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Lots of evergreens trotted out in this one, but good writing is always worth a link. Newsman Dominic Lawson, who wrote The Inner Game on the Kasparov-Short match (and Short's run-up to it), has a piece here that starts on the Kramnik-Fritz match but focuses more on Mikhail Tal.
Vassily Ivanchuk takes a full-point lead into today's final round of the Capablanca Memorial in Havana, Cuba. He's on 6/9 and faces Miton, the only player to inflict a loss on the Ukrainian top-tenner in the event. Evgeny Bareev has recovered from a poor start to move into second place on five points while Miton is a half-point back. The Cuban stars Dominguez and Bruzon both have the same weird line, one loss and eight draws! Round nine was all short draws. The official site has picked up the pace and has results and games if you're patient.
Osvaldo Zambrana is near the top of the open that runs alongside of the Elite event. He's trying to get his rating over 2500, at which point he will become Bolivia's first Grandmaster. His third norm last December was something of a news story in Bolivia, but they forgot about the rating requirement.
Chess has been elevated to a medal sport at the Asian Games for the first time. The event takes place in Doha, Qatar starting on December 1. The official chess section is here. The format is curious: "The 15th Asian Games features a mixed team competition played over nine matches in two different formats: classical (with a time limit of 90 minutes for each player's moves, and 30 seconds added after every move) and rapid (where the limit is 25 minutes with a 10 second addition). The three-person team comprises two males and one female player."
Kasimdzhanov, Sasikiran, and Bu Xiangzhi are the biggest names on the list of participants. This is as close as chess has come to making it to the Olympics. The IOC dismissed chess and other mind sports from the possibility of becoming official Olympic sports, but there are hopes there might be an exhibition chess event in Beijing 2008 thanks to Chinese successes. There haven't been any so-called demonstration sports since 1996, although the martial art wushu is being granted a semi-official status in Beijing. [Alexei Shirov reminds in the comments that the IOC allowed Kirsan to stage an Anand-Shirov rapid match at the Olympic village in Sydney in 2000. Shirov says that at the time he and Ilyumzhinov took it for granted then that chess would soon make it in as an Olympic sport.]
As with all participants, chessplayers are subject to drug testing at the Asian Games. While this has made the mainstream press as "news of the weird," it comes with the territory and there's no real reason chessplayers should be exempt. While there hasn't been any conclusive proof that any banned substance improves chess play, if you're going to be a part of the main event you have to play by the rules. It's a little silly on the face of it, but certainly endurance and alertness are factors in chess and there are plenty of substances that enhance those things. (Though that doesn't necessarily mean they improve chess performance.) Banning coffee would cripple half the field in the morning rounds of US opens, for example...
Nigel Short comments on testing chess players ("Rubbish!") and other comments in this news item.
Starts at 9am EST, 1500 local time in Germany. Fritz leads 1.5-0.5 after Kramnik blundered a mate in one. Kramnik has white in this third game of six. He has outplayed Fritz in the opening and the middlegame in both games so far, but he uncharacteristically rushed the endgame in game one and missed a win. The game two blunder can be psychoanalyzed to death, but can also be called the result of haste.
Kramnik's opening wasn't ambitious in game one and Fritz had various chances to equalize (18..Bxf3 the simplest), but it's possible Kramnik knew that it wouldn't. If so, it's an excellent demonstration of how to use a computer's prejudices against it. So, would he be happy with another Catalan or will he look for something more?
I'll be doing live audio commentary again with GM Joel Benjamin on chess.fm for the entire game. You have to be an ICC member to listen to the show, but you can get a free 7-day trial membership in just a few minutes.
Update: Nothing spectacular to report today. Kramnik employed the Catalan again and varied from game 1 to no great effect. Lots of exchanges again, fitting his overall plan. Kramnik chose a surprisingly active and imbalanced pawn position to play when he allowed his knight to be captured on e5. Fritz was content to sacrifice a pawn for activity, something that would have raised eyebrows just a few years ago. The machine got the better of the endgame exchanges to get a passed a-pawn, but it didn't look like serious danger. Kramnik avoided any torture with a cute exchange sac to reach a blockade, just the sort of thing comps don't understand.
So good and bad for Vlad today. He got what he wanted from the opening again, then had the worse of it (slightly) but with few real losing chances, and then got to finish on a high note by tricking the machine for an easy draw. This also puts the nasty second game further behind him. Commentating the game live with Joel I got the impression that Fritz played some very good chess today. Its "computer moment" was the patient ..h6, showing it was happy with its position despite the pawn deficit. Somewhat dry again, but that's obviously what Kramnik must do, and there were still plenty of interesting tactical sidelines. Big Vlad is still looking solid and getting the sort of positions he wants, so I still think he'll pick up the equalizer in the next three games to fulfill my prediction.
The radio stuff with a partner (as opposed to my old solo stuff at Playchess) is fun, and doubtlessly more interesting for the audience. It looks like I'll be hosting just about every day during Wijk aan Zee, with perhaps a rotating set of GM analysts. It will be even more interesting for all concerned because we'll be able to pick the most interesting games and positions and jump around.
