Complete final standings are now up at the official site. Shabalov, as he has done before, put on a final burst to win the last game and take clear first place with 7/9 and the $12,000 first prize. Shaba did the same thing in 2003, beating Akobian while all the other top boards were quickly drawn. Today his victim was Sergey Kudrin, who was dropped out of the top five spots. No tiebreaks are required to settle that five. Onischuk took clear second with 6.5 points after being held to a draw by Boris Gulko. Kaidanov, Shulman, and Becerra are the other three qualifiers. (Other yanquis who want to qualify for the World Cup will probably need to do it at the Continental Championship in Colombia in July. Kamsky might make it by rating, unless of course he's the defending champ by then!)
A statement from Shabalov on the official site, under "home." "Huge thanks to all the fans! I'm so happy I was finally able to pull it out after so many misses earlier in the tournament. In the last round game Sergey surprised me with 2…Nc6!, which totally killed all my preparation versus Dragon or 2…g6. But I couldn't remember a single game of his after 3.Bb5. Does it matter that I'm not playing it? No! So the resulting position was very much in the spirit of pet variation 1.e4 c5 2. Na3 and I did the grinding!"
Most of the top boards were drawn, but Becerra landed un nocaut against yet another antique and offbeat opening with white by 2005 champ Hikaru Nakamura. A spectacular effort from the Cuban and his best result in a US championship yet. IM norms for Langer and Bradford.
Congrats to Shabba and all qualifiers!
Nakamura needs to stop playing crappy openings if he want to be successful at the top level.
Dear Mig,
2 IM norms were made: FM Joe Bradford (he'll get the IM title) and FM Langer, both from Austin, Texas (even though Langer has been a fixture of Stillwater chess).
Congrats to Joe and Michael as well as the Berry brothers for stepping in to save the USCF.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
www.SusanPolgar.blogspot.com
Michael Langer is of course CN's own kalten, a fixture on the message boards for many years and the reigning champion of the CN tournaments. Sincere and hearty congratulations, Michael!
Michael Langer is of course CN's own kalten, a fixture on the message boards for many years and the reigning champion of the CN tournaments. Sincere and hearty congratulations, Michael!
Congrats to Shabalov, Kaidanov, Shulman, Becerra, Bradford, and Langer. All of you should be very proud of your efforts at this years US Championship.
The two $500 prizes for "Fighting Chess" were won by GM Alex Stripunsky and FM Michael Langer. Kaidanov won the round 8 best game and it looks like Becerra will get round 9. No other prizes were announced.
Ok. I followed the championship. First of all- congratulations to Shaba and the organizers. The Internet coverage was awesome - games, results, photos. I voted for brilliancy prizes. What an exciting ending! All players should be congratulated.
Heh, mig-29, well I suppose the coverage is great when you're at the playing site!
"Nakamura needs to stop playing crappy openings if he want to be successful at the top level."
The Ponziani is fine; it was Nakamura's preparation that was "crappy". These Romantic openings can be played at the Top level, and with good effect. However, if you resort to a surprise opening, it is a good idea to know more about it than one's opponent. Obviously, Hikaru was in poor form, and the last round was a bit of a shrug.
What was that movie, I believe it was Italian, from 15-20 years ago, about a world championship chess match between an edgy, Fischer-like younger GM and a wise Old Master.
To surprise and defeat the younger GM, the Old Master sought an opening that would baffle his opponent, something from the Romantic, pre-theory days. He chose . . . the Ponziani!
The chess parts of the movie were pretty well choreographed--I can't recall the details exactly, but the Ponzaini was shown on the board, and another game was an Advance Variation French about 10 moves into the opening. In the final scene, the two players had put all sorts of intrigue and politics behind them and were playing a game, just for chess's sake, blindfolded in the hospital, where the Old Master had been admitted for a heart condition.
Of course, the irony of it is that, if the younger GM were truly modeled on Fischer, he would be a dedicated reader of 19th-century chess literature and would know the Ponziani, Evans Gambit, Scotch, all those old openings backwards and fowards.
This is a french movie from 1984 : 'dangerous moves'
by Richard Dembo (original french title : 'la diagonale du fou', litteraly
'the bishops' diagonal', but in french 'fou' also stands for insane) . It won the best foreign film oscar in 1985.
Ah, yes! Thanks, Rameau! I don't know why I thought the movie was Italian. Maybe because of Ponziani! :-)
Really, DOug? The Ponziani is fine? Can you give me an example of a 2500+ player winning in this opening against a similarly rated opponent? According to my database, the last time that happened in 1995, and before that in 1979 (out of about 30 games during that period). If it's such a good opening, how come no super GMs ever play it? Nakamura is probably the highest rated player in history (since ratings were established) to try this opening.
I am not against older openings, some of them (say, Evans Gambit or even King's Gambit) are fine indeed. Can't agree with you about the Ponziani, though.
Super GMs tend to play what is already played. They invest many hours preparing novelties for variations that are in vogue--often deep in the Middle Game. There is a dogma that the only way to press for a advantage against 1....e5 is to play the Spanish.
