September 2007 Archives

We've already been saying it for days, but once more with feeling. Viswanathan Anand sealed the deal with a 20-move courtesy draw with Leko in the 14th and final round of the Mexico City world championship tournament. The draw guaranteed him clear first and the title of unified world champion. I'd add "undisputed" if it weren't for the die-hard match purists who insist that Kramnik, despite his protests to the contrary, retains a match form of the title and that nothing will be unified until the Anand-Kramnik match in 2008. Kramnik surely agrees in his heart of hearts, but right now there is only one person on Earth who can answer when the world chess champion is called to dinner and that person is Vishy Anand. Congratulations! He led from start to finish, ending with a +4, 9/14 score and as the only undefeated player. Anand also solidifies his position as the world's #1 ranked player. He'll cross 2800 again in a few days since FIDE has announced it will rank Mexico for the October list.

There was some chess played in the final round, by the way. Vladimir Kramnik blew Aronian away with some nice preparation in the Queen's Indian. An exchange sac left Black with little choice by to give up two pieces for the rook. White's bishops cut the black position to shreds. It can't just be a coincidence that Mr. +2 again reached his standard score by winning 2/3 at the end. Amazing. More importantly, the win also moved him into a tie for second with Gelfand, who drew with the Petroff against Morozevich. That made it a $42,000 win for Kramnik. That gave the Petroff a perfect record of seven draws from seven appearances in Mexico, three by Kramnik and four by Gelfand. It might have been different had Moro found the remarkable shot 24.Ne6!

Meanwhile, the Najdorf took another blow to the head in Svidler-Grischuk. They came back to Svidler-Topalov from the last WCh tournament in San Luis. Svidler's second Motylev had prepared an improvement that gave White a devastating attack. There was a very pretty exchange of tactics but Black couldn't escape the crossfire. It was Svidler's only win of the event but it moved him up to clear fifth place. Grischuk, yet again, was an hour behind on the clock out of the opening. His preparation was way off the mark in this event and the loss left him in clear last place. A bitter end for the youngest player, who beat Gelfand and should have beaten Anand in round 13. There were four Sicilians, three losses and a draw.

Much more to come as the on-site folks turn in their reports and the interviews come out. The Indian press will no doubt be wall-to-wall Vishy as well. Post your best links below and I'll summarize them with an item tomorrow. What's your pick for best game of the event? Despite the large number of short draws we did get a healthy number of excellent games and there was at least one good fight each round minus the first.

This is it! A few hours from now Peter Leko will be the first person to congratulate Vishy Anand on winning the 2007 world championship. On, oh, move 19 they'll shake hands and agree on the draw that will lock up the win for Anand on a very impressive +4 undefeated score. Then Anand will be mobbed by the Indian press and hold court for a while with a smiling Aruna as the other players continue fighting for filthy lucre.

Round 14: Anand-Leko, Morozevich-Gelfand, Svidler-Grischuk, Kramnik-Aronian. LIVE

Oh sure, technically speaking it's not over yet. If Anand loses with white to Leko (impossible because he won't be trying to win) and Gelfand beats Morozevich with black (quite possible) we'll all have to break out our calculators. There are three tiebreak formulas in effect before the top two finishers play tiebreak games and Gelfand and Anand would be tied on the first two of them -- head to head play and number of losses (wins). The third tiebreak is Sonneborn-Berger, which adds the scores of everyone you beat to half the scores of everyone you drew. Right now this would seem to give a slight edge to Gelfand because he beat Aronian twice. These scores will change after the final round but are irrelevant because Peter Leko is not, to the best of anyone's knowledge, barking mad. It doesn't have to be an arranged draw, don't get me wrong. But going into the tournament if you asked Leko if he'd be happy with a draw with black against Anand he'd have said yes and he'll say yes now. If it were Leko needing a win to catch Anand that's a different matter. Two, after 20 moves Vishy will still have the normal white plus in an Anti-Marshall [Close! Was a Marshall] and he will offer a draw. A draw Leko would accept automatically in any other round. As long as such draws are legal (and if they aren't then we'll have to lock up the lot of them after this) it makes little sense for Leko to play to the death and risk his own even score and around $50,000. As much as we'd like him to.

It almost wasn't so easy. Anand came perilously close to losing to Grischuk in round 13. It was the first time in a long while we'd seen Vishy in any danger. He rushed through yet another Semi-Slav anti-Moscow gambit line before tossing in the twist 11..Rg8 and 13..b4 to throw Grischuk off his preparation. This had been seen before (van Wely-Vallejo 2005) but it put Grischuk into yet another ridiculously deep think. Instead of allowing the queen trade with 15.Nxc5 he played 15.d5, leading to a good endgame for White. Anand continued to play quickly either due to preparation or nerves, or both. It certainly doesn't look like a position you'd rush into. Black has very real problems saving his pawns and he eventually lost one. Anand's drawing plan of pushing his a-pawn and planting a rook on b3 was refuted when he blundered with 40..Kc8, allowing 41.Rc2! and the a3 pawn is immune. Oops. Grischuk had excellent winning chances and would have come close to sealing the deal with 52.h5, as suggested by various ICC kibitzers and as analyzed by GM Ian Rogers at here at CLO. I think 58.Rb5 is a good late try to win as well. I haven't seen anyone else look at this, but I haven't had much time to look either, so fill in if you've got some lines. Preventing ..f5 gains time for White and I haven't been able to hold the draw against it. By then Grischuk was in time trouble for the second time thanks to Anand's fast play and it was clearly drawn after 58..f5! Good practical defense from Vishy after his blunder but poor execution from Grischuk, who already tried to play the spoiler once in this event by beating Gelfand. Whew! A close call for Anand, adding a touch of balance to what was looking like a runaway affair.

Gelfand didn't give Kramnik any chance to play for a win with black but nor did he give himself many chances to catch Anand. The relatively tame line of the Semi-Slav, instead of the wild Bg5 lines we've been seeing, is one Kramnik knows very well from his match against Topalov. Black had a new idea with ..a5 and ..Bb4 and Gelfand couldn't make any headway against Kramnik's - again - superior preparation. Aronian and Svidler tangled in a slow-developing game. Black broke free tactically with the pretty 25..d5! The game settled into a tricky queen-king chase scene that was accurately played by both with a logical draw.

That left it up to Leko-Morozevich to provide the excitement. Moro mixed things up by playing the Richter-Rauzer, a rare bird at this level. It may just go extinct entirely if games like this one keep happening. Morozevich likes to get unusual positions that aren't prone to theoretical swamps. Here he was the only one who looked like he was in the quicksand. Leko got just the sort of bind he enjoys and after 17.f5 it looked like only a matter of time before he rounded up the black h-pawn and pushed his own to victory. And so it was. Kasparov summarily declared Black lost with barely a glance around move 17 before going to back to see if Anand could save himself from losing a pawn. About Anand's imminent victory, Garry said that Anand deserved it not only for playing the best chess but for also showing ambition throughout.

Huzzahs for Anand and eulogies for Kramnik to come. There is still a final round to play and you never know when a great game might occur. Surely someone in the Russian trio will try to break out of the -2 pack.

The official Vishy victory party was postponed and I suppose we should thank the players for giving us some decisive games and for maintaining the sporting interest until the final day. Three decisive games in round 12, only the second time that has happened.

Round 13: Grischuk-Anand, Gelfand-Kramnik, Aronian-Svidler, Leko-Morozevich. LIVE

Since being knocked back to a +1 score by Grischuk in round 9 Boris Gelfand has shown all the ambition of a sloth on casual Friday. He had two whites in a row and used them to play a total of 46 moves against Leko and Svidler. It seemed clear he considered Anand out of reach and would be happy to coast in at +1 if left alone to quietly munch his leaves. But in round 12 Aronian shook Gelfand's tree and found out just how quickly the Israeli can move when pressed, even if he's the oldest player in the field. Aronian's 16.g4 crossed the border between aggressive and crazy. (Kasparov: "Aronian can't tell the difference between the world championship and a blitz game! It's a shame because the guy can play real chess when he is focused.") Gelfand's incredibly cool response, 16..Rf8, highlighted the truth of one of the old maxims: be careful with your pawn moves because pawns can't go backwards. One wag on the ICC suggested that Aronian play g4-g2 in response, with a repetition. Exactly. Instead, White's king was ripped out into the open and Gelfand blew the Armenian off the board in short order. 23.Qxg6 offered better chances with a few pawns in the center for the piece after 23.Qxg6 Bxf3+ 24.Nxf3 Rxf3! 25.Bc2 Nf8 26.Qh5 Rf7 27.f4. [Malcolm Pein points out below that 23.Qxg6 Nxe5 wins. 24.Nxe5 Rxf2! 25.Kxf2 Qxh4+ 26.Kg1 Bxe5] But Gelfand had only around 12 minutes left an Aronian decided to take his chances in the attack. The win moved Gelfand back up to +2 with 7/12, still a full point behind Anand with two rounds to play.

The win did keep Gelfand ahead of defending world champ Vladimir Kramnik, who also won. (And kept the mathematical chances of retaining his title alive for one more round, btw.) You have two choices against Kramnik's Catalan: the long squeeze or the risky breakout. Either way, you die. Since Kramnik started playing the Catalan regularly in 2005 he has eight wins and four draws. Insane. Leko went for option B but suffered a surprising lapse on the defense against Kramnik's exchange sac (some wondered if Kramnik just missed ..e5). Leko's usually one of the world's best defenders. Here he either got too ambitious or just failed to evaluate the power of White's 28.Qf7 infiltration. 26..f6 looks like the culprit. 26..Re7 giving the exchange back immediately looks okay for Black. 27.Nxb7 Qxb7 28.e5 and White would probably play on in the Q+R endgame with a tiny edge. In the game, Kramnik finally got to flex his attacking muscles and crashed through for his first win in two weeks. This lifted him back to +1 and clear third place with 6.5. He's a full point ahead of the pack of Leko, Moro, and Aronian. Svidler and Grischuk are on 5.

Morozevich swapped places in the standings with the nosediving Grischuk by handing the youngest player in the event his fourth loss in a row with black. The game developed very slowly and Morozevich handled the opening of the position in mutual time trouble better than Grischuk. He picked off a pawn and then mated when Grischuk lashed out with nearly no time on his clock. Over Grischuk's last eight games, white has scored seven points! Black, it is safe to say, is not okay.

GM Miguel Illescas, a friend and long-time coach of Kramnik's, reported that Kramnik, despite his impressive win over Leko, looked tired and depressed at the press conference. It's finally sinking in that he's losing his title, rematch next year or no. (Asked of his chances to still win the event, he replied, "zero.") Regardless of where you stand on matches vs tournaments and the endless political shenanigans that have occurred since he beat Kasparov in 2000, this is going to hurt. It hasn't exactly been a glorious reign for Big Vlad, a super-solid player whose style is ideal for match play but that often left him playing second fiddle at tournaments behind more dynamic players like Kasparov, Anand, and Topalov, who played Spassky, Korchnoi, and Larsen to Kramnik's Petrosian. His time with the title was marred by health problems that had an obvious effect on his results. Thanks largely to Kramnik the title was unified in 2006 for the first time in 13 years, and we're all very grateful for that. Of course this could end up being a Botvinnik-style short break for Kramnik if he beats Anand to retake the title and then defends it against the victor of the Topalov-World Cup winner match. It might look brief in the history books but that's still a ways away. If we get two draws on the top boards today, as expected, it will be Vladimir Kramnik, WCh 2000-2007.

