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Well THAT sucked. Three quick draws and one flame-out to another draw, leaving the standings unchanged. Tell me again why these guys took a rest day yesterday? Anand played h3-g4 against Chucky's Najdorf, a new move in the exact position but not a new idea. It did send Ivanchuk into his usual deep think and Anand's massive lead on the clock seemed to be the best hope for excitement. But Vishy blitzed in Ivanchuk's time trouble and it looks like Black could have safely poached the white d-pawn with 26..Rxd5. Instead there was general liquidation and the fourth draw of the day. Ban the draw offer.
The Carlsen-Leko draw is only worth mentioning because they repeated beyond the usual three times. Leko must have felt it was up to Carlsen to offer or claim, and rightly so. Maybe they'd just rather be playing tennis with each other. I was on ICC Chess.FM with Susan Polgar and we spoke with Carlsen's father Henrik for a few moments. He said that Magnus had been surprised by Leko's choice in the Slav and wasn't happy with his position after following a Kramnik-Topalov game for a while. I felt bad for Susan not having much to analyze for us, but she's a good person to have around on such a day, considering her long life at high-level chess and a million stories. She's back in a few weeks.
Tomorrow it's Leko-Anand, Ivanchuk-Aronian, Topalov-Morozevich, Svidler-Carlsen.
Zowie, what a wild tournament this is turning out to be. Round five contained another pair of amazing games. Magnus Carlsen defeated Veselin Topalov in very impressive fashion, except that the final position was a draw. Incredibly, Topalov had to see just two moves to reach what looks like a plainly drawn position and instead he resigned. (64..Qd5+ 65.king anywhere or f3 65..e5 66.Qh7+ Kf8 67.Qh8 Qg8.) Absolutely bizarre, though not unprecedented. It wasn't undeserved because as many have pointed out, 55.Nd2! would have won by force and turned this game into the stuff of legend. Regardless, it was a powerful effort by Carlsen, who again showed the aggression that was largely absent from his play in his first supertournament appearances. His first win over Morozevich seems to have given him the "hey, I can play with these guys" confidence he needed to take it to them.
The other win was scored by Aronian over Anand and this one was an even richer game. Aronian kept finding clever ways to keep Black under pressure and to advance his pawns. Really a beautiful effort all the way through. The concluding rook sacrifice to promote the pawn was a tasty layer of icing on a spectacular cake. Anand didn't have to let his knight get trapped on the final move of the game but that endgame looks lost anyway. A definite short-list game of the year so far for Aronian, at least in cumulative surprise value.
Those results put Carlsen back into the clear lead of the Linares supertournament on 3.5/5 with wins over Ivanchuk, Topalov, and Morozevich. Read that sentence again. Tremendous stuff even if you ignore that he's only 16. No more questions about whether or not he's ready. The question is whether or not everyone else is ready for him!
Svidler couldn't make any progress against Leko's Marshall and they split the point without coming to blows. Sad. The Berlin Defense in Morozevich-Ivanchuk also stopped short of violence. Lame. Was there a People for the Ethical Treatment of Pieces rally on the off day?
I'm back on ICC Chess.FM Saturday for round six at 4:30EST. My GM co-host will be none other than fellow blogger Susan Polgar. It's Carlsen-Leko, Morozevich-Svidler, Aronian-Topalov, Anand-Ivanchuk.
Russian Champion Evgeny Alekseev continued his hot streak by taking clear first at the Aeroflot Open. He beat Aronian's longtime second Sargissian in the final round. His impressive 7/9 nets him $30,000 and a spot in this year's Dortmund supertournament in June. The near-junior (I believe he turns 22 this year, or may have already) will face Kramnik, Anand, Carlsen, Gelfand, Leko, Mamedyarov, and Naiditsch from June 23 - July 01.
China made quite move toward the podium in the final round with wins by Ni Hua and Wang Yue. Further down, everyone's favorite, 12-year-old Hou Yifan, beat Kotronias to finish with 3.5.
Two decisive games today, doubling our usual daily ration. There were turnarounds in both cases. Morozevich slowly unwound against Anand's Lopez and was ready to play for a serious advantage but missed his chances and eventually lost all his queenside pawns. It looked like Moro could have busted things open to his advantage with ..f5 at several points, on move 28 or 29. Black could have made his life much easier by hacking a knight with ..Bh6 as well. 37.Nb4! is a star move not at all easy to see. Morozevich is showing his usual supertournament inability to play a strong game from beginning to end. He puts together magnificent sequences only to falter, or gets into trouble and plays brilliantly to save. At the moment he's in the cellar on -2 and Anand is the clear leader on +2.
We remind that the local Morelia paper predicted a win for Vishy. They also got his comments after the game, although they don't get some of the moves right. "I thought I was going to be able to play Nh6 and Ng4 and when that didn't work I really couldn't find anything else. I thought 23.Nd5 Rd8 24.Qg3 was working for me, but when it didn't his bishops started to impose themselves and I think he was better. I don't know if Morozevich missed a chance to win, but he was much better and then made several mistakes. 31..Qh4 when he could have played 31..Bh6."
Ivanchuk was looking good against Carlsen out of a novel opening. You don't often see unique positions by move 7 in super-GM play, although if you do it's probably an Ivanchuk game. After exchanges it looked like White had enough small plusses to at least torture Carlsen for a while, but it turned out quite differently. Carlsen made a series of excellent positional moves to counter actively -- My Chess.FM co-host Larry Christiansen called them Karpovian -- and when Ivanchuk avoided a repetition and then played just a slight inaccuracy he was suddenly in a very difficult endgame. Black won confidently against White's desperate defense. A tremendous achievement from Carlsen to battle back in such fashion against a player of Ivanchuk's caliber. It wasn't clear at the time how uncoordinated White's position was going to be after 34.Ne2?, but in hindsight 34.Ng2 was much better. Then 34..Ne5 can be met by 35.Qf2.
In the miserable R+B vs R+N endgame, it may be possible to dump the d-pawn with 53.Re2!? Rd3 54.Re5 Rd2+ 55.Re2 Rxd4 56.Ke3. If the rooks come off the white a-pawn becomes a danger. It might be wiser for Black to ignore it and just bring up his king. It's also possible for White to play g4 and go after the e-pawn with Re5, again hoping to get the rooks off the board and chase the a-pawn with his king and give up his bishop for the black f-pawn. Regardless, just about anything was better than 53.Rb5. Carlsen's father Henrik is blogging from the event.
Leko was doing well out of the Catalan against Aronian, but the Armenian's remarkable ability to provoke complications again served him well. He could easily be on minus two in Morelia but he might be playing his way back into shape. Here he provoked Leko into a dangerous-looking exchange sac that fizzles out into a superior game for Black. Thanks to the indefatigable John Henderson grabbing him, we spoke on the air with Aronian after the game and he said he simply thought the B vs R endgame was winning for him. Otherwise, he said, he would have hung on to his f-pawn. Leko's knowledge of practical theoretical endgames has few equals in the chess world, it's worth noting. I asked Aronian about his lucky escape against Moro in round three, specifically if he had seen the spectacular mate Morozevich missed. He said "no, of course not, or as a gentleman I would have resigned immediately!" I called him a liar and he cracked up. Nice try, Levon! He's hilarious. He promised to come back on when he wins a game.
