January 2007 Archives

It's always fun to see statistics and analysis backing up the obvious. For ages the silly question "why don't women play chess as well as men?" has served as an enjoyable distraction from the real questions that underlie it. For example, why don't as many women play chess in the first place, what biological/genetic factors go into chess performance, elements of upbringing and socialization contribute to interest in chess, etc.

A recent study tackles the participation issue. (Summarized and discussed here.) One conclusion, "If you look at the participation rate of women and relate that to performance, you find that in cases where the participation rate of women and men is equal the disparity in ability vanishes." This, to me, has long been the common sense answer to why there is only one female in the world top 100. It's also that at that highest end of the bell curve, the other factors, however slight their effect, would manifest.

Social issues become more extreme. Dropouts have a distorted statistical effect (e.g. if Judit dropped out now there wouldn't be any women in the top, what, 300?). It's also true that the same would likely be true of the hypothetical biological limitations touted by generations of chauvinists in the chess world (none of them, to my knowledge, with bio-sci credentials). The old "they don't or they aren't so they can't" argument.

I'm assuming that the Mark Glickman who co-authored the study is the well-known chess rating expert interviewed here.

Our message board mod with the most, Russianbear excerpts a translation of Yuriy Vasiliev's report on Wijk aan Zee that includes the following (The FIDE Presidential Board was Jan 27-28 in Antalya, Turkey.):

The summary from the Presidential Board adds: "The Presidential Board gladly took note of the announcement that current World Chess Champion, Mr. Vladimir Kramnik will play in the Mexico City tournament."

The good news just keeps on coming. Fun and parity at Corus, now this. Now if only the forces of darkness in FIDE don't manage to ruin everything. The old guard is terrified of new clean sponsorship like Mexico and someone like Bessel Kok running things professionally. Mexico City, then a new cycle ending a long match with serious organization, feel the love. As for the aforementioned rematch (an imprecise term) for Kramnik, of course it's in the air. Kramnik is within his rights to ask for such special treatment because Elista was an extraordinary situation, although he shouldn't get it and he should play in Mexico even if he doesn't get that guarantee. He can challenge under the new challenge rule just like anyone if he doesn't win. Topalov might just sit on his bank guarantee and serve papers the day Mexico finishes. Especially if Kramnik wins! The challenge line forms to the right...

By the way, I don't get all this guff about Topalov being "excluded" from Mexico City. He courageously – and for a nice paycheck – put his FIDE title on the line against Kramnik in Elista last October. He knew full well that losing meant he was out of Mexico, that if he lost his spot would be taken by the new FIDE/unified champion, Vladimir Kramnik. Yes, it's sad, but no sadder than having the tournament without Kramnik had Topalov won. We'd love to have every great player in every event, but you plays your games and you takes your chances.

This letter from FIDE nixes Topalov's world championship challenge to Kramnik. As expected, the rationale is that without getting H.G. Wells on the line (or Bill and Ted) there's no way to fit such a match between the "money 45 days before it starts" and the "ends six months before Mexico" deadlines.

You may also use this thread to wipe up the bits and bobs of vaguely related nastiness collected in this ChessBase article.

Rise and shine, it's time for the final round. It's an hour earlier today - 12:30 local, 6:30am EST. I'm back on the air with GM Larry Christiansen on Chess.fm. The draw was planned very well, it seems. The leaders meet in the final round with Radjabov having white against Topalov. The sad tradition, however, is toward the tentative draw and not a fight to the finish. If that happens Aronian would join them if he beats Tiviakov. The trailing pack at +2 of Anand, Kramnik, and Svidler all have white and will be looking to sneak onto the podium. Radjabov beat Topalov in a KID last year at Linares. Unfortunately for him, tomorrow he has white!

UPDATE: Just a quick one before I head to the library for real work. As you already know, Radjabov and Topalov played 25 moves of analysis and agreed to a draw. The queen sac Topalov offered in the Catalan was analyzed in the German magazine Schach after the Elista match (game 10 was the stem game) and both players get the magazine, sooooo.... Alexander Onischuk, one of Topalov's seconds in Elista, dropped me a note lamenting they hadn't found it in time for Kramnik, who went on to win that game and level the score. The draw allowed Aronian to catch them when Tiviakov showed his first sign of life by playing a wild rook sac. Unfortunately for him it didn't work and Aronian played very precisely to get the win. Radjabov, Topalov, and Aronian tie for first on +4. Probably the least exciting ménage à trois imaginable. Officially there is no tie-break system in the A Group. I talked to tournament director Jeroen van den Berg on the air during the round. It's officially a three-way tie for first. Any tiebreaks you care to apply are only in your mind! Another great Wijk aan Zee event, kudos all round.

Kramnik pounded van Wely in a pretty game to move into clear fourth when Svidler was torched by Karjakin and Anand was held easily by Navara. (Who drew Kramnik, Topalov, and Anand with black!) Eljanov won again to lock up the B Group and a pass to the A next year. Nepomniachtchi got wiped out by N Kosintseva, his first loss, and was actually passed by the streaking Krasenkow, who won again to take clear first. Unbelievable. Nepo's first day out of first place is the last day.

I'm on Chess.fm live now with Larry C but wanted to get this item up so you can stop crushing the regular Corus threads with it. ChessBase has posted a full translation of the "cheating in chess" article in the large German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (original here). Basically the guy watches Topalov's manager Silvio Danailov exhibit some unusual behavior during a few games. It has gone around the press room in Wijk aan Zee today. Apparently the arbiters are basically not dignifying it with a response at this point. More later. Please don't get into it in the regular Corus threads, thanks.

Round 12 is underway! No handshake in Topalov-Kramnik... I'm on Chess.fm live with GM Larry Christiansen.

UPDATE: We had some more excitement today to set up an amazing final round pairing tomorrow. Teimour Radjabov scored his third win with his King's Indian (!) to move up to +4 and tie for first with Veselin Topalov. Kramnik suffered as is his wont but he held Topalov in a very tight maneuvering game that will be remembered more for the lack of handshake than anything else. The video at ChessVibes shows that both players were a little late, Topalov arriving first. He was studiously examining his scoresheet when Kramnik arrived and after much shuffling and leaning Topalov played 1.d4.

The last high-profile non-shake was the feud between Shirov and Kasparov (Garry said Shirov called him a cheater in a NIC letter. After a few years Kasparov reached out his hand to Shirov at Linares 2004.) Today there was no way to say who didn't offer to shake first, but clearly neither player made the attempt. (The good old days.) Not a big deal of course, but it's worth remembering that Topalov continues to go on the record saying Kramnik cheated in Elista. They also played on longer than needed to avoid any need to offer a draw. Another video shows the head bob and what looks like Kramnik saying "draw." Anyway, a very strong game. It's not easy to squeeze Big Vlad, but he has practically made a living defending these positions.

Radjabov held the balance with Motylev in another constipated King's Indian until they both had around 20 minutes for a dozen moves. The storm started to open up just when Motylev got into his usual time trouble and it ended in a sudden flurry with Radjabov coming out on top. Long live the King's Indian! It was Radjabov's first win since the fifth round and he's been cruising while Topalov took off. But fate, and Peter Svidler, intervened and now he's tied for first with Topalov with white against him in the final round. There's potential for high drama but sadly I have to predict a draw in, oh, 32 moves.

Aronian missed a golden opportunity to join the leaders when he fell for a nice drawing swindle against Shirov. Call it karma after he saved a half point against van Wely in similar fashion in round ten. My co-host Larry Christiansen was calling for 34..f5 and it's pretty much over. Aronian's usually solid technique failed him and now he's in clear third a half-point back and with white against Tiviakov tomorrow. If the leaders cop out and Tiviakov plays one of his offbeat openings Aronian could still tie for first. (They use system tiebreaks in Corus and I don't usually care much about them unless they decide something like qualification or cash.) Kramnik, Svidler, and Anand are lurking a full point back and since the leaders play they can't do better than second.

van Wely demolished Svidler's Grunfeld in just 22 moves to ruin the big Russian's hopes at reaching first place. The Dutchman has had quite a bit of bad luck in this year's event so it's nice to see him wind up on a high note. It was a brutal wake-up for Svidler after he took out Topalov yesterday. Navara finally bounced back to an even score with a surprisingly smooth win over Ponomariov. Carlsen-Karjakin fizzled into a sharp repetition.

We're looking for the photographer and/or owner of the rights to this photo of Garry Kasparov. (Click for larger version.) We're 99% sure it was taken at the New York Athletic Club in a special photo session a few days after the Kasparov-Deep Junior match in 2003. First week of February, maybe Feb 8. There was someone there for Chess Life but maybe someone else too. Leads welcome!

Preview: The home stretch begins! The final three rounds have some potential for drama, but it will take either backbone and great play from Radjabov or a near miracle from Anand to produce it. Topalov is a full point up at +5 and should have no trouble winning clear first if he can maintain that score. Radjabov is at +3 and with black against Kramnik in round 11 and white against Topalov in the final round. Anand, who is back to +2 after being dropped to an even score by Topalov just a few days ago, has by far the easiest pairings at the end and has won two games in row. He could be considered a favorite to score 2.5/3 and storm the podium. Topalov-Kramnik on Saturday is likely to be anticlimactic unless Topalov really wants to prove a point and play for a win he doesn't need on the crosstable.

Update: In an amazing twist, Marc Kirszenberg sends in this "Chess in Switzerland" Jan. 25 Georges Bertola column from the Tribune de Geneve. He annotates a game from the Geneva International currently in progress. It's Khenkin-Maze from the third round on January 22, two days before Topalov Carlsen. The opening is identical up to move 15, where Maze plays 15..b6 instead of Carlsen's futile piece giveaway. (Bertola writes that a reader informed him of the Topalov game and another said of Carlsen's 15..Nxc5 that it cures the problem of white's passed pawn but kills the patient.) Khenkin won convincingly with his passed pawn.

