November 2008 Archives

Proving that he is none the better for his recent car crash, FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov's latest interview is par for the course. That is, a course that zig-zags all over the place before careening off a chasm. The road less traveled here would be that of common sense. If we continue to torture this metaphor, the chasm would be the dark place where nothing has to be explained or justified. Why, Yuri Vasiliev of SportExpress asks, do we need a new layer in the 2011 candidates cycle out of nowhere? Oh, wait, he doesn't ask that. He just asks when and who, and lets Kirsan fill in as he likes. All the explanation we get is:

But time does not stand still, times change. And FIDE must adapt to the requirements of different times.

Times must change pretty damn quickly, since the last cycle changes were made less than a year ago. What conditions have changed? Why is a new event being added and why now? He goes on:

We have retained all our democratic traditions in the qualifying system: 128 players from all countries may compete in the World Cup, the highest-rated players play in the Grand Prix, and the Candidates tournament adds those who are still outside the world championship system. For example, Vladimir Kramnik, if Russia decides to be the host country.

As the saying goes, no matter how cynical you are, you can't keep up. So, he wants to include those who are "still outside the world championship system." Did somebody close entry to the World Cup and not tell anybody? And I'm sure it's just a coincidence he plumps Kramnik's name. When this was first reported I cynically suggested that the only reason this event would appear so suddenly was if it was a push from somewhere ready to make it happen, for example, Russia, who might name, for example, Kramnik, as the wildcard. For example.

By the way, I'm looking for a source and/or better version of this image or one like it from the 1986 WCh match, the first half in London. Corbis and Getty don't seem to have any of this match with the players with Thatcher. Thanks.

From the stiff poses, there must be an anthem playing in this one. Either that or it's from Madame Tussauds.

Give a FOAF some traffic on this NYC News Service story about the FBI's investigations into Bobby Fischer's trip to Havana for the 1966 Olympiad. I wonder what those old Cold War hacks would make of how dozens of Soviet chessplayers have now infiltrated US soil. Sound the alarm! Some old news in the piece, some new. If you want to get even more into the Fischer-Castro game itself, The Kenilworthian blog has you covered here. The last comment there bears a read as well.

Chessdom has translated some comments from Russian Olympiad coach Bakh, who blames bad luck for Russia's second-consecutive medal-free appearance. Alexey Dreev sounds more like he wants a Beria-like truth commission to investigate. Again I ask, is it just about players not winning or is there something to all this leadership and camaraderie and blah blah? Do the other players push harder when they know there is an intimidating Botvinnik/Karpov/Kasparov on board one who will not hesitate to rip them for not giving 100%? Or is loose chumminess just as good, a la the Armenian squad?

Meanwhile, I'm giving thanks for being over the plague that half our family came down with over the past week just in time to binge today at my wife's aunt's house. And of course thanks for the shiny bronze medals for the US Olympiad teams (and individual gold for Anna Zatonskih and silver for Goletiani)! We must give thanks for FIDE and Khan Kirsan guaranteeing we will always have plenty to be entertained and outraged about.

Links and individual winners, etc. in the r11 item. My final 40-min ICC Chess.FM podcast will be is up at chessclub.com shortly now. Video, MP3 only. Biggest surprises? Biggest disappointments? Best games? Does leadership and/or team spirit really matter? Khalifman and Karpov, visiting Dresden, were critical of this aspect of the Russian super-team a few days ago. No medal for top seed Russia two Olympiads in a row.

Audio by Macauley of Susan Polgar press conference with winning Armenian team on the ICC Blog. They talk about the team concept, atmosphere, and the president of Armenia coming for the final round. Akopian: "The most important thing is team chemistry." Why is that? Is camaraderie really worth a few points or is it just a matter of everyone being on form? Captain Arshok Petrosian is coy about the four-player strategy they use. Aronian takes the question from Rob Huntington on playing for the memory of Karen Asrian, their 3rd board who died suddenly a few months ago. Would have been funny to have Minasian take all the questions... Aronian: hardest match, except the one we lost [Israel] was perhaps Serbia, which wasn't going well... At some point we thought Tigran was going to have problems in the openings, but we had a joke on the team, that we were going to pray! Aronian talks about popularity of chess in Armenia, being recognized on the street there, how it's like the national sport and he expects it to only get better. Polgar points out that the only Armenian losses were the two in the loss to Israel. Players don't sound too happy with this year's rule changes. Love the island accent on the questions at 16" for Akopian about Botvinnik and Tigran Petrosian on having "such a big name." (He's not related to the 9th WCh at all.) Is there going to be a three-peat? Aronian: It all depends on our captain. It's a secret.