Topalov-Svidler was a classic example of the Grunfeld breed. White gets lots of space and Black scrambles with very sharp play to hold the balance all over the board. Then, as if by magic, White's threats evaporate and Black's active pieces give enough, or more than enough, play for a draw. But man these things look horrible for Black for a long time.
ChessBase has some nice photos and is running regular analysis from GM Marin. He's under time pressure but consistently churns out great stuff. To nitpick, his report on round one misses that Ivanchuk still had a forced win over Leko, not just a perpetual. Kasparov pointed out 22.Be4!, which wins very nicely after 22..f5 23.Bxc6! bxc6 24.g5. Chessvibes has a few cool post-mortem videos.
I'm off to Seattle today, so Jen Shahade will be hosting with Larry Christiansen today on ICC Chess.FM. It's Svidler-Leko, Carlsen-Topalov, Morozevich-Ivanchuk, Aronian-Anand.
FIDE vice-president Zurab Azmaiparashvili has spoken out strongly in support of Teimour Radjabov regarding the burglary of his father's hotel room in Mexico, which led to the Azerbaijani star's withdrawal from Linares. Azmai dropped in on Garry Kasparov in Moscow the other day (or "Harry" as the Azeri news agency would have it) and says in the article that Kasparov also supports his fellow Baku-er. I mentioned this several days ago here, and Kasparov also goes on the record on the matter in his next New In Chess column. (It's almost all about Corus, of course, and Garry has a lot to say on Radjabov's revival of his old love, the King's Indian, as well as more details on why he stopped playing it in 1997.)
Both Azmaiparashvili and Kasparov highlight the notable fact that the organizers have said little on the matter, at least not to the wider press. But I did track this down in the Morelia paper, Cambio de Michoacán. No time to translate the entire thing, but basically it says, "The exit of Radjabov surprised everyone, even more when we discovered that he asked the organization for the sum of 100,000 euros for compensation for the damages caused by the robbery in Patzcuaro." Linares mayor Juan Fernandez: "It's a shame Radjabov has had to leave because I have no doubt that he will be crowned world champion in a few years. Nevertheless we understand the harmful aspect of what happened to the lad and we understand it would have been difficult to play." Tournament organizer Ricardo Portocarrero expressed his anguish over what happened and said that it had been a great pleasure to have Radjabov in the field and that it's a great loss not to have him.
More notable, since I hadn't seen anything from players before. Topalov: "The truth is that these are personal decisions, but I just recently found out in fact, a few hours ago. These are personal matters." Peter Svidler: "I understand the situation. It's very tough for him and of course it's an unfortunate event for the tournament. They are replacing him with Ivanchuk. I don't know the details, but one understands that an event of that nature can ruin your concentration." Silvio Danailov also spoke similarly.
From GM Ian Rogers in Morelia:
(i) Radjabov has not yet received any compensation for the computer because he has not yet submitted an invoice. The organisers have agreed to pay for a new computer that he buys and they expect to recover the money from the hotel insurance.
(ii) Players do not receive appearance fees - all the money goes into prizes.
(iii) Paco would not confirm the 100,000 Euros request on the record but did say that Radjabov had asked for a "very large sum of money".
This burglary mess wasn't only bad for Radjabov, but also for fans and the tournament. Linares commentator Leontxo Garcia told me the other day that he had considered Radja the favorite to win the event! I don't know if I would have pressed my luck after I picked Radjabov to have a great Corus, but we can agree that no matter how well Ivanchuk plays, it's a shame. Maybe they should have contractually obligated Ivanchuk to play the King's Indian.
Awright, I've gotten into the Montepulciano and my wife (!) is on a business trip to Atlanta so I'm ready to rip on round three. I was live on ICC Chess.FM for the duration with the mad professor himself, two-time world championship candidate Jon Speelman. Well, not quite the duration. We went off the air assuming that Svidler-Ivanchuk would, as per Peter Leko's prediction, be a draw. Speaking of speaking, I have a quick and sloppy podcast on the round for the ICC here. No preparation, much babbling and enough audible inhaling to be the soundtrack of a Jenna Jameson movie, but a recap it is. I'll rehearse next time.
There was a fair amount to babble about in round 3, and none of it took place in Topalov-Leko. They went through 22 moves of theory to reach the type of inferior endgame guys like Leko and Kramnik actually enjoy. "Just another day at the office," as Speelman put it. Leko duly defended well against the ominous passer on c6 and avoided the traps he envisioned in the oppo-bishop endgame. We spoke on the air with Aussie GM Ian Rogers, who had spoken to Leko after the game, and he said the Hungarian had come up with all sorts of ways White could actually win what looked like a dead draw. It took Speelman, co-author of the excellent Batsford Encyclopedia of Endgames, a few minutes to prove there was more neurosis than fact behind these worries. Dead draw, although Ian did show us a few very pretty breakthroughs if Black makes a few mistakes in passive defense. Kasparov recently made derisive comments about Black's survival chances in this endgame, but passively defending inferior endgames right out of preparation was never exactly his glass of tea.
In his game against Ivanchuk, Svidler replayed his opening against Kramnik at Corus last month. Indeed, the first three rounds of Linares have had at least a half-dozen Corus flashbacks already. This one was more interesting because during Corus I remember discussing with Chess.FM co-host Benjamin what Black's compensation would be if White grabbed the exchange with 13.Qxb7, a potentially poisoned pill he had eschewed the swallowing of until yesterday when Svidler bottoms-upsed the pawn con gusto. His plan wasn't to win the exchange but to grind Black with a mild positional advantage. "Not the soft cushions! Not the comfy chair!" Svidler did a fair job of applying the squeeze treatment but the Chuckster escaped without a scratch. He might have even played for more with 34..Re7. Interesting stuff, although I'm not smart enough to say anything pithy about it right off or inclined to analyze it to death. Peter Leko, perhaps playing the provocateur or just joking, told Ian Rogers while the game was still in progress, "if Ivanchuk was playing white I'm sure he'd win; with Peter I'm not so sure." Zing!
On a less jokey note, Ian mentioned that the mobs of autograph seekers continue to assault the players before and after every round. The auditorium is nearly full to the end of each round. Having played blitz at the sparsely populated Morelia chess club I wonder how many visitors actually play chess, but hey, celebrity transcends Elo, right? The efforts of people like 2007 Mexico City world championship sponsor Jorge Saggiante might yet turn Mexico into a chess powerhouse. Stealing the laptops (and preparation) of top GMs might just be excellent long-range preparation!