UPDATE: Round 11 packed a punch and brought some drama back to the leaderboard thanks to one game: Svidler-Topalov. It looked like Topalov was about to put away the entire tournament with his fourth win in five games. Instead there was an abrupt turnaround and Svidler won to tighten the field considerably. Aronian also won, handing Karjakin his third straight loss and moving to +3 into a joint tie for second with Svidler and Radjabov. They are all a half-point behind Topalov.

Svidler tried a new twist on the currently vogue 10..h5 line but I'm not convinced his experiment was a success. (According to the official site he may have just stumbled.) When Topalov simply castled out of danger and offered the d-pawn it looked like Black had all the chances. White has nothing going on the kingside and would need flawless defense to have a chance of survival on the queenside, pawn or no pawn. Topalov duly crashed through and was winding up for the big crush. Just when it looked over (Kasparov suggested 31..Qd4 as the killer blow) Topalov took the wrong path. He must have believed his 33..Rc5 was simply mating but White had miraculous salvation in a pretty queen ricochet to save the day and after 35..f5? Black was in a worse rook endgame. Topalov failed to put up much resistance according to my Chess.fm co-commentator Larry Christiansen and he wasted all our analysis by going under rather quickly. A stunning turnaround.

In Wijk aan Zee for uschess.org and coming on Chess.fm to talk to us and share tidbits, Macauley Petersen got a soundbite from Peter after the round. It was something to the effect of not being his best game or best event, but a point's a point. No doubt. He also spoke with French 16-year-old Vachier-Lagrave, who lost today to drop out of the B Group lead after a torrid streak. (Eljanov now leads the B by a full point.) Nice to talk to a player, but minimal answers with minimal English is not the stuff of great radio, unfortunately. It was kind of him to make the effort after a horrible loss today. Still, it provides a bit of that "being there" feel and adds some variety to the show. Five hours of listening to me and Larry Christiansen see who could sound sleepier isn't the hottest of tickets. We both had late nights on Thursday.

Karjakin's collapse continued – this time the beneficiary was Levon Aronian. Kramnik's Catalan is really catching on and the Armenian used it to squeeze until breaking through on the kingside. White's Larsenesque h-pawn lunge didn't look that convincing but Karjakin never managed to put together any real counterplay. The breakthrough came right when Karjakin hit time trouble and there was probably no hope even before 38..f5? Funny, that move was a loser in both decisive games today.

The long-awaited Kramnik-Radjabov duel was indeed a King's Indian and it looked like the crafty world champ found a way to impose his will on the kid's KID. The clever maneuver 19.Nb5 Qe7 20.Qe2 threatened tactics on e5 and won a pawn. But instead of clamping down with 24.Qe3! (after which Kasparov gives White a big plus) Kramnik inexplicably liquidated both his pawn and his advantage with a knight tour to e6. Radjabov decided to count his blessings and offer a draw instead of trying to make something happen with his center pawns. A strange miss by Kramnik, but when you play for small plusses you have to play perfectly. The kid, and the KID, survive!

Four other draws rounded out the round. Anand needed a win but couldn't make anything of a crippled extra pawn against Shirov, who played the Petroff. Carlsen played an insipid line against van Wely's Najdorf but managed to get a tiny edge. He was then totally outplayed and came very close to losing. The endgame saw a very cute drawing trick by Carlsen; either it's wrong bishop and rook pawn, a permanent pin, or White's last pawn goes. Loek played R+B vs R to the legal limit but didn't get a Norwegian gift. Motylev played a great shot against Navara and came out a pawn to the good but couldn't make it count with opposite-colored bishops. Navara is blundering his way to the finish line of this long event. Tiviakov's Accelerated Dragon survived another scare and he was even looking ambitious for a brief moment against Ponomariov, but the moment passed quickly.

The electrifying Nepomniachtchi won again to move to 9.5/11 but Krasenkow also won to stay a point behind and keep some interest in the C group standings. Hou Yifan also won, although Spoelman cooperatively placed his queen en prise. Sure he was in trouble already, but yeesh. Cute overload, chess dept: Petersen says Hou Yifan came up and got Kramnik's autograph after the round. She must come up to his navel; I'd love to have a picture of that. The way she's going he should have asked her for hers in return. It could be worth a lot of money in five or ten years.

I'm back live on Chess.fm with Larry Christiansen tomorrow and Sunday. Remember that the last round starts an hour earlier.

Preview: It's not quite the home stretch yet, but Topalov would come very close to putting the tournament away with a win over Carlsen today. The teen has looked very shaky at times. Radjabov has white against Svidler and we'll see if he puts his head into another lion's mouth. Karjakin-Anand could be lively based on recent history, but really I'm expecting a peaceful day. Tomorrow is a rest day. I'm live on Chess.fm with GM Joel Benjamin.

UPDATE: A very strange round that epitomized the uneven quality of the chess at Corus this year. The depth and freshness of the preparation on display was prodigious on just about every board. Unfortunately, in three cases it led to quick draws and in two cases embarrassing routs. Only two games got past the third hour and one of those ended with a brutal swindle.

The Rook Anti-Defamation League would like to have a word with Mr. Topalov. The world #1 played – guess what – an exchange sacrifice in the opening against Carlsen. It's just the latest example of the powerful and sharp opening work the Bulgarian has been displaying in abundance over the past two years. After the game he credited his second Cheparinov with the find. Carlsen's reaction bordered on panic, giving up a knight for two pawns and ephemeral chances with his rooks. When those turned out to be ghosts he resigned on move 26. Horrible. I get the feeling the Bulgarian team scours the openings looking for exchange sacs and starts there. Great stuff, although it wasn't much tested in this one. The databases show a game from 1929 with this line but between two weak players. Topalov mentioned this in his post-game press conference.

The win puts Topalov in the lead by a full point because second-place Teimour Radjabov wanted a quick day off with white and got it against Svidler. It's hard to think of another reason for repeating this line, which Svidler faced Kramnik at Corus two years ago. There he blundered and lost, but Radjabov didn't wait to see if he'd do that again and offered a draw early. Maybe he was expecting something else in the opening? Weird and very lame.

Anand took the next step on his comeback with another semi-repeat game. Yesterday he went through 20 moves of last week's theory to beat van Wely. Today Karjakin tried the white side of a Najdorf line he had with black last year. This line really doesn't seem to offer anything for White. He gets rook and knight vs queen and no chances against steady play. Morozevich beat Volokitin in this endgame with white at Biel last year, but needed black magic to do it. Anand needed just a few minutes on his clock to get to a winning position and he soon broke down White's attempts at a blockade. Black missed a few ways to end the game promptly, but it wasn't much in doubt. Really miserable from Karjakin, who drops back to an even score that is better than his play.

So some rosy red cheeks got slapped around today. Anand moves back to +2 and is in striking distance of the podium considering his last three pairings. The final round pairing of Radjabov-Topalov keeps things interesting but it would be nice to see the Azerbaijani show the fight he had at the start. Wishful thinking? Poor van Wely. He got a winning position when Aronian hung a piece but then ran into a very pretty cheapo in mutual time trouble. White's ..Rh5 was logical enough but it was practically the only non-winning move in the position! Great trap by Aronian, who stays in the hunt at +2 with the draw. Shirov-Ponomariov was largely a repeat of their game from the Tal Memorial a few months ago. White's improvement was enough for an extra pawn but the opposite-colored bishops made for an easy draw.

Macauley Peterson brought over David Navara to talk to us on Chess.fm after his short draw with Tiviakov. He admitted his nerves have been a serious problem so far but didn't sound disappointed with his score. I asked him about his development over the past year but he didn't think it was anything special. Funny coming from someone who is doing about as well in the A this year as he did in the B last year. He was a late replacement when Morozevich dropped out. Still three players without a win and three without a loss. Thursday is an off day and then I'm back live on Chess.fm for the last three rounds with GM Larry Christiansen.

Svidler-Kramnik today. Not usually an exciting match-up but they have played some odd blunders against each in the past year or so. Aronian-Topalov and Carlsen-Radjabov for the leaders. Anand will try to bounce back against van Wely. I'm back live on Chess.fm all week, today with GM Joel Benjamin.

UPDATE: The leaderboard was frozen today as all the leaders' games were drawn with varying levels of tedium. Aronian tried the 1.c4 English against Topalov and didn't get very far. I didn't really understand 12.e3 at the time and I don't think I ever will. It covers d4 but is just weakening and slow and hard to like. Svidler-Kramnik never really got going, in Joel's words. Svidler started a swapfest that ended on the popular move number 21. In his favorite Kalashnikov Radjabov gave up a pawn for activity against Carlsen and it was enough to draw in, you guessed it, 21 moves. (Is that their idea of a move minimum or something?) The extra pawn can't be saved in the final position.

It was amusing to watch Anand-van Wely repeat the first 20 moves of the ultra-sharp triple pawn sac from Motylev-Anand in the second round. Apparently van Wely didn't do his homework and he used 40 minutes to repeat those same moves while Anand used around eight seconds while playing left handed and dictating a letter. The Dutchman deviated with 20..Nc6, giving up the exchange, and the position was dynamically balanced for quite a while. But Black's time trouble eventually caught up with him and he erroneously offered the exchange of queens on move 29. Macauley Peterson, who writes for uschess.org, was in the press center and watched the post mortem and talked to Anand a bit about the game. Vishy said he was considering just repeating moves if Black played 29..Qb7 (suggested at the time by Benjamin, to hand out props) instead of 29..Qb6? Not often you see a player win from both sides of a 20-move tabiya during the same tournament. I think I remember Shirov doing it in a Meran once.