After taking a break from chess to attend college full time, Hikaru Nakamura returned at the National Chess Congress in Philadelphia over the Thanksgiving weekend. He didn't have much rust to shake off, apparently, starting out 5-0 and nearly beating Izoria in the final round. He had to settle for a draw and clear first with 5.5/6, including wins over Ivanov and Yudasin. Chess Life Online has more, including a few games and photos. (Note to whoever is putting up the photos; email me for my free digital color correction course.)
It's great to hear Nakamura is returning to the board. US chess has produced precious few top players since the big batch that learned from watching Bobby Fischer. The US side counts on luminaries like Kamsky and Onischuk, but it's important to have home-brewed players to inspire the next generation. Plus, it would be a shame to break up the squad that brought home an Olympiad bronze medal so soon. Lastly, we also selfishly wanted him back annotating games for our Black Belt newsletter, which he has agreed to do. We look forward to seeing one of his Congress games soon.
Just underway in Bonn. Live here at the official site. Live with commentary on Playchess.com and the ICC. The Fritz team abandoned 1.e4 in Bahrain against Kramnik after getting nowhere against the Berlin and with the Scotch, so 1.d4 seems logical to try and keep the pieces on the board. Of course Kramnik can basically pick the opening, so we'll see what he goes for.
Regarding game one, it looks like the ending was indeed a win for Kramnik. There are better defensive tries than the main line given by Seirawan here, but it shows the main problems and ideas. I spent a while looking at this with Kasparov last night and he's "taking all bets" against Black being able to draw after 30.e3.
Update: KRAMNIK BLUNDERS MATE IN 1 IN BALANCED POSITION!
Holy heck. Everyone thought this was a joke, or that they were analyzing after agreeing to a draw, but on-site people say it happened. Both players still had 30 minutes. Kramnik had the better of it the entire way but it looked like things were going to finish in a repetition when Kramnik simply missed mate on h7 (without which Black is winning, but this is like saying you have a nice house except for the lack of a roof). Horrible, truly tragic.
From ChessBase: "Kramnik played the move 34...Qe3 calmly, stood up, picked up his cup and was about to leave the stage to go to his rest room. At least one audio commentator also noticed nothing, while Fritz operator Mathias Feist kept glancing from the board to the screen and back, hardly able to believe that he had input the correct move. Fritz was displaying mate in one, and when Mathias executed it on the board Kramnik briefly grasped his forehead, took a seat to sign the score sheet and left for the press conference, which he dutifully attended."
Full game in PGN with a few notes after the jump.
Fritz leads 1.5-0.5. Game 3 Wednesday.
[Event "Kramnik - Deep Fritz Duel"]
[Site "Bonn, Germany"]
[Date "2006.11.27"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Deep Fritz 10"]
[Black "Kramnik, V."]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "D10"]
[BlackElo "2750"]
[Annotator "Mig"]
[PlyCount "69"]
[EventDate "2006.??.??"]
[SourceDate "2006.11.27"]
1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 b5 4. a4 c6 5. Nc3 b4 6. Na2 Nf6 7. e5 Nd5 8. Bxc4 e6
9. Nf3 a5 10. Bg5 Qb6 11. Nc1 Ba6 (11... h6 12. Be3 Ba6 13. Bxa6 Nxa6 14. Nb3
c5 15. Nfd2 Qd8 16. Qe2 Be7 17. dxc5 O-O 18. Rc1 Nxe3 19. Qxe3 Qd5 20. O-O Rac8
21. Nc4 Nxc5 22. Nb6 Qxb3 23. Nxc8 Bg5 24. Qxc5 Bxc1 25. Qxc1 Qxa4 26. Qc4 {
1-0 Markus,R (2567)-Jovanic,O (2458)/Rijeka CRO 2006/The Week in Chess 628})
12. Qe2 h6 13. Be3 Bxc4 14. Qxc4 Nd7 15. Nb3 Be7 16. Rc1 O-O 17. O-O (17. Qxc6
Qxc6 18. Rxc6 N7b6) 17... Rfc8 18. Qe2 (18. Nfd2 c5 19. dxc5 Qc7) (18. Rc2 c5
19. Rfc1) 18... c5 19. Nfd2 Qc6 20. Qh5 Qxa4 21. Nxc5 (21. Bxh6 $2 gxh6) 21...
Nxc5 22. dxc5 Nxe3 (22... Qc6 23. Bxh6 gxh6 24. Qxh6) 23. fxe3 Bxc5 24. Qxf7+
Kh8 25. Qf3 (25. Nc4 $6) 25... Rf8 26. Qe4 Qd7 27. Nb3 Bb6 28. Rfd1 Qf7 29. Rf1
Qa7 30. Rxf8+ (30. Nd4 Rxf1+ 31. Rxf1 Bxd4 32. Qxd4 Qxd4 33. exd4 a4) 30...
Rxf8 31. Nd4 a4 32. Nxe6 Bxe3+ 33. Kh1 Bxc1 (33... Re8 34. Rf1 Qa6 35. Rf3 Qxe6
36. Rxe3 Qa6) 34. Nxf8 Qe3 $4 (34... Kg8 35. Ng6 Bxb2 36. Qd5+ Kh7 37. Nf8+ Kh8
38. Ng6+) 35. Qh7# 1-0
It may be Saturday but there was some school in session today. Not so much during the game, although up close it looked like a model control game from Kramnik with zero danger and slight chances throughout. It was a 47-move draw out of a Catalan. It didn't look like Kramnik left a whole lot behind, at least we didn't see much during the game. But after Garry Kasparov expressed disgust at my quick and admittedly blithe express summary of the game at ChessBase he backed it up by trotting out some seriously intriguing winning tries for White in the N vs B endgame. I couple of them I can definitely say I would never have imagined.