Morozevich played a typically creative game against Aronian only to miss several chances to seal the deal and mate. It's even fair to say he missed a chance at immortality on Monday. Aronian played a tricky combination to win a pawn but his open king and the mighty white knight on d4 turned out to be more important. Moro whipped up a devastating attack with 32.f4 and after that Aronian was scrambling to make his time advantage count. With two minutes on his clock Morozevich missed the chance to add a spectacular mating combination to the golden treasury of chess with 38.Qd8+ Kg7 39.f6+ Kh6 40.Kh4!! Qxd4+ 41.g4 Qb4 42.Qf8! Qxf8 43.g5#. To the Fritzniks who were criticizing Morozevich for missing a forced mate, I'll provide the acid test. When I read the position to a "blindfold" Kasparov he went for 38.Kh4 first, which wins but isn't the spectacular forced mate that comes after 38.Qd8+ Kg7 39.f6+ Kg6 40.Kh4!! Qxd4+ 41.g4 Qb4 42.Qf8+! Qxf8 43.g5#. Spectacular! The mate was still there a move later, but Moro's time trouble blocked it from view. 39.Qd8+ Kg7 40.f6+ Kh6 41.Kh4 Qe1+ 42.g3! Qe4+ 43.g4 Qe1+ 44.Rg4. (Not 42.Rg3?? Rf4#.) Sadly, Moro missed both chances and after reaching time control he decided to offer an immediate draw instead of trying to prosecute with his extra knight for two pawns.
It was left to Vishy Anand to score the only win of the day. Carlsen showed a poorly tuned sense of danger and swapped down into an inferior bishop and rook endgame. (17..Kh8! is the rare strong king move in the middlegame.) White probably thought he was getting a quick draw, but Vishy declined his offer to split the point and Carlsen soon found out why. Black had much better chances against White's awkward bishop on c2 and Anand's technique made them all count. It soon turned into a clear demonstration of what Kasparov called "class over confidence." White missed a pretty drawing shot with 27.gxf4 gxf4 28.exf4 Rd2 29.Bg6!= The loss dropped Carlsen back to an even score and lifted Anand to +1, where he joins Ivanchuk in the co-lead.
By the way, Swiss GM Vadim Milov won the Linares-Morelia International Open according to the organizers. The Topalov website was eager to celebrate the "victory" of Topalov's countryman and second, Ivan Cheparinov, who tied with Milov with 6/7. But tiebreaks gave the trophy and double the prize money to Milov, who was announced as the winner. Oy, the Bulgarian nationalists. I don't usually give a single Bulgarian leva about tiebreaks, but when they decide the prize money ($5,000 for Milov, $2,200 for Cheparinov), they matter. The group tied for 3-8 was Stellwagen, Gonzalez, Bruzon, Potkin, Akobian, and Leon Hoyos. Top seed Tiviakov finished out of the money on 4.5.
Mexican papers report that Linares mayor Juan Fernández said that it's very likely that the Morelia-Linares connection will continue in the future. The local Morelia paper has gotten into the prognostication game and says Anand will beat Moro tomorrow. I'm on ICC Chess.FM with GM Larry Christiansen at 4:30pm EST for Anand-Morozevich, Leko-Aronian, Ivanchuk-Carlsen, and Topalov-Svidler.
Stanislav "who?" Novikov is the clear leader of the Aeroflot tournament after six rounds with 4.5 points. The modestly rated 21-year-old Russian GM held off Jakovenko today to keep his lead. There's a cute finish for stalemate connoisseurs. Jobava-Ehlvest has a cute finish worth a look. The top seven boards were drawn. ChessBase has a photo report from Misha Savinov here.
From a source very close to the Linares/Morelia organizers comes word that Radjabov was compensated by the hotel for the theft of his dad's computer [According to Goran Urosevic, by email Radjabov has denied receiving anything from the hotel.] but that to stay and play he wanted additional compensation from the organizers. 100,000 euros of compensation! That's over two billion dong! I suppose 100K helps you overcome a lot of emotional duress. He said take or leave it and they left it, rather unsurprisingly. I'm trying to get a comment from Radjabov on this. As I said before, dropping out after such a shock isn't entirely unreasonable, but saying you'll stay for a pile of extra cash is dubious. (And while it didn't mention numbers, Radjabov's press release made it clear he would have stayed for "reparation for the damages."
The second round was chock-full of exciting and interesting games. The only win was scored in excellent style by Vassily Ivanchuk over Veselin Topalov, really first-class work. Everyone knows you just aren't supposed to capture on e6 in these lines. Black gets a strong central pawn mass and the open f-file. Ivanchuk, as ever, thought differently. After an amusing knight tour and leaving his beastie en prise on d5 for three moves, the Ukrainian wizard had a positionally superior position. He turned the screws effectively and Topalov never had a shred of counterplay. The game ended abruptly when Topalov blundered a piece on the final move of time control, but at least he was down a pawn at the time. Ivanchuk even tempted Topalov, dared him you might say, to play a trademark exchange sac with with 15..exd5 16.Qxa7 dxe4, but Black declined. Analysis shows that Black wouldn''t have adequate compensation. Many pointed out that White could have grabbed a second pawn with 31.Nxe5, but he was clearly fixated on a plan as well as on reaching the time control. The lack of increment in Linares has already led to some hair-raising moments and there is no doubt Ivanchuk in particular will have many more of them.
Carlsen and Ivanchuk; the youngest and oldest in the lead. Photos by John Henderson
Aronian-Carlsen turned into a barnburner when Aronian took a solid position with an extra pawn and sacrificed a piece for a wild speculative attack. There were some lethal lines but Carlsen defended cooly (20..f5!) and looked good for his second win until choosing safety with five minutes left on his clock. 27..Rd7 allowed the shot 28.e6! and Black bailed out into a perpetual, although he could have run his king to the queenside still with better chances. 27..Bg6 was best, but Carlsen probably saw 28.Rxg6 hxg6 29.Qxg6 and Black is lost unless he finds the unrealistic 29..Qh3!
Leko-Morozevich was a very complicated fire and ice battle. Moro's position was incredibly ugly but he managed to wangle his way to what my ICC Chess.FM co-host GM Kaidanov called a slight advantage before drawing a four-rook endgame. Anand got a pawn against Svidler but Black always had good activity. Svidler even turned things around at the end with the nicely calculated shot 30..Bxe1! to go up a pawn, but the endgame never looked like anything but a draw. A day of great chess. Some pics and videos at ChessBase en español.
We spoke on the air with two of the world's elite in a very small club, the chess journalists. My old friend Leontxo Garcia of Spain is the official commentator at Linares again and also covers the event for Spanish radio and his newspaper, the major daily El País. It's worth learning Spanish to see a real pro in action. He has been very impressed with Carlsen so far, his demeanor as much as his play. We also spoke with Aussie GM Ian Rogers in the Morelia press room. He said there were no anti-cheating measures in place at all and that it's very easy for the players to see the audience from the elevated stage. Spectators go in and out with no security at all. Ian added that he hadn't even seen Danailov at the playing hall yet.
