BUGS!! Too bad there is not a RAID spray for those!

the link on the official website is wrong.
You can follow the games online on
http://www.aeroflotchess.com/online/

In the female competition it looks like the Kosintseva sisters played each other and managed to last 9 moves before agreeing to a draw :/ .

Maybe Svidler will be motivated to win this time? It'd be nice to see Morozevich get a good result. Grischuk adds to the mix: he could pull off a big score. And one should not discount Alekseev's chances, who seems to get consistantly good results.

It will be a contest to rack up the most points against the likes of Amonatov, Vitjugov, Rychagov, and Timofeev. A nice mix of rabbits to feed the scores of the top players.

K sisters are getting ugly before hers 25 !

One of the rabbits beats 'Peter the Great' as a black no less...

Svidler lost with white to Rychagov.

A few comments/questions about Svidler's loss and the tournament:

1. Never seen Nc5 before. What was that? After I saw that move, I began wondering whether Rychakov was so weak that he deserved that, and Rychakov answered my question (he wasn't).
2. I'm not sure whether Peter's early loss will fire him up or turn him into the perpetual drawing machine that he sometimes likes to be.
3. Do the less famous Russians have some bad blood for their more known counterparts? Svidler and Timofeev? I could have sworn that Timofeev was on the victim's end of some thirst for vengeance - what was most hilarious was he allowed it to get played out to mate!

4. They should change the tournament format to Morozevich against everyone else. That would make it far more interesting. Bxa3!? and the ensuing complications were more fun that anything else (well, I will have to look at the slaughter of Timofeev once more...)

Laj

Look at the final Amonatov combo, very neat!

Yah, the Chessmind blog also covers it. good stuff.

Interesting to see Rytchagov score like that. He's not that bad, although I was surprised to see him even in the superfinal.

Met him at the Can Open in Ottawa this past July. Nice guy, very happy-go-lucky and easy going. Had to be told how a simul works, though. I think he'd never done one before, or even been at one.

"Rychagov levers Svidler" - those who know Russian will understand.

Slightly off-topic -- apparently Anand and Kramnik had agreed to terms of the WCC match next year Oct 11-30. As reported by CHESSBASE.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4334

D.

Totally off-topic, but TIME magazine just named Putin their "Person of the Year".

Off topic Kramnik V Anand announced on Kramnik's website for October in Germany.....
http://www.kramnik.com/default.aspx

the rabbits are doing fine !!

>>> Totally off-topic, but TIME magazine just named Putin their "Person of the Year".

quote from www.time.com:
"He stands, above all, for stability - stability before freedom, stability before choice, stability in a country that has hardly seen it for a hundred years. Whether he becomes more like the man for whom his grandfather prepared blinis- who himself was twice TIME's Person of the Year - or like Peter the Great, the historical figure he most admires; whether he proves to be a reformer or an autocrat who takes Russia back to an era of repression - this we will know only over the next decade. At significant cost to the principles and ideas that free nations prize, he has performed an extraordinary feat of leadership in imposing stability on a nation that has rarely known it and brought Russia back to the table of world power. For that reason, Vladimir Putin is TIME's 2007 Person of the Year."

WTF?

Disgusting excuse to make somebody "Person of the Year".

I don't think the reasons are that disgusting. For sure, Putin is in no way a great guy, but as a leader, he's one of the best. Intelligent, ruthless, and charismatic, he has all the qualities of a real leader. I mean, the move to prime minister is just pure brilliance. It's refreshing to see a competent leader once a while, considering that most of them nowadays are somewhat inept.

PS. The above comments doesn't mean that I revered or admired Putin in any way, shape, or form.

The Person of the Year is the person (or idea) that "for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year."

So in 1938, 39, 40, 41, and 42 the people were Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin again. In 56 and 57 we had Hungarian Freedom Fighter, and Nikita Kurshchev, with Charles De Gaulle and Eisenhower in 58 and 59. 1977 was Anwar Sadat and 79 was the Ayatollah Khomeini.

The honour went to The Computer in 82, The Endangered Earth in 88, and The Peacemakers in 93. Political choices were Newt Gingrich in 95 and Bill Clinton and Kenneth Starr in 1998. In 2004 it was G.W. Bush, and in 2006 it was "You".

So, the key phrase is "for better or worse". Incidentally, I'm surprised the nuclear bomb didn't ever make it onto the list.

In today's game vs. Tomashevsky, Morozevich missed a mate in 2! (unless the score is wrong): instead of ...Qf4 on his last move he could've simply played...Qe3+; Kf1, Rg1 mate. Was he in time pressure? And after his ...Qf4, instead of resigning (though it does look bleak) White could've played Kf1 and if then ...Qe3; Rf2 at least holds off the hordes for a moment or 2...
seemed like Moro actually lost a p in the opening, or was it really a gambit of sorts? Anyone venture a guess...?

Daniel J. Andrews,
Points well taken (though most of those dates are from way back).