Hah, just noticed Aleksandrov-Polgar 0-1 from Belarus-Hungary. This brought back old memories of a game with the same opponents that Aleksandrov annotated for KasparovChess.com back in 1999, his fine win over her from the 99 Euro Team Ch. I dug it out of my archives. He endeared himself with gems like: "I did not prepare for this game. Generally, when playing against women, I never do.", "Now this is typical of Polgar: Judith starts an attack without any reason." "I never thought that girls could play this strong, and it was a real discovery for me, when Polgar demonstrated an outstanding score in the Europe championship." But he calls it his best game of the year, so whatever. The database sez this is the first time they have played since then. Again a Nimzo and a rather one-sided crush by Polgar with some cute tactics at the finish. I rather doubt she was aware of his comments at the time and/or now. This was only Polgar's second win against three losses in the Olympiad.

FIDE did not a moment to steal the thunder from the Olympiad players. I'd say you wouldn't believe it, but of course you would. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has just announced a change to the current WCh cycle, the one in which the Grand Prix and World Cup winners would play a match to face the world champion. But Ilyumzhinov isn't happy unless he's doing something to something and staying the center of attention. So, as ChessVibes reports, he has created a candidate's tournament out of thin air, instantly reducing the value of the Grand Prix and World Cup. The invitees: 2 World Cup finalists; top 2 Grand Prix scorers; loser of Kamsky-Topalov; loser of Anand vs Kamsky/Topalov; world #1; and, best of all, a 2700+ organizer invitee.

Whew, thank goodness. FIDE was in danger of coming close to a transparent and honest system after the last of the corrupt special matches finished in February with Kamsky-Topalov. But no! The favoritism safety nets are back, with a revenue-generating wildcard spot too. Stability and transparency are back out the window. Topalov is a fabulous player, no question. Love him. But criminy, was San Luis 2005 a lifetime pass? I suspect that Ilyumzhinov wouldn't have added this event if it weren't already close to a done deal somewhere. (It won't shock if that place is Russia (or Bonn or Dortmund) and the wildcard is Kramnik.) Perhaps someone could risk His Majesty's displeasure and ask the simple question: "Why?" The short answer would be "we can't have the players deciding who gets to be world champion, can we?"

Meanwhile, GM John Nunn has revamped his proposal for a WCh system. Match final, great. But I'm not sure why he assumes nationality is the only motive for collusion in a candidates tournament. Money is a good one, too. Candidates matches! And while I think it's okay to include an "inactivity penalty" in rating, an activity bonus looks deeply unsatisfactory and vulnerable to manipulation. We don't need even more numbers to distract us. We don't need to reward the guy who plays more, just make sure everyone plays enough. Make the world championship about WINNING WHEN IT MATTERS. Not about what you did three years ago, or how many points you got beating weaker players, or anything else.

This is it! I hope you've consulted Jonathan Berry's magic numbers so you know what needs to happen for your favorite team to win which medal today. 10:00 start in Dresden, 0400 EST. Live here. You Eastern Hemisphere people update the top action in the comments best you can. (Or you west coast night owls.)

By the way, if you were thinking about getting a norovirus for the holidays, don't. Ugh. Never invite the Caliciviridae family over. Urgh.

Do you believe in miracles?

Final standings here. First things first. Armenia beat China to clinch their second consecutive gold medal. A tremendous performance from Aronian, Akopian, Sargissian, and Petrosian. (Minasian gets a medal too, for his one game. Is this 4-player Armenian system really something to emulate?) Israel beat Netherlands to lock up the silver medal. The USA just performed one of the greatest feats in Olympiad history, blasting the 2nd-seeded Ukrainian team 3.5-0.5 in the final round!