The sights and sounds of the world championship are available like never before and there is also a record amount of both on-site and off-site reporting going on in the chess webosphere. These events don't get the mainstream press coverage of the Karpov-Kasparov matches, let alone Fischer-Spassky, but with the low entry required for web coverage we are far richer now. The NY Times isn't going to send someone down to Mexico, but their chess columnist can follow just about every angle of the event from his desk. The Times isn't going to print a story about the tournament -- they probably will when it ends -- but there's low overhead on the web. Unfortunately the stuffy NY Times search doesn't include its numerous new blogs. So if you search for "Kramnik" you don't know that McClain has been writing about this tournament every day.

R12 Live, by the way.

The official site has only recently risen above the classification "train wreck" during the event on the criteria of content, accuracy, timeliness, and design (and, well, spelling). I have no idea why the great work of Leontxo Garcia hasn't been available every day or why the press conferences don't appear there in full. But they have gotten the live moves out with very few problems and I haven't seen any complaints about not being able to watch the games, which is great. As I said at the start, we have been rescued by the flood of our own attending the event. Video coverage of various types is finally becoming standard, although it's still far from where it should be considering I was putting up downloadable video reports with voiceovers and live shots six years ago with technology roughly on par with knocking rocks together to make fire. The next step will be the organizers working directly with the producers in order to improve access and quality. Here's a pitch to Bessel Kok at Global Chess or Silvio Danailov and the Grand Slam guys. Stop worrying about charging for moves and put together a rich content channel with up-close and top quality video. It would be behind the scenes at all the big events with exclusive interviews, post-mortem analysis, and commentary. It could be bundled into an annual subscription package with a world rating, given to anyone who is a member of a chess federation, or use sponsorship to include little ads.

Anyway, plenty of good stuff out there now. Macauley Peterson is putting together some nice video work for the ICC. Chessvibes of course, and ChessBase is filming here and there. For analysis you've got Marin at ChessBase and now TWIC has put up all of Malcolm Pein's annotations on every round. Ian Rogers also annotates in his great on-site reports at Chess Life Online.

Just tossing up a debate thread so we can relax and enjoy Vishy Anand's fabulous victory-in-progress and keep the "what does it all mean?" chat separate for now. Everyone involved says that Mexico City is the world championship and that the winner is the unified, undisputed world champion. This is from FIDE and from Kramnik and I'm sure you aren't going to get an argument from Anand. Kramnik has what amounts to a rematch clause as defending champion. If he doesn't win in Mexico he is guaranteed a 2008 match against the man who does win.

Match purists, as opposed to mere match enthusiasts like myself, hold that should there never be another world championship match then Kramnik dies with the One True Title. They will say that Kramnik's opinion on the matter is irrelevant and even that he is to be held in contempt for conceding to put the traditional title on the line in this tournament. More to the point, they say that he cannot in fact do so, since that title cannot be lost in a tournament and it's not his to give away or transmutate. There is no point in arguing with this as it is a matter of faith. Others consider the title to be more malleable, more resilient, and more subject to the changing minds and laws of man -- even, heaven forbid, FIDE officials.

In other words, this is a religious debate along the lines of how many Archangel Lopezes can dance on the head of a pin. Will Anand be the world champion when this event is over? Yes, by the word of every authority that has traditionally ever mattered in the chess world. Those being the words of the defending champion, FIDE, and the current contestants for the title. No, if you believe only in match world championships. There's nothing wrong with disagreeing. If you believe only in matches, there's not much choice for you. Next year world championship play returns to the match format. This lends additional ammunition to those who say Mexico is "only a tournament title" since it will be replaced by the "superior" match title next year. This is just a trivial side note. If you believe only in matches it doesn't matter when they occur.

I'm very glad matches do occur, or at least that they are scheduled to next year and regularly afterwards according to FIDE's latest rules. As I said, I'm a match enthusiast. What Anand has done (okay, is doing), as he did in 2000-01, is win the only world championship available to him. Unlike then, there is no alternative champion claiming rights or a rival organization. Anand is it and Anand it is. Will "Anand, V - 2007-2008" deserve an asterisk in the history books should he lose to Kramnik next year? Like Khalifman*, Ponomariov*, and Kasimjanov*? Are we more sympathetic to Anand in these matters because of his current world #1 ranking combined with his long-time stature as a top player as well as a gentleman? I would hope so! For most it's a matter of degrees. If Anand won on tiebreaks over two others on +2, for example, instead of this dominating performance, or if Gelfand did, would that mean an asterisk? With that in mind I'd probably add at least a footnote were I the one writing the history book. (I actually did help on the 'chess world champions' section of the last World Almanac and needed plenty of footnotes.)

So for me, no, no asterisk because it's the only game in town and Anand will be the only world chess champ on the planet. (Save your Fischer jokes, please.) It is worth explaining the different formats if space allows, and certainly there will be an additional layer of gilt on the trophy should Anand beat Kramnik next year. At that point even the most dedicated match purist must put Vishy down as #15. For now we can enjoy the fact that we only have to give one name when someone asks us who the world champion is. Until Saturday, or perhaps only until Friday, that's Kramnik. After that, it's Viswanathan Anand.

It's not over till it's over, but it's over. Viswanathan Anand will be crowned the new king of chess this week and everyone else is playing for second place. In round 11 Vishy put the icing on the cake with a nice win over Alexander Morozevich, moving him up to a +4 score 1.5 points ahead of the pack. We usually only get one decisive game per day so the rest of the standings remained the same. There are three rounds to go and a lot of cash in play, but apparently just about everyone is content to play it safe and let Anand do the work. For example, Svidler started the round in clear last place but thanks to Vishy he now has company. Wednesday is the last rest day.

Thursday's Round 12: Aronian - Gelfand, Kramnik - Leko, Morozevich - Grischuk, Svidler - Anand.

Four players won't really need that rest day. Grischuk-Kramnik was a 13-move Petroff draw that was embarrassing even by the standards of this event. It was the 13th draw of 25 moves or fewer and it was followed an hour later by the 14th, between Gelfand and Svidler. That one was even worse in a way because it was still a very interesting position. At least they took a few hours and turned in some work at the board. We had a little survey on the ICC to predict what the players would say in the Grischuk-Kramnik press conference. Nobody's answer was as good as the champ's (second-hand paraphrase): "I felt uncomfortable about it. But there was no play in the position. It would have been an insult to my strong opponent to decline the draw offer." That, my friends, is what separates amateurs from Grandmasters! No doubt there's some truth in what he says, but that's why rule changes are needed. There are always going to be good reasons for the players to do this. Sometimes it will make perfect sense to not play at all. So eliminate the option. Sure, it would cost us some of these artistic rationalizations, but I'm willing to make that sacrifice. I don't recall if Grischuk said much after the game and I don't really care, unless he has smallpox or had to go save a small child from a burning building. Horrible. Ban the draw offer!

Was Grischuk really hoping Kramnik would repeat Black's 11..0-0-0 blunder in Sutovsky-Sakaev from earlier this year? 12.Bb5! c6 13.Ba6! with serious problems for Black. 13..bxa6? 14.Qe2 wins.

Leko managed a tiny plus against Aronian in a subtle dish of a game that never managed to heat up. Leko's back-rank threats provided some entertaining tactics illustrated by GM Christiansen on the ICC, but Aronian was alert. The dangerous 35.b5 was met by 35..Qd7, saving the day for Black. The passed b-pawn wasn't enough to generate any real threats and Aronian held easily. Nice to see Leko working hard and getting some Leko-ish positions. He's in the pack in 3-5th with Kramnik and Aronian a half-point behind Gelfand. Grischuk is a half-point back, so just about anything can happen in the standings other than someone catching Anand for first.

Vishy gave himself an insurance win today by beating Morozevich's Najdorf. Now he could even have an accident and lose in the final three rounds and still coast home. He played a very steady game for his fourth win. It's a good example of the trouble Black is having in these modern Najdorfs. Instead of wild pawn storms and sacrifices, White slows things down and plays a control game. This one was vintage Anand, with pleasing maneuvers backed up by precise calculation that kept the black counterplay at a minimum. This is the signature finishing power that Anand was lacking at the start when he let a few games, including the first against Moro, get away from him. When he's on form it's as if he sees everything, allowing him to play fearlessly into double-edged lines and always coming out on top. Anand finished with a flourish, allowing Black's h-pawn to promote to a queen that was helpless to stop White's own passer. The concluding rook sac and fork made for a witty finale.

We had a long interesting chat with GM Miguel Illescas during the show. He has worked regularly as Kramnik's trainer for many years, including his WCh matches against Kasparov and Topalov. He's not in Mexico in that capacity, however, and just showed up this week. He feels Kramnik's physical conditioning isn't what it should be for this event. They spent a lot of time in that department for Elista, said Miguel. He figured Kramnik has trouble producing the energy or sharp style to match Vishy in a long tournament like this one, with so few rest days. Matches, of course, are a different matter, and he said he gave Kramnik a "51-49!" advantage over Vishy in their 2008 match. Great stuff and I've asked if our talk can be put up at chessclub.com next to my podcasts and Macauley's onsite videos.

My podcasts and Macauley's cool videos and GM commentated A/V at chessclub.com. More in-depth videos at chessvibes.com. Freddy finally had time to go outside and has some nice photos and reports at ChessBase. Ian is still bringing the scene at CLO and even gets into the blogging spirit by rocking the links. Dylan's NY Times chess blog has basic wrap-ups and occasionally games to replay with light notes. Europe-Echecs.com has analysis and more cool video. Not sure what Polgar and Kasparov are doing in the intro tho'. I'm not really buying the method of showing the games by filming a real board from above. Better than nothing, and more fun, but application recording is much easier to follow.

Round 11: Anand - Morozevich, Gelfand - Svidler, Grischuk - Kramnik, Leko - Aronian. LIVE.

The leaders take the white pieces. Will Gelfand try to make a move or is he going to try and sit on +1 to the end? Don't forget there's a huge amount of money on the line even in the middle of the pack. World Champion: 390,000 2nd place: 260,000 3rd place 182,000 4th place 130,000 5th place 104,000 6th place 91,000 7th place 78,000 8th place 65,000. The half point that separates 2nd from 5th could mean more than anyone outside of the top few usually makes in a year. Does that make you more or less conservative? Hmm. All I know is that Svidler, in clear last, should be playing like Nezhmetdinov's lunatic cousin at this point.

I spend way too much time doing things like watching, commentating, and annotating professional chess games, talking to chess players, and reading chess books and magazines. All of this makes me very well qualified to say I often have no clue what is happening in the opening phase of top GM games. I guess I do have some insight into why this is, which is something. I've often said that elite chess is a very different game from amateur chess and that the best we can hope to do in translation is pick a few instructive moments to focus on. Even with a GM guide there is only rarely a way to break down decades of opening refinement and preparation into pithy chunks or explain the product of profound positional understanding in terms of concrete objectives. Chess, it has been said, is hard. Anyone can play 'what if' with variations or drop moves into Fritz, which is usually, but not always, better than nothing. The great books and the great writers can communicate the underlying logic of the key moments of a game or event and make it entertaining. Players annotating their own games can do a far better job, but for various reasons they often don't. Too often they want to analyze "objectively" instead of talking about their thoughts and impressions during the game, robbing us of the things only the player knows -- which are usually more interesting and useful than variations anyway.

