. It's from Sadvakasov-Zaikov, round 5 of the 2006 World Open. Black to play. White has consolidated and the Black king has nowhere to go in the long run.

Black resigned a few moves after trying 21..Qh3 22.Bd4 Kf8 23.fxe6. In the diagram Black has a wittier move, although it's also insufficient. It's a pretty sequence though. Check out 21..Be1?! luring the queen into a pin on the rook. 22.Qxe1 Bxg2 with some desperate counterplay. White has better, leading to another amusing bishop plunge. 21..Be1 22.Rfe2 sez Fritz 22..Bf3 cute, but White is still winning after 23.Qb3. The White king is surrounded by black pieces but is safe while the black king is far from the action but can't be defended.

All three games decisive in the Biel GM tournament. Carlsen loses to Volokitin with white while Morozevich beats Pelletier with black to move into clear first after three straight wins. Radjabov defeated Bruzon to move into second place. Pelletier is already in the cellar alone. Tomorrow, the 29th, is a rest day. Daily live games here, which serves as a replay page until the next round starts.

Morozevich moved into a tie for first with Carlsen by beating Radjabov in an extraordinarily complicated game. Moro has yet to draw a game. All three games were good fights today. The endgame from Morozevich-Radjabov should have rung a few bells.

The first is from Carlsen-Radjabov in the second round. On the right is Morozevich-Radjabov. An amusing anti-matter coincidence. The first diag is drawn. The second is very hard for Black to defend, but I haven't had time to figure out or look up if it's a forced win. It looks like it should be but there are tricky blockades in here in which White can't make progress if he pushes his pawns too soon. In the diagram Black played 81.Kf7 and lost quickly after 82.Kf5. Even after 81..Ke5 you can't keep the white king off f5 forever and that should win for White. [Update: We're 99% sure this ending it's a forced draw. See lines below.]

An interesting round in the Biel GM event despite Bruzon and Pelletier taking an 18-move nap. Leaders Carlsen and Radjabov waged battle in a funky Benko Gambit line, the Boy from Baku II on the white side. (Black left his king's rook on f8 instead of playing it to b8, rather unusual in my experience. It worked out fine for Carlsen after he used the e-file to swap a pair of rooks.) Radjabov clung on to the extra pawn like it was a copy of Playboy and the teens went into a difficult minor piece endgame. It looks like a dead draw by move 50 but Radja kept trying and they went down to bare kings. Kudos to both players for a fighting game.

Favorite Alexander Morozevich has never failed to win in Biel. He's 2/2 with very impressive scores. (8/10 in 2003; 7.5/10 in 2004.) He got back on track after yesterday's amazing loss to Carlsen by stuffing Volokitin today. Moro played a spectacular queen sacrifice in the Najdorf, but as usual this was played before. Leko used it against Karjakin at Corus this year, at which point we discovered it had been played in a correspondence world championship game a few years earlier. Those games were drawn but Moro went to work with a passed a-pawn assisted by his rook and knight vs queen. With a draw in hand Moro decided he was winning and played the cute 32.Rb6 to enter the endgame. The rest is a nice technical achievement.

Sorry to keep changing the story but there are new developments and I feel obliged to keep up instead of waiting for all the smoke to clear. Apparently the Zurich exhibition event with Kasparov, Polgar, Karpov, and Korchnoi will be straight rapids after all. (15+10 most likely.) Kasparov is disappointed and annoyed because he was taken by surprise (apparently a message was sent to Moscow but he was in NY and London).

This turns out to be a problem for him for another reason: it's immediately been used against him in the Russian press. Several stories have already appeared saying he's "running" back to chess, going back on his word to retire, etc. Of course the Putin regime is doing anything it can to discredit Kasparov's political activities. Having the games be shuffle chess would have helped his case that it's just a casual exhibition. State-controlled news sources that have assiduously ignored him are already proving quick to plaster this "big return" all over the place, saying it shows he's not a serious politician, etc. Since his political opponents will shout whenever he gets near a chessboard, I'm hoping he won't let them pressure him into staying away from exhibitions like this one. Next he wouldn't be able to give charity simuls with kids. It's been a year and a half since he went into politics full time, but apparently it will never be enough.