The Evans Gambit wasn't played until Kasparov used it--and won with it. The Scotch Game wasn't played until Kasparov played it back in 1990.
Objectively speaking, the Ponziani is no worse than the Evans Gambit. Between equally rated players, with comparable knowledge of the opening, White should end up with a slight plus, and have the better results.
Ljubojevic played the Ponziani in the 1970s, getting a comfortable draw vs. Karpov, and scoring some wins over GM opponents.
The practical problem with the Ponziani is that Black has 3-4 viable options in response to 3. c3
That's a lot of lines that one has to learn. With the other Romantic openings, usually White gets to select the key variation, and dictate how the game is to continue.
I suspect objectively the Ponziani is stronger than the Evans or King's Gambits. At least White probably isn't worse after 3 c3, whereas the best you can say after either of the other two is that he has practical chances and may not be quite lost.
Well I think the Evans, in turn, has to be much superior to the King's Gambit.
White´s pawn structure in Ponziani is identical to Sicilian Alapin variation, which is a very solid opening.
Objectively, white is not worse in Evans and King's gambit too. The only difference between these two and Ponziani is that in the gambits white gets serious chances against an UNPREPARED opponent, while in Ponziani he gets a big fat nothing regardless of black's preparation.
I think the difference is that people could say any one of the possible opening results in the King's Gambit or the Evan's (+/= = =/+) because the positions are perfectly unclear and there is room to play. On average it seems that they provide equal chances for both sides and hence are not great openings for white for people facing opponents of equal strength (although maybe if you are a powerhouse with the initiative but have poor technique, it might make sense). In the Ponziani, the positions are quite clearly balanced and as everyone has said there are numerous paths to equality for black(dynamic risky tries as well as sterile boring ones). This means that there is limited practical value in playing it, which differs from the Alapin, where as I understand black must accept some pretty dull positions to guarantee equality.
Anyone know how the King and/or Evans Gambits have performed in computer chess?! I'd lay long odds that if they're not already extinct in that form of the game they will be in twenty years' time. And really that's a better objective test than humans blundering about OTB: we all know these openings give practical chances out of all proportion to their objective merit.
In twenty years computer might be at the level that no human can compete with them. If K's G and others are gone from computer repertoir then, that might disprove King's Gambit as a good opening against a 3200 level player, but will such a human player ever exist? What will it really say about using this opening at 1800 level, at 2200 level, at current Super-GM level? Most openings which allows good development for an average player, with possibility of advantage for white, probably have been studied to the point that black knows how to neutralize the advantage--that does not mean that it's not a good idea for or against a player who would never qualify for the US championship or one whose preparation for a particular opening you don't expect to be strong.
Nakamura plays openings that are dubious (Qh5 Sicilian, Ponziani, Albin, Alekhine) but are fun for patzers to argue about. In my book that's a very worthwhile contribution to chess :)
Of course, Yuriy, but we were speaking objectively. At our level we can play what we like, naturally. But I suspect that when all is said it will turn out that the position is drawn after 3 c3 and that White is lost after 4 b4?. 2 f4 I make a more difficult market to predict.
"Objectively, white is not worse in Evans and King's gambit too."
I strongly doubt this. Not sure about the Evans, but I am almost 100% certain that White is worse in the King's Gambit, probably clearly worse, maybe lost (if 3.Nf3 at least). Again, objectively. I can't prove this, obviously. I don't think the Evans is that bad. It also makes more sense and it's easier to play as White. If Black doesn't want to enter the complications against the King's Gambit he always has 3..d5 with easy equality (after 3.Nf3). 3.Bc4 is probably better anyway.
Got you, it's just that the thread started with talk of practicality of opening, so I thought you were talking about objective strength as it relates to practicality. King's Gambit will always be a ***** to me, when playing somebody who has a basic idea of what to do, so even if it will be in the second tier of openings discredited (Evans and even more romantic stuff being in the first), I would call it fairly practical at most levels.
Objectively speaking, it would be very interesting to see how soon you get definitively lost positions. 1. e4 might be a forced draw.
explain how, acirce, if the king's gambit is losing, that it wins 95% of all scholastic games
And so I decided to do a little experiment on the objective merits of Kings gambit. I ran a couple of short 3 minute engine matches: no book, starting position 1.e4 e5 2. f4 ef, alternating colors (except for rando-rybkas). Here are the results:
Rybka 2.2 - Fritz 10 2:0
Rybka 2.2 - Rybka 2.1 2:0
Rando-Rybka 2.3 - Rando-Rybka 2.3 white lost +2-3=5.
Of course the matches were too short for some definite conclusions, but still some tendencies are clear:
1. The better engine wins with both colors
2. Engines definitely prefer black (even Rybka often shows +0.7 for black early in the opening.
3. In the Rando-Rybka match black were pressing in most of the drawn games (but white failed to convert one technical endgame with an extra bishop).