That leaves them tied on match points, but thanks to some magic with Spain drawing Russia, it seems the USA will get another miracle bronze, duplicating their feat of 2006, when they beat Norway 3.5-0.5 and pipped Israel on tiebreaks. But to do this to mighty and previously undefeated Ukraine, with Kamsky-Ivanchuk 1-0, Karjakin-Nakamura 1/2, Onischuk-Eljanov 1-0, and Efimenko-Shulman 0-1 is insane. (And Karjakin barely scraped that draw. Nakamura was killing him.) And Ukraine had everything to play for, let's not forget. Outstanding effort, medal or no medal. [Yes, medal! Final tiebreak score 362-348.5 for USA!]

And it looks like the USA women's team has duplicated the medal, the mettle, and the metal, beating France and likely nipping Poland on tiebreaks for bronze. Final standings. That's at least two medals for Brooklyn (Kamsky, Krush)! When do we get our own federation?

Yesterday's hero for China against England yesterday, Li Chao, was the goat today, losing to Petrosian on board four in the only decisive game of the top match. Israel eked out a win against Netherlands with a win by Roiz over Smeets on board two, other three drawn. Ukraine was simply demolished top to bottom by USA, which allowed the American squad to nip them on tiebreaks for the bronze medal. According to JB's calculations, a 3-1 win by the US wouldn't have been enough, but 3.5-0.5 did the trick! Russia would have won the tiebreak but were held to a draw by Spain. Amazing. ¡Gracias, España! USA women also win bronze. Georgia gold, Ukraine silver.

Board prizes here. Leko won an epic 130-move game in the final round to take the first board gold away from Gelfand by a single performance point. Open: Board 1: Leko; Board 2: Akopian; Board 3: Sargissian; Board 4: Blagojevic; Board 5: Jakovenko / Women: Board 1: Chiburdanidze; Board 2: Zatonskih; Board 3: Kosintseva, N; Board 4: Majdan; Board 5: Zdebskaja.

The US team that rocked Ukraine. Clockwise from top-left: Nakamura, Kamsky, Onischuk, Shulman in round 11. Inset, Akobian. Photos from Susan Polgar's Picasa stream.

There's a super-tournament coming to Nanjing, China in December. The Pearl Spring Chess Tournament is a powerful six-player all-play-all, following the Linares format I've been sick of for a while now. Do all events have to be double round-robins at the expense of inviting a wider variety of players? Let Linares be Linares and have 10-12 players. But six hotel rooms and six plane tickets are cheaper, and this way you can keep the average Elo higher as well. The event runs Dec. 11-21 with a free day at the split. The players are Topalov, Ivanchuk, Aronian, Movsesian, Svidler, and Bu Xiangzhi. The former child prodigy Bu Xiangzhi was hammered at the M-Tel this year, making a -4 score. (Reinforcing what I said above about the same players always appearing, the M-Tel had four of these six; we're swapping Cheparinov and Radjabov for Svidler and Movsesian.) I'm a little surprised they didn't also include Wang Yue instead of another foreigner. But he has the Grand Prix starting in Elista on the 13th. Dueling supertournaments, oy.

I dug up what looks like an official site here, complete with remarkably unflattering photos of the participants and a few bits of entertainingly translated English. The official slogan appears to be "Achieving win-win through the event and demonstrating the intelligence of the people in Pukou." Do not taunt happy fun rook! All your pawns are belong to us! The punishment for losing this event is likely to be severe: "Undertaker： People's Government of Pukou District." And someone will have to break it to the people of Pukou (a district of Nanjing, a city of nearly 7.5 million people) that hosting chess events doesn't demonstrate intellect, and often quite the contrary. Otherwise Kalmykia would enjoy much more enlightened leadership, I suspect.

Jokes aside, more chess is always good and previous strong events have been run very well in China. One of the Chinese sites that mentioned this event says it is planned to be an annual affair such as Corus and Linares. Many events have claimed that over the years, mind you. The cute little chess in China flash movie that pops up on the official site is worth the click.

Mathlete and arbiter supremo Jonathan Berry takes up the improbable method of the US winning a medal via tiebreaks. Apparently even the silver is still within reach, if you just have a bit of imagination. It will require a massive score against Ukraine tomorrow (at 10am local, 4am EST) and then considerable help from their enemies. The Poincaré Conjecture was child's play.