So, good news bad news. Bad for fans of shuffle chess, good for fans of chess chess, but with the potential for very bad news if Kasparov feels obliged to back out to preserve the political standing he's worked so hard to achieve since March 2005. But if he can't play three rapid games in the middle of a plaza in Zurich 16 months after he retired, when would he play? I've encouraged him to play with this argument, but of course it's up to him and his political guys in Russia to evaluate the damage. Really annoying. (Kommersant even interviewed Garry's old trainer Nikitin and the whole thing makes it sound like there's a big comeback going. There's not.)

The supertournament part of the Biel chess festival is underway with two rounds in the books. Two exciting rounds. 5/6 of the games have been decisive so far. Carlsen and Radjabov lead on 2/2. Morozevich, Bruzon, Volokitin, and Pelletier are the other participants. It's a double round-robin.

Kasparov sounded very impressed with Magnus Carlsen's "brilliant game" over Morozevich today. Especially since White played the opening a tempo down! White has often reached the same King's Indian position by playing the usual Bayonette 9.b4 instead of doing it in two moves like Carlsen did. It's supposed to be White to play on move 14 (usually 14.a5 or 14.Nd2). Either a bit cocky or, more likely, a bit of a whoops by the 15-year-old Norwegian. Moro is famously dangerous with black, so maybe this was some psychological warfare.

The ACCENTUS women's tournament runs alongside with Pia Cramling as the top seed.

Well, the cat is out of the bag somewhat so I'll go with more. (The lamest part about having to keep these secrets is that half the time I'm not even the first to break the news.) Kasparov will return to the chessboard on August 22 in Zurich at Lichthof Chess Champions Day along with Anatoly Karpov, Judit Polgar, and Viktor Korchnoi. This is Garry's first serious chess(ish) event since his retirement after Linares, 2005. Of course it's only rapid and mostly an exhibition, something he never ruled out. However, it's odd the Credit-Suisse site doesn't mention this is supposed to be a rapid Fischerandom Chess event!

The discussions Kasparov had many months ago with his friends at Credit-Suisse focused primarily on how to make this event fit in with the conference's theme of innovation. (Kasparov is also lecturing at this 150th corporate jubilee event. A brief Q&A with him that mentions the event is also on the site. See excerpt below.) The plan was to have fans vote at ChessBase.com on the position or positions to be used. Interactive, innovative, good PR, etc. So I'm not sure what's up with the item on the Credit-Suisse page. There's no chess info at all there so perhaps they just wanted to make a general announcement to their magazine's readers - who would be unlikely to know or care about the type of chess anyway. I expect this to be sorted out asap. Garry liked the idea of shuffle chess and fans picking the positions. "Just another rapid tournament" is a much less jazzy return.

Busy week and day with a wedding (not my own) and meetings (GK in town; book finished!) but I'll be back with lots of updates. My inbox overfloweth with items on tourney cheats and the USCF special election, which looks to have been more like a special olympics election. At least the psychos who win FIDE elections are rich psychos... China collapsed in the final round of the Taiyuan tournament but still held on to beat the "world" team by a single point. The recent successes of the Chinese team should continue considering the average age of the team is around 21. But who will break out of the pack to put a Chinese player in the top 10? Karjakin won the Tomsk rapid event convincingly. Games seem scarce though Marky-mark grabbed most. I have a few more from one of the players and will keep lobbying for the rest. Weird... The Biel festival begins today but the big GM tournament doesn't start until Monday. Morozevich, Radjabov, and Carlsen are the top attractions.

The visiting team has moved to within a point of the Chinese squad in the Taiyuan Scheveningen event after seven rounds. Vescovi continued to implode by losing a not-worse endgame in terrible fashion. Jobava is the standout so far and won with a nice exchange sacrifice in the seventh round after the pawn-pushingest opening you'll likely to see in a while. There's a nice photo gallery at the official site here; just click the numbers under the photo on the right. Unfortunately it's all in Chinese so it's hard to say who is Hu.