4. White played some fairly bizzare opening moves (3. Qg4 a couple of times, 3. g3 a couple of times).
Overall, I think the games confirm rather than refute my claim that the position is equal. However a computer would rather play black, while a human...depends on a human.
Huh, what's up with this scientific analysis of the King's Gambit :-)
It is true that engines can find escape moves and see almost all tactics in short time - even if they have to find 40 of them successively, they will not fail. Also on the White side, they have a tendency to give up initiative for small material even they are still worse.
Against humans, the goal is to persistently create problems to your opponent -
in the end, it is tactics fireworks. Either you fire a tactical head shot, or your opponent does. This is how my King Gambit's games end most of the time.
The best one, is when the opponent just accept the pawn and plays like he got a free pawn, and rush to simplifying - rather than securing the king. Then it is amazing how a timely piece sacrifice can bring an inordinate amount of threats for several dozen moves, often resulting in time trouble, or plain blunder.
kgd:
Why should I have to explain that?
noblesse oblige
Nigel Short:
"In my opinion perhaps the most romantic of all openings is the King's Gambit (1. e4 e5 2. f4!). A few years ago I sat in a bar with Vladimir Kramnik discussing theory. At that time the future World Champion was contemplating a switch to King's Pawn openings and he wanted to bounce his preliminary ideas off me. He opined that the Evans' Gambit (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4!) was very logical: White sacrifices a fairly unimportant wing pawn to open lines and accelerate his development. This was not necessarily to say that it was Vlad's preferred method of starting the game, but at least he could understand the rationale behind it. In contrast, the King's Gambit, however, was for him totally incomprehensible: it loses a pawn and weakens the kingside, for all he could see.
Of course Vlad was absolutely right; my scientific deductive side had to agree – the King's Gambit has had a somewhat dodgy reputation ever since it was first mentioned in Lucena's manuscript of 1497. And yet my irrational mystical side revolted and still revolts against so cold and sober a judgement. There is something inspiring about voyaging into storm-tossed seas."
http://www.chessbase.com/newsprint.asp?newsid=1882
There are a number of responses to this Acirce...
1) Even if Nigel Short does believe it is unsound, that doesn't necessarily mean that's true.. Super GMs have been wrong before.
2) As you yourself note "obviously" neither you nor anyone else has demonstrated that white is worse. Further white has several wins against even against top class GMs such as Adams, Sokolov and others...this being the case I am not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that it is an inferior opening or that white is worse.
3) Most of the arguments I can see against playing the Kings Gambit are practical ones e.g. you cant prepare well because there is not so much top class theory, you will be labelled an idiot if you lose, you cant collaborate with partners as easily because its offbeat, not so much material on it etc. Which is why fashion tends to dictate opening choices. On an abstract level I am not sure why you would object to the Ponziani, Evans or this.
I didn't intend the Short quote as an argument for or against anything. I just thought it was a funny and interesting quote.
But your "points" 2) and 3) are bad too, for reasons that really should be obvious.
Practical arguments are really the only ones that can be made FOR the King's Gambit.
There are a number of responses to this Acirce...
1) Even if Nigel Short does believe it is unsound, that doesn't necessarily mean that's true.. Super GMs have been wrong before.
2) As you yourself note "obviously" neither you nor anyone else has demonstrated that white is worse. Further white has several wins against even against top class GMs such as Adams, Sokolov and others...this being the case I am not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that it is an inferior opening or that white is worse.
3) Most of the arguments I can see against playing the Kings Gambit are practical ones e.g. you cant prepare well because there is not so much top class theory, you will be labelled an idiot if you lose, you cant collaborate with partners as easily because its offbeat, not so much material on it etc. Which is why fashion tends to dictate opening choices. On an abstract level I am not sure why you would object to the Ponziani, Evans or this.
Yes you are right- practical arguments are the only that can be made for the King's Gambit. However I don't think that takes anything away from points 2 or 3.
I think we should just be comfortable with the fact that we really dont know the outcome of most openings and that all our chess decisions as far as opening choice go are on essentially practical grounds.
I dont see why we need to say that the "Nimzo is better than the Albin" given that we cant really prove it. Might as well admit that the reasons we play Nimzo more often have to do with practicality.
As Tal said.. there are only 3 results, and if we cant prove any of them we might as well just play...
P.S I apologize for the spam; that was an error with my browser.
Of course, the Nimzo-Indian was regarded as dubious at one point - White gains the bishop pair and can build up a strong pawn centre - until Nimzowitsch showed that Black can get counterplay by attacking the centre.
Or even hypermodern openings in general - after Capablanca started playing them, they quickly became acceptable in polite society.
The point with the King's Gambit is that no-one has done this. Of course, this doesn't prove that it can't be done, but at this stage in opening theory it must be very unlikely.
Korchnoi wrote a book on the King's Gambit in the 70s, although his co-author Zak probably did a lot of the work. To my knowledge, he only played it once as White (to take advantage of a mistake in the book!)
Surely, if he had investigated in depth and decided it was a good opening, or even just found a few lines that are awkward for Black to meet over the board, he would have played it more often?