February 2008 Archives

[Sorry for the delay. My electricity was out this morning, as it is every year when the snow melts and the cable pipes flood.]

The Linares tournament is back in Spain after a four-day break. Will it ever be in Morelia again? The organizers didn't sound too confident. Almost definitely not next year. Anand just beat Shirov for the second time to move to +3 and extend his lead. Ivanchuk again handled his clock the way a virgin handles a bra hook and flagged making his 40th move against Carlsen. Kudos to the kid for keeping the pressure on and reaching a sharp endgame, although the consensus was that White was better most of the way. Ivanchuk left himself 35 seconds for 18 moves and was of course totally lost when he flagged. Insane. That's Carlsen's third win in four Linares games against Ivanchuk. Radjabov-Leko was a fascinating game with a knight sac by Radjabov that turned into R+B+N+N vs Q+N. This was drawn in mutual fear on move 39 with seconds on both clocks. A pathetic result that instantly becomes a poster child for move minimums. Aronian played the nice 38.Rxe7+! shot against Topalov to avoid nastiness and seems to be getting the better of things in the only game still in progress. (1-0 Aronian after 65 moves. Anand now with a full-point lead over Aronian and Carlsen.)

The always exciting and ever-flighty Alexander Morozevich said in an interview with Sport Express that he won't be playing in the recently announced FIDE Grand Prix. Interview translation at ChessBase here.

The whole system for playing the world championship, of which this Grand Prix is a part, has seemed to me to be flawed from the start. Judge for yourselves: firstly, its length – it is almost a four year (!) cycle. In 2008, we begin the qualification for the 2011 match. This didn’t even happen back in the days of the rivalry between Botvinnik and Smyslov. Between the winners of the Grand Prix and the World Cup becoming known, and the world championship match taking place, there is an 18-month gap – in this time, the whole “pecking order” in world chess could change.

Secondly, its unwieldiness. In order to get to the final Candidates Match you have to take part in four (!) tournaments over the course of two years. For the leading players, this is a huge interference in their individual tournament plans.

But the final straw in my decision was that Global Chess [the company, to which FIDE has given responsibility for organising the whole thing. Y.V] has not not actually coped with organising the Grand Prix. The players are being required to sign a contract to take part in four tournaments, without having any definite information about where or when they will be held. I do not think it is right that I should agree in advance to play wherever they might tell me.

Many of your colleagues are prepared to play, even in such vague conditions…

As far as I know, Anand, Kramnik and Topalov have also refused, although they had planned to play. However, my position does not depend on anyone else’s opinion. I have already faced a similar position before the world championship knockout at Las Vegas in 1999. And I did not play then either…

Your numerous supporters will probably be disappointed that you are effectively opting out of the fight for the world championship…

No, by refusing to play in FIDE’s Grand Prix, I am not giving up the fight altogether. There is still another chance to fight for the title – the 2009 World Cup.

Yes, which is one of the numerous reasons the superfluous World Cup should be done away with. That's not he main issue, of course. It was inevitable that some of the the most independently-minded GMs would buck at the horror of having to show up to play on a consistent basis. After several decades of chaos the players are used to popping up whenever and wherever, playing as often or as little as they like. The free spirits, and Moro is certainly the freest of them, want the rewards without the responsibility that comes with professionalism. I sympathize with this attitude and as long as he can make a living doing things his way there shouldn't be anything wrong with that. Punitive measures should be limited to a lack of carrots, not the use of sticks. If you don't want either the rewards or the responsibility, as Morozevich seems to be saying, there should still be work available for a high-rated ronin out there (and not Har Zvi). But if the Grand Slam works out and the top events also decide they want professional standards, guaranteed appearances, and the increased drama and market bundling a cycle provides, times could get tough for the outcasts.

It will be interesting to see how much there is to Moro's statement about Anand, Topalov, and Kramnik. Global Chess seems to have done a decent job of working with the players and keeping them informed, certainly compared to the FIDE diktat glory days. That doesn't mean there's no room for constant improvement and I hope the ACP or some version of it can stay involved to protect the players' interests. Following the model of the tennis tour and just about every other sport you can name some individual freedoms are going to be lost in the interest of more money for the players (and the politicians, naturally). This will require a combination of begging, bribing, and bullying. Mostly, you need a campaign to make it clear this is in the players' best interests.

I don't usually bother with the various chess tidbits that pop up in the mainstream press, but I'm always up for a Luca Pacioli reference. He's best known for his contributions to modern accounting, which explains why the Italians are so far ahead of the rest of the world in totally screwing up anything to do with money. He also dabbled in chess, his c.1500 De ludo scacchorum booklet was discovered in 2006. Some wondered at the time if the illustrations were the work of a collaborator and tutee of Pacioli, Leonardo da Vinci, who nevertheless went on to a certain fame in other areas thanks largely to Tom Hanks. Now scholars are claiming that the chess diagrams are indeed the product of the hand that drew the Mona Lisa (obligatory Eduard Gufeld reference). (I've always been more fond of this one, myself.)

The king, queen, bishop and knight are all represented by elegant and distinctive symbols, coloured in black and red ink; so finely drawn that it soon became clear these must be the hand of another artist.

The researchers say they are confident these are the drawings of Leonardo and they have asked experts in the United States to make a second, independent assessment. The manuscript was discovered last year among thousands of volumes in a private library in Gorizzia, north-east Italy.

Pacioli and Leonardo were working and collaborating on each other's works around the year 1500. Leonardo is thought to have understood chess and maybe he even played it. He made a reference to a technical term from the game in one of his many manuscripts.