Magnus Carlsen is getting both praise and scorn for losing his last-round game to a lower-rated opponent at the Norwegian championship. Agdestein won and so the two again tied for first and will again meet in a playoff for the title later this year. Some people in the comments here were under the misconception that Carlsen played aggressively to win with black (he needed only a draw to guarantee the title), some mistaking the opening for a Budapest Gambit. (Black played ..e5 before White played d4.) All I see is that he got a clearly worse position, tried a dubious sacrifice and lost. I didn't see any point at which he could have gone for a clear drawing line instead. Black's position before 23..Nxf2 is quite bad already.

Dortmund 2006 begins on July 29: Arkadij Naiditsch, Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian, Peter Svidler, Peter Leko, Boris Gelfand, Michael Adams and Baadur Jobava.

I'm sure the columnist isn't aware that Tal already claims that mantle among chessplayers. But for those who have been quick to doom Garry Kasparov's political career - many even before it started - this might be of interest. The "Other Russia" conference he organized received a great deal of international coverage and was a topic of conversation and contention in the Kremlin and during the G-8 meeting that just finished in St. Petersburg. (Bush even met with NGO leaders - albeit ones apparently hand-picked by the Kremlin since few others had ever heard of them - before attending the G-7 meeting.)

From Daniel Johnson's article in the New York Sun, a conservative broadsheet.

Well, let's hope Garry doesn't try to walk on water until the rivers freeze over, but it's nice to see some appreciation. Trivia alert: Sharansky beat Kasparov in a simul in Israel in 1996.... As it seems to be with many Russian chessplayers, The Master and Margarita is one of Garry's favorite books, so he's pretty chuffed about this despite himself. Hard to keep such things from going to your head, but we're trying. When The Scotsman newspaper recently called him, in separate articles, "broodingly handsome" and "youthful and good looking" I was quick to point out that this was by Scottish standards and that Sean Connery is still considered their sexiest man alive.

Oddly enough I find myself in Montreal this weekend on a spontaneous dash north of the border with my girlfriend. Of course - and doesn't it always happen this way, if you think not, ask your girlfriend - we stumble by a local chess shop on day one. There's a pamphlet for the Quebec Open Championship and so we stop by and see Moiseenko in the lead in the final round. Talked to the organizer Richard Berube about the MonRoi system for a bit. He's quite happy about it and most of the players seem to like it. (They decided not to pester a 93-year-old participant with it. Good call.)

It took a bit of wandering to find the tournament hall, which is right in the middle of where the giant Montreal "Just For Laughs" ("Juste Pour Rire") Comedy Festival is in full swing. If you've ever wondered who has hahaha.com, wonder no longer. The chess tournament is considered part of the festivities, believe it or not. The logo is a bouncing jester with chess pieces in his hands. Of course we know all about chess jokes around here.

Look at the pretty kitties and let your rancor melt away... Open thread, happy thoughts, topic suggestions, questions, conundrums.

The grasshopper beat the master in the Norwegian championship. Magnus Carlsen (15) defeated his old trainer Simen Agdestein (39) to take the clear lead on 6/7 with two rounds to play. Last year the championship required a playoff and then a rapid playoff between these two and age and treachery overcame youthful energy after six games. It's great to see the two greats of Norwegian chess battling it out this way - playing in the championship and playing hard against each other. Karpov and his old trainer Furman played three short draws on the rare occasions they met over the board. When you think about it this was a bad deal for Karpov.

The Chinese team has a three-point lead in the Taiyuan tournament, mostly thanks to Vescovi's collapse for the visiting team. The Brazilian has a half point after five rounds. Jobava and Ni Hua stand out with 3.5/5. 50% of the games have been drawn so far with no short draws at all. 24.c4! in Wang Hao-Vescovi is worth a look.