This preface is based on the extreme opening preparation we've been seeing in the Mexico City world championship tournament. How, and why, to explain the convoluted piece amalgamations black often ties his pieces into against the Catalan? Every move has a purpose, but that purpose is connected to dozens, or hundreds, of previous games and countless man-hours of empirical research. Even when things can be boiled down to useful shorthand -- the Marshall gains rapid development for material and white has trouble developing -- it's by necessity terribly simplistic. It's not practical or interesting, if possible at all, for even an expert in a line to talk about it in just a few minutes. You get a good sense of the size of elite chess theory by watching the ChessBase DVDs. It takes experts like Kasparov and Shirov hours to communicate a tiny fraction of what's in their heads. Of course players select swaths of it to focus on and narrow it down more before individual events and games. On occasion, two players will pick the same line for the same game and when that happens you get something like Kramnik-Anand in round 10.

Both players had deeply prepared this fashionable line of the Semi-Slav Meran. This was the fourth appearance of 6.Bh4 in this event and Anand had recently faced this exact variation personally, against Radjabov in Mainz, 2006. Kramnik played it against Gelfand in round seven, where Black played 11..h5 instead of Anand's 11..Bg7. Also worthy of note is that, like Anand, Kramnik's second van Wely faced this line through move 16 last year. The players banged out their moves even after Kramnik's new 17.b3, starting off action on the queenside where Black's king is obviously headed. They played almost without pause until move 20, when Anand's 20..Qb4 made it clear he was prepared to sacrifice the exchange on d6. Kramnik went forward and Larry Christiansen decided Black had a fine position, although he liked 22..Nc4 more. (The computers were in serious disagreement. Fritz and Shredder loved the rook and were giving +1.50 and higher for Kramnik. Rybka wasn't convinced and evaluated it as even, concurring with GM Christiansen. This led one to quip that they must prepare with different engines. "But who is using Zappa?" might be the right question now.)

Anand's knight was headed to d5 and he wasn't worried about the h6 pawn. He didn't take a serious think until 27.Qh5. Now Larry was wondering if Black wasn't going to have trouble holding on to his pawns while worrying about a rook invasion on the c-file. 29..Nf4 made it clear that White had his own problems. (Note the amusing 29.Qxg5?? Ne2+ 30.Kh1 Qxh2+!) Kramnik did his best, getting a rook and queen on the 8th rank with threats. Anand calmly moved his king up and threatened to push his queenside pawns. Kramnik had to bow to the inevitable and offer a draw on move 41. Were the players reversed you might even imagine Black playing on with ..Kb4, but it would have entailed considerable risk with those white rooks roaming around. Black has almost no winning chances and a very good chance of losing if he pushes too hard. I played out a few dozen tries against an engine and could never get the black pawns moving without getting cut to pieces or forced into a repetition.

A tremendous analytical and practical achievement from Vishy and a game that lived up to the hype. There are still four rounds to go so it's premature to hand Anand the crown. He's a full point ahead of Gelfand, but it only takes one loss to put things in doubt. Gelfand didn't exactly display ambition in his 24-move draw against Leko today.

Svidler and Morozevich played our second game to begin with 1.e4 and something other than 1..e5. Moro can play just about anything and here it was the Caro-Kann. Things got sharp after Moro took a long time getting his kingside sorted out. The resolution of the tension didn't come until mutual time trouble. Black missed some chances (30..Bc5) and then made a few mistakes that set up a winning shot for Svidler. The pretty 33.Bxe6+! would have won material and the game, but Svidler missed it and his first win slipped away.

The only decisive game was an obscure duel between Aronian and Grischuk. A boring QGD got exciting quickly thanks to mutual pawn pushing on the kingside. Aronian worked wonders with his knights, looping them around until one moved in to win material on e6. Grischuk's time management was even worse than usual. He spent nearly 70 minutes on his first ten moves! He had around two minutes for his last ten, making a difficult task impossible. At least we got a pretty mate at the end, one Larry had shown us earlier as a possibility. A few days ago Macauley Peterson asked Grischuk about his time issues and the Russian said he had no idea and asked Macauley for advice. If he got any it's safe to say it didn't help.

Round 9 was a great day at the world championship for leader Vishy Anand. This despite taking a 21-move draw against Aronian's Marshall. His closest pursuers, Gelfand and Kramnik, both lost, leaving Anand with a full-point lead with five rounds to play.

Round 10: Aronian-Grischuk, Gelfand-Leko, Kramnik-Anand, Svidler-Morozevich. LIVE

The idea that Anand's short draw with Aronian was therefore a clever ploy is silly, of course. It's wasn't the final round and even though Anand is now the huge favorite to take the title, chess still happens. You can't rely on your opponents to help you out. He still has a critical test with black against Kramnik on Monday and had Gelfand not blown an endgame draw against Grischuk today Anand's lead would still be just a half point.

But it's not. Not only did Gelfand lose, but defending champion Vladimir Kramnik also suffered his first defeat. He was lured into the swampy terrain of Morozania and slowly sank into the marsh. Morozevich is the consummate style player. Instead of a theoretical argument he'll go to extremes to reach unusual, imbalanced positions where his unique insight sees advantages others cannot. Kramnik, who scored his only win of the event against Moro in a spectacular game, made his first mistake by picking up the gauntlet and going into a weird Benoni instead of the expected ..e6 and eventual ..d5. Like many before him, Kramnik played the Benoni in a must-win situation against Leko in game 13 of their 2004 WCh match. He did well (but drew), and of course a player of his caliber can play anything well, but you can't believe a player of Kramnik's classical pedigree is at home with black in these positions. He almost seemed to want to out-Moro Moro when he lifted his rook all the way to a bizarre outpost on a5. Morozevich had already made this game one to hide from your beginning students by hurling his kingside pawns forward. Remember he did this with black against Grischuk in the fifth round and was duly punished. Here he exploited Kramnik's funky rook and took over the queenside while Black's pieces were still jumbled. Kramnik with a knight on e8? Morozevich kept himself out of time trouble and played the endgame precisely. It's remarkable how dominant the white position is with equal material and just three pawns per side. Kasparov thought Kramnik went wrong early, playing ..Bg4 ("the wrong idea, now the pawn on e3 can be useful. ..Re8 is natural.") instead of trying to work for Benoni play with White down a tempo. He also blamed Black's decision not to play ..f6 early to free up the Rf8.

Grischuk decided to be the grinder instead of the grindee after two tough losses in the Anti-Marshall dropped him out of contention for the top spot. Gelfand met his 1.d4 with the Nimzo-Indian and they followed a long theoretical line we've seen regularly at the top level lately. A couple of curious bishop maneuvers and a queen exchange didn't seem to promise much. But White's control of the open files was enough to get a good endgame chances. Gelfand defended well until losing his mind with 53..h3??, a classic example of the sort of super-GM move that makes you wonder what was going on in his super-brain to produce it. He must have seen something about the obvious 53..Kg5 he didn't like, but we'll have to wait till press conference comments come out. Keeping the white king back would have held the draw. After 54.Kg4 it's hopeless. Strange from the solid Gelfand, who has been in tremendous form and isn't the sort for endgame slips. Kasparov was impressed by Grischuk's decision to play Bf6 and chop the knight, after which it's "pure pressure" for White without worrying about a knight stirring up trouble. He was also forgiving of Gelfand's final mistake, saying it was a long and very difficult defense.

A Sicilian!! A Najdorf! That was enough to have me and Nick de Firmian rooting for Peter Svidler in his game with Leko. I figured some of the negative crew would drop 1..e5 as the tournament wound down. Svidler finally decided it was Bring Your Cojones to Work Day after eight rounds of pain and a winless -2 score. 12.Rg1 is a strange line, one that surprised Najdorf expert Nick. It's been played before at this level lately, twice by Anand in rapids, but it is a little hard to explain why it should be relevant instead of the usual immediate g5. One of the players with experience in this line is Lenier Dominguez, Leko's second in Mexico. We were wondering if Leko was really going to go for the pawn sac line Anand used to demolish van Wely at this year's Amber blindfold. (13..Qc7 14.g5 Nfd7 15. Nd5 Bxd5 16.exd5 Nxd5 17.Qxd5 Qxa5 18.Bd3.) Maybe Svidler was just trying to avoid Leko's prep in that sharp line when he played 13..Rc8. That doesn't explain 14..Ne8 (another knight on e8!) however. I thought the principle of these positions was forget about defense, get all forces into the attack asap. Black locks in a rook and relies on his other pieces to do enough damage on the queenside to keep White honest. Leko's slow-motion plan allowed Svidler to achieve the Sicilian dream move ..d5 and exchanges led to a draw in 29 moves. A fizzle for a Najdorf, but let's hope it starts a trend.

Anand tried an antique line against Aronian's Marshall, but the g2, Kf2 idea didn't have any punch. Aronian said afterward that all he did was play natural moves. Not exactly a pass from Vishy, but he clearly didn't mind saving his strength for the battle with Kramnik today. If Kramnik wins the tournament gets new life, otherwise the last rounds may turn into a coronation waltz for Anand. In the comments Jeff Sonas provides some of his stats with percentage chance to win that put Vishy's chances at 82% prior to round 10. Numbers have a way of making what they represent seem real, but with so much riding on the result of one game they don't really mean that much to me. They interest me more pre-event. Jeff also reminds that a win for Kramnik would be worth almost a point and a half in the fight for first because it would give him the first tiebreaker advantage over Anand.

Tough tournament for the Rodina so far. Half the field is Russian but none have better than an even score. Will Gelfand hold it together in the home stretch or will the veteran tire and falter? Will Anand go for sharp Semi-Slav or endure the Catalan torture that Kramnik beat him with at Corus this year? His black prep has been fantastic so far.

Btw, Ian Rogers' column on round 8 at CLO contains another support for move minimums. Svidler had a promising continuation against Kramnik but took the repetition because he didn't see it at the time. Most of these 20-movers are accompanied by "there was no play" justifications. (There are the occasional blatant ones with a board full of pieces of course.) Just ban the draw offers and let's find out, eh?

The season premiere of the famed news show 60 Minutes airs tonight with a long segment on Garry Kasparov. There's a video clip on the 60 Minutes website.

I figured this would be a good time to upgrade this blog software and redo the templates from scratch to clean out the code. It's not as if there are any important events going on.

COMMENTS ARE OFF FOR A FEW HOURS. Should be done by 3-4am NY time, although things might still look a little funky as I get the templates back in shape with the new MT tags. After that if you see anything broken, let me know. This should also fix the "internal server" errors. If not I'll probably have to change to a host where the reaper bots aren't so touchy about Movable Type installations. Rebuilding a 45MB MySQL db every time someone leaves a comment is a bit silly though. 42520 comments, by the way, not counting the ~1,000 that had to be moved into the content field when my database got corrupted a year ago. 1369 entries, including this one.

Update: Man, what a looong night of template hacking. It's 8:30am, do you know where your archive mapping is? What a mess. Movable Type 4.01 is up and running at last. Some new features to fool with later, but now I need to sleep. I think I finally got the comment system working again, but there's still a bug to squash. After you submit your comment the page comes back up but doesn't show your new comment. It won't appear until you refresh the page. No error message (so far) but please don't repost your comments. It's just an F5 away. (I think this is fixed now. Post below if you get errors. Seems a lot faster now than before.)