The reason you wrote that 'taint so was to sucker somebody into doing the arithmetic. US Championship needed that a couple of times, eh? It's a conceptual stretch, but "arithmetically" USA can pass Ukraine with a 3.5 or 4 victory. With a 3.5 victory, they can get a bronze behind Armenia (if it defeats China) and either Israel or Netherlands. With a 4 victory, USA wins a silver if NLD defeats Israel 2.5 to 1.5. Both scenarios also require Spain to tie or defeat Russia. Here are the ciphers for that last scenario:

ARM wins. RUS doesn't. USA 4-0 UKR NLD 2.5-1.5 ISR

USA tiebreak = 266 (after rd 10) + 4x17 = 334 UKR tiebreak = 309.5 + 0x17 = 309.5 NLD tiebreak = 292 + 2.5x16 = 332

ARM would win with 19 USA second on tiebreak with 17, ahead of NLD, UKR. ESP might be involved in the 17-tie, but tiebreaks too low to pass USA.

Note: there is some variance because the tiebreak due to teams played already in rounds 1-10 will change. The assumption is that that change will balance out. But if IND, HKG or RSA win in round 11, that improves USA's prospects. Game points do count (ducking).

Who knew? AP chess guy and bearded wonder Rob Huntington adds from Dresden:

One point about Jonathan Berry's improbable but mathematically possible scenario for the U.S. winning a medal. It depends on the teams that the U.S. played outperforming the teams that the Netherlands played in the last round. It is thus conceivable that the decisive games for determining a medal could be played between Bangladesh and Thailand (the Netherlands beat Bangladesh 3.5-0.5).

Of course that sort of thing has long been an absurd part of Olympiad tradition. It has gone as far as top teams like the USSR coaching a weak team they beat earlier in the event before their last-round adjournments in order to squeak out that last crucial tiebreak point. So game on! Everything to play for! Go USA! Go umm, Netherlands (but only 2.5!), go Spain! Go India! Go South Africa! Go Thailand! Go Hong Kong (just in case)! On Dasher, on Dancer!

More links on the scene in Dresden. Daaim of the Chess Drum is there with pics and more from the press conferences.

In progress. Live online here or on the ICC. My round 9 ICC Chess.FM podcasts video with animated diagrams and MP3 audio only.

Israel starts this penultimate round in clear first place at 16 points and so controls its own destiny. They face the mighty second seed Ukraine today. Ukraine and Armenia, playing Serbia, have 15 points. China and England, along with Serbia, have 14. Playing the percentages, one of the pack of teams with 13 could well slip into medal position at the end. Assuming they outclass Slovenia today Russia should get another relatively easy pairing in Tuesday's very early final round. The question is whether or not 17 points will be enough for a medal. Obviously it sounds good to be getting paired against fairly weak teams, but in reality you'd rather be facing the tough teams right above you so you could better control your own fate. If Russia fails to medal for the second Olympiad in a row it would take something rather remarkable to replace that as the top story in Dresden.

China-England, Bulgaria-Spain, Germany-USA, and Netherlands-Poland are the other pairings with possible medal implications. In the women's event, Serbia stunned China to knock them out of the lead. Ukraine, Serbia, and Poland start round 10 with 15 points. China, Armenia, and Georgia trail by one. USA is still in with a chance with 13 after losing to Poland 3-1 yesterday.

Update: Ukraine beat Israel despite starting things out worse on several boards, according to Kasparov. Efimenko beat Postny in Q vs R in the only decisive game of the match. So the lead changed hands again and now it's Ukraine and Armenia on top with 17 points headed into Tuesday morning's final round (10am local, 4am EST). Armenia duly disposed of Serbia 3-1 in round 10. China scraped by England with a win by Li Chao on board four over Jones. (The chess-results site says Wang Hao but the official site has Li Chao.) USA beat Germany in a tough fight. For the second round in a row Nakamura came out with a Suttles homage to good effect and beat Khenkin in nice game. (The official result and score were/are wrong. Substitute ..Ne3 for ..Nxe5 and add Qg4 at the end for the correct score, we think.)

