April 2008 Archives

With apologies to Bruce Lee. Just when you thought it was safe to bash the Sveshnikov, the Dragon Sicilian has reappeared in Baku. Grischuk dealt it for an easy draw against Bacrot in the 6th round and Carlsen won with the Dragon in the next round against Radjabov. Great to see this sharp line back for another whirl. The last time a 2650+ played the Dragon was Zvjaginsev's 23-move loss to Rublevsky's quiet line in the Russian Team Ch that just finished a few weeks ago. Nakamura has used it to good effect in the past year. Carlsen tried the Dragon a few times when he was winning the Corus C back in 2004, but it's hard to say why the Dragon bug bit Grischuk, who hasn't played it in a serious tournament before.

As often happens when White is surprised by something sharp, (see the Dragon's first appearance in the 1995 Kasparov-Anand match) Bacrot played a tepid line that allowed Grischuk to equalize easily. Radjabov, perhaps now forewarned, didn't back down and played the Yugoslav against Carlsen, but he lost a typically double-edged and sacrificial battle. The comp sez Radjabov could have scammed an undeserved perpetual check draw with 32.Qd7. He tried the same thing with 32.Qf3+ but ran out of checks.

This first Grand Prix tournament has turned into a real battle. Most of the favorites have been tagged for losses while even the tail-enders have proven to be dangerous. Ivan Cheparinov is trying to show his Bulgarian boss's trademark late surge after starting the event with a rare Audi. He has come back to win two against Inarkiev and Mamedyarov to dig out of the cellar. That place is now occupied by David Navara, the only winless player. Leaders Gashimov (with wins over Kamsky and Svidler), Wang Yue, and Grischuk are all +2 undefeated after eight rounds with five to play. Carlsen and Kamsky are a half-point back.

Quite a few nice games in this hard-fought event. Svidler hasn't attacked anything bigger than a ham sandwich in a while so it was nice to see him show the old fire and rip into Karjakin for his sole win. Lots of interviews and other material on the official site.

Missus Mig and I are currently enjoying a last-trip-before-baby fling in Paris. And though our hotel has wee-fee, as it's pronounced in the quaint local idiom, chess and blogging aren't tops on the agenda.

Hmm, maybe if I can play a few games in the park and annotate them I can write this trip off as a business expense.

The kids are all right in the first new FIDE Grand Prix tournament. The 14-player all-play-all got underway today in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan and the birthplace of a certain Garry Kimovich Kasparov. (And Emil Sutovsky, just so he doesn't feel left out.) Not all seven games were action-packed, but overall it was an exciting first round. The many young guns in the event showed they came to play, although only two games were decisive.

One win was by the not-so-young American, former retiree Gata Kamsky. My Brooklyn homie managed to outplay Inarkiev, who gave up a piece for a strong initiative but couldn't follow up. Worries about Kamsky's openings might be past their expiration date. He reeled of 20 moves of Lopez until Inarkiev played the wacky 22.Kh1, which looks like a wasted tempo to me. Or maybe he foresaw 40.Qg1, ha ha. Was 35.Bd4+ just a blunder? Keeping the piece with a queen check instead looks quite strong. Nice defense and counterattack by Kamsky when he got his chance. The other win was Grischuk taking out Cheparinov on the black side of a French Poisoned Pawn. Haven't seen one of these at a supertournament in a long time. Timman and Korchnoi used to suffer a lot in these lines.

Mamedyarov didn't make much progress against Svidler. Carlsen and Wang Yue battled down to the bitter end in their draw. Radjabov-Adams was a correct draw in a Lopez Exchange. Karjakin played a pretty piece sacrifice against Navara but the Czech found the precise counter-sac drawing sequence. Flashy stuff. My idiot computer wants to try to play on with 28.Ne4, but I don't.

It looked certain that Gashimov's knight and better king would find a way to beat Bacrot's bishop in the endgame, but White couldn't find a way through. Much earlier, he could have won quickly on move 34 in the diagram. It's a cute shot, but I'm assuming not something he would have missed without serious time trouble. Tomorrow is Svidler-Carlsen. Full pairings and schedule here. Off days are 26/4 and 01/5.

Elsewhere, not much in the way of surprises in the first round of the Euro Ch in Plovdiv. Wake me for the final rounds when the qualifying spots are hanging in the balance. Vallejo must not have made it in time to play his game, but it doesn't look like he was forfeited. I wonder if they asked his opponent to approve a postponement. Speaking of the Spaniard, Topalov duly beat him in the final of the Dos Hermanas Rapid, 2.5-1.5. Topalov defeated Polgar by the same score (losing the meaningless final game) in the semis.