Hmm, what was that chess reference by da Vinci? To be honest, the only page I've seen doesn't exactly look like a work of art. Better than some chess publishers manage today perhaps, but not much more than a doodle someone without any artistic talent would make with some time. Perhaps they're talking about something else, or it looks different in person, or I'm not giving enough credit for the difference in tools used.

Zigomar confesses to reading Men's Vogue and points out in the comments that the Kasparov-Karpov duels have been selected for their list of the"10 Greatest Sports Rivalries." Men's Vogue?

The Morelia half of the 2008 Linares tournament has come to an end with a draw percentage under 50%. Three more decisive games in round seven tipped the balance. The immovable objects Kramnik and Svidler aren't there, which has something to do with it no doubt. But a similar field produced a similarly low 53% draw rate in 2006 and then a similar field produced a 68% level in 2007, about average for a supertournament these days. And you can't blame it all on Svidler's +1 -1 =12 as Aronian had the identical line. (Svidler had seven decisive games in 2006.) These things happen. We could see 66% draws in the Linares half, although that seems unlikely considering the uneven quality of play so far. Still, lots of exciting stuff.

The conventional wisdom is that the young players increase the combativeness level, but statistics show that Carlsen and Radjabov play almost as many sub-25-move draws with white as veterans Anand and Ivanchuk. The openings are certainly one real factor. The Sicilian is back, baby, and even if some of the modern lines with mutual kingside castling aren't exactly cutthroat, it's a heck of a lot sharper than just about any Petroff. Six of the 11 games beginning 1.e4 c5 have been decisive in Linares so far, with three wins for white and three for black. That's not bad, but in the seven 1..e5 games all but two were decisive! (3-2 in white's favor.) Topalov, speaking to the ICC's Macauley Peterson today in Morelia, suggested that the low draw percentage could be a result of the Sofia rules. They aren't in effect in Linares of course, but his thought is that the MTel event's ban on short draws is spilling over into the culture. I would like to believe that, but I don't. Plus, other than Topalov, of the 2008 Linares players only Anand has played in Sofia, in 2005 and 2006.

On the air with GM Benjamin I anointed round 7 the 1985 flashback round thanks to the openings. (And I even played clips from Madonna's "Like a Virgin" and, god help me, Wham's "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go," the two biggest hits from that year.) Anand and Ivanchuk -- who played their first game against each other in the U20 Ch in 1985 -- played the Scheveningen line Kasparov used against Karpov to take the world crown in that year. They both know it well and it showed. Ivanchuk defended accurately to earn the only draw of the round.

That left Vishy in clear first when Aronian's creativity got away from him against Carlsen. The Armenian first sacrificed a pawn and then played a sham queen sac that led to the loss of a piece and the game. The sober 19..c6 was what we expected. Carlsen finished accurately to move back up to an even score. Another bad game. Leko seemed unambitious against Topalov and might have been happy with a short draw after his marathon defense against Aronian in round six. But Topalov sniffed out a hint of a plus and he's not the type to smell smoke without going on a quest for fire. Leko got into time trouble and then made the suicidal decision to take two rooks against queen when 34.Rxd1 was only slightly worse for White. Hard to imagine The Rock getting rolled so easily, but a steady and typically energetic effort from Topalov. The loss sent Leko into the cellar on -2.

Shirov-Radjabov continued the "I Love the 80's" theme with a classical King's Indian. Radjabov has returned the KID to the deadly weapon status it enjoyed in Kasparov's hands back in the day. It's interesting that few other elite GMs have followed his lead, however. It takes balls and a huge amount of work to play the King's Indian and the trend is away from deep, concrete analysis as Kasparov pointed out in his last New In Chess article. Today's game was as much a flashback to the 1950's and the games of KID pioneers Taimanov and Najdorf. Radjabov seemed to be surprised by Shirov's use of 13.Nd3 instead of the more common Rc1 or a4. Black spent a long time before playing ..h5 and then deciding on a plan to sacrifice a kingside pawn. It wasn't clear how White was going to make progress but Shirov showed the way with the daring (but probably necessary) plan of 28.g4 and marching his pawns forward. A very nice win by Shirov, who joins Topalov in =2-3 at the half, a half-point behind Anand. Radjabov and Ivanchuk are on -1.

Round 8 is in Linares on Feb. 28, Thursday. The rounds start at 9:30am EST. (That's what it still says on the official website. One of the organizers en route back to Spain just told Macauley that the Linares rounds will be starting at 1600 local time, or 10am EST. That would be the latest round time for any major event I can remember. I'm sure we'll be able to confirm in plenty of time.)

The game Aronian-Leko in round six of the Linares/Morelia supertournament is useful for making several cases. First is the case that draws can be thrilling even without silly blunders. (Grischuk-Svidler from Mexico City was the last best example of this.) It also illustrates the difference between watching live and seeing the gamescore later. Especially since because our sport is a pathetic backwater that refuses to retain and exploit readily available technology by recording essential data like draw offers and time used per move. Without watching live, and without access to the move times, you wouldn't know that Peter Leko used 84 minutes on his ninth move against Levon Aronian! Not that it wasn't justified, considering the fact that Aronian was offering up his f2 pawn to the black queen with check with his fantastic 9.Qa4 novelty. The massive time investment by Leko added a great deal of tension to the rest of the game. Leko's epic think paid off and he found his way through the minefield with spectacularly accurate defensive play -- if avoiding traps can be called spectacular. This was a defensive performance for the ages by the Hungarian, who had to play almost instantly for 20 moves in a hair-raising position against the tactical sharpshooter Aronian. Amazing stuff that had GM Larry Christiansen and I riveted, although waiting for 84 minutes to get on with it was rather painful considering how slowly the other games developed.