I won't go through the hundred moves I have to work on now, especially since Garry might want some for his next New In Chess column. (And I'll put a bunch in the next Black Belt.) But the key line is 30.e3 to march the king directly to the queenside. In most of the lines we looked it Black got kingside counterplay with an h-pawn breakthrough just in time. So then he pops up with the idea of putting the knight on g2! With ..h4 thusly blocked the white king can loop all the way to e7 to hassle the f-pawn. If the black king defends it, White gets in h4 and the kingside is sealed. In other lines the bishop is forced to c3 and is vulnerable to a4. I haven't spent enough time to find a true winning line to chew on, but it's very dangerous. (I've since seen 30.e3 discussed elsewhere and I'm sure some people looked at it during the game.) I told Garry he was turning into Ulf Andersson in his retirement. Here's that sample line: 30.e3! Bc5 31.Kf3 b5 32.Ke2 e4 33.Kd2 Kg6 34.Nc7 b4 35.Nd5 Kg5 36.h3 h6!? 37.Nf4 Bd6 38.Kc2 h5 39.Ng2!
I was doing live audio commentary on chess.fm with GM Joel Benjamin and had a good time. I was pretty stiff at the start not having worked as a sort of host before with two people on at the same time. It's hard to be loose and funny when you're worried about not paying enough attention to the game and to the other commentator. I got into the swing of it by the third hour, although by then we had to banter a lot because there are only so many endgame lines you can give. Joel (who now has, gasp, a driver's license and lives in the burbs) is a pro and had lots of good stuff from his time as the coach of Deep Blue back in 1997.
Until we hear from the people on the scene (and I don't know how forthcoming ChessBase will be with this info since they obviously don't want the focus to be on the rules) we can't know how things went with the "book peek" rules. Kramnik was well ahead on time until around move 30, very rare in normal man-machine games. If Kramnik gets five more of these slight opening advantages in technical positions he'll almost certainly win one, but of course he has three games with black.
First off, happy Thanksgiving. Before the gorging begins I'm tossing up a thread so you can work out your frustrations and your predictions. World champion Vladimir Kramnik is playing a six-game match against Fritz in Bonn, Germany. (Oddly it's next to a Guggenheim exhibition and Polgar-Topalov starts right after at the Guggenheim in Bilbao.) The first game is Saturday the 25th and they play every other day until Tuesday December 5th. The games start at 1500 local time according to the official site. This is confirmed, so 1500 Germany, 1400 GMT, 9am EST, 6am PST.
That's important to me because I'm doing live audio commentary during game one for the ICC's Chess.fm service. My partner in crimes against inanity will be GM Joel Benjamin. He knows his computer chess, having worked on the Deep Blue team back in 1997. I've worked on just about every major man-machine match since and was in Bahrain for the duration of the last Kramnik-Fritz match, in 2002. You have to be an ICC member to listen to the show, but you can get a free 7-day trial membership in just a few minutes.
Trust me, at least for Saturday it will be worth those minutes invested so you can come listen to me make a fool out of myself live, although I hope to take a few others down with me. It's going to be a party. Even if the game isn't interesting I'll be giving stuff away and having trivia contests. Fastest tell wins! If all goes well I'll be hosting regularly with various GM partners during Wijk aan Zee.
As for the match, oh yes, the match, I'm still trying to get beyond the goofy rules. I know I need to get over this, but they have the potential to badly mar the event. That Kramnik gets the exact engine and can see Fritz's opening book during play – including variation weights and percentages – could turn some of the games into mere preparation exercises. He can practically choose the position and follow it as far as Fritz knows it. Wacky.
Of course that hardly guarantees victory, but there must be a better way to balance the playing field than exposing the machine's inner workings. How about "if the human wins one game" or "human wins count double"? Or just limiting the opening book to a dozen moves or so. But handing over the keys to the castle doesn't seem kosher no matter who wins. The idea should be do de-emphasize opening books and prep and see how well these things play against a world champ OTB.
All that said, Kramnik will still have to reach those dry positions and play nearly blunder-free chess to have a chance of winning. In Bahrain he jumped out to an early lead with his strategy of getting the queens off and playing technical chess. Here's an interview I did with Kramnik right after the 2002 match.
So on the average you can say 2800 or a bit more, but it matters what you get. If you get a position like what I had in game five then no human can fight it. But if you get what I had in game two then you have a chance. It very much depends on the opening stage.
I'll say +1 -1 =4 just to say something. And now I'm off to disembowel some fowl.
I just stumbled across an item in a Bilbao newspaper that says Topalov will play six games of blindfold chess against Judit Polgar from Dec 7-9. This will be the headline event in the Bilbao International Chess Festival, which was man-machine rapids in recent years. The match takes place in the famous Guggenheim de Bilbao.
Blindfold is a pleasing stunt, but as I've said before about Melody Amber, all it boils down to is inferior chess with the occasional "wow, very nice... for blindfold" and the occasional ridiculous blunder.