Despite his +1 score, Sergey Karjakin is really playing some bad chess at Corus, or at least for spurts. He was busted early against Navara yesterday and was gifted a win. Today his handling of the black side of the Najdorf against Ponomariov earned the derision of Najdorf supremo Garry Kasparov with "how can you castle here? If you are going to play this you must play [9..] Ng4." As it was, White soon had a massive attack and Black was nowhere to be seen on the queenside. Ponomariov finished crisply with a pretty exchange sac combo.

Shirov Lives! He crawled out of his winless primordial ooze onto dry land by beating Navara with black. He was already fine when David Navara, who seems to be fading fast, pulled a David Copperfield and made his own e4 pawn disappear. Oops. It was downhill pretty fast after that, if enjoyably sharp and interesting. This time Shirov kept the handle to win.

Bologan moved up in the B to join the pack of three players a full point behind Vachier-Lagrave. Speaking of 16-year-old leaders, Ian Nepomniachtchi was held to a draw at last, and with white by a 12-year-old. Girl. Nyah nyah. Kidding! Hou Yifan is playing tough and is in clear fourth place on +2. From the look of her game I'm betting she'll be the second highest rated female chessplayer in the world in a year or so. That is, if she keeps being fed a steady diet of strong international events instead of being relegated to facing fields of women she outrates already and will soon outclass entirely. Keep tossing her to the lions and she'll soon have them jumping through hoops. Join the fan club now, she's headed to the top 50 if they let her play strong competition instead of winning women's events for years.

If it first your check bounces, try try again. If their service is always this good I might start doing my banking in Bulgaria! Veselin Topalov's manager, Silvio Danailov, sends out info saying they have secured a new bank guarantee after the first came from a bank not approved by FIDE's bank.

There are still various deadlines in play here. If FIDE/Kramnik insist on the letter of the law, to fit the match in six months before the start of the Mexico City world championship tournament it would have to end by March 12. That means it would have to begin very soon (18 days before March 12 at the latest, to be pedantic) and what about consideration for preparation and prior commitments? Topalov is scheduled for Feb-Mar Linares but would obviously bail on them. Kramnik usually plays in the March Melody Amber rapid/blindfold event. I'm trying to find out if he has already accepted an invitation to that.

I assume Kramnik would rather eat glass than play a rematch so quickly, especially against Topailov and in Sofia (although the first was in Russia, after all). But that's a lot of money to wave under FIDE snouts and they might push for it to happen. So if Kramnik says "I insist that the rules be followed and this is an inadequate amount of time to prepare," what happens? There doesn't seem to be a stated window in the rules as far as time between bank guarantee and the start of the match. All that's there now is something that says the money has to be in FIDE's hands 45 days before the start of the match. FIDE could waive that, too. But you can't expect the world champion to drop everything and start a match tomorrow if you come up with the money. Prior commitments are another issue, but you don't want the champ to be able to avoid a match simply by filling his schedule either. But that's a hypothetical extreme and starting a WCh match a month from today seems impossible.

If Kramnik wants the match he can waive the six-month notice clause, as I'm sure FIDE would be happy to do. Had the Elista match gone amicably it would still be incredibly unlikely Kramnik would want to voluntarily put his title on the line so soon. Considering how acrimonious it was and seeing how Topailov's harassment has continued, even a guaranteed million bucks is unlikely to get Kramnik to the board in Sofia. In theory I'd love a rematch. Great players, great chess, why not? In practice the chances are still zero.

Meanwhile, let's enjoy the both of them in action at Corus, where their 12th round game may mean a lot for many reasons. Topalov is rocking it like it's 2005 and Kramnik is lurking. I'm back live on Chess.fm every round until the finish at 7:30am EST. (Final round starts at 6:30, groan.) GM Joel Benjamin is my co-pilot for rounds 9 and 10. GM Larry Christiansen is the closer in the three final innings. Thanks for all the kind words and other feedback, btw.

Preview: Round 8 is underway. My one day off from Chess.fm and I finally got some sleep. I'm off to the library to get some work done, far from the temptation of live games. Topalov-Anand is the heavyweight matchup. Radjabov apparently got bamboozled early by Aronian.

UPDATE: Topalov is on a trademark tear. He dealt Vishy Anand his second loss in three rounds and combined with Radjabov's loss to Aronian moved into clear first place with a +4 6/8. They played a known line of the QID in which black gives up two minors for a rook, but Topalov made it look really, really bad after shutting down Black's line-opening counterplay with b4! Black had a few attempted threats but really it just looked like a matter of time before White started collecting material. Apparently Anand thought so because he resigned before the first shot was fired, convinced by the misery of his position and Topalov's technique up to that point. After being slow-roasted by Kramnik two days ago Anand clearly didn't want a second grilling. Still a bit lame since as in most such positions White is going to have to take a risk or two to make progress and finish it off.

That dropped Anand back to an even score and out of contention for a top prize. Here's the video of Topalov going over the game. I talked with Garry Kasparov a little about this game and a few of the others. As usual he brings the goods. Instead of grabbing the exchange with 15..Bxf1, he gives 15..cxd5 16.Re1 Rc8 17.Bb2 Bb4 18.Bf1 Bxf1 with ..Qg5 coming. Black has two pawns for the knight and strong play. Later, although he says the position is unpleasant, Kasparov gives 24..Qc4! activating the queen and limiting White's activity. White has a bad bishop and Black is doing much better than in the game after the normal 25.Re5 Rad8 26.Nd2 Qa6. Even in the final position, which all and sundry have agreed was premature for resignation, there are some tricks. Admitting "it's not a position I would want to play," Garry offers a sample line: 35..bxa4 36.Qa5 Qb6!? (offering a queen trade looks suicidal but here it would fix Black's pawns and he would have a passer and the threat of c5) 37.Qxa4 Rcd8 38.Nc5 Rd5 39.Rxe6 Rxe6 40.Nxe6 Qb7 and White still has some work to do. I'm sure there will be much more in his next New In Chess column.

Teimor Radabov swapped a half-point lead for a half-point chase position when he got out-tacticked by Aronian and coughed up a pawn early with white. The Armenian has been very discreet so far but he flashed his sharp side here and then his technical prowess to bring home the full point. Actually he rather mangled the endgame and made it a lot closer than it needed to be, but it got the job done. That jumped Aronian into the large pack at +2. He was joined there by Karjakin, who looked completely busted against Navara. The Ukrainian was down the exchange but Navara totally lost his grip with the bizarre 41..b4? Further loose play allowed White to equalize and just as suddenly Black was just lost. Horrible. (Garry says 25..Ne3 was premature and better was 23..Rce8, threatening to take the pawn and asking White what he's going to do about it.) Both of Navara's losses have come from excellent positions, a sign of the young Czech's poor nerves, I'd say. It's hard to imagine it, but he could easily be at +3 or even +4 right now and with the toughest part of the field behind him.

Four Russian championship titles beat one today as Svidler also moved up to +2 by adding to Motylev's woes. This time Motylev was on the defensive side of a sacrificial attack, but the body count mattered less than his usual horrid clock handling. It looked like he was fending Svidler off pretty well but he had around five minutes on his clock for twenty moves (!) and went down in flames after missing a fairly simple combination. When he resigned (or lost on time?) he was actually down material and a dozen moves from the control.

It looked like Shirov, who may soon legally change his name to "Poor Shirov," was about to pulverize Tiviakov in ways that would make Frank Miller squeamish. Tivi's Accelerated Dragon was Maroczy Bound and his king was stuck in the center. Black has almost nothing to do White could set up crushing breaks like e5 and f5. Instead, Shirov jumped the gun, played a combo to win the exchange, but then didn't have more than a drawn endgame. Man, when it rains, it pours. Kramnik's grinding magic was neutralized by Carlsen today in impressive fashion. Nicely done, now Magnus just needs to notch his first win. There are four players without a win and four without a loss. For those wondering if Topalov is now going to run away with the event, especially with his usual strong finish and Anand out of the picture, consider he has yet to face four of the top five placed players.

In the B, French 16-year-old Vachier Lagrave (one of my favorite cheeses, btw) won his fifth in a row since losing in round three. He's now the surprise leader of the tournament. Remember, the real prize is moving to next year's A Group. Eljanov is in clear second. Nepomniachtchi continues his torrid pace in the C, winning again to move to 7.5/8 and a performance rating over 2900. His only draw was against Berg, who is playing very well himself and is clear second. His wild win today over Kosintseva (N) is worth a look and some head scratching. Tune in after move 14...

Preview: Yes, yes, late with the thread again. Sorry, this 7am thing is killing me. How do normal people do this all the time? I'm on live with Brian Wall and GM Miguel Illescas on Chess.fm. Anand-Radjabov is a highlight, also Ponomariov-Topalov in a KID turned Benoni. Official site. Don't miss the video of Kramnik analyzing his r6 win over Anand.

UPDATE: An interesting round with several strange moments. The most important result was Topalov demolishing Ponomariov with black in the Benoni (KID move order). Yay, Benoni! (Shouted to the tune of "Hey, Macarena!") Topalov came out of the opening with the better prospects and then opened lines to get just the type of double-edged attacking position he plays so well. (I now see that the official site report likes White after the opening, but with the e5 square and targets for his c8 bishop, that's about as good as the Benoni gets at the top level.) After wasting some time on the queenside and tossing a pawn, White was already in deep positional trouble before the tactical execution began. Another very strong showing from the world #1 and it moves him into clear second place behind Radjabov.