Draws on the the top boards in round eight of the world championship tournament in Mexico City. The key Gelfand-Anand match-up didn't last very long thanks to precise pawn breaks by Vishy and he remains the clear leader with Gelfand a half-point behind. Kramnik still lurks in striking distance a point off the pace -- remember he has white against Anand coming up on Monday. Saturday is an off day.

Sunday's round nine: Anand-Aronian, Morozevich-Kramnik, Grischuk-Gelfand, Leko-Svidler. LIVE.

Reports of Peter Leko being in an undead zombie-like state have now been shown to have been slightly exaggerated. He shook off a =6 -1 first half and came out of the gates with a win in the second half. He handed Alexander Grischuk his second loss in a row in the Anti-Marshall, dropping the youngest player to a negative score for the first time. It looked like Grischuk missed a chance to exchange some of his troubles with 18..Ng4 heading to e5 and Leko the quickly got in h3 to eliminate that possibility. After that it was a very Leko-like position and he slowly pressed the pillow down over Grischuk's face. After 30.f5 e5 first-time Chess.FM commentator Nick de Firmian didn't have much hope for Black. White has a ready-made kingside assault and there isn't enough room to get anything going on the queenside. 39..Nhg5 was a blunder that guaranteed the breakthrough would come with tempo. 39..Qf6 looks much better, preparing to meet 40.h4 with 40..g5!?

Leko: I'm happy because it was a good game. It was a line I had prepared and I kept up the pressure." Grischuk: "I felt confused, like someone who had come in off the street without knowing anything."

Aronian-Morozevich followed the pattern of their game from the first half. A long tense middlegame was followed by a tense endgame, although this one quickly became theoretical. Moro played the opening provocatively, offering a pawn for a somewhat nebulous initiative. The amusingly mysterious, in the Nimzo meaning, 23..Reb8 led to a pawn-down rook and pawn endgame, a classic 3 vs 3 on one side with a passed a-pawn for White. 24.b3 looks logical to neutralize those doubled rooks, but it cuts off the white queen. We've already seen one of these endgames, Kramnik's torture of Anand in round three. Here the black kingside pawns weren't connected, but it turned out not to matter. Moro simply ditched his e-pawn and the white king had no shelter from the checks. Some computers still shout +4 for white on move 66 when Kg5 wins the f-pawn. But 66..f4+ 67.Kxf4 is still a draw. Gimme shelter. A tough pill for Aronian to swallow and Morozevich survives another one of his entertaining experiments. Aronian was critical of his own play, saying he hadn't prepared anything for the line in of the QID Moro played and that he made many mistakes.

Svidler got a little something against Kramnik's Petroff, which is news in and of itself. Just making Kramnik take a very long think is a real achievement these days. White's new 18.Nd2, preparing f3-g4, was the new idea, hiding the queen on h2 to avoid the swap. Kramnik spend around 40 minutes on his response and what a response! 18..Qe2! looks horrible, allowing the white rook to move to the open file and then putting the queen on g4 anyway. Nick and I knew there must be some point to such a move, but it wasn't easy to fathom. It eventually became clear that the idea was to be able to play ..Rxe1+ and ..Re8 to liquidate attacking forces after ..Bd6 and ..Ng7. If the white rook is still on d1, then Bd4, threatening to eliminate the defending black knight on g7, is stronger. Black had other defensive ideas, but the depth of this one is really something. To his credit, Svidler (who may have seen ..Qe2 in his prep since he still moved fairly quickly) sacrificed a pawn with 24.c4 to keep fighting. GM de Firmian thought White squandered the last of his slim chances to keep a plus with the slow 26.Bc3. The game was drawn on move 29.

Kramnik, post-game: "This is the first time I've felt a little uncomfortable during the tournament, with a little bit of fear. Peter played very well."

Gelfand tried the Catalan, and he's not just jumping on the Kramnik bandwagon; he's been playing it for years and it fits his style well. Anand busted out on odd antique move, 10..Bd6, instead of the usual ..Ra7 or ..Ba4 (or ..10..Nbd7 or 10..Nc6) that have all seen top-level action this year, including this event. It loses a tempo, but at least the c7 pawn isn't going to be poached. Gelfand's 11.Rd1 turned out not to really threaten anything. Black broke free with quick play in the center, ..e5 and ..c5 and was probably a little better in the final position thanks to the potential weakness of the white e-pawn and the more open position of the white king. Gelfand offered a draw on move 20 and Anand took it.

Gelfand, when questioned after the game about the short draw (according to Macauley this is something the players are becoming visibly testy about since it's happening almost every round): "Everyone here is ambitious. Black gets good play in the Catalan after ..c5 and I wasn't able to prevent that move and that led to a draw." Anand: "I surprised Boris with the move ..Bd6. Black plays queen to b8 and e5 and later a knight can come to c4 with rooks on c8 and e8. Black doesn't have much to worry about in this position to reach a draw." Hmm, I wonder if we'll it against Kramnik on Monday. I doubt it.

Look, Ma, we wrote a book! How Life Imitates Chess is hitting the shelves next week in the USA. The American edition is quite different from the UK version, which is also the one the other 19 language editions are based on. (Yes, 19.) They cut out the chess biographies that were between each chapter and several of what you might call the most challenging (or you might say dense) sections were whittled down considerably. The result is an enjoyably streamlined version that also has added emphasis for the business market. Garry doesn't have the name recognition in the US he has just about everywhere else, so positioning the book is critical. (I'm hoping to release some of the cut chess material on the sly, perhaps in some silly chess blog.)

That thing about the name recognition will be changing over the next 30 days, at least a little. This Sunday, two days from today, the premier US TV news magazine 60 Minutes will air a long piece on Kasparov. (USA Today mentions this, umm, today.) They followed him around in Russia for a while and interviewed all sorts of people. It's mostly about politics of course, but they mention the book. Soon afterwards, a long profile of Garry is going to appear in the New Yorker magazine. Then the real insanity starts as he begins a whirlwind mini book tour in October. There are dozens of interviews, signings, and TV & radio appearances jammed in from October 10-22. He also has several political appointments and business lectures (NYC and New Orleans) wedged in there. I'll post a full schedule later, but the quick version is Oct 15 in Boston (Harvard book store signing), Oct 16 in DC, Oct 18 in NY (B&N signing), Oct 19 in Philly (signing somewhere). On the 17th he's going to be on the brilliant parody news commentary show The Colbert Report, which of course I'm more excited about than his speech at Radio City Music Hall.

In the where is he now dept., Kasparov just received a human rights award in Denmark, the first annual Herbert Pundik Prize. Lots of coverage in the Danish media, so I'm told. There's an interview with him online here but you have to figure out how to bring up the show from the 19th and then scroll down to the interview in the video player and click "se klip". Not sure it's worth it! Yesterday and today (also the name of a mediocre Bay Area hair metal band from the 80's) he was in Warsaw at a big political ideas forum. He says it went very well. Good to have a flamethrower amongst the technocrats on occasion. One riposte: "Do you think the Taliban would change their ways if they had better technology?"

Speaking of Kasparov and books, I'm selling another signed copy of Kasparov Against the World here on Ebay. Buy early and buy often.

The official Mexico world championship website is showing the Zappa-Rybka match games live, but not putting up any standings or PGN I can find. I believe the games begin at 10:30 local time, 11:30 EDT, 15:30 GMT. Yesterday's first game was drawn. The Rybka forums have lots of news and such if you poke around. Post more links if you got'em.

Zappa programmer Anthony Cozzie made news at the opening press conference by saying that either program would finish first and undefeated if it participated in the world championship tournament. [David Levy informs that this was said by the Zappa book prep guy Erdogan Gunes, not Cozzie. Sorry about that, was just told "the Zappa programmer".] Kramnik and Aronian were asked about this after their quick draw. They both agreed the computer would have good chances of winning, but weren't sure it wouldn't lose a game. Everyone agreed much would depend on the openings. It's hard to bet against the machines after Fritz survived a match with Kramnik without a loss. But they aren't invulnerable and the odds would catch up with them. One bad opening or falling into a bad endgame is all it would take. But first place, definitely. Heck, Junior made an even score at Dortmund in 2000, a long time ago by the standards of Moore's Law. It was still falling for the ancient Stonewall tricks. Ah, those were the days.

Yes, there a few things going on in the chess world other than the world championship. For example, Movsesian and Ponomariov tied for first at the Czech Coal Carlsbad tournament. The absolutely fabulous US Chess League got underway, yee-haw. What happened to the Brooklyn team? How about the Bed-Stuy Drive-bys or the Coney Island Hotdogs? Oh well, send'em some money anyway. Apparently everybody won the Russian Championship this year. An incredible 11 players tied for first with 7/9 7/11. They gave Vitiugov the title on tiebreaks that must have required Deepest Blue to figure out, if not Deep Purple. Anyone know who is going into the Russian superfinal, if there is one this year?

In round 7 of the world championship tournament in Mexico Vishy Anand was the sole winner. He beat Grischuk and moved into the clear lead at the half with an impressive +3 score and a 2900 performance rating. Anand pulled away from Boris Gelfand, who worked miracles to draw against Kramnik and preserve his +2 score, good enough for clear second place. Kramnik is lurking in 3rd. Round 7 podcast here.

Round 8: Gelfand-Anand, Svidler-Kramnik, Aronian-Morozevich, Leko-Grischuk. LIVE.

Anand and the rest of the chess world are lucky Alexander Grischuk doesn't play the Petroff. I do wonder if Grischuk gave it some thought before round seven, however, considering how poorly Vishy has fared against it so far in Mexico. Instead we got an Anti-Marshall and the world #1 comprehensively outplayed the young Russian to move to +3 and clear first place at the halfway mark of the tournament. The game was a positional master class in several ways. The domination of the b4 knight was a great illustration of playing against a piece. Anand took his time to put together a typical Nc4 assault against what had become a Benoni structure. White's kingside breakthrough came in time and although it got a little messy Anand pushed his d-pawn through to triumph.

It was a vintage Anand win, smooth from the start. Kasparov said Vishy is simply playing better than the others so far. He also praised the high quality of the Kramnik-Gelfand duel. Either Gelfand was in a surprisingly combative mood or Kramnik's Catalan is getting such a rep that the super-sharp Anti-Moscow Semi-Slav looks attractive in comparison. We've seen this a few times already and Kramnik had a new twist up his very long sleeve, 13.Qc1. It looked like the champ was making steady progress in the sharp battle. His king was safer and the Bb7 bishop was a bystander. When White gained two connected passers on the queenside it was looking very grim indeed. But Gelfand conjured up last-second counterplay with ..h3 and ..f5, and don't forget the cheeky 33..0-0-0! that saved the day. Garry recalled his own 35.0-0-0 against Tony Miles (86 match g1) that "almost made Tony drop from his chair!" A great game from both players and an amazing save from Gelfand, who confirmed his excellent form.

Morozevich repeated the Scotch line from his win against Svidler against Leko, who responded more aggressively. GM Federowicz on the ICC was calling it about even and the players really took their time. Instead of the short draw the Fed was predicting, Leko got just enough of an edge to keep going. Play became sharp as Leko sacrificed a pawn to infiltrate with his queen. Moro held on and Black forced the draw on move 60. An excellent example of how drawish positions don't have to be drawn on move 20. Kudos to both players. Let's hope Leko keeps swinging in the second half.