We were waiting for Shirov to be punished for his insouciant kingside expansion but Ivanchuk couldn't find a knight configuration to exploit the holes. Shirov's gamble was justified and for the second round in a row he was getting the better of things with black before agreeing to a draw. Anand allowed Topalov to play a Bxg7 desperado but still held the draw comfortably. Or maybe it was Topalov holding the draw considering it was the first time in four blacks that Anand failed to win. That left Anand alone at the top of the crosstable on +2 when Aronian couldn't crack Leko.

The day's only decisive game (the first time we've seen fewer than two, remarkably) was Radjabov's instructive win over Carlsen. It looked at first like Carlsen's voodoo with black was once again in effect. He was about to go up a pawn by move 20 for the second day in a row. But it turned out Radjabov had evaluated the resulting position better -- as evidenced by Carlsen's long think before finally taking the pawn. By that point there's no good alternative for Black. White's activity and the bishop pair proved more than enough compensation for the pawn. Radjabov needed the pretty 27.Ba6! to prove it though (25..b6 is a better defense). The endgame was nearly impossible to hold after that and Radjabov pushed home to score his first win. He's now back to an even score and Carlsen returns to -1, where he joins Leko and Ivanchuk. All seven players have at least one win and one loss already.

Round 7 is the last in Mexico. The Linares side picks up on the 28th at 9:30am EST. Round 7: Anand-Ivanchuk, Shirov-Radjabov, Carlsen-Aronian, Leko-Topalov

Another unpredictable round in Morelia. Anand continued his perfect streak with black by beating Leko in an endgame. Carlsen performed an even less likely act by playing 1.e4 Nf6, Alekhine's Defense, against Topalov and being up a clean pawn by move 20! As Shaggy used to say, Zoinkers! Aronian and Shirov played a flashback 90's opening and drew out of mutual fear on move 18 in an interesting position. Radjabov-Ivanchuk was a sharp one as well, eventually drawn by repetition.

I had high hopes for Leko when he started out the event with a win. Now he's down to a minus score and losing advantageous endgames. You can only admire Anand's ability to create winning chances even when it looks like he's on the ropes. He almost never defends passively. Leko played an antique line against the Najdorf (Mecking-Evans, San Antonio 1972!) to reach a slightly superior endgame with bishop and two rooks versus knight and two rooks with pawns on both sides of the board. Having gotten what he wanted, play with no risk and and endgame at move 20, Leko soon proceeded to be outplayed by Anand, who had also played quite quickly through the opening. White must have decent chances with the connected pair of passers and a bishop, but Leko dawdled and couldn't seem to find a plan. Several lines looked quite promising for White, especially 34.Rc8 Rxc8 35.Bxc8 Ne1 36.Kd1!, which just looks winning. Black probably has to try 34..Ra7 and pray. Instead of pushing his pawns Leko wasted time grabbing the h7 pawn and moving his king. Anand happily accepted the tempi to push his e-pawn, which was quickly triumphant. Three wins in three blacks for Vishy, reviving memories of Kasparov's "black death" Linares in 1999, where he scored +5, 6/7 with the black pieces (plus two wins with white for 10.5/14).

Speaking of Black Death, Carlsen surprised Topalov with 1..Nf6, although he played the Alekhine's frequently at the recent World Blitz Championship. It was excellent psychological planning by the teen star, as he told us on the air after the round on ICC Chess.FM. "It's a line where he's not going to have a lot of preparation. And he has to play sharply to have any chance for advantage." (The same philosophy that led Kasparov to play the Dragon against Anand in their 1995 match. It's part bluff, but it's dangerous to accept.) Topalov's not usually one to back down from a challenge, but here he paid for trying to avoid the most challenging lines out of respect for potential prepared nastiness. Carlsen took advantage with aggressive play, getting everything Black can hope for with ..Bg4 and ..c5. Topalov probably missed the tactic 12..c5! 13.dxc5 Nxc3! The endgame was miserable for White and Carlsen again showed his formidable technique in grinding out the win. It's a little surprising Topalov didn't try to find a better way to give up the pawn. Perhaps 14.h3 or 14.Qb3. 15.h3 also looks better than the game, although Black keeps pressure.

I told Carlsen that he was making it look too easy with wins like this one and he confessed that it wasn't a very hard day for him, "mostly because of my opponent, not myself." He mentioned that he was particularly happy because he doesn't have very good record of recovering after losing his first decisive game in an event. I was a little surprised he would notice a stat like that. He went to a local sports club on the off day yesterday. GM Benjamin and I also spoke with Alexei Shirov after his short draw with Aronian. He spent a lot of time trying to remember this sharp old line from his preparation over ten years ago. He said he's feeling better after starting out with that horrible loss to Anand. He added that he got a little lucky against Topalov in the 4th round and confirmed our suspicions that there was nothing for White if Topalov doesn't blunder with ..Kg8. Great job by Macauley Peterson for grabbing them both and thanks to them for coming on live. Very cool. We also had a few words from IM Manuel Leon Hoyos, the young Mexican player who is seconding Ivanchuk again. He said Ivanchuk wasn't as angry as he thought he'd be after turning a win into a loss against Aronian in time trouble.

After five wild rounds, with at least two decisive games in each, Vishy Anand is in the clear lead on +2. Aronian is in second with 3/5. Shirov, Carlsen, and Topalov have even scores, the Bulgarian after losing his last two in a row. Radjabov is now the only winless player and is on -1 with Leko and Ivanchuk.