April is suddenly a big chess month. The first of the new (classical!) Grand Prix tournaments begins Sunday. (The first round is probably Monday.) There is a clean template site up, committing the cardinal sin of putting up nav items without content. (Here there will be games! Here there will be interviews!) But at least it's not covered with Flash like most of the Spanish sites and doesn't batter you with sound, like the homepage of this year's European Individual Championship. Turn your volume off before you go if you're at work.

The Baku Grand Prix participants: Magnus Carlsen (2765), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2752), Teimour Radjabov (2751), Peter Svidler (2746), Sergey Karjakin (2732), Michael Adams (2729), Gata Kamsky (2726), Alexander Grischuk (2716), Etienne Bacrot (2705), Ivan Cheparinov (2695), Wang Yue (2689), Ernesto Inarkiev (2684), Vugar Gashimov (2679), David Navara (2672). That's a 2715 average rating. And that's three local Azerbaijani players from the 14. Rather shocking to see Carlsen as the top seed, isn't it? Amazing he's already #5 in the world.

Does that make him the favorite in this tough event, however? Will Svidler's Bunratty Massacre help him shake off his family-man apathy? Will Grischuk and Bacrot stop playing five-card stud long enough to be studs at the chessboard? Are Kamsky's openings up to the scrutiny? Will Cheparinov step out of Topalov's shadow with a breakout performance? Will the event site put up a schedule so we know when the first round is and when the two rest days are? My three picks are Kamsky, Carlsen, and Radjabov. Mamedyarov never seems to show much when he's up against the big boys so it will be interesting to see him playing at home as one of the top seeds.

Meanwhile, over in Plovdiv, and give yourself a hot cup of bob chorba if you know where that is without looking it up, the first round of the 11-round European Championship also begins on Monday. There are 71 players rated 2600 or higher, #71 being my latest Facebook friend, Erwin L'Ami. (I'm going to stick with Scrabulous in his case.) First prize is a tasty 15,000 euros, which is roughly a million dollars. Why don't China and Saudi Arabia just buy the US wholesale in one go and get it over with? Movsesian is the top seed of this incredibly strong event that sends 22 players to the next World Cup, the winner of which challenges for the world championship, probably after playing Topalov.

The second seed in Plovdiv is Spain's Paco Vallejo, who may have trouble in his first round game no matter whom he faces. He just knocked out Shirov in the first round of the Dos Hermanas rapid, meaning he'll have to face either Topalov or Polgar in the Dos Hermanas final on Sunday and then hustle to Bulgaria for the first round Monday. That's 2677.1km to make the 14:30 start time when the fourth game of the final won't end before 19:00 Spanish time, not including tiebreaks! Vallejo said he has let the Plovdiv organizers know he might be late if the logistics don't work out. Don't miss the spectacular 2nd Shirov-Vallejo game, btw. Shirov arrived tired from the Russian Team Ch but said that shouldn't take anything away from Vallejo's win.

Catching up a bit this week with various spring events. My old Kentucky homeboy Gregory Kaidanov showed he's still got the chops to mix it up on the international scene in Gausdal, Norway. He dominated the Norwegian round-robin event with 7/9, a full point ahead of India's Gopal. Erstwhile Ninja commentator Irina Krush got no love from her countrymen, losing to Kaidanov and giving up one of Erik Moskow's two draws. (Moscow, an esteemed Florida doctor and enthusiastic chess amateur and sponsor, has reinvented the pay-to-play model for the 21st century. He also tagged GM Lie for a half point.) Kaidanov played his usual steady chess, but no word on whether or not he wore an American flag lapel pin.

From an email from the winner (deleting my questions, which are obvious):

My first time in Gausdal was 1991. There were two tournaments in a row; I won one of them and also won the first prize on combination [of scores]. They also had a very nice seafood buffet back then, which turned me into a "fishetarian" (and I have stayed this way since then).

Not much has changed. The same hotel, the same (excellent) food and even my result was the same :) For the first time in many years I didn't have any jetlag. That helped :) I was very relaxed and played some good chess. People who know me don't hear those words too often. I am usually very critical about the quality of my games. Playing chess used to be very hard work for me. Now it's just a vacation from chess lessons :)

I like my win against Lie, when I improved on Aronian's play. Hard to believe, but I actually remembered his game against Carlsen, but thought that my move might be better.

(Aronian played 20.Re3 (and won a long game) against Carlsen in the first tiebreak rapid game of their Elista candidates match in June 2007. Game after the jump.)

Speaking of flags, 15-year-old Fabiano Caruana bounced back from a poor showing in the main event at the International Ruy Lopez Festival in Merida, Spain, to win clear first in the Ruy Lopez thematic rapid open that followed. All the games started with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5. The big guns from the main event were there too, but Mickey Adams -- the winner of the round-robin, a Spanish expert on both sides, rapid chess stud, and the big rating favorite -- was slowed by four draws. He couldn't match Caruana's excellent 7.5/9 showing, which earned the Brooklyn native the 3,000 euro first prize. I haven't seen any games from the rapid event yet; I hope they make it into TWIC. The main event was neatly bifurcated. Four players on +2 or better: Koneru, Sargissian, Zhang Pengxiang, and Adams on +4. Then four players with -2 or -3, including Caruana and Hou Yifan.