No kudos for Svidler and Aronian, who drew in 20 moves of a Lopez Exchange. Svidler became befuddled and played Kf2 before g4 and Black equalized instantly with 17..f5.

Predictions? Anand has four blacks in the second half, including against Gelfand and Kramnik. But he's looking awfully good and +4 is almost a guarantee of clear first. Kramnik came close to three other wins (Anand, Grischuk, Gelfand) and is looking so comfortable it's hard to imagine that he won't score at least one more win while no one seems willing or able to threaten him. Can Gelfand keep it up? Can anyone else make a move? Will we ever see a Sicilian?

The two oldest participants at the 2007 World Championship tournament in Mexico are also the two clear leaders. Anand, 37, and Boris Gelfand, 39, are undefeated with +2 scores after six rounds. Today the players at the top half of the crosstable meet. At least I hope so. If these pairings aren't right today it must mean they are skipping around because it's the last day of the first half of the tournament.

Round 7: Kramnik-Gelfand, Anand-Grischuk, Svidler-Aronian, Morozevich-Leko. LIVE

Kramnik is looking as impregnable as ever so far. He beat Gelfand in a remarkable game at Dortmund last June. Anand and Grischuk have played very few classical games against each other lately. Grischuk hasn't faced 1.e4 yet in Mexico. Might we actually see a Sicilian? Nah. Svidler and Aronian have been dueling in the Marshall and Anti-Marshall. Probably better for Aronian to have black since he's been stung by Svidler's Grunfeld several times. Morozevich beat Leko in Linares this year in a wonderful game. Moro plays just about everything and usually isn't the sort to take a rest day after a loss.

(My round 6 podcast at www.chessclub.com, which was down for much of yesterday. Maybe they have some unpaid Mexican webmasters of their own?) Round six showed the tone of this event so far, and of modern chess in general. The favorites, Anand and Kramnik, equalized easily with black against Leko and Aronian, respectively. At that point we saw what we have grown used to seeing: White won't push the big guys without a big plus, the big guys see no reason to play for a win with black when a quick draw is available, everyone talks about Corsica/Sofia rules. Rinse and repeat.

Leko's 13.Be3 is considered old and harmless, but hey, so was Boris Gelfand before this event started and he just kicked Moro's butt for his second win in a row. Leko was following a Julio Becerra game, which delighted Becerra, who was watching live on the ICC and confusing people by saying things like "here I played a a4" when he didn't have an a-pawn, which of course means he played Ba4 ("A" for alfíl). Leko wasn't aware of that game from the 2006 USCL and chose a meek plan that allowed Vishy to swap and draw from a position of strength a few moves later. Anand didn't play the Marshall, perhaps wanting to save his prep for the white side. Aronian wanted to see how Kramnik would react to facing his own favorite weapon, the Catalan, a strategy that can often be annoying. Unsurprisingly, Kramnik is fine on both sides and he also had the better of things by the time they followed Leko and Anand off the stage, also shortly after move 20.

Grischuk-Svidler was the real show and I'm happier than ever that Grischuk, at 23 the youngest player in the field, is in Mexico. He's playing well and he's playing with a lot of fantasy. Here it was almost a nightmare as Svidler played the provocative 16..Qc5, inviting 17.Bd6 with complications. Grischuk sacrificed another pawn to go on the attack, burning every bridge and even strafing a few airstrips with the piece sac 24.Bxc4! The subtle moves 27.Rd1! and especially 29.b3!, without which Black is just better, were inspired. Grischuk's main failing yet again was his horrible time management, and he was critical of himself after the game. He had only a few minutes for the final ten moves before move 40. More time would have helped, because the scrambling Svidler erred with 36..Ke8 in a very difficult position. 36..Rad7 shows that Black can give up just about anything as long as he keeps his d-pawn and a rook behind it. The computers eventually understand the d-pawn is too strong to beat and settle for repetitions, although they pick up a pile of pawns on the way. Grischuk's 37.Nxe6 was only good enough for a draw, as winning the a7 rook and even every other black pawn on the board isn't enough to win thanks to the mighty d-pawn. 30-ply computer analysis shows 37.Qh8+ gave real winning chances, but it would have been risky. 37..Ke7 38.Qg7 Rad7 (38..Rf8 39.Nxe6!) 39.Qxf7+ Kd6 40.Qxe6+ is wild. Computers can see every check perfectly, of course, and they like White even with a supported black pawn on d3. Yikes.

Gelfand turned in the only win of the day with a nice win over Morozevich. 18.Rb1 reveals serious threats against the black king. Kasparov pointed out a nice line to me: 19..a6 20.Na7+ Kb8 21.Bxc5 Kxa6 22.d6!? There's also the simpler 20.Bxc5 axb5 (20..bxc5? 21.Na7+ Kb8 22.d6! again) 21.Be3 with Rfc1 coming. Lines like those might have been what scared Moro into giving up the exchange, which all the GMs saw as more or less forced. Gelfand did a fine job of technique after that, tossing in some bonus tactical flair with 28.Nxg7 to liquidate and keep a winning h-pawn. Gelfand is playing very well so far. Viva los old guys!

Vishy Anand is the first clear leader of the event. Round six of the Mexico City world championship tournament: LIVE. It's Leko-Anand, Aronian-Kramnik, Grischuk-Svidler, Gelfand-Morozevich . [Apparently the official site's pairings were even worse than I thought. They had rounds 6 and 7 transposed. I think.] Somewhat odd for a tournament with so many draws not to have anyone on an even score. Just don't trust the pairings on the official site; as many have pointed out they're way off in the second half.

Lots of good coverage out there. Rogers at CLO, Frederic is finally getting his tacos and salsa, ChessVibes just arrived as well. Macauley has video for the ICC, plus a free A/V game of the day with GM analysis. Sporadic reports at TWIC. This Chinese news service report spends most of its time discussing the lighting problem at the start of the round in excruciating detail.

All the 1.e4 e5 reminds me of something Gregory Kaidanov said on the air when we were doing some live coverage on Chess.FM earlier this year. He said that these days White's having trouble just reaching playable positions in the Spanish. It sounded like an exaggeration, but now I'm not so sure. Black is definitely on the upswing these days. It could just be fashion, but there are several possible trends in the recent decline of the Sicilian. One is a subject that has been discussed regularly off and on for years: the penetration of computer power into opening preparation. Sharp lines in the Najdorf are vulnerable to being cracked wide open by a novelty. It doesn't even have to be a great move, just an unexpected one leading to super-sharp lines you have analyzed with a computer and your opponent hasn't. Instant death. Unless you are supremely confident of your preparation and your ability to survive such surprises, it's very risky at this level with players and teams of analysts working on key lines. Many players, especially in high-stakes events, prefer to play classically, with openings less vulnerable to being cracked by the computer.

The other factor might be called the Kasparov Effect, or the No More Kasparov Effect, or the Kramnik Effect. Or just call it fashion. In 2003 Sicilians outnumbered 1..e5 two to one at the 2700 level. In 2004 and 2005 Sicilians were slightly more common than 1..e5. In 2006 1..e5 pulled ahead by a bit. In 2007 1..e5 is beating 1..c5 two to one, a remarkable shift. Top players influence openings. Everyone knew that if Kasparov was playing a line it was a good path to follow. Without his countless hours of work on the Najdorf, it has fallen off considerably despite Topalov's fine results and high standing. Actually, Topalov has had a rough time against 1.e4 himself lately. Since 2006 he has only won one classical game on the black side of the Sicilian against a 2700 player. Correspondingly, Kramnik's influence has worked in favor of 1..e5 in the past two years. He ended his brief return to the Sicilian when he came back from health problems in 2006. 2007 is also set to be the first year in a long time that we see more 1.d4 (Kramnik) than 1.e4 (Kasparov) at the elite level. The trend has followed the e4 c5 to e4 e5 shift almost exactly.

Of course a side-effect of this is an increase in the drawing percentage. At the 2700 level 1.e4 e5 draws 64% of the time. 1.e4 c5 42%. More draws means more short draws, and more complaints about them. 1..e5 is now so tough to beat that 1.e4 is actually more drawish than 1.d4 now (unlike in 2002-03), a stat that won't come as a shock to anyone watching the Mexico City tournament! Okay, time for bed. Too much ChessBasing. Thanks to Mark and TWIC for putting out the games that make such senseless stat-mongering possible.

A bit swamped today. Let me know how it all turns out! LIVE. Anand-Svidler, Grischuk-Morozevich, Leko-Kramnik, Gelfand-Aronian. Kudos to Duif for saying, "A win for Aronian and the other three drawn" when I asked for predictions before round 4.

If "does anyone have anything against the Petroff yet?" is the question, Leko's 2.Bc4 against Kramnik is the answer. Oy.

Update: A round chock-full of impressive victories for white today. The obvious exception was the aforementioned Leko-Kramnik game, which was a quiet as a piano with cut wires. Leko's timid opening got nowhere against Kramnik's well-considered defensive set-up. At the 2600 level black wins as often as white in the Giuoco, making it practically a non-opening these days. But what to do for a 1.e4 player like Leko? Startlingly, Kramnik said he had prepared this ..Qe6, ..Ne7 idea before Dortmund. If he has time to book up on the Giuoco Piano it's time for everyone else to just give up. Yikes.

Leko was avoiding the Petroff, but there's still a chance some Marshall players might be embracing it soon enough. Anand beat Svidler's Marshall today in the latest minute permutation of what always looks like the same stuff unless you're a Marshall connoisseur. White's entire battle in the opening is to get his pieces out of the way of his other pieces. Anand got his knight out of the way on the unlikely g2 square via h4, allowing him to develop his bishops. After that it all went bad for Svidler very quickly. Barring endgames, if Black isn't pressuring in the Marshall he's losing and we saw that here. All of Black's pieces seemed overloaded and a few inaccuracies were enough for Svidler to go down in a heap fast. Anand moves to clear first at +2 and Svidler goes into the cellar at -2.

Grischuk-Morozevich saw the Ragozin QGD, an active line that has seen a resurgence lately thanks to frisky pups like Aronian and Carlsen. They followed the main line for a while, including the game Alekseev-Morozevich from earlier this year. Moro added his unique brand of lunacy with 16..f5, practically begging for a kingside breakthrough. Grischuk didn't have to be asked twice and crashed through while sacrificing a pair of queenside pawns. The computer wants 21..Kf7, but that just delays the inevitable breakthrough. You may as well grab as much material as you can and hope you survive. Moro grabbed but didn't survive. Grischuk moves to +1 after four straight draws.

So did Boris Gelfand, who played an interesting twist in the opening and outplayed Aronian from a superior position in complications. Gelfand unveiled Nf3, e4, Bd3 against the Benoni. Hardly unusual except that he did it after playing g3! You see this sort of thing in some Queen's Indians where Black hassles the c-pawn with ..Ba6, but here it was quite surprising. I wonder if Gelfand picked this up after being on the other side of something similar against Mamedyarov at Corus this year. His b-pawn under attack Aronian had to push pawns on the queenside, giving up every Benoni-basher's favorite square, c4. Great stuff from Boris, who was unimpressed by Aronian's desperate attempts for counterplay.