Like everyone else, TWIC is having trouble getting info from the Tomsk rapid tournament. Karjakin and Rublevsky lead a powerful field that includes Morozevich, Bologan, Kasimdzhanov, and Ponomariov. The day's games can usually be found here. Crosstable (Russian) here. This is the 10th Izmailov Memorial and the Tomsk chess club bears his name. (Petr, Peter, Pyotr...) I believe he was the first Russian Federation champion in 1928 and was executed in the mid-30's along with, well, just about everyone. He beat Botvinnik in a few games (bad career move) but was never allowed to play in the USSR finals. There was a short article on him in a German chess magazine in 1998. Anyone with more on him?

Gasundheit! TWIC reports the start of an interesting tournament in China. The large-by-any-but-Chinese-standards city of Taiyuan (not Taiwan) in north-east China is hosting this Scheveningen format event. (One of Buddhism's most sacred mountains is located there, dontcha know.) A Scheveningen isn't about the Sicilian variation named for the same unpronounceable Dutch town. It is where everyone on one team places everyone on the other team/s. Here they play each other twice, so it's twelve rounds total.

A squad of the top Chinese players faces an international team made up of Jakovenko, Timofeev, Jobava, Asrian, Vescovi, and Berkes. The visitors are fractionally higher rated, but after what the Chinese accomplished on the road at the Turin Olympiad (silver medal), the home team has to be the heavy favorite here. Yet another strong Chinese junior, Wang Hao, is the only change from the Turin team, replacing Zhao Jun. No official site or live game link yet, but they are promised.

It's great to see the Chinese supporting their medal winners with strong events. The $18,000 prize fund wouldn't make much of a dent in Western Europe or the US, however. I'm a big fan of team events for a variety of reasons and a place like the US with sparse chess tradition could certainly benefit from a little more of the nationalism that comes to the fore in such events. But representing the flag shouldn't be a hardship either, so sponsorship is still the name of the game.

German chip manufacturer ZMD sponsored a creative event in Dresden, Germany, home of the 2008 chess Olympiad. Held on the weekend of the conclusion of the World Cup, a Women's World Cup of chess rapid event invited top female players from all the nations participating in the football (soccer) event. There were a few substitutions for countries that couldn't provide a player, but mostly it was a strong field. With most of these PR events there is more fan attention paid to cup size than World Cup, and few of the games are worth the time. Report at ChessBase and more at Polgar's blog.

With Russia and China not present it would have been a wide open competition, but the participation of Susan Polgar of the USA changed that in a hurry. She handily outclassed the field to hoist the trophy, never losing a game and beating hometown hope Elizabeth Pähtz in the final. Small consolation for US soccer fans who watched their vastly overrated side play like an American football team, bumbling and tackling their way to an embarrassing exit. And don't get me started on the arbiter who failed to call the penalty in Argentina-Germany. But I digress. Kudos to Polgar and U-S-A, U-S-A! On another positive note, no reports of anyone being head-butted during the final. (An even better version here.)

From Hanoi comes this tale, with obvious connections to the recent World Open cheating scandal/s.

I hear IM Ben Finegold was seen fleeing the scene.

Though a long-time contributing editor to the Wall St. Journal, Garry Kasparov has regularly branched out in the op-ed world. In the past few week's he's had articles in the Financial Times and now, the liberal bastion that is the New York Times op-ed page. Ironic for someone as basically conservative as Garry, but the topic isn't US domestic policy and it won't surprise. Kasparov goes after the Bush administration and European leaders for largely ignoring Russia's "slide into dictatorship" under Putin. The timing is not an accident either. The G7 meeting takes place in St. Petersburg in a few days and Kasparov and opposition groups have organized a sort of counter-summit in Moscow that begins tomorrow.

These editorials and the conference will see Kasparov's national and international profile as a politician continue to rise. Unsurprisingly, this is easier done outside of Russia, where opposition members are basically ignored by television, which is state controlled. The NY Times piece has already resulted in a burst of international media contact.