The consensus among the kibitzing players and others on the scene was that Morozevich missed several clear draws against Carlsen in round one. The best annotation came from Peter Svidler, who told Rogers, "The most important thing in this endgame is not to resign." That's a reference to how he resigned a similar opposite-colored bishop ending against Kramnik at Corus 2004 only to find out later that it was a forced draw. After two rounds Carlsen and Ivanchuk are in the lead and Morozevich and Topalov are trailing. Not the crosstable you would have imagined a week ago. Carlsen is by far the lowest-rated player and Ivanchuk wasn't playing. Note that Topalov started with .5/3 last year (and losing three games in the first six rounds) and came back to nearly win the event.
A local Morelia paper says Ivanchuk has grabbed a trainer for the tournament off the shelf, 18-year-old Mexican hope Manuel León Hoyos! They know each other from Ivanchuk's regular stops at the Torre tournament in Mérida. In the past Ivanchuk has worked with Kotronias and others, but I remember Ukrainian IM Alexander Sulypa as his friend and second for many years.
As part of the inaugural festivities the famous windmill game Torre-Lasker, Moscow 1925 was played in living chess fashion in front of the giant cathedral in the central square in Morelia. Carlsen's father is blogging here.
Today is Topalov-Leko, Svidler-Ivanchuk, Carlsen-Anand, Morozevich-Aronian. I'm back on ICC Chess.FM at 4:30 EST with GM Jon Speelman as co-host. Tomorrow is a free day.
Boy am I annoyed. I swear on a stack of Kingpins that the first version of my preview yesterday included the sentence, "Today may be Carlsen's best chance at a win because of how ambitious Morozevich is with black." Damn. As the saying goes, the worst decisions are the ones we don't make. I give myself a high chicken factor for yanking that one. Just like at Corus a month ago we have a surprise leader after the first round. At Corus Radjabov proved it wasn't a fluke and he hung on to tie for first. Carlsen won't do that, but hey, he's leading Linares! I duly acknowledge that I wrote I'd rather see a more accomplished player in his place.
Carlsen played a shocking knight sacrifice against Moro's antique King's Indian and won when Morozevich first played wildly and then lost the handle in the endgame. A deserved win for the young Norwegian, who showed the aggression he's been lacking with the white pieces. Black's endgame play was unpredictable even for Morozevich. 40..f4 cost him a second pawn and even then he had drawing chances. Then he allowed f4 and it was probably just a matter of time. Early in the game his flamboyant 15..f5 gave the piece back to play against the trapped bishop on g2. There were a raft of more, umm, sane moves you could imagine a Leko playing to keep the piece. My ICC Chess.FM co-host Gregory Kaidanov expected 15..Nf5 to blockade the pawn. We also looked at 15..b6. An exciting battle to be sure, and Carlsen's third win against Morozevich in four games.
The big Topalov-Anand showdown followed their QID from Corus until Topalov varied first with 14.Nxe4 instead of 14.a4. Kaidanov and everyone else was wondering if Vishy was really going to play the 14.a4 Nd5 that earned him such a horrible loss last month, and we'll have to keep wondering. Anand equalized with precise play and Topalov, somewhat surprisingly, decided not to play on. Svidler-Aronian was another Corus flashback, with Svidler in having Anand's memories. They repeated 23 moves of Marshall theory and yet again it proved to be the toughest of defenses to break down. Aronian found a cute pin structure that White couldn't escape.
Ivanchuk livened things up against Leko after a dull-looking Scotch Game to begin. His 18.a4! deflection shot was very nice work. Kaidanov thought Leko was in deep trouble but I figured he'd be okay for two reasons. One, Ivanchuk was down to seconds for 15 moves and two, as I wrote years ago, one of the surest ways to lose a chess game is to sac a piece against Peter Leko. The guy defends like a mama grizzly bear with a newborn cub. He found the essential moves to force Ivanchuk to take the repetition. The game ended with exactly one second on Chucky's clock. Had Leko avoided the perpetual with (the inferior) 24..Be6 it's almost certain Ivanchuk would have lost on time. Since there's no increment in Linares someone less scrupulous than Peter Leko might even have tried something objectively losing like 25..Be6 in order to flag his opponent. By the way, I believe our live broadcast had the move order with 18..Rxa4 19.Rxa4 Qxa4 20.Nf6+. That just transposes the score I see everywhere now with White's 19th and 20th moves juxtaposed. But it would have allowed for the interesting try 20.g5.
As predicted, and as a dead yak could have predicted, the official website in Mexico went down like a lead piñata even before the games started. The ICC's John Henderson was there in the press room (the second one, long story) typing us the moves manually all day. It was enough to give one flashbacks to the Braingames press room in London 2000. And we've already had computer theft too! They'll have to ramp up capacity and rip the guts out of that awful site to have any hope of survival today. Some round 1 pics here on the Spanish ChessBase site.
Regardless, Greg and I will be back today for the duration. It's Ivanchuk-Topalov, Leko-Morozevich, Aronian-Carlsen, Anand-Svidler. Games start at 4:30pm EST, 21:30GMT.
I'm sticking with the name of the tournament, Linares, as with Corus, instead of the geographical sites. (God forbid we use a handy hybrid like, say, MoraLin or LinaLia. What a dire, dire insult that would be.) Round one begins at 15:30 local time in Morelia, Mexico. That's 4:30pm EST, 1:30pm PST, and 21:30GMT. I'll be doing live audio commentary on ICC Chess.FM©™® from the start of the round. My GM co-host today is Gregory "Kentucky Fried" Kaidanov. If you aren't an ICC member you can get a free trial account here. As they say, once you've had chess audio, there's no going back. There are also my infamous daily trivia contests, but this time with a difference: real prizes! The winner of the tough third question will win a year's subscription to New In Chess! Details here.
The first round starts out with a bang. The world #1 has white against the #2 in Topalov-Anand. Then we have Ivanchuk-Leko, Svidler-Aronian, Carlsen-Morozevich. ChessBase has opening photos and the full schedule in this report. This glacially slow Mexican website is claiming live game webcast. (Go to the "Linares-Morelia" menu and then "Partidas en vivo".) Be afraid, be very afraid. John Henderson is in Morelia for the ICC, so if worst comes to worst we'll have him relaying the moves by phone in a Scottish brogue. I'm sure there won't be any errors with that foolproof system. The Spanish soloajedrez site will have the games in the Linares half.
Swapping Ivanchuk in for Radjabov added someone with as many career Linares titles as everyone else in the field combined. Anand won in 1998, Leko in 2003 (tiebreak) and Aronian won last year. Ivanchuk has three clear first wins, albeit none in the past 10 years (89, 91, 95). Now on to the fool's game of predictions... +3 should win clear first in this field unless Ivanchuk and/or Morozevich totally melts down and skews the spread. I'll put Topalov and Aronian ahead of Anand, who just hasn't looked himself at classical chess lately. Leko is also bit of an enigma. He's been something of a choke artist in the last year; with two better final rounds he would have been the big winner of 2006. I don't expect plus scores from Ivanchuk, Morozevich, or Carlsen. It would be great to see more ambition from Svidler. If he doesn't show it he'll finish even when someone blasts his Grunfeld.