Heh, speaking of the devil, last-minute sub Jesus Nogueiras just beat Evgeny Bareev in the first round! It doesn't look like we can expect much from the official site. No games available yet. But a Cuban news item confirms the win and adds it was with black in 65 moves of a Slav. Ivanchuk didn't arrive until quite late and his game against Bruzon didn't begin until nine-thirty at night. No short draw, however, and Ivanchuk won after four hours of play. Yipes.
G-Kas just just arrived in New York. Regarding the publication of the his next book with Everyman, Revolution in the 70's, it has been pushed back to February 2007. It's not a Predecessors book anymore, technically. It's part of a new Garry Kasparov on Modern Chess series that will include his matches with Karpov, man-machine, and his own games. If you have questions on the book for the author post'em here. Questions from message board members get top priority.
I recently described Jesus Nogueiras as the "token" Latin American player in the GMA World Cup tournaments in the late 80's. While that isn't entirely inaccurate, Garry informs me Nogueiras, like all the World Cup participants, qualified, although he didn't remember the details. Looking it up it now, it was probably his excellent =4-6th result at the 1987 Zagreb Interzonal that did it. (Although he didn't make the candidates matches, losing the spot to Nikolic in a playoff that also included Granda Zuñiga.)
A few weeks ago this old news came up in the comments, about Kasparov attending Ilyumzhinov's 2002 inauguration as president of Kalmykia. I had no memory of it, but he confirms that he was there, "unfortunately." I know how he feels. I went to a Monkees concert 1987. (My friend John and I were just there to see the opening act, honest. It was that musical genius, Weird Al Yankovic.)
This Cuban news item says that Argentina's Ruben Felgaer has dropped out of the Capablanca tournament at the last minute for "personal reasons." He'll be replaced by a Cuban classic, Jesus "Chuchi" Nogueiras. He was the token Latin American representative at dozens of elite tournaments in the 80's (I'm thinking of the GMA World Cup events in particular) and was always dangerous. I've had the pleasure of being stomped by him twice, if I recall. The 47-year-old gets in as the third highest-rated Cuban, if a distant third.
The main Cuban/Capablanca website doesn't have much up on the tournament yet. This is the 41st edition of the event. One of the many Cuban news items says the first Capablanca Memorial tournament was the idea of Che Guevara himself. Maybe, although loyal Cubans tend to credit Fidel and Che with inventing the wheel, too. Another note says Guevara (who was Argentine; "Che" is just a universal Argentinism for "dude" or "guy" so they are often called that abroad.) first heard about Cuba from reading about Capablanca's exploits when he was eleven.
The drawing of lots is tonight and the first round tomorrow. Ivanchuk arrives in Havana the day of the first round, which will likely result in it being delayed a little. Yesterday was national fitness and sports day in Cuba, btw, and this year the tournament is part of the festivities. Other events include baseball and very long distance swimming.
Pre-event favorite and top seed Vishy Anand is looking good at the Tal Memorial Blitz Cup. He was in the clear lead after the first day and is still in the lead by a point and a half at the 3/4 mark. He has 18/26 with Svidler, Aronian, and Radjabov trailing. Mamedyarov and Karjakin did well on the first day but have fallen off. With all the chess journos there, including Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam from New In Chess, a few games should trickle out eventually.
More photos here and of the finals here and here. (The second one includes this shot of Peter Svidler that is calling out for a photo caption contest. More than obvious two words; be creative.) This 64 page in Russian has a couple of massive video links. Direct here (21mb) and here (5mb).
Update: Anand wins comfortably with 23 points from 34 and without losing a single mini-match against the other 17 players. Aronian was second with 21 points. Radjabov and Svidler came 3-4 with 20.5. A pity it seems there won't be a comprehensive game collection. Even if you don't want to try live online blitz relay, always tricky, I'm sure it wouldn't have been hard to find nine people at the Moscow chess club willing to jot down the games for later publication. It's also possible the players preferred not to have them recorded, but I hope that's not the case. Misha? Mark? Wassup?
I usually think of that as in "Remember the Alamo," but another step forward has been taken, or at least another step: the press release! FIDE has announced the candidates matches to be held in Elista May 26 to June 14, 2007 with prize funds of $40,000, back up from the $15,000 several sources reported they had cut it to. (Which would have been less than some players eliminated in the Khanty-Mansiysk interzonal received.) Two rounds of six-game matches and tiebreaks will be played consecutively with five rest days in between for the eight first-round winners.
This is all great news, although we shouldn't get so carried away with happiness that we forget these matches were scheduled to take place last October and were moved at the last minute, leaving the players with holes in their schedules and a lot of uncertainty. FIDE is like a husband who brings you flowers after smacking you around. "Sorry about that black eye, baby. You know I really love you. Now where's my vodka?" Speaking of vodka, it's Friday night!
Here is the original candidates announcement, by the way. You can follow the travails by searching for 'candidates' on the left.