Some great preparation and some great chess today. The ultra-subtle Marshall got some work and Gelfand played a novelty on move six. You can keep your shuffle chess, thanks. Podcast and more appearing soon at www.chessclub.com.

[R4 podcast and cool podcast with video up at ICC.] Strange happenings in Sunday's 4th round in Mexico City, and they can't all be explained by the loud music throughout the city on Mexican Independence Day. Both leaders failed to convert positions that fit their specialties. Anand missed several chances to put away Morozevich in a position with an extra passed pawn and tactical shots all over the place. Kramnik passed up a strong plan against Grischuk for a superior technical endgame that he almost certainly didn't get the most of. So instead of extending their lead over the pack, both settled for draws and stay at +1 heading into the first free day on Monday.

The one win was by Aronian over Leko and it was also strange affair. A Maroczy Bind Hedgehog went through the usual meandering maneuvers with no action expected for another dozen moves. Out of nowhere Aronian played e5 and Leko felt it necessary to give up a piece for two pawns. He never approached compensation and Aronian mopped up efficiently to score the full point. Macauley Peterson asked Leko if his 7+ hour marathon the day before against Gelfand had affected his play today. "Obviously it didn't help," he said, but he added that he should have been able to concentrate regardless. Overall he called the game, "a nightmare." Indeed. Like any fan of open games I consider the Hedgehog something of a disease in need of a cure. But it was freakish to see one of the world's most solid players blow up like that.

Speaking of diseases, will someone please do something about the Petroff? Crikey. There was only one today, Gelfand's third in four games. He held Svidler easily despite a slow-motion maneuver that was just asking for a smackdown. (..Qd7-c6-d7-e6) There was no smackdown.

Morozevich and Anand played a very rich middlegame after a typically sharp Meran opening. GM Benjamin theorized that Anand has sharpened his black repertoire for this event. I wondered if it was due to memories of watching Topalov run away with the San Luis world championship in 2005. Anyway, it's good Anand can play to win with black because he's been in trouble with white both times. Against the Petroff, no less. Here he outplayed Morozevich and seemed to have things all but locked up with an extra passed c-pawn. Anand is one of the game's great finishers in dynamic positions so it was disconcerting to see him flounder and fail to notch a deserved win here. Black dropped his impressive e4-f5 pawn pair and suddenly there were three results possible. Anand was poised to win the game again with some nice rook maneuvers against the exposed white king. 55..Rdd2 would have established vicious mating threats. Anand had time, but he seemed oblivious to the idea of doubling rooks on the 7th. Moro's brilliant defense was also a factor of course. 56.Be7 and 57.Kg4 confused the issue enough that Anand decided to force a perpetual. 58..hxg5 was playable, not to mention the Fritzy 58..Rg8!? Is Anand going to play himself into form or are these glitches portentous? +1 and a share of the lead isn't bad for so many complaints.

Speaking of +1 and complaints, Vladimir Kramnik's trademark Catalan and technical voodoo failed him today against Grischuk. 11.a3 sent Grischuk into an unprofessional time sink that left him over an hour behind on the clock by move 20. Kramnik, meanwhile, reeled off his moves instantly, including the risky-looking pawn grab 13.Qxc7. Grischuk reacted well at first, but eventually he made a few inaccuracies that gave Kramnik the edge. It looked like he would calmly collect the black a-pawn and then start up the grinder with his extra pawn. Grischuk was down to two minutes when Kramnik used over 15 on move 38. After all that thinking Kramnik went for a safe endgame edge instead of keeping more active chances with 38.Qa2 or the complications of 38.Qa4 Qb1 39.Bf1 Rxh2. The B vs N endgame did look very good for White, however. Kramnik dumped the c-pawn to dominate the knight and gain time to infiltrate with his king. The consensus among the various kibitzing GMs and IMs on the ICC, including Kamsky, Nakamura, Kogan, and Ginsburg, was that 50.e3 was too conservative and that 51.h4 tossed away the last good chances to win. 50.Bg8 was the expected move, with the majority predicting a win for White. It's hard to argue with a Kramnik with time on his clock in such positions, but he does occasionally err on the side of caution even in technical positions. This game reminds me of the first of his 2006 match against Fritz, when more aggressive play in the N vs B endgame would have won. Of course it will take a while to determine if White had a win for sure, but the draw in the game came so quickly it was shocking. Surely 50.Bg8 h6 51.Bf7 offered better chances for Black to go wrong. 51..Kc3 52.Bxg6 Kd2, headed to e1, is an interesting try.

Monday is a rest day. Anand and Kramnik lead on +1. Aronian, Morozevich (who have participated in all four decisive games), Gelfand, and Grischuk are on even. Svidler and Leko trail on -1. A very tense event so far, with several notable opening novelties as well as plenty of nervous play.

Rogers has the goods at CLO. Btw, there will be a computer match between Rybka and Zappa in Mexico City during the WCh. Starts on the 20th. More info here.

Vishy Anand still has a share of the lead after three rounds of the Mexico WCh tournament, but no leader has ever looked shakier. He's had two whites, two Petroffs, and two scrapes with defeat. This one came at the hands of world champ Vladimir Kramnik, who effortlessly outplayed the Indian star in a much-anticipated duel between the world #1 and the defending champion. It's easy to forget that you can even play for a win on the black side of the Petroff it happens so rarely. It's deservedly known as a drawish defense and at the 2700 level white wins three for every loss in the Petroff (it's 2 to 1 in the Sicilian). Against Gelfand in the first round Vishy could have come out worse several times but the Israeli was looking for a draw and found one. Kramnik wasn't so forgiving, winning a clean pawn after an Anand miscalculation and then enjoying himself by putting the screws to a classic 4 vs 3 rook and pawn endgame with a passed a-pawn.

This is an endgame that "should" be drawn but that GMs, even strong ones, lose on occasion. In particular, Anand lost exactly this endgame to Peter Leko in Linares in 2003. Oddly, that game started with the exact same line of the Petroff, but Anand had black. Vishy has also lost a couple of other high-profile rook and pawn endgames that should have been drawn (e.g. against Kasparov at that same Linares 2003), giving one of the most creative defenders in chess history something of a reputation for laziness in technical positions. This time Anand held firm, although Kramnik, the world's best technical player, took the time to show how many tricks exist in these positions. They played it out all the way to the stalemate commentators had foreseen 20 moves earlier, a kind gesture to the spectators. Anand and Kramnik still share the lead at +1.

The only decisive game of the day was Morozevich's typically bamboozling effort against Svidler. I swear that man plays some moves just to see the look on the other guy's face. It was one of the most unnatural sequences I've seen in a long time as Svidler chased Moro's queen around and Morozevich kept finding ways to keep material on the board. Eventually Svidler worked his way into a miserable position with two knights versus two bishops and a pair of mobile center pawns. How did that happen? The Moro works in mysterious ways. The win moved him back to 50% and dropped Svidler into the negative column.

Grischuk missed a win in a blunt attacking effort against Aronian. The Armenian played the unusual 9..d5, which Bacrot tried twice against Kasimjanov in Mainz this summer. (Kasparov analyzed it in 1998 before his aborted match with Shirov.) Grischuk declined the "delayed Marshall Gambit" and instead gave up a pawn himself to rip open the black king. It looked like Aronian had defended well and Grischuk, down to just a few minutes, forced a perpetual. In time for my podcast wrap-up last night, however, I discovered White has missed a simple win with 28.Qh6 (threatening Rh4) 28..Qd2 29.f4 and White wins material. A close shave for the bearded Aronian, who is still on -1.

Did someone say play the Petroff to win? That might be Boris Gelfand's next book. He dropped his usual Najdorf like a hot matzoh ball and has had the better of things with black in the Petroff against both Anand and then Leko in round 3. He grabbed an extra pawn in a heavy-piece endgame and then played out the queen and pawn endgame for seven hours before having to settle for the draw. Kasparov tossed out 46..Qf4 as a possible improvement.

Lots of good reports out there I don't have time to link to right now. Will try later, add some links below, por favor! I think my podcasts are being incorporated into Macauley Peterson's videos, not sure! Round 4: Aronian-Leko, Kramnik-Grischuk, Svidler-Gelfand, Morozevich-Anand. Live at official site.

It's still very early in a long event, but favorites Kramnik and Anand, the defending world champ and the world's #1 ranked player, have moved into the lead after the second round of the 2007 world championship tournament in Mexico City. Kramnik out-dueled Alexander Morozevich in a hyper-complicated tactical melee. He played a speculative piece sac out of his standard Catalan, not the sort of thing we've come to expect from either Kramnik or the Catalan. As Kramnik himself put it after the game, a computer could likely have defended the Black position -- and the computers agree -- but even the chaos specialist Morozevich wasn't up to the task. He was in deep time trouble well before move 20 and the position was absolutely insane. No human can be expected to play this sort of thing perfectly; you just have to outplay your opponent. That's what Kramnik did, finding the key blows 18.Qa4! and later 22.b6! to finish things off. His 21.Bf4 was a mistake (21.Rac1), allowing a remarkable counterattacking idea that Morozevich, with just a few minutes on his clock, failed to find. In that respect Kramnik's real mistake was playing too quickly in Moro's time trouble, leading to the inaccuracy. Had Moro found 21..Qd5! preparing ..Qf3 and ..Bd5, both players would have been dancing on the knife's edge. (Feel free to go through the occasionally ludicrous complications with your favorite engine. One main line is 21..Qd5! 22.Rac1 Bc5 23.Qxa6! Nb6 24.Rxc5 Qxc5 25.Bxe3 Qxc7 26.Bxb6 Rxa6 27.Bxc7 Rxa2 draw!) Morozevich found the idea a few move later, but it was too late. Spectacular stuff from Kramnik, who is clearly here to play. Perhaps his rematch clause has given him a nothing-to-lose attitude that will shake off anything that remains of his old Dolmatov Doldrums.

That game ended in just 27 moves, but Anand was actually the first to finish. I thought Aronian could make a statement in this game but it was Anand who said, ¿Quién es tu Papá? to Aronian. Vishy's novelty on the black side of the Semi-Slav gave him a huge lead on the clock that was soon matched by a big advantage on the board. 17..c5 was the contribution of Anand's second, Nielsen, and it put Aronian in the tank for a long time. The superficial point is that Black needn't fear the pin on the d-file or the skewer 19.Bd6 because of 19..Qxh4 with mate threats. He solidifies his queenside pawn chain and takes his time collecting the c5 pawn. Unless White can do something quick he's just down a solid pawn. Aronian seemed to freeze in the headlights at first (Kh1 might eventually be necessary, but it really cut down on his options to play it immediately) and then overreacted (¿? Not sure there are better alternatives, really.) with a temporary knight sac. (Played, coincidentally, at the exact same time as Kramnik's, so two knights were hanging at the same time.) It wasn't enough to shake free from the black pawn bind, however. Anand found the nice 22..Be5! and White was forced to bury both of his bishops alive with 23.f4. 26..Qe6! was another star move, one that Aronian said he missed. His rook got locked up on h5 and eventually Anand collected the exchange and finished efficiently. The computer points out a wild try with 27.axb5!!, hanging the rook in midair. After 27..Qxd5 28.Bxc4 Qd4 29.Bd3 f5 30.Bxe4 White gets counterplay with his pair of passers. Black should be able to round them up, keeping a solid plus even if he has to give back the rook. Still, it's a great shot that gives Black a chance to make a mistake.