Round 6: Topalov-Anand, Aronian-Leko, Radjabov-Carlsen, Ivanchuk-Shirov. Topalov needs to bounce back, but in the words of Peter Svidler back in Linares 99 when he was about to play white against Kasparov, "it appears I have the wrong color." Macauley's awesome videos at the ICC; Great photo reports and hasty analysis at ChessBase.

Tidbits: Leko and Aronian also went to the Tres Marías sports club on the off day. Aronian with his trainer Sargissian and Leko with his wife Sofia. One Morelian reporter who followed them describes Aronian as somewhat tennis-challenged and more interested in bashing the ball around than trying to get it to land within the lines. He also adds that unlike last year, this time the players had to pay a small entry fee to get into the club. The local papers can be good for color but are amusingly unreliable for moves and game comments. One has this post-game comment from Carlsen: "This win was very important for me. In the last few games I'd lost a little confidence in myself so winning today is great. Probably he [Topalov] didn't play his best chess. Maybe he wasn't in his best form and I had more confidence. When I played king to f4 I knew I was winning." Unfortunately, Black never played ..Kf4 in the game, leaving us to wonder if he said ..f4 or ..Ke4, both of which could qualify.

Okay, this is getting out of hand. It seems every movie I watch these days has at least one chess scene. Sometimes incidental (prisoners are always playing in the prison scenes, etc.). But really, if Americans played as much chess as you'd think from watching Hollywood it would be more popular than that other common movie pastime, shooting people. I mention it again tonight because both movies I've seen on cable tonight had a chess scene. "The Lookout" contains a game between the brain-damaged protagonist of the film and his father. "Fast Food Nation" has a more incidental clip of a game between the Ethan Hawke character and his niece. There are all sorts of reasons why a chess habit is a useful trope but in most cases it just turns out the director or the actor play and thought it would be a cute prop. Either that or there's a conspiracy afoot.

The latest in our Cheating Hearts serial play comes from the fun and fascinating Freakonomics blog at the NY Times site. You may recall that in the eponymous book they used statistical analysis to prove that cheating was taking place in sumo wrestling (thrown matches) and among school teachers (improving students' test results by filling in the answers for them). This entry on cheating is less grounded but it's still an interesting topic. Many of the reader comments are also worth a look.

Is Cheating Good for Sports?

Maybe, however, this is just how we like it. As much as we profess to like the games for the games’ sake, perhaps cheating is part of the appeal, a natural extension of sport that people condemn on moral grounds but secretly embrace as what makes sports most compelling. For all the talk of how cheating “destroys the integrity of the game,” maybe that’s not true at all? Perhaps cheating actually adds a layer of interest — a cat-and-mouse element, a detective-story element — that complements the game?

Also, we love to applaud cheaters who have confessed their ways. Pettitte, for instance, got a hero’s welcome for talking about his HGH mistakes; Clemens, meanwhile, with every further denial seems to be soaking up ill will like a sponge. (Given the reception Pettitte got, I do wonder if Clemens is rethinking his retrenchment strategy; perhaps he will come forward someday and claim that he himself “misremembered” using HGH or steroids.) Just as the theological concept of the Resurrection is so powerful (see Tyler Cowen’s discussion here of the theology behind Freakonomics, a notion I find flattering, if exaggerated), and just as a harsh winter is followed by an insistent spring, I wonder if our interest in sport too springs eternal, not in spite of the cheating scandals, but because of them?

One of the comments points out that chicanery within the rules is often admired for being clever, but breaking the rules should be considered something else entirely. Of course most sports don't have as many possibilities for "off the board" action as chess seems create on a regular basis. You don't hear about many forfeits in pro sports, and those few rarely have anything to do with toilets or handshakes. The part about cheating adding a layer of interest is of course true. I'm just not sure the old maxim about there not being such a thing as bad publicity is true when it comes to these scandals, at least in chess. In baseball you can easily measure attendance and ad revenue to measure the impact.

Chess has no such metrics, but we're usually more concerned about how our little escapades play with the general public -- on those rare occasions when chess is heard about at all. I didn't see anyone worrying about chess fans leaving the game out of disgust when our world championship was almost derailed by a locked water closet. And of course, who would care if they did? There is still almost no direct connection between players and fans and politicians and fans and even the indirect connections like sponsorship have no grasp.

What, doesn't anybody want to win this thing? After five rounds every player has a loss. Topalov blundered to lose an endgame to Shirov (who, to be fair, played it with his usual excellence in this department). Ivanchuk took one of his usual trips to the moon and turned a forced win against Aronian into a tougher win and then into a loss with a few seconds left on his clock. Horrible. He did this a couple of times here last year as well, though then it was usually turning wins into draws. The lucky beneficiary, Aronian, is now in equal first with Topalov and Anand on +1. Shirov and Leko have even scores, and Radjabov, Ivanchuk, and Carlsen are all on -1 to complete the fearsome symmetry.

Round 5: Leko-Anand, Topalov-Carlsen, Aronian-Shirov, Radjabov-Ivanchuk.

I wonder if some of the players will be tempted by short draws to settle their nerves a bit after four wild rounds.