I'll make a desperate run for on-topic by suggesting that the more penetration Kasparov has in politics, the less likely it is he'll return to chess. On the other hand, I bet if he came out with an annotated collection of his online blitz games in 2010 it would outsell most chess books by a wide margin!

Junior with Junior? My 17-month-old nephew Roman, in Brooklyn with my sister for a visit, up from their home in the Bahamas. Apart from terrifying the cats and demolishing my bookshelves with studious industry he's also shown an interest in chess software. Apparently Junior wins the taste test as well as the world computer championship.

Speaking of juniors, Parimarjan Negi just became the second-youngest Grandmaster elect in history. Story at ChessBase. Much as I felt about tot Bu Xiangzhi, I'm not terribly impressed after an admittedly cursory look through his games, other than for his age, obviously. (Bu's norms were rather dubious when compared to the almost effortless collection amassed by Judit Polgar, for example.) In quite a few games against GMs Negi lost rather helplessly. He has a single win over a 2600+ player and needs to surpass 2500 to get his title, which looks imminent.

I'm sure he's a very talented kid, and most of these prodigies turn into top 20 players sooner or later. (Leko and Ponomariov sooner, Bacrot later. Bu waiting but still making progress.) But with the recent rating list coming out I'm in my usual funk about the depreciation of the GM title. Thanks to FIDE, Negi and Anand will have the same title. 2700 performance for a GM norm and 2600 for the title or bust! India already has three players in the top 30. Negi will be a hot favorite to make their 2008 Olympiad team. Will Anand still be in the top ten if and when Negi reaches the top 20? I'd say he could stay in the top 10 for another decade if he wants to, but that's a big "wants to." Indian politics has always had a soft spot for celebrities!

You may have noticed that the 2006 World Open thread has turned into an informative and interesting look into several cheating allegations made during the tournament. Many players who were there have posted and from what I can tell two players were ejected when they proved uncooperative with the investigation into the claims. (Transmitting devices were suspected.)

You can never absolutely prevent or prove or disprove cheating. What you can do is create a deterrent of sufficiently catastrophic kilotonnage to make it too much of a risk. But what's the point if you can't be 100% sure? Right now the organizers and tournament directors have a great deal of discretion to act because the penalties they can apply are relatively feeble. You get kicked out, basically. Increasing the penalty while still relying on great discretion is tricky.

For example, one idea I kicked around was having the players sign contracts prohibiting cheating, or making such language part of signing up. But prosecuting someone for fraud with less than 100% proof isn't going to work. Nor is banning them for a year or life or whatever. This is one of the reasons why, for purposes of exaggeration and not to start a discussion about it, the death penalty is so horrid. The greater the punishment the greater the certainty must be. The ultimate punishment requires omnescience. So, getting back to chess, we now have great discretion in applying weak penalties. Would you sign a contract that said a TD could ban you for life if he/she judged you were cheating? The alternative is developing a court system to handle these cases, or, with contracts, allowing them to be handled by the judicial system. Reasonable doubt, evidence, witnesses, etc. Of course this would change from state to state and create endless headaches, as well as a perfect job opportunity for lawyer/super-GM Gata Kamsky.

Using metal detectors, banning headgear, employing electronic countermeasures, none of these are practical options. (Remember the old anecdote about the player, after resigning, being asked by his opponent why he hadn't accepted a draw offer? He hadn't heard it because his hearing aid was off. Or something like that. Petrosian used to turn his down or off if conditions were noisy.) The good news is that the threat is stronger than the execution. Put some language into the rules that says that at the request of a TD and organizer a review panel can be convened and severe punishment meted out. Make sure everyone knows. Previous items on this topic here, here, and here.

Final two rounds today. Feel free to post updates if you're watching live. Kamsky squeezed Milov until he popped and now shares the lead on 6/7 with Milov and Joel "Jersey Boyo" Benjamin, who made a bid for an immortal game against Stripunsky. He sacrificed half a box of pieces and although Stripunsky fought back to at least equalize, Benjamin eventually won the day. According to the score at the Monroi site White missed a mate in two on move 24, which seems rather unlikely. 23..Kg8 must have been the move. (?) The rusty steel trap that is my memory coughs up Benjamin-Bartholomew from the 2003 World Open. Joel played the old double bishop sacrifice but there just wasn't a win, something he was lamenting in the halls long after the game. Games below.

