The fourth Americas Continental Championship is underway in Cali, Colombia. This is a qualifier for the 2007 KO World Cup in Khanty Mansyisk, Russia (where there will be a different type of snow), in November, and the winner of that plays either Topalov or Kramnik in a match for either the world championship or the right to play in the world championship match. It's been hard to find information on this event. I finally found this page in Spanish with most of the vitals. It's 11 rounds with no rest days, ending on July 20th. The top seven finishers go to the World Cup. Rapid games settle tiebreaks for the spots. First prize is $10,000.
According to a Colombian chess site the Mexican and Ecuadoran delegations arrived late, so they held the first round today at 8am instead of yesterday as scheduled. But even if he was Yawn Ehlvest instead of Jaan, the top seed won, as did most of the favorites. Standings and other info here.
This last chance (?) to qualify for the World Cup attracted quite a few yanquis to Cali, including World Open champion Var Akobian. Other top seeds include Peru's Granda Zuñiga, Brazil's Vescovi, and Canadian veteran Kevin Spraggett. Speaking of veterans, Boris Gulko is still on the trail of the world championship. I was surprised not to see the name of Hikaru Nakamura on the list of players. He didn't make it in from the US championship, so is there another way for him to get into Khanty Mansyisk? He didn't exactly enjoy his trip there in 2005, when he was upset in the first round by the misunderestimated Ganguly.
"Speaking of veterans, Boris Gulko is still on the trail of the world championship."
I read that Fischer once singled out Gulko as a potential world championship candidate. According to the Chessmetrics site he once reached #8 in the world. I know that Kasparov has enormous respect for him. Do you think if the Soviets had let him leave in the late 70's, so that he could have continued to develop and play, he would have reached that elite group?
(I am a fan of his.)
Gulko certainly had more than a few peak years screwed up by his battles with the Soviet authorities. By his own count, seven years were lost. He certainly would have spent those years as a contender, although like most others his results weren't on par with Karpov's, Korchnoi's and Tal's. But it's hard to talk about potential with someone who won the Soviet championship!
Anyone know what happened to Gaston Needleman? He was the story the last time.
Mig,
'misunderestimated' means he is indeed as bad as people think he is?
Anyone know what the complete qualifying rules for the WC are? Is there a ratings cutoff of some sort for an automatic bid?
"there will be a different type of snow"! I loved that, man! You're a big loss to the world of humor writing!
"Rapid games settle tiebreaks for the spots" That's exactly how the US should do it instead of some arbitrary tiebreak system.
How many players will be in the world cup, period?
Anand,
'Misunderestimated' was first said by G. W. Bush, who has made a number of well-known syntax errors. During the 2004 election, when his opponents had said he couldn't possibly be elected a second time (somehow they believed their own rhetoric insinuating Bush is mentally deficient), his supporters began to joke that he was misunderestimated. And indeed he was.
To say someone's misunderestimated is, in my mind, actually a funny compliment. I don't know if Mig meant it that way or not though. =)
Yuriy I believe it is 128.
Steve wrote: "Anyone know what the complete qualifying rules for the WC are? Is there a ratings cutoff of some sort for an automatic bid?"
I think that Heisenberg is the last person to have addressed this issue definitively. :-)
You know, what is really disturbing about the entire thing is that every even moderately smart person can come up with a reasonable and plausible WC cycle/system in, say, 30 minutes! Once you know a little bit about chess history, probably even 20 minutes should do.
It is truly amazing how all these professional chess-players (aren't they supposed to be intelligent?) are unable to design a reasonable system for 14 years and counting... And yes, FIDE IS making all mistakes they possibly can - but if the players did actually CARE about the state of the chess world, the problem would have been solved a long time ago...
You know, what is really disturbing about the entire thing is that every even moderately smart person can come up with a reasonable and plausible WC cycle/system in, say, 30 minutes! Once you know a little bit about chess history, probably even 20 minutes should do.