So going for the medals in the final round we have China (16) vs Armenia (17), Ukraine (17) vs USA (15), Israel (16) vs Netherlands (15), and Russia (15) vs Spain (15). Armenia has great tiebreak points, so if they beat China they will repeat as gold medalists even if Ukraine also wins. As far as I can tell, USA has such bad tiebreaks they cannot medal no matter what happens Tuesday. [Wrong, sez Jonathan Berry here. Very, very improbable, but mathematically possible.] Russia's tiebreaks right now are almost the same as China's, so that could get tight if Russia wins, China draws, and Israel loses. In the women's event, Poland is in the driver's seat and will face Ukraine for the gold. Serbia-Georgia and USA-France and Netherlands-Russia are the other possible contenders. More later.

Round 8 ICC Chess.FM podcasts, video and audio only.

The gold rush is underway at the Dresden Olympiad. Armenia started the round in the clear lead but Israel could swap places with them with a match win today. Israel played the Swiss gambit by drawing with Latvia in the first round. They didn't face any team seeded higher than 30th until the sixth round. Then they beat Spain (12) and Germany (11) before meeting Armenia (9) today. Meanwhile Armenia has faced Ukraine, Netherlands, Russia, France, and Azerbaijan, seeds 2, 20, 1, 7, and 4.

The games are well underway and Israel has scored first blood with a win by Maxim Rodshtein over Petrosian. That's Armenia's first loss of the entire event. Armenia is trying to repeat their 2006 success of finding four in-form players and basically jettisoning the reserves. Last time they ditched Lputian and Minasian after the fourth round. This time, with only five players on the team, Minasian has played just one game, a round 3 win. Hard to argue with their success in 06 and again here, but it does seem pretty brutal.

The other big medal match, Ukraine-Russia, has also seen an early loss. Morozevich got a little carried away with his own bad self and left a piece sac on offer a bit too long against Efimenko and lost. Kramnik-Ivanchuk is a crazy battle with distant passed pawns for both. Hikaru Nakamura bounced back by beating Harikrisha with 1.g3 and playing his knights out to a3 and h3. That's what hanging out with Canadians will do to you. You start eating poutine and playing like Duncan Suttles! [Update: Kamsky and Akobian have also won to complete a 3.5-0.5 demolition of India. A pity this idiotic match point system makes such tremendous performances irrelevant.] More updates later.

Update: Razik Khaled Abdel alert! The Egyptian FM reserve just beat a Bosnian IM to move to 7/7. He has played some very weak opposition, but he's also defeated two IMs and Israel's 2674 GM Postny. Wonder if they'll pull him out now to guarantee an individual medal, as goes the usual method. They are still giving medals out based on scoring percentage, right? Or did the push to get it changed to rating performance stick? Both?

Update: Aronian steps it up big time and beats Gelfand with black to level the match. Oops, Gelfand won. Too many live viewers open, it seems. Didn't notice the little boards flipped the colors. So Israel is up 2-0. Two Armenia-Israel games still in progress. -- Kramnik-Ivanchuk drawn, Svidler-Karjakin drawn. Grischuk has ye olde f+h drawn rook endgame against Eljanov. We can assume he knows how to draw it, but doing so on increment can be tough.

Update: Israel beats Armenia and takes over clear first place with 16 match points. Ukraine beats Russia and is now equal second with Armenia on 15 points. China beat France and has 14, along with England, who beat Vietnam. Thanks to these goofy pairings the English may yet find a way to medal without beating any of the top teams. They've faced two teams seeded higher than their own 15th spot, a draw with Azerbaijan and a loss to Russia. But with two rounds to go here they are in the top four.

We've got'em. ChessVibes reports that the Doha FIDE Grand Prix, scheduled to begin on Dec. 13, has abruptly been moved to that venue of last resort, Elista. The Doha bid has smelled for a long time according to the players and Global Chess people I spoke with quite a while ago. This probably means the ax for local invitee al-Modiakhi. As CV points out, 12 of the participants are currently in Dresden.

In other FIDE news, they announced that Kamsky and Topalov have signed the candidates match agreements. Danailov also announced that Topalov has 'amicably' withdrawn from Linares. The match is scheduled for Feb. 16-28 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Prize fund should be the revamped 250K, which means that for whatever reason, the long delay worked to both players' advantage, cash-wise.