This was an impressive showing for Humpy Koneru, who is concreting her 2600 status. 2700, her performance rating in Merida, is another story at an ancient 21 years of age. What do you think? I've said before that if you aren't in the top 10 by the time you're 21 you likely never will be. (Barring late jumps to edge in for a list or two, of which there are many, who mostly serve to prove the rule.) This doesn't hold quite as true for the top 20, of course. Still, not many late bloomers in that group either.

Perhaps the formulation "if you aren't in the top 20 by age 21 you'll never make it to the top 10" is more precise. Former world's youngest-ever GM Etienne Bacrot just creeped in under this deadline, I believe. He hit #17 at 21 after years of a plateau in the 30's and 40's and then got up to #9 before falling back. Aronian is the refutation of this theory, if not by much. He was #21, his highest yet at the time, at age 22. He's now been in the top 10 for three years solid, joining a very short list of people who can say that in this age of post-Kasparov parity. Anand, Kramnik, and Topalov are the obvious members. Topalov has been there straight since dipping out briefly in 2001. Kramnik fell to 9 during his health swoon. Anand has been 1, 2, or 3 since Karpov strode the earth. The other member, now a tenuous member, is Leko, the current #10. Polgar and Bacrot used to be top 10 but are no longer top 20. That's better than Krasenkow, who hit #10 in 2000 and now isn't in the top 100. USAer Nakamura is at his highest-ever spot -- #34 at 2686. Three years ago he was at #43, but he seems to be taking things more seriously this time around. He just added a few more points in the French team championship.

It seems like the Tomsk 400 squad at the Russian Team Championship put several meanings of "to get hammered" in play when they lost in the seventh round. The high-powered team led by Morozevich lost 5.5-0.5 to TPS-Saransk, where Ivanchuk is on board one. The sole draw was acquired by Karjakin on board two. Not only did his five compatriots lose, but they almost all lost ugly. Jakovenko and Timofeev sashayed into losing endgames with white. van Wely and Belozerov were getting mated with black by move 25 and 20, respectively. Morozevich managed to put up some fight with white against Ivanchuk but couldn't exploit the few chances he got after Black gained a superior position. The goofy and typically philosophical reports by IM Ilya Odessky at ChessPro.ru said that the team seemed to be "minimally impaired" at the start and that they were fined 1000 rubles for "violating the sporting code" of the event. A Russian source said that the Tomsk team had money issues and that the players may have chosen this as an enjoyable form of protest.

Long, long ago, in my "Chess Madness" column at ChessBase, I put up some ideas for more suggestive Informant-style symbols. One was for situations like this. Instead of giving van Wely's 24..e5 the usual "??", just put a little wine glass after the move. Forget the idiotic "chess boxing" combinations and go with something more natural, like team chess drinking. Now that could find sponsors. It would be Botvinnik meets Beerfest.

By the way, the top-rated Ural-Ekaterinburg team won with a round to spare. Radjabov, Shirov, Kamsky, Grischuk, Malakhov, Akopian, Dreev, and Motylev. Kudos, gentlemen. Morozevich came alive in the final round to beat Gelfand in a very nice game. Mamedyarov-Nepomniachtchi uses a lot of letters but lasted only 23 entertaining moves. Wang Hao was the top scorer in the event, with 8/11 on board four of the "64" Moscow team. His countrymen Ni Hua and Bu Xiangzhi also did very well for their teams. Ivanchuk likely had the highest TPR with 7.5/11 on board one for TPS-Saransk. Movsesian also had 7.5/11, on board 3 for FINEK-St.Peterburg.

Unless it's FIDE. The term "deadline" has never meant much in FIDE-land, but at least this time they took the trouble to announce one was moving. The spiffy new FIDE website sez that the deadline for bids for the Kamsky-Topalov WCh candidates match has been extended to April 23. So what are you waiting for?! Don't wait around for some jerk to outbid you at the last moment the way you lost out on that mint copy of X-Men #137 (Phoenix Must Die). The current (and only) bid is $150,000 from Topalov's hometown of Sofia, Bulgaria. For some reason Kamsky isn't keen on playing there. Chessdom has a handy chronology of the match machinations up to this point. C'mon Lviv, show me the money!

That's not the weirdest rumor I've heard about this match and its participants, mind you. One was the possibility of Kamsky repatriating to Russia, which would then host the match! Truth be told, it would be hard to criticize. The dollar is worthless, the American chess scene can barely host its own national championship let alone sponsor a candidates match, and Mayor Bloomberg won't be around much longer to keep NYC running smoothly. And not everyone can be seduced so easily by America's superior deep frying technology.