It is truly amazing how all these professional chess-players (aren't they supposed to be intelligent?) are unable to design a reasonable system for 14 years and counting... And yes, FIDE IS making all mistakes they possibly can - but if the players did actually CARE about the state of the chess world, the problem would have been solved a long time ago...
You know, what is really disturbing about the entire thing is that every even moderately smart person can come up with a reasonable and plausible WC cycle/system in, say, 30 minutes! Once you know a little bit about chess history, probably even 20 minutes should do.
It is truly amazing how all these professional chess-players (aren't they supposed to be intelligent?) are unable to design a reasonable system for 14 years and counting... And yes, FIDE IS making all mistakes they possibly can - but if the players did actually CARE about the state of the chess world, the problem would have been solved a long time ago...
You know, what is really disturbing about the entire thing is that every even moderately smart person can come up with a reasonable and plausible WC cycle/system in, say, 30 minutes! Once you know a little bit about chess history, probably even 20 minutes should do.
It is truly amazing how all these professional chess-players (aren't they supposed to be intelligent?) are unable to design a reasonable system for 14 years and counting... And yes, FIDE IS making all mistakes they possibly can - but if the players did actually CARE about the state of the chess world, the problem would have been solved a long time ago...
Mig,
I like your blog, I visit it several times on each day. But I don't like the repeated post: TM posted his post 4 times! Can you fix it?
My apologies for the quadruple posting above... I have no clue why it happened.
WillC21 posted this at http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=10084 :
"I chatted with Sunil Weeramantry(Nakamura's stepfather) last night at the Westchester Chess Club. He is a real nice guy, and very modest about his family's chess accomplishments.
We discussed many things, but two pieces of unfortunate news came out. First, he said Nakamura did not want to go to "Siberia" for the World Cup(or whatever it's called) due to the very cold temperatures and the lack of success Naka has had there in the past.
Second, Sunil said he personally thinks there is only a "25% chance" that Nakamura will continue chess professionally."
"including World Open champion Var Akobian."
You can't believe how good it is to see a sentence like that, Mig. I've hardly seen anything about the World Open on Chessbase, TWIC or here. I was beginning to think that I had dreamt the whole thing.
Fairly OT, but I was reading the interview with David Shenk over at Chesscafe.com:
http://www.chesscafe.com/skittles/skittles.htm
Shenk made some comments about the promotion of chess vs. golf, tennis, poker, et al., and the need to "elegantly convey the human element" (slight paraphrase).
I thought about this for a bit, but soon decided that that wasn't really the problem. In poker, for instance, you may not understand the fine points of the game, but you can see at a glance when someone busts, or wins big. Similarly, you may not fully understand tennis or golf, but you can follow the ball and see whether it's going where a player wants it to go. In chess, by contrast, people usually resign before things get to that point.
Which led me to a wild thought:
What if we had a top-level event, broadcast on TV and played at a moderately time control -- say, G/30, or G/45 -- in which _resigning was forbidden_?
That way, the audience could see the killing blow, and could -- if nothing else -- follow the progress all the way to checkmate, and watch the helpless victim squirm on the hook, as it were (!). Draws so often get the blame for contributing to a lack of interest in chess, but I think early resignation is also damaging as well. People do like to say "Aha, now I see it coming! Heh, this guy's toast..." And commentators will have fun too. "Oh, it's all over for Kronsteen, any minute now checkmate will come..."
I'm sure this thought has been had a million times before, but I wanted to throw it out there. If someone wants to cite me chapter and verse (i.e. about how this idea has been tried, didn't work), that's fine. Still, it's an interesting idea, no?
Fairly OT, but I was reading the interview with David Shenk over at Chesscafe.com:
http://www.chesscafe.com/skittles/skittles.htm
Shenk made some comments about the promotion of chess vs. golf, tennis, poker, et al., and the need to "elegantly convey the human element" (slight paraphrase).