The leader from Azerbaijan passed his first torture test with flying colors, drawing against Anand with black. Vishy got a lot more pull against Radja's Sveshnikov than he ever saw during their Mainz match. He nursed a small plus all the way through but Black found a way to liquidate into a drawn endgame. The awkward 36.Nc4 was recommended by some spectators as a way of going after the e-pawn. Aronian didn't make any progress against Kramnik. Few players have the patience the world champion does to play these passive, slightly inferior positions so well. (See "Defense, Berlin) But unless White plays hyper-accurate chess for a long time the way Kramnik usually does himself, the edge vanishes. I can imagine Kramnik playing on with colors reversed, for example.

The Russian's defense was the Russian Defense in Shirov-Motylev. Black used his favorite Petroff to go into the same line Karjakin played against Kramnik in the first round. A similar endgame was reached but here they played on for a good 40 moves before Shirov relented. He was probably just happy to finally be playing a position that didn't make him feel like putting his head in the oven. Carlsen is more of the microwave generation and he zapped himself good against Svidler. The game was always headed toward a peaceful result until Carlsen courted trouble with 24.a4. That led to the loss of a pawn and soon Carlsen was engaged to trouble with only desperation tricks on the back rank to hope for. Svidler liquidated into a winning endgame with the pretty 32..e4!, offering a piece. It doesn't look like any of the cheapos with Rh8+ work, but the queen and pawn endgame was lost. Carlsen and trouble are currently enjoying their honeymoon as he has black against Kramnik tomorrow.

In a footnote to round six, there was some consternation that the ChessBase report said Svidler had sacrificed the exchange against Aronian, while during my live coverage with Kaidanov and then later in my instant report here, it was reported as a blunder of the exchange. I was relieved to see the Corus site say: "At the climax of the struggle, Peter, who isn’t in perfect health at the moment (“I seem to make one bad mistake in every game now” -- Svidler) blundered the exchange with 25.Be3?, trapping his own rook on a7." Always glad to have even the smallest evidence of my sanity.

PREVIEW: It's underway, ahhhhhh! Kramnik-Anand the big one. Radjabov-Ponomariov and Topalov-Navara the potential highlights. I'm on Chess.fm live with GM Gregory Kaidanov until 12:30.

UPDATE: Another day with one great game having to compensate for an overall low level of play and an equally low level of fighting spirit. Radjabov's spurt has deservedly created a lot of interest but it's masking some pretty bad chess and an overabundance of short draws. Today he started slowly and my Chess.fm co-commentator Kaidanov predicted a peaceful game, but things livened up suddenly with the sharp 11.Ne5 leap. Ponomariov escaped most of the pressure with 13..0-0 when the capture on f6 doesn't work. It doesn't look like the white knight can ever be corralled in the final position but they agreed to call it a day on move 17. (17..Rc7 18.Qxe8 Rxe8 19.Rd6 Rec8 20.Rad1 and Ne8 is coming.) Ban the draw offer.

That half point meant it was guaranteed Radjabov would still be the clear leader at the end of the day. The question was who would be chasing him. David Navara again showed his defensive accuracy and stamina by holding off Topalov. He got to a R+4 vs R+3 and held it easily. Drawing inferior positions against Kramnik and Topalov shows Navara's potential more than his rating does. The other player on +2, Anand, had to emulate that task and hold Kramnik in yet another Catalan squeeze. In an amazing control game Kramnik turned his center push and bishop pair into an endgame win. Vintage Vlady all the way and it put Kramnik into a tie for second with Topalov. It will take quite a while to figure out if, when, and how Anand could have saved this, but that's pretty much standard in Kramnik's classic wins of a thousand cuts.

The other decisive game of the day was, tragically, Shirov's fifth consecutive loss. It looked like he might get kingside play after 22..Bd3 cutting off the white king, but Karjakin nipped that in the bud with 23.Bb5 and Black was left without counterplay to make up for White's passed a-pawn. This had echoes to van Wely-Karjakin in round four, when White pushed his pawn early and got hit by a nice sac for a repetition. Shirov tried similar but there just weren't enough checks to save the day. The computer tries 26..Rf5 first but this doesn't convince either after 27.g3 Qh3 28.Qe4 and White is safe.

Motylev-Carlsen was drawn but included several spectacular moments, the first coming on move eight! Carlsen offered a full knight in a Four Knights game, a remarkable positional sac played in last year's world junior championship. The MegaBase churns out a few earlier games between relatively weak opponents and no one had the courage to take the knight. White is practically immobilized if he does. Motylev is a time-troubled player to begin with and considering the sac, declining it, and continuing cost him dearly on the clock. But Carlsen seemed to be more affected by this and he started playing just as quickly as Motylev to push him on the clock. This method landed him in a worse, probably losing position by move 28, but Motylev had just a few minutes left. Had he found 28.Re1 Carlsen would have been taught a lesson about blitzing in your opponent's time trouble. As it turned out that lesson came only later, and with less severe consequences. Carlsen netted the exchange after several further misses by White but Motylev had a pair of bishops and the sang froid of a former Russian champion. Carlsen still had over half an hour but he was keeping up with Motylev, who had just seconds. This cost the Norwegian excellent winning chances when Motylev bashed out 39.Bxf6!! to win the exchange back and save the day. Kaidanov showed us the beautiful mirror-image repetition that occurs if Black takes with the pawn. As it was, White had enough activity to draw without fanfare. Brilliant save.

Svidler was trying to preserve one of his extra pawns and winning chances against Aronian when he blundered the exchange and had to scramble for a draw, which came a few moves later. (I'll be stunned if he says he did this on purpose, something I've seen suggested elsewhere. He went from winning chances to only losing chances.) He must have just missed the sneaky 25..Bb7. It's funny because early in the show Gregory and I were talking about typical blunders and how "backwards" moves are famously hard to see. van Wely-Tiviakov was an uneventful draw.

Eljanov is the new leader in the B Group after Jakovenko and Bologan both lost. Nepomniachtchi won again in the C, this time in just 23 moves. He leads by a point and a half with 5.5/6. It's starting to look like when Kmoch congratulated Evans on "winning the tournament" at the 1963 US championship and then congratulated Fischer on "winning the exhibition" 11-0. (I'm sure I've heard this line put into the mouths of others and about others, and it's probably been updated and repeated countless times. I think Anand said it about Kasparov once.) Tiny tots Negi and Hou Yifan also won to move into the distant chasing pack. Scary children. Run, run for your lives.

I'm back on Chess.fm tomorrow, this time joined by Bill Wall. My Corus trivia questions today, following the usual formula of increasing difficulty: 1) Name the only world champion who never played in Wijk aan Zee since the invitational event began. 2) Who was the winner of the shortest decisive game in the history of the Wijk aan Zee invitational top group? 3) When Larry Christiansen beat Anatoly Karpov in just 12 moves in Wijk aan Zee, Karpov still went on to win that match and then the tournament in that KO year. Who did Karpov beat in the final match?

#3 was supposed to be a segue from #2, but I noticed only after asking #2 that it wasn't the shortest of all time. And I had already announced the winner (it's "first to type the correct answer into the chat channel") who had said Christiansen. It had turned up in my database, but for some reason I thought Petrosian-Ree, 1971 (eight moves!) was from a different event. Nope. And someone, "iltigretto", had answered "Petrosian" very quickly. So we pulled a Toys 'R' Us and awarded two prizes. I remembered the Petrosian game from an article somewhere that talked about repeated blunders. Quite a few players, mostly amateurs, have followed in Ree's fateful footsteps, although he was the only one to resign immediately. One guy even won with black!

PREVIEW: Let's get it on! Your internet radio, that is. I'm doing live coverage along with GM Gregory "KFC" Kaidanov on Chess.fm. Can Radjabov keep up the pace? The leader has black against Navara today. Anand-Svidler is the heavyweight battle of the round. Does Vishy want to take another poke at the Marshall? I'm doing trivia contests near the end of the show around noon. Yesteday we had a winner of a pack of Ninja newsletters by frentz (?). Then our own markgravitygood won a Great Predecessors book personalized and signed by Garry Kasparov yesterday. Nifty.

UPDATE: Another round marred by inexplicably short draws, three of them this time. Carlsen equalized against Aronian's favorite pawn sac in the QID. White could play for f4 but decided to call it a day. Ponomariov is clearly not up to his standards and offered an early draw to Kramnik. Karjakin and Motylev declined to play out an unbalanced ending. Lame. Speaking of lame, Svidler went blind and forgot his Bb7 was hanging against Anand. He resigned in 21 moves. Horrible.

Radjabov needed considerably more time to win his game against Navara. Again with black, again the King's Indian! But this time it was an unusual line and Radjabov was getting much the worse of it out of the opening. It looks like Navara got a little anxious and started pushing things instead of playing a4 and waiting a while to open up the center. Black won a piece and then blew White off the board with sharp tactics in Navara's time trouble. A nasty piece of work, but a point's a point and Radja continues to roll.

Shirov lost horribly to van Wely after again spending tons of time in a known position. After all that he embarked on an unsound piece sac that van Wely cooly rebuffed. Shirov has lost four in a row and is deep in last place. Let's get that Ninja mojo working for the man! It was a strange round in Wijk aan Zee today. Perhaps the players were affected by the record storm that has been lashing the Netherlands. Winds over 100kph caused great damage all over the country. Maybe some of the players wanted to finish their games and get away to safety? How else to explain the brief efforts in Ponomariov-Kramnik (19 moves), Aronian-Carlsen (20), and Karjakin-Motylev (21)? Some of these young stars are barely making more moves than their age.