The old rivalry Kamsky-Benjamin is a forced pairing in the morning round. A baker's dozen are chasing with 5.5 so as usual it's going to be down to tiebreaks unless one of the leaders wins twice today. Anyone know what the attendance-adjusted first prize is going to be? Ben Finegold is blogging (of course) the participation of the Fightin' Finegolds. Kelly won yesterday is now ahead of GM Rohde. Ben beat Yoshiharu Habu, the famous (well, in some places) Shogi player.

Benjamin - Stripunsky [B22]

34th Annual WORLD OPEN Philadelphia, 2006

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.c3 Nf6 4.e5 Nd5 5.Bc4 d6 6.d4 cxd4 7.cxd4 Be7 8.0-0 0-0 9.Re1 dxe5 10.dxe5 Nb6 11.Bd3 Na6 12.Qe2 Nc5 13.Bc2 Nd5 14.Rd1 Bd7 15.Nbd2 Nb4 16.Bb1 Qa5 17.Ne4 Qa6 18.Qe3 Qc6 19.Nd4 Qc7 20.Nf6+ Bxf6 21.exf6 Nd5 22.Bxh7+ Kxh7 23.Qh3+ Kg6 24.fxg7 Kxg7 25.Qg4+ Kh8 26.Qh4+ Kg8 27.Qg4+ Kh8 28.Qh4+ Kg8 29.Qg5+ Kh8 30.Qh5+ Kg8 31.Qg5+ Kh8 32.Qh6+ Kg8 33.Nf3 Ne4 34.Ng5 Nef6 35.Rxd5 exd5 36.Qxf6 Qc2 37.Be3 Qg6 38.Qd4 Rfe8 39.h3 Bc6 40.Rc1 f6 41.Nf3 Re4 42.Qd3 d4 43.Bf4 Rae8 44.Kh2 Qf5 45.Bg3 Kg7 46.Qa3 Rf4 47.Nh4 Rxh4 48.Bxh4 d3 49.Qd6 d2 50.Qxd2 Qe4 51.f4 Qe2 52.Rc2 Qe4 53.Rc3 Kf7 54.Qf2 Rh8 55.Bg3 Qf5 56.Re3 a5 57.a3 a4 58.Qe2 Rd8 59.Re7+ Kf8 60.Rc7 Re8 61.Qd2 Kg8 62.Bh4 Bd5 63.Qf2 Qg6 64.f5 Qh6 65.Qd4 Re5 66.Rd7 Bf7 67.Rd8+ Kh7 68.Rd7 Kg8 69.Qg4+ Kf8 70.Rxb7 Bd5 71.Rb8+ Ke7 72.Qb4+ Kf7 73.Qg4 Ke7 74.Bf2 Re4 75.Qg3 Qf4 76.Bc5+ Kd7 77.Qxf4 Rxf4 78.g4 Rc4 79.Be3 Kd6 80.Kg3 Rc2 81.Rd8+ Kc6 82.Rc8+ 1-0

Benjamin,Joel (2589) - Bartholomew,J (2300) [B01]

31st World Open Philadelphia USA (2), 01.07.2003

1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.d3 c6 6.Bd2 Qc7 7.Qe2 Nbd7 8.a4 e6 9.Nf3 Bb4 10.0-0 0-0 11.d4 b6 12.Bd3 a5 13.Rfe1 Bb7 14.Ne5 Bxc3 15.Bxc3 c5 16.Nxd7 Nxd7 17.dxc5 Nxc5 18.Bxh7+ Kxh7 19.Qh5+ Kg8 20.Bxg7 Kxg7 21.Qg5+ Kh8 22.Qh5+ Kg7 23.Qg5+ Kh8 24.Qh6+ Kg8 25.Ra3 f5 26.Rg3+ Qxg3 27.hxg3 Rad8 28.Qg6+ Kh8 29.Qh6+ Kg8 30.Qg6+ Kh8 31.g4 Rd7 32.Re3 Rg7 33.Qh6+ Kg8 34.g5 f4 35.Re5 Rh7 36.Qg6+ Rg7 37.Qh6 Rh7 38.Qg6+ Rg7 39.Qh6 Rh7 40.Qg6+ Rg7 ½-½