I thought about this for a bit, but soon decided that that wasn't really the problem. In poker, for instance, you may not understand the fine points of the game, but you can see at a glance when someone busts, or wins big. Similarly, you may not fully understand tennis or golf, but you can follow the ball and see whether it's going where a player wants it to go. In chess, by contrast, people usually resign before things get to that point.
Which led me to a wild thought:
What if we had a top-level event, broadcast on TV and played at a moderately time control -- say, G/30, or G/45 -- in which _resigning was forbidden_?
That way, the audience could see the killing blow, and could -- if nothing else -- follow the progress all the way to checkmate, and watch the helpless victim squirm on the hook, as it were (!). Draws so often get the blame for contributing to a lack of interest in chess, but I think early resignation is also damaging as well. People do like to say "Aha, now I see it coming! Heh, this guy's toast..." And commentators will have fun too. "Oh, it's all over for Kronsteen, any minute now checkmate will come..."
I'm sure this thought has been had a million times before, but I wanted to throw it out there. If someone wants to cite me chapter and verse (i.e. about how this idea has been tried, didn't work), that's fine. Still, it's an interesting idea, no?
Sorry about the double post -- something's clearly wrong with the server software, as it's timing out on me (and others too, it seems).
Here is my thought on the poker, chess, TV and humanity. It's actually very easy to promote chess. Just get someone to spend zillions on TV promotion, like casinos and gambling zones did for poker and millions will tune in. Really. Poker proved it. People are sheep and they will chomp whatever TV stations serve them. Poker proved it. Watching paint dry easily beats poker in entertaining department by a margin about 10 to 1.
People say that chess is a hard sell. It's wrong. Chess was an easy sell in Fischer times and in Soviet Union. Was the game better then? NO. The only difference were the resources dedicated to selling chess.
Another example is GO. It's going strong on TV in Japan and China. Do they play upside down there or mix it with martial arts to attract the audience? No. So no need to introduce absurd ideas to market chess. It's not gonna work.
I really like P's idea above! The masses want blood - give them blood!
"What if we had a top-level event, broadcast on TV and played at a moderately time control -- say, G/30, or G/45 -- in which _resigning was forbidden_?"
Answer: If resigning was forbidden, then a GM with a hopeless position would simply player a series of inferior moves in order to get the agony over with as soon as possible. Maybe we'd be lucky, and the losing player might contrive to allow a flashy Checkmating combination...but it would still be a contrivance.
With respect to Poker, players with weak hands DO resign. It's called folding.
The best way to make chess interesting to the hoi polloi is to make it into a game. Insert a random element of chance. Perhaps, on every 5th or 10th move, the players must roll a die, which would determine which piece they may move on that turn.
Heck, why not have prearranged moves for all of the televised games, so that every game will be decisive, and end in Checkmate, but also end in a brillian sacrifice?
"What if we had a top-level event, broadcast on TV and played at a moderately time control -- say, G/30, or G/45 -- in which _resigning was forbidden_?"
Answer: If resigning was forbidden, then a GM with a hopeless position would simply player a series of inferior moves in order to get the agony over with as soon as possible. Maybe we'd be lucky, and the losing player might contrive to allow a flashy Checkmating combination...but it would still be a contrivance.
With respect to Poker, players with weak hands DO resign. It's called folding.
The best way to make chess interesting to the hoi polloi is to make it into a game. Insert a random element of chance. Perhaps, on every 5th or 10th move, the players must roll a die, which would determine which piece they may move on that turn.
Heck, why not have prearranged moves for all of the televised games, so that every game will be decisive, and end in Checkmate, but also end in a brillian sacrifice?
Good one, DOug!!!
It worked for quiz shows in the '50s...it worked for Pro Wrestling from the '60s down to this day....so why not chess?
DOug has finally taken the mind-set exhibited by all the "chess needs to be marketed better" folks (without his sense of irony, of course, or indeed any sense of irony) -- and brilliantly turned it on its head.