There was another game that lasted only 21 moves, but it was anything but peaceful. Even a hurricane wouldn't have made Peter Svidler play like this as he lost to Vishy Anand after a horrible blunder. According to someone on the scene, he allowed the shot 19.Nxh6+ because thought he was getting good play after 19..Qxh6 20.Qxd7 Red8 21.Qxc7 Rbc8 22.Qe5 Rxd2. What he didn't notice was that his bishop on b7 is hanging in midair. This nasty spell of chess blindness led him to resign after 21.Qxc7, giving Anand an easy pass to +2 and into a tie for second place. That's because Sergei Tiviakov used the white pieces to hold Veselin Topalov to a draw. Topalov is now equal with Anand at 3.5/5.

They are a full point behind the leader, the streaking Teimour Radjabov. (We mean that as in "winning a lot" and not as in "not wearing any clothes." To our knowledge he is fully dressed. Which is good, considering the weather.) David Navara got an excellent position against another Radjbov King's Indian, the same defense he used to win his first two games with black against van Wely and Shirov. Navara tried the relatively offbeat 5.Bg5 (instead of the standard 5.e4) and Radjabov responded aggressively with Benko/Volga Gambit-like play with 5..c5 6.d5 b5!? This has been tried before without great success and was analyzed by Avrukh in the MegaBase as being inferior for Black. Radjabov was soon a pawn down without the usual queenside counterplay Black gets in the Benko Gambit.

It was all looking quite miserable for the tournament leader but instead of winning the exchange and coming under a heavy attack with 14..Bxb2 15.Nc4 Bxa1 16.Qxa1 he found the interesting idea of 14..a5 and 16..Ba6 to get counterplay. When Navara failed to concrete his Nb5 with a4, Radjabov grabbed his chance and got in ..a4 himself, leading to tactical opportunities. After further inaccuracies exposed his position, White was losing a piece and scrambling for compensation, which he got in the form of three pawns for the lost knight. That might have been enough for an endgame, but there was still a middlegame to play and Navara's nerves had cost him a lot of time. The poor 29.Re3? lost material to the fork 29..Nc4! because the weak back rank after 30.Rxe8 Qxe8 with the threat of ..Rf1+. With little time on his clock Navara was swept away by Hurricane Teimour after 30.Rxd3 Re1+ 31.Bf1 Qh3 and mate is unstoppable after a few checks.

That moved Radjabov to a 4.5/5 score his fellow Baku product Garry Kasparov would be proud of, especially since three of the wins came with black in the King's Indian! We doubt he'll be eager to repeat today's opening, however, as it looked like Navara could have solidified his material advantage in several ways with more patient play.

At the other end of the crosstable, the deep end, we find Spain's Alexei Shirov. He crashed to his fourth consecutive defeat, losing with white to hometown hero Loek van Wely. This Najdorf line became famous last year at Corus when Vishy Anand unleashed an amazing double piece sacrifice to demolish Sergey Karjakin, but several others have tried it since. It was even played in last year's computer championship in Turin! This amazingly sharp line should be right up Alexei "Fire on Board" Shirov's alley, but he burnt his own fingers in this one. Despite the recent fame of this line, he used oceans of time and was left an hour behind van Wely on the clock just as he decided to sacrifice a piece for attack with 27.h5 Ne6 28.g6. This bishop sac is hard to refute over the board, but van Wely had well over an hour for defense while Shirov was under fifteen minutes. The Dutchman played very accurately and Shirov's attack quickly dissipated into a completely lost endgame. The tricky 32.Bc4!? was probably his last chance to keep hope alive, but even then things look dim. Perhaps we'll see a return to his old Latvian countryman Shabalov's 23.h3 or the wild 27.Bc4 played in last year's Indian championship.

Kramnik-Anand is the star attraction of tomorrow's sixth round. Leader Radjabov has white against Ponomariov. Topalov will look to win over Navara. Let's hope the only hurricanes are on the board.

In the B Group leader Smeets was short-lived in that role and was brought down by Bologan. There is now a four-way tie for first that involves most of the favorites. Nepomniachtchi continues to dominate the C Group, which is looking like the wrong section for the young Russian. It's hard to call a 16-year-old a late bloomer, but while his peers Carlsen and Karjakin are already well known it looks like Nepomniachtchi might be the name on everyone's tongue in 2007, at least if it will fit. Luckily his first name is just three letters long: Ian. He won again to move to 4.5/5 and a full-point lead.

During my Chess.fm broadcast with GM Gregory Kaidanov we were getting a lot of weather reports from Dutchies. There was a massive storm that also seemed to KO communications with the playing hall for a while. It took a long time before it was confirmed that the last game to finish, Tiviakov-Topalov, had ended in a draw. Here are some of the storm pics people were linking to. The sober Kaidanov startled us all with his sterling impression of a besieged weatherman in a heavy storm. You had to be there. I'll be back on with Greg tomorrow for round six.

Speaking of, I've been holding impromptu trivia contests during the broadcast and we're making it into a tradition. After giving away some Ninja newsletters during round four I was stumped by the next winner, our own markgravitygood, already having a subscription. Ya gots to take care of the homies so he got a Great Predecessors book signed to him by Garry Kasparov, who is still in town. Today we gave out some one-month ICC account extensions and another book for the final and toughest question. Mark was the first to correctly answer "In one Corus A group in the past decade, four of the final top five places were held by Russians, including the winner. Who was the only non-Russian in the top five?" Today Flaneur (a chess trivia Yoda among Jedi) quickly answered "Two American players tied for first in the Wijk aan Zee A group and the next year they tied for first in the US Championship. Name them." He also gets a Garry-signed book. See, and you all thought that all the chess info you have in your head was worthless! Hey, you should do a radio show...

Russianbear translates some bare Russian notes on the event in the message boards. Good stuff. Videos and more from the site on ChessVibes. The inimitable Shipov is analyzing at his site here. Russian only, I believe.

The bank guarantees, or, more precisely, the bank, behind Veselin Topalov's world championship challenge to Vladimir Kramnik have been rejected by the Swiss bank that runs FIDE's banking. Apparently Bob's Bank of Bulgaria didn't cut the mustard. Since everyone and their yak knew there was no hope of this match taking place anyway this doesn't mean anything other than a convenient reason why. The timeframe was too narrow already and by now it has closed entirely. Free advice: there seem to be many banks in Nigeria making spectacular offers.

PREVIEW: Haven't I always said these guys need more rest days? No? Fewer, I said? I may have to rethink that as I prepare to embark on my fourth day in a row doing live radio commentary on Chess.fm. On the other hand, if it started at 13:30 as it does for the players instead of this ghastly 7:30 I'd probably feel differently. All together now: YAAAAWNN. Teimour Radjabov is the clear leader after three rounds, boo-yah. He has white against Tiviakov today. Topalov-Shirov is a headline duel. Carlsen-Anand could be a drag or exciting if Vishy pushes for a win. Or, of course, if Carlsen gets off the mat.

UPDATE: A drag it was, alas. Carlsen showed no interest in pushing Vishy's Najdorf and they called it a day after making some courtesy moves. Motylev-Aronian followed a similar pattern of the lower-rated player using white to get a half-point and a free day. Silly rules we have in this game of ours. But let's not waste any more time on them because we did have some good games. It was also a good Chess.fm broadcast, this time with GM John Fedorowicz as my analyst co-host.

Topalov played Bronstein's sharp exchange sac line against Shirov's Grunfeld and simply made it work start to finish. White played with phenomenal accuracy, keeping the queens on the board and generating threats until Shirov couldn't keep up. That Topalov's play matched Fritz's was ceaselessly pointed out by the crowd of online kibitzers. But if you want something to be paranoid about it was 37.Qf2 instead of an easy endgame win after 37.Nf6+. I found it remarkable that Topalov would keep iffy chances in a sharp position over a won ending. But it worked and it was a tremendous game. As J-Fed pointed out, don't try this at home. It can take a Topalov to make these early exchange sacs work out so well.

Ponomariov outplayed Svidler on the black side of a Najdorf but then decided to offer a draw instead of looking around in his pockets for his balls. Lame. Super Mariov is usually much more tenacious than this, one of the reasons I've always liked his games. His countryman Karjakin frustrated van Wely's second consecutive near miss. During the commentary we really liked the Dutchman's endgame chances but he started pushing his a-pawn a little too early and Black organized a fantastic infiltration and rook sac to force a perpetual. Kramnik tried to work his evil spell on Navara but the young Czech defended very well to gain an impressive draw with black against the world champion. These games always look like they are going in slow motion. Kramnik might only win two or three of them out of ten but he never loses. Even the rook endgame had some poison and it was an instructive save by Navara.

That left it up to Radjabov to provide the second decisive game of the day and it looked very good early. Tiviakov managed to break the bind against his Accelerated Dragon but then played some bizarre anti-positional moves that permanently crippled his position. After that it still took nice technique by Radjabov to score the point, but it really looked like just a matter of time. Kasparov was amazed anyone could play 32..f6 instead of the necessary and strong 32..d5, breaking free and leaving Black with fine chances. There are some tricky lines with Rxe5 and Bd4 to threaten mate on h8, but they don't come to much. Anyway, a Dragon player entombing his bishop with pawns on e5 and f6 deserves to lose.

So, as I will be reminding you constantly until his fortunes change, Teimour Radjabov is still the clear leader after four rounds to fulfill my prediction he was going to have a breakout result here. He has black against both Anand and Kramnik coming up, but, as Kasparov reminded me, after looking at their Mainz rapid match it's clear that for Radjabov having black against Anand is an advantage!