Please keep these threads on Linares. You know, chess. Here's the cheating thread. The Ninja boards have a prediction thread and daily round coverage. Here's a cat playing piano.
Ay chihuahua! Breaking news from Morelia, Mexico, where the first leg of the Linares supertournament is scheduled to begin Saturday the 17th. Teimour Radjabov has pulled out of the tournament after his father's room was burgled. I'm told they said they "felt in fear of their lives." (Apparently this phrase is catching on.) A press release from Radjabov and some notes will be appearing at ChessBase.com [ I just put it up here now] and more as it breaks here. Maybe they had seven players in Linares for so long for a reason? A curse? But there won't be seven this time. Ivanchuk will replace Radjabov. Anyone else rude enough to wish they'd burgled Carlsen's room instead?!
A terrible shame if Radjabov drops out [he has]. He had a great Corus (as I predicted, just to get in a last brag) and we all want to see more KIDs. Mexicans are the most hospitable people on the planet, btw. I lived there for two years and traveled to every corner of the country. Marvelous place, marvelous people. There is very high crime in some areas, however, and of course tourists are the favorite targets anywhere you go in the world. I had various run-ins myself, including the time my sister and I were kidnapped in Mexico City, which really is a dangerous spot these days. But that's another story.
Update: Odd that Radjabov describes Patzcuaro as a high-crime town. It's a tiny and pretty place next to a beautiful lake famous for its Day of the Dead ceremonies. I've been there quite a few times. I doubt it's been overrun by brigands. But all popular tourist spots attract thieves.
I hope Radjabov's dad backed up the opening databases! Nobody thinks about that stuff until the first tragedy. How about you, backed up your precious data lately? Online or at someone else's house so it wouldn't be lost in a robbery or a fire? Seriously. Just a few DVDs can save a lot of tears.
Update 2: Hmm, not going to make any judgments after reading just his press release. And the Mexican organizer has a reputation that doesn't bespeak of reliability. But emotional support aside, I'm not sure why the tournament organizer should pay for a player's hotel room being robbed. It would be a nice gesture of hospitality I suppose, and they are in some way compromised as hosts. But still, players have been mugged before (a few famously of all their winnings). Anyway, it would have been very hard to maintain playing concentration after such an event, especially if things became contentious with the organizers afterwards. A real pity any way you look at it.
Memories... Robert Byrne in the NY Times on the 1994 Moscow Olympiad on Jan 17, 1995: "Moscow crime spoiled the recent World Chess Olympiad for many players and teams. Joel Benjamin of Manhattan, Board 3 of the United States squad, said, "It was so rampant that we quickly learned never to go out of the Hotel Cosmos."
One team representative was robbed of $7,000 after he had exchanged currency. Moreover, two members of the American team, Alexey Yermolinsky and Alexander Shabalov, both originally from the Soviet Union, were also robbed of considerable amounts of money. There was no tally of how many players were victims, but there were new stories of robberies almost every day.
Despite this alarming situation, the players managed to apply themselves and numerous good games were contested."
One of the world's strongest open tournaments kicked off today in Moscow. The final ninth round is Feb 22. Schedule and other info here. The top seeds are Akopian, fresh from clear first at Gibraltar, Sasikiran, Jakovenko, Vallejo Pons, and Harikrishna. Apart from the obvious legion of mighty Russian and Ukrainian players, India and China are very well represented. Corus C attention-getter 12-year-old Hou Yifan is in the A Group and started out with an upset win over Vitiugov today. Join her fan club now. First prize is an amazing $30,000, but you can see that the super-elite still considers it too rough a crowd to risk their Elo. No rest days, boo-hoo. The winner again qualifies for the Dortmund supertournament this June. I wish every elite tournament used qualifiers like this. It was Jobava last year.
I hijacked my own thread on this last time, so here is a second try at Morelia-Linares 2007. The annual supertournament starts on February 17. There's a four-day break between the first half in Morelia, Mexico and the second half in Linares, Spain. The final round is March 10. The off days are Feb 20, 23, 26-Mar.1, 5, 8. The players are Topalov, Anand, Leko, Svidler, Aronian, Radjabov, Morozevich, and Carlsen. The Morelia games begin at 15:30 local time (4:30pm EST, 21:30 GMT). Linares games also start at 15:30 local time (9:30am EST, 14:30 GMT)
This site looks like the best bet so far, but it says they couldn't make a deal with the Mexican organizers and won't be broadcasting live games of the Morelia half of the event. Not yet sure if there's another webcast for the live games. I hope they aren't here, this Mexican site is crippled enough as it is. Maybe it needs more crappy Flash.
But never fear, because I'll be back on Chess.fm blabbing away with a coterie of GM co-hosts. You can get a free trial membership to check it out. Spanish speakers get a better deal and can listen to Miguel Illescas on day one.
I'll preempt ChessBase caving in to the onslaught of Danailov spam and at last publishing his beloved photos of holes in bathroom ceilings and the cables that lurk therein. They are going to run them in the morning, with comments from Danailov and remarks from Ilyumzhinov and a few others willing to humor them. This silliness has been going on in the comments here for a few days now and, as is usually the case, common sense missed the train long ago.
The Topailov argument is 1) Kramnik went to the bathroom a lot. 2) That when the Bulgarian team ripped up the bathrooms in Elista during the Kramnik-Topalov world championship match, they found cables inside the ceilings. No really, that's it. Seriously. They took pictures, one of which looks like they brought in another cable just for the photo, as if that would matter.
Of course the unusual thing would be to break open the ceiling of any room in any modern building and not find cables. But that's too easy. Next, how does Kramnik get to a cable inside the ceiling? Still too obvious. How about that the same cables ran through both bathrooms and the players alternated loos in the early rounds anyway? If by some supernatural act you could cheat with a cable inside your ceiling, does that mean Kramnik's frequent visits to the WC only mean he cheated more often than Topalov? If Kramnik had lost would he be sending out the same photos accusing Topalov of cheating? Hmm, that doesn't sound right. No, I'll stick with the really low-hanging fruit: How do you cheat with a cable? I'll give you all the cable you want and you can connect the other end to Deeper Hydra Junior or anything else you like. And? If you have a device to connect to it, the device is the problem. No pictures of any device have surfaced, sadly, and every area was searched, players included. End of a very short, very stupid, fabricated story.
It's hard not to just laugh at this stuff, but apparently this attempt to deflect attention from the signaling allegations about Topailov is their main strategy. Since there is no proof of signaling, what matters is to make sure the possibility is eliminated. Unlike magic ceiling cables, detector-proof devices, and disappearing computers, signaling is a clear and present danger. It's not just about Topalov, it's about preserving the integrity of the sport in the face of all these stories and rumors.
