Is that link for live broadcast correct?? Yesterday, I followed the games at http://www.chesstigers.de/live/live.htm ??

Thanks.

That one is the main replay page, the one I gave is supposed to be specifically for today's games and won't change later. But since it's not working now it doesn't much matter. The main live one seems to be working.

This was probably more financially interesting for Bacrot than the French national championship that is being played right now in Besançon (the antepenultimate letter is a c with a cedilla). I know the French federation is plain terrible at public relationships, but it may still be of interest to some. After all, except Étienne, most of the strongest French players (all right, not Spassky) are there. There are two closed tournaments for men : group "A" with ten GMs and two IMs, including the whole olympic team minus Bacrot, and group "B" with seven GMs and five IMs, currently led by Éric Prié helped by his trademarked attack (1.d4 d5 2.a3, sometimes with 2.Nf3 Nf6 tossed in) and, more generally, his peculiar openings (1.d4 f5 2.Bg5, etc.). There is also a women's tournament, unfortunately without Marie Sebag and therefore lacking real opposition to Almira Skripchenko, and open tournaments for everyone.

Information (sparse, not well presented, only in French... and believe it or not, the federation actually pays for that) on http://www.echecs.asso.fr (skip the bits on the BNP sponsoring and the French young players not going to the next world championship... terrible, really).

Anyone know what happened in Grischuk-Mamedyarov in round ten? The game viewer had 0-1 on move seven in a position with no reason to resign. Mobile phone or website snafu?

I'd say Mamedyarov has proven himself the moral winner in a way, since he was giving perpetual against Bacrot when for some reason he short-circuited and allowed mate in two, and his only other dropped points were this mysterious loss to Grischuk. Otherwise he's looked a class above his other opponents.

Check out Gyimesi-Morozevich in the last round for an outrageous long-term swindle.

A lot of the scores are incomplete but the results seem okay. Software/board glitches due to improper piece placement, I imagine. Happens.

I was watching it live, though, and it came up 0-1 a few minutes into the session.

Notice the role of opening theory in this game 4.
Anand-Radjabov are now at move 25, Aronian-Svidler at move 7.

After what would have been first time control (move 40) Radjabov is pressuring Anand, but he is short of time

Anand escaped with a draw, somewhat luckyly, I believe

Game 4. Anand-Radjabov, draw

Svidler won game 4 convincingly, evening the score.

Svidler is such a great player ...unbelievable how he turned tables today

This Mainz circus is quite entertaining, one does not always have to go to the opera of classical chess to enjoy music

Game 5: Anand - Radjabov (Aug 19, 2006):
1) e4 c5 2) Nf3 Nc6 3) Bb5...

1-0. I hope.

zero@ego.com: "Anand escaped with a draw [Game 4], somewhat luckyly, I believe"

yeah... right. And maybe it would've been more apt if you had used zero@elo.com or zero@eng.com for posting such a comment...

No stinking theory: In Round 10, Mamedyarov wanted to protect his Ba3 with Qd1-c1, but there was a Bishop on d1, not a Queen. Since Grischuk insisted on touch-move, the Ba3 would be lost and he resigned immediately.

Ah, that's what happened.

Also Fridman-someone; Fridman had a king on b1, rook on a1, queen d2. Black had a bishop on d4. Fridman went 000?? losing at once to Be3 - evidently he thought the king would stay on b1.

From ChessBase.com:

"Aronian played a blindfold Chess960 game against soap star Vaile and won."

That has to be a tough combination, blindfold + chess960.

I cannot recall ever hearing about anyone else playing chess960 blindfolded.

Gene Milener
http://CastleLong.com/