In the other groups it was a good day to be a Kosintseva. Both sisters won, against Sargissian and Negi. Smeets took the clear lead in the B and [ctrl+v] Nepomniachtchi did the same in the C, showing signs of backing up Alex Yermolinsky's comments hereabouts that he's a talent on par with names like Carlsen and Karjakin. He wouldn't be the first relatively late bloomer to come out of the Russian school and he definitely looks more B Group than C so far. Heck, he might be ready for the A in a year at this pace.

"Even Nigel Short became a household name on the strength of completely failing to beat Garry Kasparov at that least glamorous of all sports, chess, in 1993."

This in a BBC website article on the demise of squash in the UK. (The sport, not the fruit, if you can tell the difference.) "Least glamorous"? What, so Short became famous in his homeland for his Worrall Attack and the size of his gums? Intellectual combat is glamorous, and has always been so considered in civilized nations. And "even Nigel Short"? As if that match loss to the greatest player ever was but a comma in an otherwise unending epic of British sporting triumphs. I don't remember seeing David "Mr. Spice" Beckham making the World Cup final lately. And that beloved British boxing heavyweight champ, Lennox Lewis? A frequent chessplayer, of course. Snort.

Preview: Two of the games are between leaders: Navara-Svidler and the top Elo matchup of the day, Anand-Aronian. van Wely will try to get off the schneid against Motylev. Several heavyweights have black against relative outsiders, a mixture that often leads to short draws as it did in the first round. As in every round except for #8, I'm back on Chess.fm doing live commentary at 7:30, this time back with GM Joel "the Jersey Mauler" Benjamin.

UPDATE: Another very rich round of chess at Corus despite a few fizzles. You know it's a good round when even the 32-move draw that was 19 moves of theory ends with a double piece sacrifice for perpetual check! That was our lead game of the day between Anand and Aronian, a Marshall Gambit that saw the Indian attempt to improve on Shirov's play against Aronian at the Tal Memorial in November. (You'll remember that game for the astounding endgame device the Armenian used to win.) Anand was deeply prepared, of course, and was building some momentum with clever play, but the Marshall is a clever beast too. Aronian found the shot all the computer watchers were shouting out: 30..Bxg3! 31.Kxg3 Re8! and White has to allow the repetition immediately or with 32.Qxe8 as played or after 32.Qf2 Qh1. Sweet!

Radjabov won the day's game prize with his second King's Indian win, this one over Shirov in the same line he played against van Wely in round one. Shirov improved in the opening but couldn't contain Black's kingside play and Radjabov broke through spectacularly. Joel and I agreed that the no-risk endgame with 34..Nxh5 (as recommended by a spectating Nakamura) was the logical choice instead of the overhwhelming but very tricky 34..Qh3! 35.Bxd5+ Rf7 36.Rg6 f2 37.Rg2 Qd3!! Even if you see that stunning move - the only winning move there - you don't risk making a mistake if you also have a clear forced line to a winning endgame on the menu. Great stuff from my boy Radja, the clear leader with 2.5/3!

Ponomariov pummelled Carlsen to give the young Norwegian a time out in the cellar with van Wely. Carlsen was barely out of the opening before he had to give up a decisive material advantage after 16.Nc8! (17..Ra8 18.Nxd6 Qxd6 19.Bb4 Oops.) Unlucky Loek was winning against Motylev but let it slip away in mutual time trouble. Karjakin-Topalov was a tremendous save from the world #1 after his risky Najdorf play earned him a losing position. Joel and I were both shocked at how quickly Karjakin banged out 42.Rc4 instead of spending some time on the attacking continuation 42.Qh5! Trying to react quickly and confidently after being hit with a shot like 41..Bd2! is a symptom of immaturity. So instead of a very good queen and pawn endgame with chances for more, Karjakin got only a rook endgame that was very drawish. He probably should have played on for a while risk free but his dejection at letting the big Bulgarian fish get away got to him.

Fizzle #1 was Tiviakov's tepid play against Kramnik's Petroff, virtually guaranteeing a tame draw that lasted only a courtesy hour. #2 was Svidler's unexpected draw offer against Navara in a very interesting and open position. Disappointing pragmatism, to use the polite euphemism, from a favorite in a favorable (certainly not unfavorable) position. Ban the draw offer. At least we got a lesson from El Svid on how to handle the anti-Grunfeld line Kramnik used to take out Shirov yesterday. Unfortunately, Svidler has white against Kramnik in round 9 so we won't see this argument continue.

After all draws yesterday the B Group had it's own Corus chainsaw massacre today with 6/7 decisive. So did the C Group! Bu Xiangzhi and Smeets lead the B Group. 12-year-old Hou Yifan of China won again in the C, dusting off Dutch relic John van der Wiel in a sharp encounter. Negi, Bosboom, and [ctrl+c, ctrl+v] Nepomniachtchi share the lead.

Many of the heavyweights have white tomorrow and it looks like the even rounds are the ones you don't want to miss. Anand has black but might try to take another bite out of Carlsen, who is looking like a weak member of the herd after two straight losses. Topalov-Shirov is the highlight on paper. I'm back on the air again tomorrow at 7:30am, this time with J-Fed himself, John Fedorowicz. (And, I assume, his interpreter.)

Just a thread so you can get your comment on during the round. Official site here. Kramnik-Shirov is a potential highlight considering their history of great games. I'm doing live game radio on Chess.fm with GM Miguel Illescas and we'll be following the games as well as talking a lot of Kramnik. Broadcast starts a few minutes before the games at 7:30 so I can recap round one and preview round two. I'm sure we'll have more than one full game today, so there should be some competition for the daily game prize this time. Ban the draw offer!

UPDATE: Well, they listened! If there were any draw offers today they sure weren't accepted. An amazing six decisive games and it looked very close to seven for long time. In a comic twist, the only draw was Radjabov-Karjakin, dropping yesterday's sole winner into the massive pack of seven (!) players on +1. Illescas and I were getting excited about a 7/7 bloodbath, but Karjakin found a theoretical draw in Q+p vs R+p to save the half point. Has there ever been a 7/7 round at Corus? There was another 6/7 a few years ago, round 10 in 2003.

Still, it was a remarkable day of chess, with most of the wins coming from the favorites in convincing fashion. The star game was Kramnik's absolutely signature squeeze of Shirov. It was marred by a silly blunder at the end and by Shirov's bizarre time management (he used an HOUR on 7..c6), but it was a classic control game from the world champion. The 18.Ne1 maneuver put Black on the critical list and Shirov never had a speck of counterplay. Effortless. Anand won a far more spectacular affair against Motylev when the Russian sacrificed three pawns and then a piece but couldn't back it up. They followed a Radjabov-Anand poisoned pawn blitz game from last year, and we were all surprised Motylev thought he had enough compensation. But he got great play and near the end he could have gone for a repetition with 28.Rxg7+ and either didn't see it or didn't see Anand's refutation of his 28.Qf2? A tragic finish to such a wild game. I'm not really sure what he missed at the end.

Topalov was cruising to a typically brutal bashing of van Wely's Najdorf when he took a strange pass to play defense with 23.b3 and the Dutchman was right back in the game. 23.Qd3 was the expected blow. But van Wely quickly returned the favor by missing 26.Bxc5! leading to 27.Qh6! and Topalov issued no further pardons. The finish is pretty as van Wely thought he might have a mate swindle with a queen sac. He thought wrong.

So the top three players in the world scored fairly quickly and three more wins were to come. Aronian was next to win, as all of Ponomariov's pawn weaknesses popped at once in his time trouble. Carlsen's enterprising exchange sacrifice against Navara backfired but not before a double blunder. 31..g5?? allowed an instant win for Carlsen with 32.c6!, exploiting how the last two moves had protected the white queen and unprotected Black's. Carlsen had plenty of time but used just 30 seconds to miss his chance to win instantly. White still should have had enough activity to draw after that but he played very poorly against Navara's pawn pushing and lost.

Finally it was Svidler's turn to get a win against Tiviakov. It looked like this one could be the first to finish when Svidler prepared to offer a couple of pawns for attack against Tivi's Scandanavian. But the gambit was declined and Svidler had to settle for a large positional advantage. He converted this into a passed b-pawn that ended up winning the game. Radjabov got what looked like a winning position with queen for rook and bishop, but Karjakin made it to an endgame and found a blockade by giving up his bishop. Illescas and I weren't sure it was a theoretical draw but tablebases confirm it and Black held it easily. No time at all today, but it will be interesting to see if there is a win at all in the position after 35.Qxe4.

van Wely is the only player with a bagel in the A Group. Comically, all of the games in the B Group were drawn today. Bizarre. Maybe now that everyone is on the board they will get over their nerves. Bu Xiangzhi saved his bacon with the cute 30..Nd5! to fend off Smeets. Stellwagen-Werle continued the day's theme of sharp material imbalances. T Kosintseva found a miracle draw repetition against Georgiev in a crazy endgame with three connected passers for each side that ended abruptly. Down in the C Group, 12-year-old Hou Yifan missed a winning tactic pointed out by the computer: 22.Bxf4 Rxf4 23.Nd5! wins the exchange. Instead she went on to lose to Krasenkow (trying the same tactic a few moves later to little effect). Nepomniachtchi rejected van der Wiel's kitchen sink attack to win again and take the C lead.

I had a lot of good on-air discussion with Miguel Illescas about working with Kramnik, the Elista match, and the latest cheating allegations. He's also a fantastic commentator. He did a great job explaining the various plans and possibilities without getting too deeply into fantasy variations. Very instructive stuff. (His Spanish site is Ajedrez21.) I'll put up a separate item on our chat items later. I'm back on Chess.fm tomorrow with Joel Benjamin. If it's all boring draws again it must be his fault! Videos and more from Corus at the Chessvibes site, formerly Doggers Schach.