1.Levon Aronian (ARM) - 16.Magnus Carlsen (NOR)
2.Peter Leko (HUN) - 15.Mikhail Gurevich (TUR)
3.Ruslan Ponomariov (UKR) - 14.Sergey Rublevsky (RUS)
4.Boris Gelfand (ISR) - 13.Rustam Kasimjanov (UZB)
5.Etienne Bacrot (FRA) - 12.Gata Kamsky (USA)
6.Alexander Grischuk (RUS) - 11.Vladimir Malakhov (RUS)
7.Judit Polgar (HUN) - 10.Evgeny Bareev (RUS)
8.Alexei Shirov (ESP) - 9.Michael Adams (ENG)
Exciting! I'm not 100% sure of the second round but it should follow standard KO pairings. So the winner of 1-16 faces the winner of 8-9, etc. The final four qualify for the Mexico City world championship tournament that starts September 12 (not Sept 11 as the FIDE press release says; trying to get that fixed). I'd say Aronian got a raw deal against Carlsen as 16th seed. The teen will probably be 50 points stronger in May than he was in October!
Final round today in Moscow. Live here, though the official site service has been spotty. Two of the leaders meet in Ponomariov-Leko. Aronian also has a share of the lead on +2 and has black against Gelfand. Let's just hope we get fighting games at the top. Overall this has been a fighting tournament, but I can't imagine why these events don't adopt the Sofia no-draw rules. Unofficial free days like Aronian-Grischuk yesterday leave a sour taste.
It's been a very balanced event, remarkably so. No one has been able to get above +2 and until Moro lost again yesterday no one was below -2. Shirov and Carlsen have been held winless so far while Mamedyarov has eight straight draws despite battling in every round. He equalized with impressive smoothness against Leko yesterday.
Update: Well, I was lamentably prescient with the entry on this round when I mentioned the Sofia rules. Everyone decided to take the day off with only the meaningless Morozevich-Shirov surpassing the 20-move mark (26) - and spending most of those moves swapping pieces. A disgraceful exhibition, although I've seen disgraceful exhibitions that were more entertaining than this. Tal Memorial indeed. Tal circa 1991, maybe. Or 1993.
Aronian, Leko, and Ponomariov tie for first with a modest +2 (5.5/9). I really couldn't care less about tiebreaks unless they give it to Aronian for most wins. It was very tight throughout, with three days of 5/5 draws and an overall 69% draw rate keeping the pace slow. Most of the draws were of the fighting variety, but a last round like this should simply not be possible.
Now the blitz event begins, with Anand the top seed. (Anand interview.) A powerful qualifier is already underway and finishes tomorrow.
The 2006 Capablanca Memorial will be held in Cuba from Nov 19-30. It's usually in May, but had to move because of the unusually early Olympiad this year. The Elite event is a six-player double round robin and a Cuban news site has released the field. Last year's dominant winner, Vassily Ivanchuk, the world #6, is back. Next is Evgeny Bareev, Poland's Kamil Miton, Argentina's Ruben Felgaer, and then the perpetual Cuban dupla of Lenier Dominguez and Lazaro Bruzon. That's a 2660 average. There will also be a special tribute to Fidel Castro, who may or may not still be alive, for the 40th anniversary of the famous 1966 Havana Olympiad.
A critical round as co-leaders Ponomariov and Aronian meet. Ponomariov has simply been playing the best chess of the event so far while Aronian has been a little wild but occasionally spectacular - and a little lucky against Carlsen. Speaking of, the boy wonder has white against the other co-leader today, Peter Leko. Gelfand and Svidler haven't been very ambitious so far but maybe they'll surprise us in today's game. Grischuk-Shirov is a matchup that has produced a number of great games in the past. Shirov, like Mamedyarov and Carlsen, has yet to score a win. Morozevich-Mamedyarov is the other encounter. Live games here, official site.
Update: Round 7 was full of interesting games and a few narrow escapes. Leko let Carlsen off the hook after reaching an almost comically dominating endgame position. Morozevich's endgame miss against Mamedyarov was even more surprising. The clearest win for White is probably 75.d7 and the knight can hold one of the kingside pawns in several ways. Gelfand beat Svidler in a theoretically important game. It's not just Kramnik who plays 1.Nf3! Grischuk won his second in a row with a spectacular win over Shirov. He got three pawns for a bishop and ran his pawn mass up the board to win. Great stuff.
Garry Kasparov stopped by the tournament hall during round 7, his first visit to a supertournament as a spectator. He watched with Motylev and a few other strong young Russians, several of whom he was embarrassed to admit he didn't recognize! He also did some online commentary. A few photos of his visit are here, others at 64 here.
Round 8 is shaping up to be another of all draws. Oddly, Aronian-Grischuk was a non-game draw. (Attn those nominating Aronian for the Alekhine spirit award.) Shirov-Gelfand also ended a little early, although at least they swapped a lot of pieces first. Carlsen gave Ponomariov a tussle but couldn't find a way to break through. Svidler is looking for a win against Morozevich in the only game still going. ... Svidler wins in 80 to move back to an even score. Leko, Ponomariov, and Aronian still lead on +2. Ponomariov-Leko will decide things in tomorrow's final round.
Three decisive games in a round of some deep and some shallow theory. Wins by Leko and Aronian gave them a share of the lead with Ponomariov at +2. Morozevich isn't on his game and his frisky play on the black side of a Najdorf was absorbed by Leko with his usual sang froid. Aronian's point came in very different fashion against Carlsen. He played a R+2 vs R+1 down to the bitter end and was rewarded when the Norwegian teen blundered horrifically and resigned. Carlsen and Morozevich share the cellar on -2. Note that Ponomariov plays Aronian in round 7 and Leko in the final 9th round.