The Morelia half of the Linares tournament continued its wild ways in round three. Anand bounced back from his spectacular loss to Aronian to continue his paternalistic relationship with Magnus Carlsen with a fine win on the black side of the hyper-topical Anti-Moscow Semi-Slav. Classical stuff from Vishy: win with black, lose with white. Anand beat Carlsen in both games in Linares last year and last month at Corus. His four wins with two draws in classical play have people talking about Mikhail Tal's initial +4 against Bobby Fischer. (All collected at the 1959 candidates tournament.) Anand and Carlsen occasionally share a second in Peter Heine Nielsen, which might have made preparation somewhat awkward. Carlsen went for 9.Ne5 instead of the usual 9.Be2 and then 10.f3 instead of the h4 Aronian played in his loss to Anand in Mexico City last year. It's easy to say in hindsight (although GM de Firmian was skeptical at the time as well), but these positions look just dandy for Black. He has an extra pawn, a bind on the white bishops, and his only real trouble in these lines is getting mated by the occasional explosive brilliancy. (Grischuk-Svidler, Topalov-Kramnik) Carlsen scrambled for play but his exchange sac didn't get him further than a lost theoretical endgame.

Topalov beat co-leader Ivanchuk to move into clear first place with 2.5/3. It was a very interesting 6.Be3 Najdorf with a surprising shift in the opening. Ivanchuk played the novelty 15..a5 instead of the standard castles, after which white castles long and the usual battle is joined. We figured this would just transpose, but Topalov alertly responded with 16.a3! and proceeded to play on the queenside. But the battling Bulgarian wasn't ready to shift into Ulf Andersson mode just yet. He offered his c-pawn and never gave Ivanchuk time to get his king out of the center. Eventually Ivanchuk decided to sac a pawn in order to castle, but a lost endgame was just around the corner.

The other two games didn't come close to those one-sided efforts. Radjabov equalized against Aronian with the cute shot 14..Nxe3. White kept some Catalan-style pressure but not enough to stop the game from ending in a draw in 24 moves. Yet another Sicilian in Leko-Shirov, yay. Leko preferred the fashionable quiet line with kingside castling, boo. White got just about everything White wants in these positions with a good knight versus a bad bishop and domination against the backwards pawn on d6. (I referred to the position as "Leko porn" on the air at the time.) And yet Black had no trouble at all, as he opened the f-file and just left his bishop on e7. ("Bad bishops protect good pawns" as the saying goes.) It looked like Black's queenside pawns would be vulnerable, but apparently not vulnerable enough. Leko grabbed one and promptly offered a draw. It turns out White has to worry about his knight getting stuck after 37..d5 and Black is probably for choice, so a well-timed offer from Leko.

So Topalov's in the lead and Anand is in clear second. Believe it or not, after three rounds only one player is undefeated, Topalov, and two three players are without a win. Keep putting the chili in the players' food.

Alejandro Ramirez, the 20-year-old Costa Rican GM, came on and talked with us for a while. He just won the Morelia Open. The Morelia organizers said to the Spanish press that they are considering only hosting the event every two years because it's so expensive. Only Salvador Jara Guerrero, the president of the Morelia festival side, was speaking directly, but it sounded like he meant the Linares event itself going biannual. The other possibility he mentioned was having it every year, but rotating cities between years in Morelia. It does sound almost certain it won't be back in the Mexican city in 2009.

There's also an interesting interview with Spanish Linares organizer Francisco (Paco) Fernández Albalate, who explains the reason they split the event with Morelia in 2006. "When Kasparov retired the Linares tournament ran the risk of becoming just another tournament. With Kasparov's absence there was a vacuum and it was as if our tournament had become an orphan, as if it had been decapitated. There are many very strong players but none with the prestige of Kasparov." Albalate, who deeply involved in contracting the players, also talks about when and how they choose whom to invite. He laments that they couldn't invite Kamsky, who was in such great form at the end of 2007, because they'd already sent out all the invites.

About Kramnik not being there again: "He's played in Linares many times and in fact won it, but lately we haven't been able to come to an agreement with him for reasons that are difficult to explain since they belong to the confidential negotiations between the parties. But we will keep trying to get him to return to play. He's one of the best players in the world, but he's not irreplaceable." He went on to answer a question saying he didn't think it had anything to do with Topalov's presence. He added that he was sure the event would continue. He deflected, at length, a question about whether or not the event would be back in Morelia.

Round 4: Anand-Radjabov, Ivanchuk-Aronian, Carlsen-Leko, Shirov-Topalov.

Round two of Linares wasn't exactly a wild one. Most of the games developed very slowly, as you would expect with three of the four starting out 1.e4 e5 and the King's Gambit not being on the menu these days. The good news was nobody played the Petroff. The bad news is that Topalov played the Berlin against Radjabov. Oy. His plan to lure the younger player into complacency paid off when Radjabov hung his e5 pawn in midair, although he regrouped quickly. The open e-file helped White gain enough activity to even keep some pressure after he got his pawn back. Still, a little embarrassing to hang your e-pawn like that and if he says he didn't hang it I shan't believe him!

That wasn't nearly as surprising as the Marshall Gambit between Anand and Aronian. It looked like Vishy was consolidating with good winning chances, an opinion shared by GM Fedorowicz on Chess.FM. Aronian, following the gambit logic that it's better to be down two pawns with an attack than one pawn without one, threw the kitchen sink at the white king. Those who say the Marshall is a drawing weapon, and many say this and for some it is true, don't watch the way the Armenian tends to play it. His draws usually come from wild counterplay. The last thing we expected was for Vishy to slip up and get mated, especially since he was taking his time, using over five minutes on each of what turned out to be the decisive moves of the game. But the world champ blundered twice in a row and was suddenly mated. Great attacking idea from Aronian, giving up the h-pawn. A computer might be able to survive with white, but even the comps' initial suggestions don't lead to more than a draw by repetition. The rook infiltration ..Re2 and sacs on g3 are almost impossible to avoid. For example, 29.Bb6 Bxf1 30.Rxf1 fxg3 31.hxg3 Bxg3! 32.fxg3 Re2 33.Rf2 Re1+ 34.Rf1 Re2. If White has chances they probably need to come before 28.Qd3 Qh5 after which it's very difficult even to survive. Asked after the game, Aronian said he was sure he had "wonderful compensation" and that he thought he was winning for sure after 29..Re2. His constant optimism definitely seems warranted here, as the computers agree if you give them long enough.