As I said in the item on it, the video of Danailov proved nothing at all. It was a waste of time. (Except this must-see vastly superior version.) Others seem to disagree. But it was related to a very important potential problem and appeared in a mainstream publication that also included comments from other players and the ACP. It would be bizarre for any chess news source to ignore such a story. (It's never been proven that Barry Bonds took steroids, but the allegations and rumors are the top story in baseball.) Süddeutsche Zeitung and Kommersant ran extensive stories on Topalov and the signaling accusations. It's hard to imagine why the chess community would black out such incredible allegations about the world's #1 player.
Topailov seems to think that anyone who doesn't agree with them that ceiling cables are the same risk as signaling is biased against them. I sincerely don't understand this. If the New York Times ran an investigative report on how Kramnik might have cheated with magic ceiling cables and quoted a GM suggesting as much, I sure as hell would report that. This seems unlikely, however.
I'm not accusing Topalov of anything (though some top players are, which is news); I'm saying signaling is a danger. Meanwhile, Topailov are accusing Kramnik of cheating and saying, without any non-magical explanation of how this is possible, that common ceiling cables are in some way proof of this. Indeed, they have been calling Kramnik a cheater for months now. Like most (including ChessBase), I have reported these accusations steadily. I even translated the entire Topalov interview in which he flatly accused Kramnik of cheating in Elista. But now they are angry when we report other people making accusations about Topalov? And major newspapers and GMs, not his defeated opponent.
Again repeating myself, I don't think there is any point in investigating or accusing Topalov, but measures must be taken to eliminate all doubts for everyone. Of course FIDE will do nothing, and if the players don't speak up the organizers won't do anything either. But if anyone, especially someone affiliated with a player, starts going in and out making cell calls and making mutual googly eyes at a player, one hopes he gets ejected from the hall.
[Note to those who missed this explanation in the comments awhile back. I use the term "Topailov" not to insult anyone but for practical reasons. Both Veselin Topalov and his manager Silvio Danailov have said that they speak with one voice and once that they are "the same person." I don't want to credit Topalov with everything Danailov says and does and I don't want to free Topalov from the responsibility for the actions and statements his manager makes on his behalf. With Danailov becoming an organizer and influence on his own, this is going to be an issue. But in matters related to attacks on Kramnik and such, "Topailov" seems accurate enough.]
Tossing up some quickies to bookend a few recent items. Garry Kasparov rocked a full house at the NED-FPA event last night. A full video and transcript are already up here. From all the comments here on this issue, few people have any idea what he's doing in Russia or on these visits to the States, so at least now you can hear/read it for yourself. Today he appeared with "Money Honey" Maria Bartiromo on CNBC's Closing Bell show to talk about Russian politics and the prospects of doing business with "KGB Incorporated." On Sunday at noon, set your Tivo, he's on NBC's Wall Street Journal show.
Kasparov doesn't have access to TV in Russia, where it's all under state control, but he's getting more attention all the time in the West as his predictions about what's going on in the Kremlin are increasingly seen to be accurate. His "Other Russia" opposition coalition is still very much a longshot, and we're all worried about his safety in an increasingly chaotic political environment in Russia. His new baby girl keeps him as cautious as he can be, however. In the next month there will be interviews and profiles of him in two major German glossies, GQ and the first issue of Germany's Vanity Fair. The latter has some fancy photos of him and his wife Dasha.
This is part of the PR campaign for the German launch of his new book, How Life Imitates Chess in March. It then comes out in the UK in April, also the Netherlands. The US and Russian editions are scheduled on the fall calendar to come out for the Christmas market. (China, France, and Spain are also in the mix for 2007 or early 2008.) Some of the editions are significantly different from the original UK/German version. It's been interesting, and incredibly laborious, customizing the manuscript for different markets.
Put away those Muppets memories, this is serious stuff. I try to stick to chess but since people often ask what Garry Kasparov is up to, here's an item on exactly what he's doing tomorrow. You can even come listen to his speech on the "Future of Democracy in Russia" and attend the reception that follows. The page has an online registration link. If you come, give me a shout. I'll be the tall one with the shaved head being mistaken for a bodyguard. Why, you might even meet the new Mrs. Mig.
(With apologies to The Buggles.) There hasn't been this much talk about a grainy homemade video since Paris Hilton twitched and wiggled her way to stardom. It's also as much of a disappointment when you finally see it. This clip of Topalov's manager Silvio Danailov nervously staring at his protege was taken by a Dutch amateur and published by the Russian paper Kommersant to accompany this story (in English). I tossed it up on YouTube after people complained they couldn't see it at the Kommersant site.
It's something of a Rorschach test (geddit, Rorschach?), you see whatever your subconscious tells you to see. If you didn't know what you were looking for it's very doubtful that a few minutes of a fidgety guy watching someone play chess, however intently and from whatever angle, would lead you to suspect foul play. But there are no untainted observers at this point, so every gesture Danailov makes looks suspicious. It's also important to remember that he could be standing there with semaphore flags and a minute or two isn't going to mean much. The pattern is (would be) what matters, of going in and out, making constant calls, twitching, etc. And even if such comprehensive footage existed it's always going to be circumstantial. (Which is why signaling is a better choice than high-tech devices because if you're caught with one of those it's all over.)
In sum, this isn't going to make anyone happy. It solves nothing, proves nothing, disproves nothing. In the Kommersant article the always delightfully subversive Evgeny Bareev – also a long-time pal and occasional second of Kramnik's – reiterates another entirely circumstantial plank in the platform: "But in 2005, a simply unbelievable jump took place. At some point, it became obvious that there was help from the side." Bareev is one of the few players to express their concerns and suspicions on the record but many of them do it in private. Even a boycott of Topalov was discussed, an idea for abandoned for many obvious practical reasons.
It is essential to close the book on these accusations as quickly as possible by putting anti-cheating measures into place. In this day and age it's impossible to have any spectators going in and out of the playing hall with a mobile device and mutual visual contact with the players. (Let alone a spectator associated with a player.) The #1 champion of taking countermeasures should be Topailov in order to remove all doubts. The simplest measures are to use the glass separator and to delay the broadcast of live games by 10-20 minutes. Metal detectors and such are already in place in most top events and such measures should be standardized by FIDE. If people can watch a movie without using a cell phone they can watch a chess game.
The annual supertournament begins February 16 - March 11. There's a break between the first half in Morelia, Mexico and the second half in Linares, Spain. The players are Topalov, Anand, Leko, Svidler, Aronian, Radjabov, Morozevich, and Carlsen. (Yay, eight players.) The slow-motion official site is www.ajedrezmorelialinares.org.mx. I'm all for the kids, but it's a little disappointing to see Carlsen there instead of, say, Ivanchuk or Polgar (or, or, or). Carlsen went a winless -4 at Corus but of course was invited to Linares well in advance of that. More soon, been busy lately doing things like getting married yesterday.
The top chess leagues don't receive much attention outside of the nations where they take place. The games often aren't released until the season is over and of course you don't know the winners for a long time. Plus, the official websites often aren't available in English. But many of the world's top players participate in them, especially the mighty German Bundesliga. The French league is also quite strong. Quite a few players participate in three or four leagues simultaneously, which can make for a hectic life but a steady income. Some players who don't have the time or energy for the regular tournament grind still pop up for weekend league matches that are just a train ride away.