Well, Corus did bore us today, I'm afraid. At least the A Group didn't bring their A game. I was doing live coverage on Chess.fm with GM Joel Benjamin and we had to scramble as game as game ended before the third hour of play. After less than three hours we were down to one, van Wely - Radjabov. The Dutchman is a well-known King's Indian basher and Timmaay sticks to it like glue, so we were expecting a duel. Someone kibitzed that van Wely had been online during the ACP rapid watching Radjabov and saying "the King's Indian is dead." Perhaps its status should now be upgraded to undead since you just can't kill the thing.

This King's Indian turned into a fabulously hideous position with four, count'em, four pawns on the e-file. Black had the only decent breaks in the position and his c-file invasion was decisive as van Wely got into serious time trouble and went down in flames. Speaking of flames, Radjabov is now the clear leader and Joel suggested he should set fire to the venue to stop the event while he's ahead. I will take this opportunity, short-lived as it will be, to point out that yesterday I picked Radjabov for a big result here. And he's winning! I called it! Burn down the building!

We poked around in the B and C groups for a while and found a few fun games. Negi, the world's youngest GM, got off to a good start in the C with a pretty sacrificial mating attack. Kosintseva the Younger, the lowest-rated player in the B, held the top seeded Jakovenko to a draw. Her sister is higher rated and a year older but is in the C group, go figure. She lost to 12-year-old Hou Yifan, the youngest player in the show. In the A the top also met the bottom when Topalov was held by Motylev. 1.d4?! No Najdorf?! Apparently Topalov wanted to see more of Kramnik's Slav preparation – Motylev was one of Kramnik's analysts in Elista. Georgiev missed a cute trick and lost to Eljanov in a painful final position.

Let's hope things liven up tomorrow. I'll be on live again, this time with Spanish GM Miguel Illescas. Can you handle two Migs? Mig and Miggy in the Morning? We'll be talking a lot of Kramnik since he has worked with the world champion for years and was in Elista for the duration. If you have questions for him, post'em. Kramnik has white against Shirov, usually an exciting pairing.

Sorry for the delay getting the Corus 2007 party started. I had to catch a 6am train to DC to tag along to meeting after meeting with Garry Kasparov, who took the American capital by storm this week. More important than the fate of Russian democracy is that on the way back I wheedled his Corus favorites out of him. Pairings and schedule here.

The message boards have spoken on the matter as well. Anand has a remarkable 52% of the votes. Kramnik has 17% and Topalov 13%. No one else garners more than 6%. Winning is usually going to require some luck in such a tough and balanced field, unless Topalov reverts to superman form. So how about your top three? I always have a suicidal urge to pick a dark horse and this way I can toss one in. How about Anand, Kramnik, Radjabov? Garry laughed at me about that one, pointing out how the Baby Beast of Baku was outclassed by Ivanchuk in rapids last week. But I feel the kid has been making real progress and might be ready for a breakout performance, or at least a plus score.

Garry thinks the pressure will take its toll on Topalov and that he won't finish top three. He said he couldn't pick against Anand, perhaps because he's the oldest player in the field. At 37 he's three years older than Shirov and van Wely. I'm not convinced that the sheer force of global contempt will make Topalov play worse chess, however. The junior squad is out in force with Radjabov, Navara, Carlsen, and Karjakin there. Ponomariov has been playing interesting chess lately and always fights hard. The big wildcard is the big world champion, Vladimir Kramnik. His seemingly effortless +2 won't win first place here and Corus is always a challenge for him to keep up with the likes of Anand and Topalov. But if Big Vlad is on form and the field slows he could win first with, say, +4.

I'll be doing live internet radio coverage during the games just about every round on Chess.fm at the Internet Chess Club. The full broadcast schedule is there. Games start at 7:30am EST (groan). I'll be accompanied by a rotating coterie of Grandmaster commentators, including Joel Benjamin and Larry Christiansen. For round two I'll have Spanish GM Miguel Illescas and we'll certainly spend a lot of time talking about the Kramnik-Topalov WCh match, where Illescas was on the Kramnik team. We'll try to stick to English for you gringos. You can also sign up for a free one-week trial to check it out. ChessBase also has the games live with Yasser Seirawan doing commentary. Post links to coverage and analysis.

We should also have our own game of the round vote, I say. Pick your favorite effort or start an actual poll in the message boards and link to it. Karjakin-Kramnik is one to watch on the first day. Navara might be looking for payback for the way Aronian posterized him at the Olympiad in 25 moves. Before you look, Topalov-Kramnik doesn't come until round 12. Let's hope it means something on the crosstable, as it should. And let's double hope there isn't any honky punnky.

I've been following this developing story for months now, but it negotiations finally broke down and the New Year's deadline passed without a deal. America's Foundation for Chess, which has sponsored the US chess championship since 2000, will not be organizing this year's event. They have handed it back to the US Chess Federation, along with a $25,000 check from AF4C director Erik Anderson as a going away present.

I'd been receiving bits and pieces of an outline for the 2007 championship and now I'm glad I never put any of it on the official website. The biggest issue was whether or not there would be an online phase of the championship. The Internet Chess Club, a major sponsor of the championship in recent years, was asked to design a format for the event. Obviously it included starting with an online phase between those who qualified from the various major opens that count as qualifiers. The preliminary plans I heard about included regional online playing centers, then a final four (or eight) that met face to face in a KO phase. Then it was going to be a long break before a big final match in Las Vegas. A major corporate sponsor was lined up, but I don't know how close they were to signing the check before things melted down.

Such a circus was sure to cause controversy, but first there was the USCF board to deal with. It has been a circus of its own of late, mostly thanks to the predictably disastrous presence of Sam Sloan, who is to sleaze what Hershey's is to chocolate. (The best proof of this isn't the execrable content of his personal web pages but the fact that he didn't feel the need to remove it when he was elected to the board.) With some on the board favoring the AF4C agenda and others against, executive director Goichberg, who, I understand, didn't much care for the online idea himself, was in a tough spot. It all ended with a whimper as the deadline to close a deal expired.

One comment made to me was that the deal was broken when the corporate sponsor the AF4C had was checking around and found out about the erratic Sloan, who waged war to kick out the AF4C (as well as attacking other board members) and his pages of soft porn, but this sounds a little too convenient to believe. Plus, there are too many legitimate concerns about the format and future of the US championship to give the clowns center ring all the time. The bottom line is that the USCF is now accepting bids and the AF4C is out of the picture.

The crux of it is that there aren't big sponsors for traditional chess events in the US, so it's a question of how much the traditionalists (players, federation members, etc.) will stand from sponsors and organizers who come in with innovative (perhaps too innovative) ideas to present the game to an American audience. Or is it better to have no events at all, or little poor ones? There's no clear line here and there never will be. The two groups and final rapid match last year were too much for some people. Online play would have freaked out many others but engaged some as progressive and/or inevitable. Trying to "modernize" chess and chess events in various ways has been a back-and-forth struggle for a century. Time controls, shuffle chess, anti-draw rules, scoring systems, all are part of the debate.

When the AF4C stepped in in 2000 there wasn't going to be a US championship at all, but the event had been on life support off and on for years. Some of the top players didn't bother showing up to play a tough round-robin with a dismal prize fund. It's one thing to want serious events but it's another to make them happen and to get the top players to the board. The 1999 event (a KO, by the way, not a RR) had a $72,000 prize fund and a respectable $12K first prize, but when Interplay went away there was no one to step in who wanted to continue the invitational, GM-only events, at least not after the AF4C did the last one in 2000 before switching to the the qualifier and swiss system. (20 draws of 25 moves or less in 2000 didn't impress much either.)

Waiting for super magic angels who want to throw their money away on traditional events that receive no attention is not a plan. But when creative formats don't receive any more attention than the traditional ones, does that mean we should go back or go further? Resign ourselves to being a fringe sport or continue experimenting to popularize the professional game? It's a healthy debate, although this doesn't appear to have been handled in a salutory way, as is common with the impoverished and fractured federations running chess in most places, FIDE included. Regardless, many thanks to Erik Anderson and the AF4C for their years of support (that is, cash, but not just that) and hard work for chess at every level. Their successful First Move scholastic programs continue, of course.

CNN and MSNBC have stories on the London-Moscow ice chess match that included Nigel Short and Anatoly Karpov. It kicked off the London's Russian Winter Festival. The game, which finished in a draw, was played by satellite link between the two cities. There were giant pieces carved from ice, but the unusually warm winter in both places made it more like speed chess. Some cool (ha ha) pictures in those reports and many more here and at ChessBase. That page also has a video link on the right, briefly showing people moving the pieces around. "Talk about keeping your cool." Ha ha ha. Karpov posing. Anyone find the game? Because, you know, we're geeks like that.

Got a minute or 50? I thought this endgame from the first game of the Kramnik-Fritz match was dead and buried, but I need a better line than the direct one I have against what I now think is the best defense. The main defensive concept is 30.e3 Bc5 31.Kf3 b5 32.Ke2 e4 33.Kd2 Kg6. Now Kasparov's 34.Nc7 and directing the knight to g2 (!) looks like a clear, if slow, win. For a while I thought White could win much more directly with 34.Kc3, allowing the kingside invasion of the black king and still winning the race. Now I'm not so sure. Basically I'm still convinced 30.e3 is a win, but the ..b5, ..e4, king invasion defense is tough. There's a lot of junk in the PGN game below, but the main line after 34.Kc3 looks like a draw. Interesting stuff.