Gelfand and Grischuk were already watching the games from the sidelines. They played a short but interesting draw that liquidated into clearly drawn position hard to take issue with. 20..Nxe2+ could have kept things alive, but the two pieces always seem to come out on top over the rook in the long battle. Both players were questioned about short draws and Sofia rules later, and FIDE veep Azmaiparashvili (who arbitraged the draw offers in Sofia) made some noises about implementing anti-short-draw measures since "Sofia is one of the most successful tournaments in the world." Anand is quoted as saying "40% of the games end in draws, so we quickly get used to the criticism." Maybe a misquote, as 40% hasn't been the case at this level in decades. Recently Linares has seen from 65% to 79% with a freak low of 53% in 2006.

Other players were also asked, as Ian Rogers reports in his CLO reports, by far the best coming out so far. Fellow pro Leontxo Garcia's reports are now appearing on the official site, so things are looking up. They also have horrible tag-resized photos. If you right-click them and choose "view image" you can see them in full without the jaggies. (I was just told that the organizers have been bouncing checks to the staff, including the web staff, which explains a lot. Sigh.)

Svidler had an interesting new idea in the Marshall against Leko, and he tried for a long while to make something out of it. Leko held on and White's king was just unsafe enough to guarantee Black a perpetual if Svidler let his pieces get too far away. One spectacular early line GM Benjamin looked at on the ICC was 18.Ne4 Bh3 19.Bd1 Bxf1 20.Bxh5 Bd3 21.f3 f5 22.Bxe8 Rxe8 23.Bf4!! and White comes out ahead because the light-squared bishop is trapped! Amazing, but perhaps Svidler didn't like the looks of 19..Qf5. Everyone noticed that Black can't take the knight on move twenty or Bd1 will win the exchange. Leko could have avoided that by kicking the white queen to f2 with 19..Bh3 before going to f4.

Kasparov is touring Spain to launch the Spanish edition of How Life Imitates Chess so I didn't get much from him on the round other than a quick "nice game by Vishy." Nice report in El País (Spanish), if mostly about politics, with a good photo. He had a great radio appearance as well. They brought in Paco Vallejo Pons and had several callers from Linares to talk about his retirement there in March 2005. He also saw Spanish GM Miguel Illescas, who told me he has always been a Kasparov fan but it's been difficult because he's always found himself on the other side, first assisting the Deep Blue team and later seconding Kramnik!

Round 3 sees the big showdown, even if it's early yet. Did Kramnik bring van Wely to sharpen up his repertoire? Anand-Kramnik, Morozevich-Svidler, Leko-Gelfand, Grischuk-Aronian. Live games here. Video and more, plus live radio with GM Joel here.

Not much to say about round one, but that won't stop me from saying it. Four short draws started things off. Grischuk-Leko was the marathon of the bunch, clocking in at 28 moves. GM Marin has some analysis up at ChessBase, along with photos and video clips. As GMs inevitably are, he is understanding about the short draws: "If they agreed to a draw, it must be a forced draw," "the opponents know each other so well since childhood, so that the abrupt end is not completely illogical." To be fair, Marin does sound mildly disapproving at times, saying one final position is not 100% sure to be a draw and that the end of Kramnik-Svidler was "anything but drawish," which is something of an understatement.

Morozevich-Aronian was an interesting game that ended justly after accurate play. Christiansen was surprised by Morozevich's Qc2-Be4 plan instead of the natural e4. Gelfand played some very good defense against Anand's pawn-rush plan against the Petroff. In fact, Fritz was calling for a big advantage for Black after the remarkable move 16..c5!! The bishop on c4 is immune and Black has the initiative. Instead of the final move 22..Rxe1+, Gelfand could have grabbed a pawn with 22..Rxf4. It's opposite-colored bishops, but it looks significantly better for Black. There's a reason we don't often hear "killer instinct" and "Boris Gelfand" in the same sentence.

Grischuk-Leko followed Karjakin-Onischuk from a few months ago at Foros for 21 moves. Grischuk thought for a while about the consequent 17.Nxe5, but in the end avoided it just as Karjakin had. Leko's accurate 22..Re5 lift held the line. In the final position the black a-pawn can't be saved, but if White takes it his knight gets trapped. Marin wonders if White should have played on in the oppo-bishop ending after 28..Bxf4 29.Nc5 Bc8 30.Bc4 Bd6 31.Bxa6 Bxc5 32.Bxc8. But Black doesn't have to go into this and instead gets the better of things by trapping the knight again with 31..Bxa6. Svidler went for queenside pawn pushing against Kramnik's Semi-Slav and it paid off. Kramnik played the odd 22.Nh2 instead of the 22.Bd3 everyone was expecting. Just when things were getting interesting they agreed to a draw on move 22. Kasparov called their final position "probably the most interesting position of the entire day."

The official site is still a content-free zone, although their live game broadcast went smoothly yesterday by all reports, and congrats to them on that. They do finally have a results and pairings page up, copy-pasted from the ChessBase site. The ICC page is beefing up their content and has a daily free "game of the day" video, the first by Larry Christiansen. There is also a cool video montage by Macauley Peterson of the first day in Mexico. I did a rambling podcast wrap-up of the first day's action for them but I don't think they've put it anywhere. Probably just good taste on their part, but if you've got 30 minutes to kill and aren't put off by the shrill beginning (I calm down), you can download it here. For future rounds they will only be 10 minutes or so and will stick closer to the games and player comments.

The players are giving little press conferences after the rounds, which is great. But where are they? Is no one running them in full in text, audio, or video? Silly in this day and age. There are snippets in the Mexican press, at least. Mostly from La Jornada and EFE: Anand: "It was a good fight for the first day of action." "I made a mistake somewhere." Gelfand [joking]: "It could have been worse for both!" Kramnik: "Peter surprised me with a very good move." (Not specified of course; I assume 19..c5.) "I didn't start strong, but I tried to get into the game because things got complicated. A draw is fine because it's just the first of 14 rounds." Svidler was happy to have tripped up Kramnik and reach a good position, but couldn't maintain any advantage and agreed to a draw despite being in front of "an interesting board." Both Kramnik and Svidler said several aspects of the tournament could be improved. (I've heard at least two Russian reports from on-site that had bad things to say about the playing conditions. Not sure if that's what they were referring to though.) Grischuk: "A boring game. Leko defended well and I couldn't get the advantage I was looking for." Aronian: "We weren't looking to draw, but there weren't many options. It was a fighting game."

Today's second round: Aronian-Anand, Kramnik-Morozevich, Svidler-Leko, Gelfand-Grischuk. Kramnik and Moro have played some great battles in the past. And I hope Kramnik decides that skating through two whites to start the event would be a shame. Aronian would make a statement by getting some pressure on Anand.

Keep the coverage and analysis links coming. I don't have time to read even a fraction of them these days. GM Susan Polgar is live-blogging a few games. GM Ian Rogers is there on the scene and doing reports for Chess Life Online. Yay.

Just a few notes here and there. I got a note from Geoffrey Borg at Global Chess (which is of FIDE) on the recent troubles experienced by the official site for the Mexico City world championship. (Full note after the jump.) That doesn't explain the near total lack of content and the general incomprehensibility of the site, but at least it makes out like they are working hard on getting the live broadcast to work. It sounds like things are solid on a purely technical level, so let's hope the local flesh is willing and able.

Speaking of notes, I got one from Luke McShane the other day, though not about chess. But he was kind enough to confirm that he just graduated from Oxford and has started in on a real job, something involving money and the large buildings that house and trade it. Ah yes, banking. Sounds fishy and uncertain compared to professional chess, but we wish him luck.

Speaking of money, spend some of yours on this auction I put up last night on Ebay and promptly forgot about. It's for a new copy of the book Kasparov Against the World and it's hand-signed by Garry Kasparov. Good book, too. I'm donating all proceeds to the Feed Mig's Cats Foundation (FeMiCaFo) or Russian democracy, whichever bugs me more.

The first round of 14 starts today. The players: Anand, Kramnik, Aronian, Leko, Svidler, Morozevich, Grischuk, Gelfand. Play begins at 1400 local time, 1500 EDT (NY) time, 1900 GMT. After the canceled webcast of the press conference things took another disturbing turn when the opening ceremony was moved from the National Theater to the hotel playing venue at the last second yesterday. As far as I can tell, the pairings aren't even up at the official site, or anything else for that matter. No live game link yet. I fear this is going to be a long 16 days.

The first round: Kramnik-Svidler, Anand-Gelfand, Morozevich-Aronian, Grischuk-Leko. Full event pairings and even a dark video from the opening ceremony here at fideamerica.com. Picture galleries too. Rock on. It looks more like a lost celeb porn tape, but if you look carefully you'll see Kramnik and Vishy joking together. ht Santiago García Ramos. The first four rounds are played on the trot; the first free day is Monday the 17th. Schedule. The time control is 40/2, 20/1, 15'+30" to finish. Perfect.

Mark has a handy page at TWIC with the technical details of the event and some preview data addressing the official site's dubious "strongest tournament ever" claim, including some comments from Jeff Sonas. He also includes the players' classical results against the rest of the field over the past few years.

That chart gives Kramnik a slight edge over Anand. What matters most in my opinion is the level of aggression shown by the players. If everyone comes out fighting hard and there are many decisive games (i.e. nearing 50%), the winning chances tilt in favor of the more dynamic players like Anand and Aronian. If the field turns cautious and there are many short draws, the more conservative players like Kramnik, Leko, and Svidler will have excellent chances till the end. Kramnik has an uncanny ability to control a tournament in this way and Anand hasn't really shown a Kasparov-like ability to push an event in the other direction. (Topalov shows flashes of this but often by losing in the early rounds and requiring a madcap comeback.) I'd say only Kramnik, Anand, and Aronian have chances at +4 in this field. If +2 wins it's going to be a train wreck with tiebreaks and lots of non-game draws.

As ever, Morozevich is a wildcard. His results in category 17+ events are rarely good, but the last world championship event in Argentina was an exception, which is why he's in Mexico. He can beat anyone at any time, and will undoubtedly score more than few spectacular wins. But he usually adds a few big losses as well. My personal hopes are on Aronian to make the tournament interesting. If he comes out fighting and stays aggressive this could be a spectacular tournament. Otherwise I'm afraid that Kramnik, Anand, Leko, and Svidler will try to coast on class, take short draws when possible, and play for wins only when the prep is with them with white. Gelfand and Grischuk may have trouble keeping the pace in this field. I'd love to see Grischuk nail someone early though, it could really turn things over. Early upsets by the outsiders are what would really make for a good show, as usual. Then the favorites would have a rabbit to catch and 22-move draws become less palatable.

The great unmentionable is that Kramnik has much less to play for than the other seven players. The winner of this event is the world champion, but everyone knows he'll have to face Kramnik in a match to keep the title next year and then play another match against someone else very soon after that. Then the cycle settles down, supposedly. If Kramnik wins, he plays a rematch against Topalov and the winner of that plays a match against the Khanty-Mansyisk world cup winner in '09. The mere possibility that Kramnik can directly influence the name of his "challenger" (technically Kramnik would be the challenger) is horrible, so let's hope the compromising potential is kept to a minimum in the final rounds, if only to quell the chatter. A key late-round Kramnik loss to a fellow Russian contender could get ugly in, say, the Indian press. (They'll already be keeping a close eye on the results between the four Russian players.)