I've often said that club and league play is the heart of European chess and that the USA won't have a solid professional class of GMs until a real league exists here. The online handicap US Chess League is still going, by the way. My SF homeboys won the 2006 title and two new teams will join this year. In a country as large as the US perhaps online play is the only way to make it work. Perhaps league founder Greg Shahade can let us know how team sponsorship is going.
Getting back to the Bundesliga, David Navara seems to have suffered a Corus hangover and lost three games in a row to lower-rated players in last weekend's action. I've noticed over the years that some players do particularly well in team play and others tend to underperform their ratings. Svidler notched two more wins on top board for the leading team in the championship, Baden Baden. With Shirov on board two and Bacrot on board three it's no wonder they are the favorite. Aronian beat McShane with a fabulous, if slightly erroneous (Aroneous?) breakthrough cascade. The correct order was 66..c4! first because in the game White had 68.Qxc4+ Kh7 69.Rc1! with strong counterplay after 69..Rc7 70.Qxc7. The vanilla 69.Qd5 should also be okay. All games from this season here.
[Event "BL 0607 SC Kreuzberg - Werder Bremen"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2007.02.03"]
[Round "8.1"]
[White "McShane, Luke James"]
[Black "Aronian, Levon"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C88"]
[WhiteElo "2614"]
[BlackElo "2741"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "5rk1/r5p1/3bp2p/p1p5/RpQ1PPqP/1P1P1NP1/4K3/6R1 w - - 0 66"]
[PlyCount "10"]
[EventDate "2007.??.??"]
66. Qc1 $2 e5 $2 (66... c4 $1 67. Qxc4 (67. bxc4 Bc5 68. Rg2 e5 69. f5 Rxf5 70.
exf5 e4 71. dxe4 Qxe4+) 67... Rc7) 67. f5 c4 68. bxc4 $2 (68. Qxc4+ Kh7 69. Rc1
(69. Qd5) 69... Rc7 (69... Qxg3) 70. Qxc7 Bxc7 71. Rxc7) 68... Bc5 69. Rg2 Rxf5
70. exf5 e4 0-1
Evgeny Najer won this strong event, taking the title on tiebreaks over Yemelin after both finished with 7.5/9. Don't miss the photo reports (links at the bottom) at the funky official website. Najer started out with six straight wins without encountering one of the favorites, earned a draw with top seed Malakhov, and finished with draws of 18 and 12 moves. The sharp of eye will notice that Malakhov missed a win in a P vs P endgame against Najer. Things were progressing toward a hard-fought draw when Black blundered with 57..e4 instead of the forced ..f5. 57.Kc4! was then winning, but Malakhov gave back the half point when he missed the natural 61.Kd4. The handy 65..f5 is the only move to draw. Still lots to learn with just two pawns on the board. Never forget it: chess is hard. (PGN below.) Lots of fun games to enjoy; start with Yemelin's final five. (There seem to be quite a few games missing from the files currently available.)
ChessBase picks up the story from the comments below: The B section was won by a 10-year-old from Ukraine. Illya Nyzhnyk scored 8.5/9. Yes, 10 years old. Video and pics at links below and at the CB article.
[Event "Open"]
[Site "Moscow RUS"]
[Date "2007.02.02"]
[Round "7"]
[White "Malakhov, V."]
[Black "Najer, E."]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "C54"]
[WhiteElo "2663"]
[BlackElo "2605"]
[PlyCount "131"]
[EventDate "2007.01.27"]
1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d3 Nc6 4. Nf3 Bc5 5. c3 a6 6. Bb3 Ba7 7. Nbd2 O-O 8. h3
d6 9. Nf1 d5 10. Qe2 dxe4 11. dxe4 Be6 12. Ng3 Bxb3 13. axb3 Qd7 14. O-O Qe6
15. b4 h6 16. Nh4 Ne7 17. Qf3 Ng6 18. Nhf5 Rfd8 19. Be3 Bb6 20. Rad1 Kh7 21.
Bc1 Ne7 22. Kh2 Nxf5 23. Nxf5 c5 24. bxc5 Bxc5 25. g4 Qc6 26. Ng3 Be7 27. g5
hxg5 28. Bxg5 g6 29. Rg1 Rxd1 30. Qxd1 Qe6 31. Bc1 Rd8 32. Qf3 Rd7 33. Kg2 a5
34. Qe2 Qd6 35. Be3 Qc6 36. Bc1 Qd6 37. Qc4 Bd8 38. Be3 Qd3 39. Qxd3 Rxd3 40.
Kf3 Bb6 41. Ke2 Rd6 42. Ra1 Bxe3 43. Kxe3 b6 44. Ne2 Kh6 45. b4 axb4 46. cxb4
Kg5 47. Ra8 Rc6 48. Rb8 Rc4 49. h4+ Kxh4 50. Rxb6 Rxe4+ 51. Kd3 Kg5 52. Rxf6
Rxe2 53. Rxg6+ Kxg6 54. Kxe2 $11 Kf5 55. Kd3 Ke6 56. Kc4 Kd6 57. Kb5 e4 $2 (
57... f5 58. Kc4 Kc6 59. b5+ Kd6 $1 60. Kb4 e4) 58. Kc4 Kc6 59. Kd4 Kb5 60.
Kxe4 Kxb4 61. Ke5 $2 (61. Kd4 $1 $18 Kb5 62. Kd5 Kb6 63. Kd6 Kb7 64. f4 f5 65.
Ke5 Kc7 66. Kxf5 Kd7 67. Kf6) 61... Kc5 62. f3 Kc6 63. f4 Kd7 64. Kf6 Ke8 65.
Kg7 f5 $1 (65... Ke7 $2 66. f5 f6 67. Kg6 Ke8 68. Kxf6 Kf8 69. Ke6 Ke8 70. f6
Kf8 71. f7) 66. Kf6 1/2-1/2
Here by popular demand is your item on the latest round of insults, insinuations, and idiocy that followed in the wake of the German newspaper article on Topalov's manager's suspicious behavior during Corus. (Since acting suspicious is subjective and isn't a crime there is no need to call it "alleged suspicious behavior.") ChessBase first put up excerpts of some of the fall-out and follow-ups in mainstream papers, including some chess columns. One was a DNA Sport item that interviewed Nigel Short, who was a commentator at the San Luis, Argentina, FIDE world championship tournament. (Most of my San Luis coverage with lots of links is on the Oct 05 archive page.)
That, of course, is where Topalov blitzed to a dominating victory. At the time and immediately after the event there were a few grumbles from Topalov's competitors about his seating position, the strange habits of his team during the games, and the ease with which he could have been signaled (little security on site, lots of coming and going). The comments by players were made almost apologetically and were mostly discarded as sour grapes and confusion at how Topalov could crush them so easily. There were stronger statements made off the record and in 2006 a few Russian columnists rattled sabers and stirred the rumor mill about high-tech cheating. Behind the scenes a few people who had attended various top events in 2005 and 2006 compared notes on the odd activity they had or hadn't seen Topalov and his associates engage in at several events. Videos, pictures, stories, most of them corresponding with what the Süddeutsche Zeitung story reported.