My round 7 wrap-up podcast video and audio only. They appear first at Chessclub.com.

It's all slugfests all the time in the final four rounds. Unless you get New Zealand, of course. For more on the pairings and various other rule discussions taking place in Dresden, check out the blog of Shaun Press of Australia, who is there playing for Papua New Guinea. [h/t Malcolm T] Along with writing about 4-0 losses to Barbados, he has attended several of the rules meetings. Here's the specific post. The making of sausages certainly couldn't be any less attractive to watch, so thank Shaun for doing it for us. Geurt Gijssen is keen to apply the "forfeit at 0" rule to all events. One hour is crazy for a pro sport, I agree, but a few courtesy minutes aren't so bad, are they? At another meeting, of the technical commission, Press hear reports "Chairman of the FIDE Swiss Pairings Commitee Krause said the pairings for Round 3 were a 'catastrophe'." Yathink?

More players, arbiters, coaches blogging out there? Hikaru Nakamura posted a summary in his blog on the first off day. Some game and match notes and an on-scene report on the Bermuda party. Has he or is he going to take Canadian citizenship and/or Canadian chess federation representation? Kinda sounds like it.

The Closet Grandmaster is also on the scene in Dresden with some interesting views of the sausage grinder. Susan Polgar's frenetic site has so much stuff tossed up it's hard to find the good onsite material that isn't just taken from other places (the complete pairings?!). Hyperlinks are your friend! The pics are great though. Susan is hosting the nightly Dresden press conferences. Are those summarized anywhere? Reviews have called them a bit on the dry side. It's chess, people, what do you want? Kasparov has retired. Invite Terrell Owens.

Mark is doing frequent updates on the main page now, as if we have time to see all of this stuff! Superlative job on the games from him and TWIC, as usual. ChessBase has lots of non-color-corrected photos up just about every day. Great to have lots of pics, but yeesh, most of them look like Grandma's vacation snaps circa 1979. Next time just buy a Kodak 110 on Ebay and a scanner, guys. ChessBase, meet white balance; white balance, ChessBase. ChessVibes is on the scene as well, with press conference video and much more. They also have the news up about the Dec. 13 Doha Grand Prix being moved to Elista. Not a big surprise. That bid has been dubious for a long while. More on that in a bit.

Macauley has more of his usual video excellence on the run-up to the dual USA-Russia matchups today in the ICC Blog. The USA women stomped Russia 3-1 btw. Irina (Brooklyn!) Krush beat Kosteniuk in a wild battle. In the Open, Akobian lost to Jakovenko, Onischuk and Nakamura are clinging to life in technical endgames, and Kamsky-Svidler looks headed for a draw after a complex battle. - NO! Kamsky beats him in a spectacular flurry of endgame tactics. Wow.

Defending gold-medal winner Armenia won again, beating France. Israel beat Germany to move into prime medal position. Vietnam draw with China!

ChessBase has up a translation of a Berliner Zeitung interview with Levon Aronian. Some fun stuff from a fun guy.

Mr Aronian, since the beginnings of the game men have dominated chess. Why is that?

Women cannot play chess.

But that is no explanation. Wasn't it your sister who taught you chess?

That is true, but women are generally much too emotional for chess. If they want to play really well they have to change their character and suppress their natural instincts. They have to take on male qualities. After all chess is a rough and hard game. . . .

In chess is it good to be happily or unhappily in love?

Hmm. Perhaps it is better for your game if you are in love. On the other hand when you are in love there is a danger that your passion is not enough for both, and that you are going to be disappointed with your game and at the same time disappoint your lady.

Are you speaking from experience?

Yes.

Oh, I think you've disappointed plenty of ladies all at once with this one. There is no denying that women on the whole have not been successful at chess. The disparity at the top echelon cannot be entirely accounted for by the small number of women who take up the game. But as with, say, investment banking and other insanely obsessive and competitive endeavors, I don't think the chemistry part is as relevant to performance in action (e.g. at the board) as it is in overall dedication and lifestyle. The testosterone-driven hyper-competitiveness required to do the work and focus on such a narrow thing for so long day after day rewards men for what you might also interpret as a fault.