So, predictions please, and feel free to relay those of other sites. I went with Leko in San Luis, not expecting Topalov to put on blue and red tights and a cape. I assume at least 50% will vote for Anand, not at all unreasonably, and Kasparov went with the world #1 as well. I'm picking Aronian because I'm not betting any money and because it would mean it was a great tournament. Kramnik next, because while he doesn't really have to win, that just makes him even harder to beat. It's more a question of whether he'll add one to his normal +2 or lose one. I'm always rooting for Vishy, but the second-oldest player in the field will need to play his best to fend off this hungry pack.

So here we go! In the immortal words of Pancho Villa, "¡Andale andale, arriba arriba, vamos, vamanos muchachos, andale!" Or was that Speedy Gonzalez?

I suppose it's time to kick this fiesta off, no? The FIDE world championship tournament begins in Mexico City tomorrow. Round one begins at 1400 local time, or 3pm EDT, 7pm GMT. That is, it will begin if things on the ground are going better than they are in cyberspace. The official site has had uptime issues and has even more content issues. As far as I can tell, and I'm checking both the English and Spanish versions, nothing has been updated for many days. The countdown has passed and is still up, now in embarrassing negative numbers. Maybe HG Wells is one of the sponsors. Yesterday the site was supposed to broadcast a press conference with the players, but it was canceled at the last minute "due to technical difficulties." I would prepare to get used to that phrase.

I have bittersweet feelings about this because I was supposed to be involved in running the site. I went to Mexico City a year ago and spent several days consulting and outlining content and ways to slowly build the already pretty site into a content machine by the beginning of summer, perhaps using a few local events to test event coverage and broadcasting. I'm not going to air all the laundry, but I was hired and then things broke down after a few months when it became clear I wasn't going to have time to dedicate to doing a proper job. Unfortunately communications fell apart completely and the various manifestos I sent about what needed to happen and what I needed from their side went unanswered. Last I saw and heard, they are a bunch of really well-meaning guys who are doing their best. The problem, which is typical of chess events around the world, is that they hired their friends and chess guys instead of pros. (It's fine to have some loyal friends around, but not in critical positions.) With that I do not mean the look and feel of the site, the current edition of which is a hacked up Mambo version of the beautiful site the German firm Freiland made at the start and that was up a full year ago.

As ever, let us pray that at least the moves, results, and games get out alive. And who knows, maybe they are just laying low and will stun us with a great site and great coverage. I wish them the best, and not just because they hold our fate in their hands! I know the estimable, if often dry, Mihail Marin is supposed to be annotating because I sent him the wire transfer myself. There will be enough of our own attending that news and pics will get out at the usual sources eventually. ChessBase already has a nice report on the technical meeting by Ali Nihat Yazici. I'd love to go, especially since I used to live in Mexico and miss the place, but this is a crazy time for my work with Kasparov. The US edition of his book is coming out October 2 and he has a mini book tour and a tsunami of media appearances before and after. (I'll post a schedule of his TV and radio spots as well as his signings on the East Coast.) My participation will be limited to some radio and podcasting and the usual yammering here. I suspect that a certain Russian opposition politician won't be able to resist chiming in as usual, so keep your eyes peeled for that. (And I don't mean Vladimir Ryzhkov.)

Please keep this thread to the Mexico website and coverage in general. If you have links to content and coverage, post'em here. I've been reading the Mexican papers and a few have player comments that I'll translate. Later today I'll put up a tourney preview for all our predictions and comments that are actually about chess and chessplayers.

My first question, especially if you're there on site: 1) Are there any anti-cheating measures in place? The planned layout I saw had them playing "in the round" with spectators able to walk everywhere. Don't know if this is what's actually happening. Will they delay the broadcast of moves (and not using the MonRoi crash method)? Metal detectors? Bluetooth-sniffing dogs? I certainly hope they've called the Bulgarian ceiling-smashing crew to rip out all the cables in all the ceilings. Maybe that's what went wrong with the press conference broadcast.

Just like clockwork, every one hundred years the Czech town of Carlsbad hosts a big chess tournament. (1929 wasn't too shabby either though.) 100 years after the legendary Carlsbad event won by Akiba Rubinstein ahead of Maroczy, Leonhardt, Nimzowitsch, and Schlechter. Marshall could only manage an even score in the massive 20-round event. Chigorin, 57, struggled to 7.5 points. I'll try to dig out my copy of the tournament book; it must be around here somewhere. Check out item 3711 on this Edward Winter page for a famous unplayed variation from the 1907 event. Always on top of things, Czech-American GM Lubosh Kavalek has more on both the 1907 event and its book and the 2007 tourney in a recent Washington Post column.

This year's Czech Coal centenary tournament in Carlsbad is not nearly so grand, but it's a strong (cat. 17, 2654 avg.) round robin with eight players, including homegrown Czech star David Navara. Navara's rating took a nose-dive on the last list, a 65-point plummet all but unprecedented for a young riser of 22.

His countryman Viktor Laznicka is even younger, and he also scored the only win of the first round. The 19-year-old beat top seed Alexei Shirov on the black side of a complex Sicilian. Black poached the e5 pawn in preparation for an exchange sac, gaining a central pawn mass for ample compensation. The other four games were drawn, despite the fighting nature of the invitees. Akopian, Ponomariov, Movsesian, Korchnoi, and Timman all finished with a half point. The site above has live games at 1400 local time (8am EDT). There's a rest day on the 12th.

Four of six rounds of the Liverpool Summit match in Liverpool have been played and so far it's been more Ringo than the Beatles for the UK squad. Today their top board Mickey Adams fell to Zhang Pengxiang, the veteran of the Chinese team at an ancient 27 years of age. (As I said about a similarly youthful Azerbaijani squad a few years ago, they have to bring someone along to buy the beer.) It was a very nice game with a wandering white king that was eventually hunted down by Zhang. 25..d5! is a star move, suddenly turning the most harmless-looking chunk on the board, the c6-pawn, into a dangerous force. Bu Xiangzhi slowly dismantled Jones in the other decisive game of the day.

The score is now 15-9 in favor of China. No one on the UK team has a plus score and no one on the Chinese team is under 50%. The bright spot for the Britishers comes from Scotland via Georgia. Arakhamia-Grant, who won the UK women's title just a few weeks ago, won again in the women's event to bring her score to 3.5/4.

No one is running away with the open tournament alongside the summit match. There are three co-leaders with 5.5 after seven rounds and a massive pack on five. The leaders are top seed Daniel Fridman, Luxembourg's only GM, Alberto David, and Aussie IM David Smerdon.

Is it my imagination or are Chinese players put out to pasture if they hit their late twenties and cease to keep climbing the Elo ladder? (And/or as soon as younger, stronger players come up.) This is particularly noticeable with the women because there are so many strong players and apparently only so many slots for international play. Xu Yuhua won the women's FIDE KO Wch last year and hasn't played a game since, although it was reported early last year she was pregnant. Zhang Zhong, definitely not pregnant, only got one event this year, a match in Indonesia. Peng Xiaomin at 2590 (down from 2657 as pointed out below) disappeared from tourney play a few years ago. Former women's world champ Xie Jun doesn't play much but is active in various roles, including publishing. She was our contact for the Chinese edition of Kasparov's book, How Life Imitates Chess.

I hope the Chinese sports authority is finding them decent coaching positions or other jobs instead of discarding them, as happens with many of their other athletes, per this recent Time article.

Not that retirement for chessplayers in the West is a bouquet of roses, mind. But at least you know you're on your own and have freedom of movement. The Chinese are certainly to be complimented for their rapid success in chess, but there is a dark side to state-controlled sports machines, as we all know from the stories from the USSR chess scene. From the few reports we've heard on the ground in China, chess is still almost unknown among the general population so it's not like these players can go out and get freelance work as coaches, at least not in western chess. I'd like to believe a chess player forcibly retired at 27 has a better chance of finding a good job than a wrestler, although construction isn't a bad field to be in in China these days.

The Chinese chess team has become something of a touring troupe. After a dashing final-round rally to beat Russia by a point (even more factoring in the women's match), they immediately headed off to Liverpool to meet a UK team in a similar format. The Scheveningen matches, with "men's" and women's events, is the headline chess event at the 800th Anniversary Liverpool festival. There is also a strong open tournament.

As Elo would have us expect, this one probably isn't going be as competitive as Russia-China. They cut the number of women's boards to two, and the UK ladies are actually the higher rated, but the UK team is still giving up a lot of rating points overall. Mickey Adams is the highest-rated player in the event at 2724, but after Nigel Short at 2683 it's a fall to Rowson at 2599 and a plummet to the rest of the team of Pert, Jones, and Howell. (Perhaps new UK champ Jakob Aagaard isn't British enough yet.) The Brits will need whatever home-field advantage might mean in chess to keep things interesting at all.

China has obeyed my command to drop 13-year-old Hou Yifan into deeper waters of open (aka "men's") events instead of relegating her to being the perpetual top seed at women's events. With her addition, the Chinese team of Wang Yue, Bu Xiangzhi, Ni Hua, Zhang Pengxiang, and Wang Hao has an average age similar to that of a good bottle of Scotch (which they aren't old enough to drink in some places). The women's match, where they play each other three times to add up to the six rounds of the main event, has Jovanka Houska and new UK women's champ Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant facing Shen Yang and 16-year-old Ding Yixin.

After two rounds the only loss by the Chinese men's team was Jones' victory over Hou Yifan. The Chinese won three games in both rounds, so Adams and Short are going to have to pick up the pace to avoid the worst UK-China trade deficit since the days of tea for silver. (Or opium for silver if it goes the other way.) There are live games here, but check out the whole site.

Update: Checking to make sure the live games link worked, I saw the results for round three. Short and Adams apparently got my message during the round and duly won their games. Howell also won. Hou Yifan and Wang Yue won for China.

They have the time
The time of their life
I saw a man
He danced with his wife
In Chicago, my home town

Digesting with CEO Joel Berez and John Henderson of the ICC

(No, I'm not from Chicago. I just like the song.) If there's anything better than a trip it's a trip with free food. I spent the long Labor Day weekend in Chicago on family matters, tossing in a bit of tourism and chess schmoozing. I hadn't seen ICC CEO Joel Berez or old comrade in arms John Henderson since the 2005 US Championship in San Diego. These days you don't need to share an office to work together and the ICC has employees scattered all over the world. The Henderson One is headed back to Seattle, in fact, having become devoted to the weather there that reminds him of his native Scotland.

To toss in some content before heading to tournament calendar, how about a survey of your online chess activities? Do you pay to play online? How often and how many hours? Do you watch live events on a server or just official websites? What features do you want from your online experience?

I want a training mode that is a sort of delayed blindfold chess. One board with pieces would be X moves behind the actual position, which you follow via the move list. You make your moves on a little empty board. Like the "VisualEyes" exercises I make for the Ninja newsletters, but in a game. You are forced to keep the position in your head and you can set the difficulty from one move to as many as you like. Working on visualization isn't so much for your strength directly. But it makes just about every other form of training more effective. Most readers of chess books and magazines just skip from diagram to diagram and don't get much out of the analysis in between because they can't visualize and analyze usefully for more than a few moves beyond the diagram. Databases and online replay solve the problem literally by allowing you to zip through games and analysis while seeing every move. But this doesn't build those visualizations skills at all; in fact it causes them to atrophy.