The World Open standings are trackable now that the schedules have merged. Switzerland's Vadim Milov, who recently won the San Marino Open, is in the lead with 5/5 after beating Hikaru Nakamura in the fifth round. (Wild Benko Gambit.) Kamsky, Stripunsky, and Hansen are on 4.5 with roughly a bajillion players on 4.0 with four rounds to play. The youth set is there in force and taking scalps. The highly touted Ray Robson has knocked off a few IMs in a row.

Some games are viewable at the official site, but they are also being broadcast by Monroi, the makers of the handheld scorekeepers that finally seem to be gaining some purchase. The moves are transmitted to their central server as the players write them down. I don't know how it's going on site, but the games are nearly real time on the Monroi website. The World Open games are here. You can get PGN from the game list, but not from the Flash viewer itself. It's very spiffy stuff. I wish the viewer displayed time stamps with each move, or counted the clock down. Their "legends speak" page has a nice pic of Kasparov I took in London 2000 and even a video commercial of him endorsing Monroi's gadget.

FIDE has announced the latest rating list, this one including MTel and the Olympiad as well as many other events from one of the busiest calendar segments I can recall. Most of the top players have over 20 rated games, many over 30, and Alexei Shirov 43! (The Bundesliga results were added this month.) I'm happy to see Mickey Adams fulfilling my prediction of exactly one year ago and clawing his way back into the top 10. The elite list is still remarkably similar to that of five years ago, other than Aronian's increasingly solid installation at #3. But youngsters Radjabov, Mamedyarov, and Navara are all knocking on the door and someone will have to go. I talked to Kasparov today about the new list and he said he was impressed with Navara's play at the Olympiad. Unfortunately, his scorching play was overshadowed by his loss to Aronian's spectacular Nf7.

As pointed out by Marky-Mark at TWIC on his handy time-lapse rating list, Karjakin and Carlsen have taken another great leap forward, with all due respect to Bu Xiangzhi and Wang Yue, who have also moved up substantially. Kramnik pipped Svidler for the #4 spot after gaining a dozen points at the Olympiad. Kamsky is nearly back to 2700 after a gain of almost 30 points. Nakamura took a fall of similar size. By the time Leko plays at Dortmund at the end of July he will have been away from the classical board for almost five months. Sargissian jumped into the top 40 out of nowhere. He's only 23 and has ridden Aronian's coattails up the list.

Topalov lifts an arbitrary statistical milestone from around his neck by reaching 2813 and passing Kasparov's final rating by a single point. He's been playing very well and winning events and deserves every accolade. Someone will eventually top Kasparov's 1999 peak of 2851, but it's good to remember that he crossed 2800 when there was only one other active player on the planet (Karpov) who had even crossed 2700! Kasparov had to put up +7 or better to gain any points. Now there are so many 2700+ players that +3 can do it. Anand dropped quite a few points, so Topalov's leading margin is also impressive. (I think Kasparov's biggest ever was a staggering 82 points over Anand in 1999.) Place your bets, will poor Vishy ever be #1 or will younger players surpass him before he can catch Topalov?

Mark reiterates something many of us have been saying for a long time. The minimum Elo for a GM title should be 2600 (more?) and the norms raised correspondingly. It's gotten to the point that fewer than 10% of all GMs ever even reach the top 100. But FIDE has a profit motive and the federations and players have a pride motive, so titles will continue to be churned out. Just as Ilyumzhinov has presided over the demolition of the world championship title, he will watch, smiling, as the Grandmaster title becomes increasingly trivialized.