ChessBase has a long article by Praful Zaveri on the cheating allegations surrounding Diwakar Prasad "DP" Singh, who stunned everyone by topping the national championship and making the Indian Olympiad team last year. He then went on to a quieter fame by losing his first game and being benched for the rest of the event, which turned out to be a horrible one for the second-seeded Indian squad. The rumors I heard at the time, and later, were to the effect that he had been found out as a fraud when unable to receive assistance in Turin.

The article has more on the red-handed, or hatted, case of Umakant Sharma, who was caught with a bluetooth device in his hat and was subsequently banned for ten years. No such evidence exists for DP Singh, however, and without it all the game analysis in the world is only circumstantial and unsuitable proof for a ban or any other punishment. Obviously if his rating now drops back 200 points to his previous career average the required conclusion can be drawn, but it's still not proof. But it's good they hammered the guy who got caught in flagrante petasus. It's important to set a deterrent predecedent. Amateurs might not be deterred against going for one big payday, but strong players would likely never risk such a ban.

The inaugural ACP world cup rapid has just concluded. Peter Leko is the winner, as predicted by, or at least hoped for by, acirce in the comments. The patient Hungarian beat Ivanchuk, who had the look of the favorite about him up to the final match. The first game was drawn (Alekhine's Defense from Chukky!) and the second game was also drawn to move the final match into blitz. After a draw, Leko beat the Alekhine's in the second game to take the title and the $40K first prize. Congratulations to Leko and to the ACP and its president, Pavel Tregubov, and to everyone who worked hard to bring this event about. Especially those on the ground in Odessa.

The semifinals were both exciting stuff, if for different reasons. Ivanchuk and Radjabov played a remarkably accurate and interesting minor piece endgame won by Ivanchuk to take the lead. He then held, and won, the second game to move into the final. After that fire vs fire battle, the ice vs ice of Leko-Gelfand was relatively tranquil on the board, and they drew the first two and went to blitz. After two white wins Leko had black in the armageddon game and won through.

Hikaru Nakamura and Pentala Harikrisha, both eliminated in the first round, seem to be looking in the wrong direction. Following the live semifinal games, no doubt. [Pic from Golubev. Click for larger version.]

With one notable exception, Elo still ruled in the quarterfinals. There aren't really favorites in these heavyweight matchups, with the exception of Leko's predictably one-sided elimination of Rublevsky. Morozevich was on his way to winning the first game of his match with Radjabov only to leave his rook en prise in the endgame and resign. Horrible. Radjabov drew the next with white to move into the semifinals. Ukrainian favorite Ivanchuk outplayed Bacrot in fine fashion to move on. I'm a little surprised the wacky Ivanchuk didn't promote to a knight on the final move of the decisive game. Such opportunities are rare and should not be squandered! [Comments from those who watched live say it was a knight, so the queen is probably an error added to the PGN file at some point. The official site still says 55.e8=Q] Gelfand beat Shirov. The Israeli got a great opening with black in their first game, lost the edge, and then won anyway. 15..Ng4! is an instructive deployment plan in their first game. 27.Rf5 threatening Rh5 would have been close to winning for White.

Here's an Ebay auction of a ticket to game two of the Kasparov-Deeper Blue rematch in 1997. The optimistic starting bid is $500. (The seller seems to have blundered by not putting the word "chess" in the title of the auction, which is what many people search for.) There's a brisk business selling ticket stubs to sporting events, but I doubt many are for chess matches. I'm usually on the other side of the rope and it never occured to me to collect entry tickets, but it's a fun idea. I do have a few dozen press credentials though, and they usually come with handy lanyards. Then there's a 2004 Kramnik-Leko match gift pack that includes a signed board, set, backpack, and more going for $300.

Thank goodness for global climate change. Yesterday was a beautiful day in NY, more like the middle of spring than winter. Of course I spent most of it in front of the computer working anyway. I found the time to work out the solution to this one of the ChessBase Christmas puzzles. It was the only one I've tried because it was the one bugging Kasparov the other day. Ah, the simple, spiteful, pleasures. And of course I was using a board. Solution after the jump, so beware if you click the comments or the "continue" if you want to do it yourself.

I've been getting a lot of mail about the conviction of US chess coach Robert Snyder on sexual assault charges. I'm not much for covering the non-chess of the non-chess-famous, but since I mentioned his arrest here's the follow-up. Pleaded guilty, no prison, some detention. No more coaching minors. Again, be safe out there. Read up on the subject both as a coach and as a parent. On a related note, I'm not covering the Jessie Gilbert saga, so you can stop submitting the stories. Thanks.

An interesting find for chess historians. A 500-year-old, 48-page Italian manuscript by Luca Pacioli mostly dedicated to chess has been found. References to it had been seen but no one had ever seen it and it was assumed lost. Pacioli was a peer and friend of da Vinci and is considered the father of modern accounting, or at least modern accounting books. The scholars doubt the nice black and red diagrams are by Leonardo, however. José Antonio Garzón suspects it's from 1508, not topping the earliest modern chess treatise by Francesch Vicent in 1495. As happens regularly these days I'm surprised to find one of my own pages is the top Google hit for something I'm looking up. How does one remember to take memory pills?

Some chess video here with this story on the Miami Dade team at the Pan American Intercollegiate Chess Tournament. Saludos to my compa Renier Gonzalez, their team captain. The event was dominated by two teams from the University of Texas at Dallas, another traditional power along with UMBC. Kavalek was watching.

In case you need a laugh today. May the pants be with you.

America's (and Ninja's) Hikaru Nakamura ran into the very tough Boris Gelfand on day one and was bounced by the Israeli veteran. Gelfand has an incredible career score bashing the Grunfeld and he backed that up in their first game to take the lead with some fine bishop pair play. In the second Nakamura worked up good chances to equalize the match but Gelfand pulled out some endgame magic, with some help. I thought 44..g5 was a brilliant save at first but it's a forced loss. 47.Rb7+ Kg6 48.a7 and Black can't stop the c-pawn. True to his style, Hikaru played to the death and resigned instead of taking one of the many draws.

Thanks to Misha Savinov and Mikhail Golubev for the photos.

So on the first day the favorites all went through: Leko, Rublevsky, Shirov, Gelfand. Day 2 is underway in Odessa. Morozevich needed blitz to eliminate Harikrishna after two good rapid games, both decisive. Radjabov knocked out Bareev. Bacrot-Bologan went to the armageddon game, where the Frenchman went through. Elo rules so far. Ivanchuk-Amonatov is the final pairing of the first round. [Ivanchuk through 2-0.] Official site here.

Savinov makes a good point in his first ChessBase report on this event. I had thought it strange that Kramnik wasn't playing since the ACP was basically founded in his support a few years ago. But if a player organization is going to have any success and leverage it needs the support of all its star members. Anand and Kramnik (and Aronian) really should have lent their participation to this inaugural event. In the eyes of this ACP member it's in their own best interest as well as that of every player to show that the ACP can bring out the big boys. I.e., that something other than cash matters when it comes to putting on a prestigious event. Of course Corus is the more important event, but a few days of rapid games isn't too much to ask for solidarity at the first major ACP event. Or it shouldn't be.

All you need is a little dyslexia to see this event is very similar to the old PCA world cup rapid events (and squint so you don't notice Kasparov, Anand, and Kramnik aren't playing). The ACP is finally putting on a show after several years of adding up tournament points and cereal box-tops. Kudos to them for getting it off the ground. The top point-getters, along with a pair of sponsor nominees, are playing in this rapid KO in Odessa, Ukraine beginning tomorrow and lasting four days. The semi-final and final matches are on Monday the 8th. The official site is now up here. Apparently there will be live games there and/or at RusChess.

The favorites are Morozevich, Leko, Ivanchuk, Gelfand, Shirov, Radjabov, and Bacrot. Black Belt annotator and 2005 US champion Hikaru Nakamura is the youngest player in the field and is playing in his third event since a long break for college. As the penultimate seed he might be paired with either Morozevich or Ivanchuk in the first round. Welcome back! Hikaru is currently polling =2-3 to win the event, tied with Radjabov behind Morozevich. Well, he has won clear first in his other events, so why not? (He just repeated as North American Open champ in Vegas.) First prize is $40,000. [Pairings are now up. It's Nakamura-Gelfand in the first round, tomorrow in the latest game of the day, 11:45am EST.]

Misha Savinov sends us this pic from tonight's opening ceremony. Hikaru Nakamura on the left and India's Pentala Harikrisha on the right, showing that he drew Alexander Morozevich in the first round.

Anand, Kramnik, and Aronian qualified but are going to be in Wijk aan Zee a few days after this ends and apparently didn't want to have to sprint over. Radjabov, Shirov, and Bologan are playing in both (Bologan in the B Group).

I'm trying to get the source and/or original German for these quotes. It's a long story. I found them, used them, and now need to footnote them. But now I can't find them again. Sigh. Also don't want to have the English translated back into German when the original was in German. I.e, I don't want them translated; I need exactly what it says in the original German version of the book.

First is Tarrasch's famous line about Nimzowitsch: "He has a profound liking for ugly opening moves." (Also seen without "opening.") Where did he actually write this and what is the original German?

Next are these annotations by Tarrasch from his 300 Chess Games (I think) on his game with Blackburne. I was sure I had the German version (Dreihundert Schachpartien) lying around here somewhere but can't find it.

"It is easier to find an excuse for blundering a piece than it is for not understanding the spirit of the game." A few moves later comes, "The following weak moves can only be explained by my confusion caused by Blackburne’s poor game."

Lastly, this ubiquitous quote by Lasker: "On the chess board lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in a checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite." Where is it from and what is the original German? Email is fine if the text encoding is butchering your ß. Danke!

Bonus quote! If you can source the oft-cited Erich Fromm line "Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties" I'll send you a Ninja t-shirt.