The third win was scored by Grischuk, who showed no nationalistic solidarity and beat Svidler on the black side of a Najdorf. In a line Grischuk is a big proponent of with white himself Svidler tried a new plan of putting his bishop on what turned out to be an entirely useless diagonal. It was a spectator on g3 for most of the game while Black overran the queenside. Shirov and Ponomariov exchanged entertaining blows and Gelfand revived a forgotten subline of the Meran with Mecking's original 15..Nc3. Mamedyarov had just faced the usual 15..0-0 against Topalov in Essent and won a great game. Monday is a free day.
Still underway in Moscow. Live on the web here at the official site and in the usual places. This is shaping up as very "classical" event with lots of Spanish instead of Sicilian. This is partly due to the field, but even some of the regular Sicilianeers are playing 1..e5. The good news is that the Petroff has been scarce.
Update: Shirov-Aronian an amazing r4 game. Another Marshall and then an exciting endgame. Yes, you read that correctly. Aronian had the exchange but it wasn't clear how he was going to make progress. When it became apparent he was going to have zugzwang issues Shirov came up with an amazing idea to sac his bishop to run his h-pawn. That looked good for the draw, but Aronian found a beautiful triangulation zugzwang sequence to win. It's a familiar device to any fan of chess problems, but it's certainly rare in games and very pretty. I can't find a way for White to hold after passive defense with 44.Ba3 either. I spent a long time on it for yesterday's Black Belt.
Update 2: Round 5 isn't worth its own item, I'm afraid. Five draws, none of particular interest. In the best of the lot, Grischuk went into the piece sac line Mamedyarov used to beat Polgar in Essent. Don't miss the crazy-looking 23.Qd3! - f3 idea. It looks like he could have had winning chances with 28.Nxe4 but missed that and then ran for a repetition draw. (Kasparov gives 28.Nxe4 dxe4 29.Bxe4 c6 30.Rc1 and Black should probably give the piece back with 30..Nd5.) After a sharp battle with Aronian Leko also could have continued to play with the very tricky 25..f4!? but preferred to repeat.
This mighty rapid KO (sparse official site) looked like it was being held in a retirement home after watching the similarly formatted Cap d'Agde youth movement just a few weeks ago. Finalist Anand probably has t-shirts older than Magnus Carlsen. The victor (not the Victor he beat in the quarters) of the 10th Corsica Masters was Uzbekistan's former FIDE world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov, whose rapid chess acumen is deservedly famous. Of course so is Anand's, although in his case it's not in contrast to classical results. Bacrot did better in Corsica than he did in Cap d'Agde, where he was eliminated in the quarters by eventual winner Radjabov.
The decisive game in the Anand-Kasimdzhanov Corsica final was an old favorite line of Karpov's in the Ruy Lopez. In fact they followed a Kasparov-Karpov match game, the phenomenally complicated game 16 of the 1986 rematch, to move 20. (Today is the 21st anniversary of Kasparov's ascent to the crown, btw. But I doubt this game was intended as a tribute.) Anand has played the white side of this line a few times, including in his 96 PCA candidates final against Kamsky. Some analysis of that Kasparov-Karpov game included the game line, but Anand put his rook on e3 earlier instead of taking on b5 first. This meant he didn't have the option of Bxd3, allowing Black's equalizing 23..Rxe4. I.e. the way it was played before White would have the option of taking on d3 or playing Re3. And if Re3 is inferior there it can't be much good earlier unless White can make use of that move earlier.
Then things got wild when Kasimdzhanov went for the gusto with 24..Nxf2 and Anand failed to display his typically magical defensive abilities. He missed a very pretty combination that left Black ahead a pawn plus position and Kasim's nerves didn't fail him. In the second game he successfully used the white pieces not to lose. This is the second year in a row Anand hasn't won in Corsica. Last year he lost in the final to Milov. Since we're the same age I hope this doesn't mean he's on the decline.
All five games were drawn in the second round but several of the games were a lot of fun. Leko-Grischuk saw a sharp exchange sac from the Russian out of the opening and loads of accurate aggression. Some of my old buddies from KasparovChess are running the official site and there are a few interesting items up. There was a mistaken threefold repetition draw in Morozevich-Carlsen, explained by arbiter Gijssen on the site here. There are clearly a few moves missing from the released PGN so we can't see it, but it's an incredible error.
Ponomariov, Gelfand, and Aronian still lead on +1. None of the leaders meet in today's third round but there are quite a few fire vs ice matchups. Let's hope we get steam and not fizzle. Live here.
Update: Aronian blunders his queen against Svidler and loses in 24 moves with White. Ponomariov beats Morozevich with a nicely engineered endgame breakthrough to move into the clear lead. Carlsen-Mamedyarov included a fireworks sequence that fizzled into a neat repetition draw. Shirov didn't back down and took on Leko's Marshall, but after the Hungarian played the latest tiny ("critical" no doubt) improvement on move 20 Shirov settled for a repetition. Grischuk was building an interesting plus with a pawn sac against Gelfand's Petroff but apparently missed ..f5, which blunted the attack and took the fight out of the young Russian.