Short's money quote: "It is my understanding that the majority of players in San Luis privately believe that Topalov received signalling from Danailov during play. The essence of these allegations, which I heard personally from disgruntled players in Argentina at the time, was not that Topalov constantly received computer advice but only at critical junctures. Indeed, if one were to cheat, a player of Topalov’s strength would only need two or three computer moves per game to put him at an overwhelming advantage vis-à-vis his opponents."
[By popular demand, this final paragraph of Short's reply to Danailov, which was cut by the Topalov site and therefore deserves greater consideration. "I stand by my remarks about wanting an inquiry. As you are doubtless aware, the chorus of suspicion about the alleged signaling between you and Veselin is very loud indeed and comes from many different quarters. Indeed in my 24 years as a chess professional, I have never heard anything like it before. The allegations are of a very serious nature and it is important, for the sake of chess, that the truth is learned. As you do not have anything to be concerned about, you should welcome this proposal."]
There is now a follow-up at ChessBase with some clarifications on a mild misattribution and more from Short, as well some reader letters. I'm a little mystified at all the "ChessBase bias against Topalov" guff people are coughing up because they chose to reprint the Süddeutsche Zeitung article. I know fans will be fans, and jihadis don't care why something negative about their hero is being said. But it would have been bizarre to ignore something like that appearing in a major paper. Another factor is that it wasn't much of a shock for the CB guys, who, like me and most other people on the circuit, had been talking about and in some cases seeing similar behavior for quite a while. In sum, while there is no proof of Topalov receiving signals, not reprinting that story would have been inconceivable, if not irresponsible. Imagine the Miami Herald reporting allegations that Peyton Manning is taking steroids and American football websites ignoring it because they had no proof. Hell, it has never been proven that Barry Bonds ever took steroids but it's been the biggest story in baseball for years. News about news is news. The fan bias test is simple: imagine the exact same story coming out but replace the name "Veselin Topalov" with "Vladimir Kramnik" or "Garry Kasparov" and be very honest with yourself about what your reaction would be.
To go into the obvious, there is little similarity between this and what happened in Elista during the Kramnik-Topalov match. There one of the players and his manager filed a protest about Kramnik's bathroom visits (which was reasonable, although they shouldn't have had access to the video) and followed it up with public declarations of suspicions (not reasonable). Topailov continued by publishing spurious statistics alleging Kramnik was receiving computer assistance during the match (unforgivable). Again, this was one of the participants saying these things about his opponent while a world championship match was still going on. Topailov continued by ripping open bathroom ceilings, mocking-up photos and sending them out far and wide pretending they were evidence Kramnik was cheating. They even sent such things from false email accounts, pretending to be Russians who attended the match. And when we all wanted to believe this was just sour grapes and a way of coping with the loss, especially back home in Bulgaria, Topalov gave the ABC interview in which he flatly stated he believed Kramnik cheated.
Yes, there was a protest in San Luis about Topalov; Leko complained that Topalov was the only player who always sat in the same place. The most relevant difference is that there was never, ever, even a hint of the possibility that Kramnik cheated in Elista. His frequent bathroom trips were unusual, but unless you believe he was receiving clues through the plumbing (or electrical wires inside the ceiling), it's only weird. Consistent behavior that looks a lot like signaling is another matter. Proof? No. Enough to start an investigation and to hassle Topalov? No. Does he get the benefit of the doubt with me? Yes. Worth taking precautions in the future? Absolutely.
This isn't mass hysteria or a global conspiracy of jealousy to tear down Topalov. Nor do I think it's payback for Topailov dragging chess into the toilet in Elista. I don't doubt those two things are potential factors, but so far it hasn't been visible. In reality, very little has been said. There are legit concerns not always expressed in the most responsible way. The best thing we can do now is take measures to remove all doubt by preventing the possibility of signaling and electronic communications at top events. My gut feeling is that one, Topalov is a great player who has raised the level of his game and should maintain a top-three position for the next five years. Two, Danailov has a documented history of reprehensible behavior and that makes it easy to assume he would stop at nothing.
Leadership is needed and FIDE has been as quiet as you might expect from a group for whom "ethics" is a four-letter word. Bessel Kok will have some influence soon, but that won't affect traditional events. The Grand Slam of Corus, Linares, Sofia, and Bilbao that is coalescing might also realize how essential anti-cheating measure are, but Danailov himself is one of the prime movers in it. I suppose this is a chance for him to turn his own anti-cheating rhetoric into action.
The powerful Gibraltar Chess Congress (slogan: "Don't taunt the monkeys") ended today with clear win by second seed Vladimir Akopian. The Armenian #2 rocked The Rock by stomping Kuzubov in 23 moves in the final round with a nice knight sac. You don't see many 3.Bb5 Sicilian games ending in sacrificial blowout miniatures, I must say. The win put Akopian up to an impressive 7.5/9 to take clear first and the 10,000 pound first prize. That's nearly twenty thousand dollars. Combined with his countryman Aronian's equal first at Corus they may need another parade back in Yerevan.
Ninja annotator Hikaru Nakamura continued his impressive streak in opens by winning two of his last three to finish in the pack at seven points. Sutovsky and Areshchenko are the other members, and possibly Mickey Adams if he bamboozles his way to a R+B vs R win in the last game still going. (Now drawn with a cute stalemate trick by al-Modiahki.) Nakamura's closing spurt included a miniature blowout of the super-solid Epishin in round seven. Irina Krush beat Akopian in round 1 and Viktor Korchnoi in round 8.
Kudos to the organizers for using anti-short-draw rules. ("Draws by mutual agreement in under 40 moves are not allowed without the agreement of the arbiter. No pre-arranged/tacit agreements to draw allowed (of any length, by repetition or otherwise). Genuine draws by repetition or stalemate are acceptable."
acirce points out that Kasparov has received his Grandmaster title. Not only that, but Karpov is finally an IM. Here's the full list of new FIDE title holders. Still waiting for them to take the next step and give GM titles out in cereal boxes. Yes, yes, I know it's not easy the way watching TV is easy or the way Paris Hilton is easy, but it's a lot easier than it used to be. But as long as everyone benefits -- except the GMs themselves in the very long run as the title become increasingly meaningless -- it will only get easier. I'm not sure it really matters, honestly, but it greatly increases our dependence on the rating list and is just a general kick in the teeth to traditionalists of any stripe.
The term "Grandmaster" as one or two words has been around a long time in many languages. Asian healing arts and martial arts have used it, as have European orders such as the Maltese. Tsar Nicholas II was a latecomer. Some folks have made some handy Wikipedia pages on the title and lists of GMs. Beware that it apparently includes honorary GMs.