The other decisive game of the day was Ivanchuk outfoxing Leko in an obscure line that had been discarded as giving White few chances for more than a draw. White gets two rooks for the queen but in a position where he has no development at all against an active queen and two bishops. It doesn't sound attractive, but Ivanchuk slowly worked his way free and Leko failed to come up with a plan, only getting himself into time trouble trying. Leko decided he could read the writing on the wall from a distance and resigned when it was clear he had no way to break through. Carlsen held off Shirov very smoothly, employing a change of citizenship defense to turn a Sicilian into a French with ..d5. White never got anything going against the isolated d-pawn.

So after two rounds we've had five decisive games and Topalov and Ivanchuk are in the lead with 1.5 points. Hard to say why the quality of the games has been so uneven. Seven of the eight players are coming from Corus (all but Shirov) but that's hardly new. Still, the long trip to Morelia has probably contributed to the spotty play this year and recent years.

Round 3: Leko-Shirov, Carlsen-Anand, Topalov-Ivanchuk, Aronian-Radjabov.

Things have already started out with a bang in Morelia-Linares 2008. That bang was the sound of the Mexico web server exploding even before the round starts at 4:30pm EST. (15:30 local time, 22:30 CET) ¡Viva la crappy server! This does not bode well, and you know how I like my bodes. The official site is here in English, assuming it returns from the great beyond. Everyone but Mark at TWIC seems to be using the rating list that was in effect when the players were invited instead of the current one. It's one thing for the official site to do that, it was put up before the Jan 08 list came out. But I think we should be as current as possible, especially considering how slow the FIDE list is. (Go go real-time ratings!)

Round 1: Shirov-Anand, Carlsen-Ivanchuk, Leko-Radjabov, Topalov-Aronian.

Carlsen beat Ivanchuk in both games at Linares last year. They drew at Corus last month. Shirov-Anand used to be a supertournament staple but Shirov's rating has fluctuated a lot in recent years and he hasn't been getting the invites. This is his first Linares since 2004 despite the fact he represents Spain. This is the second year in a row Spain's Vallejo Pons isn't playing. From 2002-2006 he finished last three times and next-to-last twice, scoring a total of four wins over the five events. Radjabov was supposed to play last year but he freaked out when his laptop was stolen from his hotel room and left the tournament when he couldn't get enough money from the organizers to stay. He was replaced by Ivanchuk. Glad to see him back this time, especially if he keeps playing the King's Indian. Also nice to see Shirov around, though he has an unfortunate habit of coming in last in Linares. I think he's done it four times in nine appearances.

We'll see if Aronian and Carlsen can put together back-to-back solid performances. I'm not so sure either of them are that consistent yet, so the safe money is on Anand, as usual. I also think Topalov is due for a return to form. I don't expect him to throw away many pieces in the opening this time around. I'd give Vishy and Topy the best chances of hitting the +3 that has been enough to win in this age of parity. The shock will be if the winner is not one of those four players. Maybe Radjabov, but I'd qualify the other three as underdogs for different reasons. (Unstable, unstable, too stable.)

Photo report at ChessBase. Opening video by Macauley Peterson at Chess.FM, where I'll be on live busting out some trivia prizes from New In Chess, among other things, assuming the official site can actually get the moves out. (What the heck, we can do trivia even without the games.) All the pairings here at TWIC. Anand-Topalov in the final round might be important...

UPDATE:

Wow, what a round. A combative, strange round of chess with three decisive games. The Sicilian is back! 3/4 games, remarkably. Anand played a traditional ..Rxc3 sac against Shirov, who failed to put together any coherent resistance at all. (See Movsesian-Kasparov and countless other games with the thematic ..Rxc3.) He just couldn't find a plan and fell into horrible time trouble before getting mated. Nice play by Anand but this was more of a Shirov loss. He may be feeling some nerves in his first Linares since 2004. Said Anand after the game, "I thought my exchange sac was quite reasonable, but I have to check it now." GM Har Zvi didn't like 18.Bxe7, much preferring 18.Bd2. Aronian also misplayed his clock in absurd fashion. He ended up with ten minutes for 20 moves in a difficult position against Topalov and it all fell apart when cool defense might have saved things.

Radjabov must have missed something against Leko in the Sveshnikov they both know so well. These positions are always held together with tape and wire for Black. 28.Be6! is a nice trick, threatening Nc4. Radjabov took a poisoned pawn on c3 and got mauled instead of playing ..d5 and suffering for a long time. Carlsen looked much better against Ivanchuk. The long grind GM Har Zvi and I were expecting on ICC Chess.FM never materialized when Carlsen apparently missed 29..Qb6 and if anyone is better after the swaps, it's Black. Chucky, of course, was in bad time trouble and it ended abruptly in a repetition.

I almost gave in to my sensationalist side and went with the headline pull quote used by most of the Spanish-language papers. To a one they go with some variation of "Anand rates Kasparov ahead of Fischer." Fair enough, but the Anand's EFE interview is more interesting than that. He just arrived in Mexico for the Morelia-Linares supertournament, which he won last year. Round one is on Friday the 15th. Here's my translation of the interview. Feel free to poach it but I'd appreciate a link for the effort.

Q: On February 14th you begin the defense of your Linares-Morelia title. Who is the favorite for you?