The Kramnik and Topalov teams in Elista had at least one thing in common, a Spaniard. MIguel Illescas is a long-time member of the Kramnik entourage. Francisco "Paco" Vallejo was on the Topalov squad. The Spanish paper ABC did an article on them about their experiences and the Kramnik site has a translation up here. Nothing earth shattering. I concur with Vallejo that even if some of it was bluff or unsound, Topalov was boss in the openings overall, with a few notable exceptions. Psychology and bluff are critical elements of opening prep, especially in match play.
Because I know you want to hear more about this, and this time I do mean hear. Spanish GM Miguel Illescas, a longtime Kramnik team member who was in Elista for the entire match, will be a guest on the ICC radio show by Fred Wilson to talk about things behind the scenes from Kramnik's side. Not sure what he'll have to add unless he was in the toilet during the games.
From the ICC: The show runs from 8:00 to 10:00 PM (EST) every Tuesday evening. As always, there will be replays of the show almost immediately afterwards for our chess enthusiasts on the West Coast & elsewhere, and often there will be several replays the following day. You can access it at the following website: http://www.chess.fm, ONLY IF YOU ARE AN ICC MEMBER. However, if you visit chessclub.com you can sign up for a one week FREE trial membership, listen to the show that week, and access all the other good stuff on Chess.fm while you're at it!
At the last minute there's finally a site for this Russian stealth tournament. Live here. I mentioned it a few times recently, although it's 10 players and not 12. It runs from today till Nov 19 in Moscow. Morozevich, Aronian, Leko, Svidler, Gelfand, Grischuk, Carlsen, Shirov, Mamedyarov, Ponomariov. A very impressive category 20 field to give us something to watch in this formerly fallow period before Corus Wijk aan Zee. The Russian superfinal should be coming over Christmas [Dec 2-15 say the comments], so we have something to give thanks for.
R1 Update: Aronian 1-0 Morozevich (wild fun), Svider 1/2 - Leko (yawn), Ponomariov 1-0 Grischuk (interesting opening, nice endgame transition play), Shirov 1/2 Mamedyarov (good Tal Memorial game but mostly theory and White sacrifice rebuffed), Carlsen 0-1 Gelfand (amazing knight play).
Mikhail Tal was born on November 9 in 1936. He was world champion for a mere year (60-61) but had a tremendous impact on top level chess with his speculative, sacrificial play. Tal was beloved for more than his thrilling chess. Fans and peers alike appreciated his often sardonic humor, his writing, and his carefree attitudes about life and his own fragile health. Tal was a lifelong smoker and drinker, but it's hard to imagine the Magician of Riga appearing without the puff of smoke. Hospitalized various times, mostly for kidney ailments that started when he was quite young, Tal nevertheless enjoyed a fairly long career and had several excellent results late into it. In the 70's he had unbeaten streaks of 93 and 86 games, records that still stand. He died in 1992 at the age of 55. Just four years earlier he won the world blitz championship ahead of Kasparov et al.
There was a rather surprising winner of the book of the year award given out by the English (formerly British) Chess Federation. There aren't many chess book awards, and for good reason. There aren't all that many chess books to begin with and there are precious few good ones. (It would get embarrassing if you had to keep saying, "we just decided to skip it again this year.") But the ECF/BCF award has good standards and a good tradition so we'll make it an exception to our normally award-averse sentiments.
The finalists were Rowson's "Chess for Zebras" and "Endgame Tactics" by a certain first-time author named van Perlo. (According to the award site Kasparov's latest Predecessors book was left out because the judges wanted it to include the Kasparov-Karpov matches, which are going to be in a future volume.) That's van Perlo above, and I can reveal here that he does indeed have a first name, although you don't see it anywhere. It's Ger van Perlo. While no spring chicken (and the photo is four years old), the 73-year-old Dutch correspondence GM has youthful enthusiasm about his endgames and has written a very entertaining book. You can check out a sample chapter at the official book site here.
From the judges' comments: "Collections of game positions for solving or instruction are not uncommon. Unfortunately many are computer generated with cursory instruction or comment added. This is emphatically not the case here. Van Perlo is a Dutch correspondence grandmaster who collected over a period of 30 years tactical end games that appealed to him. He cast his net wide and most of the 1105(!) positions were unknown to the judges. Van Perlo had a good chess eye for attractive situations and wrote about them in a humorous and entertaining manner. Above all he writes with wicked glee about the changes in fortune that lie in wait on the board for all players.
The New in Chess team has edited and organised the material so that there is considerable instructional content in the book. But the winning factor for the judges was the sheer entertainment value - a rare commodity in the chess world these days."
Always nice to see someone writing with some flavor and effort. Dutch news article on van Perlo and the award. What are your favorite recent books? All-time endgame books? Read this one yet?
Quick, which recently deceased Brooklyn Soviet-Israeli-Canadian-American Grandmaster wrote a book called "The Chess Terrorist's Handbook"? In the annals of unfortunately named books this one, published in 1995, is right up there with John Walker's "64 Things You Need to Know In Chess, as Taught in My Basement." But Leonid Shamkovich's terrorist handbook might have some serious competition in the near future, if not in the title department.