That is, the same obsessive/competitive characteristics are expressed in many other areas that aren't as rewarding or as respected. Comic book collecting, for example, or sports trivia. And we all know plenty of men who are as fanatically devoted to chess as most pros despite being 1000 points lower-rated. There's also a nurture aspect in that, of course, as boys are brought up to be hierarchical and competitive and girls are largely discouraged from such overtly "boyish" behavior.

Bit swamped yesterday; Garry has a speech today in Munich and a Wall Street Journal editorial appearing in both the European and US editions. And my mother-in-law is arriving today. (Hi Beth!) The epic round six podcast (video or mp3 only) is done and will be up at chessclub.com soon.

The big guns are slugging it out at last. Armenia beat Azerbaijan in round six thanks to a nice new idea in the Sicilian by Akopian, who beat Mamedyarov. Qg4-h3 is good stuff. Nyback upset Magnus Carlsen and Finland drew with Norway as a result. Kramnik beat Short with a nice game, winning with a rook and two pawns versus two knights. Short blundered with 39..c6 but it was tough to hold in any case. USA beat Cuba thanks to wins by Nakamura and Shulman. The USA women stomped the strong Romanian team 4-0 led by my Brooklyn homegirl Irina Krush. They face the still-perfect China in round seven. Rowson lost to 2272 Kajima of Japan but Scotland won the match. Interesting endgame with rook vs three connected passers. The six-man tablebases say 64.Rf2+ was the only move to draw. After missing that Rowson had to defend R vs Q, which he lost ten moves shy of the 50 move rule. Very impressive Germany again stood up to a top team, drawing with Ukraine with wins by Karjakin on one side and Fridman on the other.

In round seven the big shows are Russia-Armenia, both with 11 points, and Ukraine-China, USA-Hungary, Germany-Romania, India-France, Israel-Spain, England-Azerbaijan. That's seven games with both players 2700+! Who will wins the race for best performance rating? Live here. On-site video goodness and tidbits from Macauley in the ICC Blog. FIDE has announced the agreement for Kamsky-Topalov on Feb. 16 in Sofia. I hope so, though contracts not signed yet. As usual with FIDE, you can't believe it until the first pawn is pushed and the last toilet flushed. Olympiad r7 report here later.

Update: Armenia!! USA! Vietnam!? New Zealand?! Netherlands? Australia?? That about sums up today's highlights. Armenia took out the mighty Russian team, again thanks to their go-to guy, Sargissian. He beat Grischuk in a wonderfully complex endgame with protected passed pawns against a bishop. It looks like something Loyd would compose on the day his dog died. The other three games were drawn in this very hard-fought match, so Armenia is our first clear leader of the Open event with four rounds still to play. Back-to-back wins over Armenia and Russia thanks to Sargissian.

China-Ukraine was a four-draw split, slowing both teams. Ukraine looked to be winning on the top two boards but Ivanchuk and Karjakin couldn't finish off Wang Yue and Bu Xiangzhi. Germany is still rocking like a hurricane. Wins by Gustafsson and Baramidze compensated for Naiditsch's loss to Nisipeanu against Romania. A win by Vachier-Lagrave meant victory for France over India. Israel beat Spain 3-1 to stay in the medal hunt. The USA did the same with a big win over Hungary. Onischuk won a rook endgame against Balogh while Nakamura expertly saved one against Almasi. Kamsky looked in a spot of trouble against Leko but held neatly. Nice work, gentlemen!

Nigel Short handed Mamedyarov his second loss in a row, and did so with black in particularly violent fashion. Just 25 moves of wild-man pawn pushing and it was over. White is already in trouble, but the move 23.f4 must be put in the chess dictionary next to "lost the thread." Unfortunately for England, Howell suffered his first loss of the event to Gashimov and the match finished even. It seems like Howell declined a repetition at one point. He underestimated the power of Black's h-file infiltration and was quickly hacked to pieces by the rooks. Admittedly Howell was probably better when he rejected the repetition, but with one win already in the bag it was a debatable decision. Anyway, we can't criticize a fighter, especially one who has done very well so far in his first Olympiad.