A: There are eight players of the highest level but if I have to pick someone I'd say Levon Aronian, who just won in Wijk aan Zee. I prefer to take it round by round. There's no dominant player, like when (Garry) Kasparov was around. Now you have to fight tournament by tournament.

Q: But the Elo list marks you as the favorite.

A: When you sit down to play the differences between one player and another don't appear on the Elo list. Just look at Aronian and Carlsen, who aren't in the top eight on the rating list but nevertheless just won Wijk aan Zee.

Q: What do you think of the youngster Carlsen? At 17 does he already have the qualities to be world champion?

A: Magnus has developed very quickly. He will be a great champion, without a doubt. He plays with great maturity, not like a lad of 17. He has a huge talent, but I'd still say Aronian is the favorite, although just by a bit.

Q: It seems like Mexico gives you good vibes.

A: Yes indeed. I've won all three tournaments I've played in this country and I feel very comfortable here. I like everything: the people, the climate, the food, and, above all, the chess fans, who treat me very well.

Q: How do you prepare for tournaments?

A: Along with theoretical study, which I usually do in the afternoons, I spend two hours in the gym in the morning. One day I do resistance exercises and the next day strength exercises. Sometimes I ride a bicycle. As a fan I like soccer -- I'm a Real Madrid supporter -- car racing, and tennis.

Q: Do you consider yourself a "child" of the historic Fischer-Spassky encounter in Reykjavik in 1972?

A: I was three years old then and I wasn't precocious enough to follow it, but later, once my mother (Susila Viswanathan) taught me to play when I was six, I studied those games and Fischer the man as well. I consider him a genius who confronted a gigantic country like the Soviet Union on his own.

Q: Do you consider him the greatest ever?

A: He was a genius, and his game, along with having great beauty, was very simple to understand; he did everything easily. He and Kasparov were the greatest in history, but I judge Kasparov as a little ahead. Fischer was a phenomenon from 1970 to 1972 while Kasparov was on top for many years.

Q: You became famous for the speed of your play. Have you lost speed over the years?

A: I'm still winning rapid tournaments and I have better results than Kasparov himself in rapid games. I think I've kept my speed. Even when I spend more time thinking I don't find better moves.

Q: In October you'll have to defend the world championship crown against Kramnik in Bonn, in twelve games. Kramnik gives the impression that he's not at his best these days. [?! -Mig]

A: But in October he'll be a powerful rival because he's very strong in matches. He knows how to prepare very well to come up with ideas at home. I'll also be studying in order to surprise him with a few novelties.

Q: Is it necessary to be a little crazy to become a great chess champion?

A: No. That's a myth. What happens is that the media focuses a lot on the exceptions, but the great majority of players are normal people.

Q: Fischer, Korchnoi, and others used to always bring up scandals about trifles like the chair, the lights, and the nearness of the audience. Do you have any such manias when you sit down at the board?

A: I don't think so. If anything, I might use the same pen that I used when I won a great victory, or wear a special shirt that Aruna puts out for me, but I couldn't care less about the chairs, the table, the board, and the pieces. I have a great ability to concentrate and nothing disturbs me.

Good stuff from the Vish, as usual. But I still think he's the favorite.

The American sports world has a famous lull between the Superbowl (New York!) and the college basketball "March Madness" playoffs. Chess doesn't suffer because we have Linares, which begins on February 15 in Morelia, Mexico. The first half of seven rounds runs through the 23rd and takes a five day break before going from the 28th till March 7th in Spain (leap year!). I'm a little surprised the split format continued this year, but I guess money speaks louder than the aggravation the two sides expressed with each other last year over broadcast rights and other details. This is coming out in little ways, it seems, such as maintaining entirely separate websites for the two tournament halves. The Mexican site doesn't even show the game schedule of the Linares half! [The calendar page has now been updated with a an incorrectly labeled ("Morelia") live link to the Linares half.] The players are Anand, Topalov, Ivanchuk, Leko, Aronian, Shirov, Radjabov, Carlsen.

I'll rub my lamp and ask for three Linares wishes. 1) That Shirov keeps his form up. 2) That Leko shows us something other than how to maintain a 2750 rating while asleep. 3) That Sergey Karjakin gets some good invitations so we can watch his duel with Carlsen continue to develop. They are the same age and have tracked each other up the rating list very closely (now Carlsen 2733 and Karjakin 2732, 13th and 14th). And yet in the past year and half Carlsen has played 56 games against superelite players rated 2750+. In that same time span Karjakin has played five such games. No, that's not a typo. (Carlsen directly earned a dozen of those by qualifying for the candidates where he faced Aronian.) So while it's true Carlsen has shown us much more, he's also had many more chances. Karjakin suffers from issues of nationality and geography since his Ukrainian compatriots Ivanchuk, Ponomariov, and Volokitin are also fighting for elite invites. And don't forget, blondes have more fun! This is no dig on the mighty Magnus of course, and after his amazing Linares show last year and equal first at Corus last month, there won't be any talk of an upset no matter how well he does this year, even though he's the lowest-rated player! Hmm, this wasn't supposed to be a Linares preview, but there ya go.

Timofeev just won the Moscow Open, taking clear first by beating the streaking (clothed) Inarkiev in the final round. There was some ugly time trouble in the bitter endgame, at least that's what I assume. Unless I've really lost it, 78..f4 forces the last white pawn off for a trivial draw. There were a few spectacular final-round games as the event lived up to the bloodthirsty reputation of these giant Russian opens. Moiseenko-Kuzubov, Efimenko-Smirnov, and Tregubov-Kurnosov were all great TOYE games (Turn Off Your Engine) games. Sit back and enjoy the wild complications for a full-brain workout. Chess is hard. Ninja commentator Irina Krush fell in the last round of the big women's open, dropping her back in the giant 6/9 pack after spending the entire event near the leaders.