This leads us to an interesting tangent. How many of the dozens and dozens of foreign GMs to come to the US over the decades have gone back (or gone elsewhere)? Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery, they say.

From the entertainingly deranged chesspro.ru photo report on the Russian Team Championship in Dagomys comes this pic of former US champion Alexander Onischuk, who is playing on board one for his Moscow-based team. According to the report he's an avid Obama supporter, helping out even though he can't vote in the US yet. (Of course we know what his coolest shirt is.) Earlier in the report you'll see Alexander Grischuk, formerly with rocker curls and even dreadlocks, with a new Michael Stipe look. Grischuk's team, Ural Ekaterinburg, is still leading. With a former Russian champion on board eight, that's not exactly surprising. Three teams are a point behind.

Asian Champion Zhang Pengxiang is leading the Magistral Ruy López in Spain with 2/2. The locals have nicknamed him ZP -- no word on how he feels about this or if he's even aware of it. This is the second edition of this event honoring the best-known name in Spanish chess. (Speaking of nicknames, what dolt started calling the Ruy Lopez opening "the Spanish torture" instead of "the Spanish inquisition," which was begging to be played?) The all-play-all Magistral again has an interesting field with something for just about every affirmative action fan. We've got kids, girls, Asians, Latinos, and Mickey Adams as the token high-Elo white guy. I don't know whether to look at the games or wait for Hillary and Obama to show up for a photo-op.

Brooklyn's 15-year-old Fabiano Caruana is still playing for Italy and living in Hungary. He won the Corus C group in January, had a rough time at the Aeroflot, and recouped some rating points with a strong performance at the Reykjavik Open last month. He's up to 2620 on the April FIDE list, though that's no longer enough to crack the top 100. Dirt favorite Hou Yifan, now 14, is there again, as is India's Humpy Koneru. They are #4 and #2, respectively, on the women's rating list. I expect Hou Yifan will be in the #2 spot a year from now. The big question is will she be in the number one spot two years from now? Well, at the moment in Mérida she's on .5/2 after a loss to Caruana, so let's not put the rickshaw before the horse. Last year's runaway winner, Gabriel Sargissian, is already sure of not repeating his amazing 6.5/7 score of a year ago.

After the main event, beginning April 13, they will repeat the Ruy Lopez opening thematic rapid tournament. All games begin with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5. Or, if you prefer it the way the locals would have it, 1.e4 e5 2.Cf3 Cc6 3.Ab5. I remember writing a Word macro to change English notation into Spanish back in the day of primitive chess tools in Argentina. (Running on my 486 laptop, natch.) Just remember to change the rooks to torres before changing the kings to reyes... I was one of the few people at the club with internet access and I'd bring in stacks of printouts of recent games from this new "website" called The Week In Chess.

Forget the top-ten stars like Svidler, Morozevich, and Ivanchuk in action in the Russian Team Championship in Sochi. The big sight is seeing Karpov and Korchnoi on the same team. Who woulda thunk it? Actually they both played for Southern Ural Chelyabinsk last year too, but I don't think I noticed. Was that the first time? (Not including their many USSR appearances of course. Post-defection.) This year Karpov is still on board one while Korchnoi is up to board three instead of board five. Korchnoi will probably play more games though. Riazantsev is the board 2 meat in this legend sandwich. He's also having a terrible event so far. No pressure, sitting there between Karpov and Korchnoi... They have Sveshnikov on board five, so maybe they were going for a Rolling Stones 70's reunion tour vibe with the team. The format is 12 teams in an all-play-all that ends April 13.

USAian Onischuk is holding down board one for his Moscow team like a rock. So far he has draws against Gelfand, Ivanchuk, Ponomariov, and Svidler. Kamsky is also there, playing board three no less. He's played 3/3 games with black, including a nice win over van Wely. Radjabov and Shirov are ahead of him on the mighty Ural Ekaterinburg team. Grischuk is down on board four. Yikes. I haven't had more than a glance at the games, which usually provide plenty of action. Grischuk-Timofeev was violent good fun. I'd be up for a Nxf7 thematic tournament any time. Gashimov-Ponomariov was a triumph of greed over initiative. There was so much wood-grabbing in that game it should be up for a trophy at next year's AVN Awards.

I haven't seen a list of individual scores, but as far as I can figure out from the game file, Motylev is the only one with a perfect score: 3/3 on board 8 (!) for Ural Ekaterinburg. Quite a few players have 3/4. Timofeev might be tossed overboard by his Tomsk-400 teammates soon. He's 0/4 on that star-studded team. (Stupid ChessBase Tricks Dept: Select all the games from a team event and press T to make a results table of the entire thing to show you the individual scores.)