I still think Time Magazine's reasons are dubious.
(And it's debatable if Putin deserves it even to Times' own criteria. He's the most influential in Russia, doh, but the rest of the world? And if they want to "reward" dictators, well, there are many running around in the world. Did they give it to Saddam? The 9/11 bombers? Those had a pretty serious impact in the world I would think.)

Most people will see "Person of the Year" as a reward, an accomplishment.
They could also have given him the title "Anti-Person of the Year" or some such, it would have been lot more appropriate in Putin's case imo. At least then people would stop and think about it _in the way intended_. (If that's really what Time Magazine wants of course.)

True, trm, he is influential in Russia, and if Time was looking for very influential you'd think Saddam might have been voted in somewhere (perhaps they gave it GW Bush instead of Saddam).

Richard Fireman,
Moro did not just 'lose' a pawn, he got strong pressure on the white squares.
White was playing a reversed Benoni.
In the Benoni it is always risky to win the 'e' pawn if you have to exchange the fianchetto bishop for the knight for that.

Fireman, on Qe3+, Black loses his Rook. Moro played superlatively, and unlike in G1, did not get lost in TT.

In Kovalevskaya-Girya nice underpromotion by black and then black demonstrated how to mate with B+N

What beautiful games by the black pieces in round four, especially Morozevich(of course) and Amonatov, who played the black side of that King's indian like i have also tried wothout fruition. Bravo, wish there were nore mens games because the womens games are moot.

moro is playing a trademark madness again. Lets see what happens quite unclear

omigawd, Moro played a game that was as difficult to understand as it was beautiful. Switching from flank to flank, then to the centre. Gosh, this dude rocks.

Aren't exchange slav games supposed to end in a dull draw?

Look at the final Amonatov combo, very neat!
http://www.videosearchtool.info

Richard Fireman,
Moro did not just 'lose' a pawn, he got strong pressure on the white squares.
White was playing a reversed Benoni.
In the Benoni it is always risky to win the 'e' pawn if you have to exchange the fianchetto bishop for the knight for that.

http://www.videosearchtool.info

I get the feeling after today's game vs. Grischuk that Morozevich might just be re-inspired by the new FIDE cycle and now actually believes he can be World Champion again.

Laj

Unbelievable play by Moro, truly a great for the ages. He is making this grueling tournament look like he's giving a simul. What a chess god. Let us all give thanks to his oriwess and style.

Svidler bites the dust. I agree, John Darius. I can't tell whether everyone planned to lose to Morozevich, but in my humble opinion, this result is different from the usual "Moro beats up on weaker competition" because he is beating the *best* Russian players.

Laj

I am also extremely impressed by Moro's achievement, but fear I am unable to "give thanks to his oriwess". (Honestly, I can't figure out what this means.)

OK, the tornado has been slowed by Dreev. The interesting thing is that Dreev was better almost throughout the game and had some interesting Nxc2 combos that might have ended the game earlier.

I guess Moro's performance is now back to his usual fare (though he is the No. 1 seed).

Come on, Moro! Stop being so frustrating!

By the way, anyone know what happened to Alekseev?

Knallo, I think 'wess' is a typo for 'ginality'. I can't think of any other explanation.

Anyone who wants to know why Moro will never be world champion doesn't have to look too much father than today's game. Funny how having no opening prep is always a bigger handicap with White than Black.

To the chap who thought the recent FIDE Mickey Mouse World Cup Championship Knockout (not sure if I have the title exactly right) had inspired Moro - seems curious that this inspiration expressed itself by him refusing to enter the said FIDEMMWCCKO for fear of winning and of having to play the lovely Topalov in Sofia.

prowess?

I give up, you people who could not leave with your shoes against a hustler on Younge street, critisize Moro for his inginuity and then you critisize players like sVIDLER AND lEKO BECAUSE THEY DRAW TOO MUCH????????? nOT E VERYONE IS kASPAROV, APPRECIATE THESE PLAYERS FOR WHAT THEY ARE, BETTER THAN WE WILL EVER BE, AND APPRECIATE THEM INSTEAD OF COMPLAING. Sorry for spelling my fi9rst language is Polish. Have good lives....

rdh,

I usually don't respond to people who don't refer to me by name, but I'll make an exception. I think (though I might be wrong) that Morozevich's choice was influenced partly by his performance at Morelia and his rating (both of which I think seed him into an advanced stage of the next qualifiers automatically), as I see neither Leko (who should probably have played) nor Gelfand playing.

But on the other hand, I was obviously joking, since I considered this streak more fantastic than some of Morozevich's other streaks, but your tone seems to imply a personal problem with Morozevich. Feel free to take it up with him!

Cheers,
Laj

john darius,

Does the Polish language involve inserting random numbers into words "fi9rst" or capitalizing vast swaths of them?

If you don't want to waste your time writing your stuff why should we waste our time reading it?