My homeboy and regular ICC Chess.FM pilot Joel Benjamin is guest blogging over at the NY Times Gambit blog. Perhaps a permanent gig? I stopped reading it when it started treating the moronic Sloan lawsuit and similar USCF-related idiocy as regular chess news. Anyone can sue anybody. If someone wins or loses, that might be news. (Might.) Feeding a troll is feeding a troll whether it's in an obscure message board or the New York Times. I'd be happy to see a focus on bringing more chess to the masses instead of waving dirty laundry around every time a USCF politician soils his drawers. By the way, nobody has sent me a copy but I hear that Joel's long-awaited new book is a masterpiece.

Speaking of Dylan's blog, he points out that the FIDE Grand Prix won't be hosting its events in Asia or the Americas, as originally proposed. That's a valid complaint, although you go where the sponsorship is. If Global Chess couldn't find anyone they can't be expected to subsidize it entirely. But it reminded me that the old GMA World Cup cycle of the late 80's also had players from different regions, a valuable element for global promotion. Gambit also has an item on the new FIDE trainer titles with good legwork interviewing people about them.

HELP WANTED: I'm looking for help with two entirely unrelated items that have nothing to do with chess, or at least little. One, a Frenchperson to translate a brief text from English into French. (It's for the French part of my family so I can't ask them.) [Mercy buckets for the help, all!] Two, know anyone who is an expert at the online game Battlefield 2142? Know someone who is? A good friend's newbie son is looking to join up with some strong players. If you are someone you know can help out I can promise a reward any chessplayer would be delighted with.

FIDE and its commercial arm Global Chess BV have announced the 2008/09 Grand Prix cycle. It's three classical, 14-player round-robins in 08 and three more in 09 from a field of 21 total players. (Cities and dates here.) The winner then faces the World Cup winner for the right to become the world championship challenger. (The World Cup KO is the unkillable vampire beloved of Ilyumzhinov and so continues to plague our existence.) I got a peek at the framework and prize money in Amsterdam a week ago and it's an impressive project. There are still a few kinks that might have to be worked out since the grand prize is such a big one. Namely, imagine a situation in which the two leaders aren't playing in the final event. Or only one of them is.

A formal series of pro events with standardized rules, players, and promotion is a major step for the chess world. It's all part of a real cycle that the world can learn to expect and trust as the real deal. Of course this isn't the first time, as those who remember the GMA World Cup series well know. Lubomir Kavalek was the main man on the organization scene then; now it's Global Chess with Geoffrey Borg and Bessel Kok. The money is very good and we'll see if it's enough to guarantee all the top players' participation. Years of pseudo-professional organizing (old-boy network, no standards from event to event or year to year, haggling for appearance fees instead of prizes, come-and-go sponsorship, etc.) has led to pseudo-professionalism among the players. It has its chummy charms, but it's not what a professional sport is made of.

What's the wish list for making this more than "just" a series of great chess events? How about a video team to produce a poker-style show with highlights from each event? Not talking the quick clips that appear nearly instantly now, as nice as they are. But good conditions for filming, including access to the players, serious post-production and editing with interviews, drama, voice-overs, and analysis. And yes, advertisements. Push it on the web at first, if nowhere else. Chess is too difficult to ever penetrate ESPN regularly as poker has, but there are more outlets now and web advertising is nothing to sneeze at. 100,000 downloads at a targeted, affluent demographic wouldn't suck.

It's all well and good for the super-elite guys to have more events than they can handle these days, but what about poor Boris Six-pack? The top 20 has the Grand Slam and the soon-to-be-announced FIDE World Cup cycle. If things go as planned, it will be hard to find enough free space in the calendar, what with all the rapid events squeezed in. The trickle-down theory of economics never really worked on a national scale. (Give rich people more money and they tend to keep it. That's why they're rich.) One of my staple elitist beliefs in the chess world is that for #100 to make $50,000 a year in prize money, #10 has to be making $500,000, the way it is in other individual sports. To mangle a food metaphor, trying to spread a small pie thinly is never going to happen.

There is still a very important place for big open tournaments, both those of the US pay-to-play model in which amateurs subsidize the pros and those with corporate sponsorship. Nowadays many combine these models. Hikaru Nakamura just triumphed in Gibraltar and now an even stronger event is underway, the Moscow Open. Not to be confused with the equally powerful Aeroflot Open, which also takes place in Moscow in a week or so. Many die-hards are playing in both events. (The Chinese squad went to Gibraltar and doesn't seem to be showing up for either Moscow event.) There are dozens of GMs playing in Moscow now and after four rounds only Riazantsev has a perfect score. A few Yankees have made the trip, including Gregory Kaidanov, Josh Friedel, and my recent rijsttafel companion David Pruess. He went to Moscow from Amsterdam with ChessNinja Black Belt annotator and my fellow Brooklynite Irina Krush, who is playing in a special women-only open, where she's the fifth seed and near the lead with 3.5/4.

The official site has photos and entertainingly Russified English reports and captions. Someone tell the photographer to set his white balance to "fluorescent" instead of auto. That's the #1 mistake people make with digital cameras, not changing the white balance indoors. Auto is fine if it's one in the afternoon outside in the sun, or if you're in close flash range. It looks like some the players got a free case of jaundice with entry. Would be nice to get more games for download. TWIC has a handful from each day. ChessBase has a handy summary of the tournament with some pics. It's nine rounds, concluding on the 10th. The first prize is around $20K.