As mentioned at ChessBase recently, the ever-entertaining Nigel Short was recently let go from his chess column at the Guardian newspaper (which also has columns by the legendary Leonard Barden and the rather less legendary Jonathan Speelman in their chess section). Now I'm told Short's "rookie" column has been replaced with one by Ronan Bennett, a writer who spent considerable time going in and out of prison for IRA terrorist activities. At least one chess column, written with Danny King, has already appeared in the Guardian, although it doesn't seem to be online anywhere. (Short's complete series is still there.)
Making this plot curiouser and curiouser is that Bennett is married to an editor at the Guardian, although according to the Times he was already working as a news correspondent at the paper when he met his wife there. His chess-ish novel "Zugzwang" was serialized in 30 parts in the Observer and published online at the Guardian site during the year. (Still available. If the author is a good writer it would be very hard for a chessplayer to notice through all the ham-handed usage of historical names and assorted caricatures at the start. Either make up new names or make it historically accurate. Fictionalizing real people is excruciating for the knowledgeable. Maybe it gets better?) It's coming out in book form next year, which may have something to do with Bennett's otherwise improbable appearance as a chess columnist.
I bumped into this little composition (Anton, 1951) while looking for a heavy-piece study for today's Black Belt (Essent annotations, Cap d'Agde tactics, plug plug).
It's a little odd because it's black to play (and white to win), but it's also cooked. The given solution is 1..Ra7 2.Q to anywhere on the long diagonal wins. A trifle, certainly not BB material. But the cook is far prettier than the solution. Black draws.
Just so it stops taking over other threads (this means you down there), an item on Stopwatch Danailov's latest attempt to convince us all he's not guilty by reason of insanity. Or is that inanity? Flammability? Topalov's manager's latest interview goes to the extreme of calling Kramnik's play in the match excellent. The nerve! Can this man stoop any lower? Next he'll be calling Kramnik lithe-limbed and sweet smelling. Do Ilyumzhinov's aliens take abduction requests?
It was Sveshnikov versus Najdorf today and the proxy victory went to the Russian over the Argentine. Radjabov's Sveshnikov is starting to look as bulletproof as Jussupow's old Petroff, but with the decided advantage of having winning chances for black. He held Karjakin with apparent ease in the first game of today's final match in Cap d'Agde. Then it was his turn in an old skool Bg5 poisoned pawn Najdorf played by the Ukrainian current holder of the youngest GM of all time title.
The line they played is renowned for several spectacular games. If you have a minute, check out Bilek-Fischer 62 or Tal-Tolush 56. Heck, even Radjabov-Anand 06 (blitz) is pretty cute. Today's game had its fair share of moments as well as Radjabov played a thematic knight sac on f6 to rip open the black king. A few moves later and the Azerbaijani had put an entire rook on the fire, daring Black to take it and leave his king exposed. Black took everything on offer, overstepping on the final grab 22..gxf6 after which it's hard to find any defense. (Well, it was hard long before that, but at this point it may have become impossible.)
Karjakin offered his queen to save his king and both players missed some Fritzy moves in the entertaining melee, but it was Radjabov's game and spirit all the way. A very attractive game, just what one would hope for from two junior leading lights in a rapid match. It was also a very pleasing event overall with lots of exciting chess. Only three Petroffs were played from 87 total games (two by Koneru, one by Kosteniuk); gotta love this rock and roll generation.
Radjabov may have also had a fire lit under him by his countryman Mamedyarov's win in Essent a few days ago. That pushed him into the top ten – ahead of Radjabov – and he'll have another go at the Tal Memorial supertournament starting on the 5th. In a small but chess-mad pond like Azerbaijan there may not be room for two top guns in town. I imagine it's a little harder to get a few million dollars together for a world championship challenge when you aren't even the top-rated guy in your local club.
In the quarters Andrei Volokitin outlasted Pentyala Harikrishna after two drawn rapid games and four decisive blitz games all won by white. The "other Ukrainian" got white in the armageddon blitz and won to move into today's second semi against Teimour Radjabov. (Results and PGN here. Live here.) Today Sergey Karjakin beat his peer Magnus Carlsen in the first semifinal match. The first game was drawn with Carlsen defending the Sveshnikov and holding an opposite-colored bishops endgame. In the second, the 15-year-old Norwegian used the same plan against the Najdorf that worked for him against Nunn at the NH Hotels event a few months ago. (I commented on his interesting cxb3 so a knight could use c2 to later control d5 in an issue of Black Belt.)
Here Karjakin was ready with 14..Ng4 and 15..f5, gaining counterplay. He soon liquidated into an endgame that looked good for White because of the blocked black bishop and strong white knight on e4. But as the saying goes, it's only a weakness if your opponent can attack it and it turned out the pressure on d6 was mostly an illusion. Black took the c-file and played solidly to bring home the point. I believe they'd only faced each other once before, the Corus B Group in 2005, a draw. So first blood to Karjack.
Update: Radjabov wipes out Volokitin with black in a Sveshnikov in game one. "Horrible, horrible!" says Kasparov. White looked totally confused. h4, Qg4, miserable stuff. He couldn't even equalize it seemed. -- It didn't get better for Volo in the second game. His unorthodox play with black was easily punished with an advance and breakthrough by Radjabov. It's Karjakin and Radjabov in the final match tomorrow.