Vietnam beat Netherlands and reminded us that they are now fielding an all-GM team. Nguyen added to van Wely's woes on board one and Le beat Smeets on the black side of a Dragon on board two. The bigger upset was New Zealand's win over Bosnia & Herzegovina. Chandler beat Nikolic and FM Stephen Lukey overcame a big rating gap and IM Stojanovic to take the match. Australia's up-and-down (under) event continued with a downer of a 4-0 pummeling at the hands of Bulgaria. Topalov won a pawn and later sacrificed a knight to win a nice game in his trademark style. Carlsen did not realize the Trompowsky is invincible and was held to a draw by Rahman. After such an amazing start Norway has come back to earth and could only draw Bangladesh. Caruana exploded Berg in spectacular fashion but Italy only drew Sweden.

The USA became the first team to slow down China in the women's event. Hou Yifan beat Krush on board one but Rohonyan got the point back on board four against Tan Zhongyi, whose game yesterday got some podcast time. The US faces top seed Russia tomorrow while seeds 2 and 3 Ukraine and China face off. If Ukraine wins they take over clear first place.

Podcast audio and video here or at ICC later.

Pairings for round eight are up. Armenia-France, Israel-German, USA-Russia, China-Vietnam, and, umm, Ukraine-New Zealand.

Forget the capital of Bulgaria and the Kamsky-Topalov match that's now scheduled to take place there. The Sofia I'm talking about is Sofi Polgar, inevitably referred to as "the middle sister," with Susan the elder and Judit the younger. I had the great fortune to work with Sofi for half a year at the KasparovChess Online office in Herzlia, Israel in 1999. A multi-talented individual who decided there was more to life than competitive chess, Sofi was/is into photography, art, and took up computer design with no fear. Now living in Toronto, she just opened up her own website, in which you'll surely find much of interest, including plenty of chess and original artworks for sale. Did you know she wrote a piece on Fischer after his death this year?

A hunky Israeli GM might also have had something to do with her gradual departure from professional chess and games like this one. Here she is with husband Yona Kosashvili in 1999 at the home of one of our KCO co-workers in 1999.

Yona has his own little bio page on the site. Somehow the results listing omits "Unofficial champion of Palestine, 1999." Long story for another day, but it has to do with a shopping trip for furniture in an Arab town that turned into an impromptu international event when we asked about chess tables.

As much as the sisters are no doubt sick of talking about their unique upbringing, I'm sure fans would appreciate Sofi's thoughts from the distance of time and now being a parent with chess kids herself. All three of the Polgar sisters turned out remarkably well-rounded and they also seem to fit a few of the usual stereotypes. The forceful eldest, the congenial middle, the golden baby. (My wife and I are both mellow second children with dominant older sisters.)

Now I definitely have to start putting together a blogroll and link list.

Big guns are matching up big time after the off day and the Bermuda party hangover recovery period. The six teams with 9/10 points meet: Russia-England, Armenia-Azerbaijan, Ukraine-Germany. In the women's event, China with a perfect 10 faces the only team with 9, Hungary. China hasn't lost a game yet despite leaving several of the world's top-rated women at home. England's Dagne Ciuksyte is 5/5 in the women's and Valentin Iotov has 5/5 for Bulgaria. Live games online. 25-minute (!) Round 5 podcast video or just audio.

The planned off-day meetings in Dresden between the camps of World Championship candidates Veselin Topalov and Gata Kamsky seem to have borne some fruit, according to Chessdom on the scene. Apparently they have agreed to play in Sofia, Bulgaria. No word yet if this is going to take place on the original schedule FIDE wanted (starting in 10 days!) or, more likely, the revised February schedule proposed by the Bulgarian federation. Updates later.

Macauley sacrificed his off day (but we hope not the Bermuda party) and staked out the scene for a few hours to bring back this epic report. The money quote, literally:

After the meeting I spoke to several attendees. "Everything is going in a good way," said Mr. Makropoulos, who also confirmed that an agreement had been reached. Gelfer and Mazouz immediately began drafting, not just a FIDE statement (to be published tonight or tomorrow morning), but contracts for the match itself, which are to be signed as soon as they have been checked and approved by both players.

Neither Kamsky nor Danailov would comment, having been expressly told not to speak to the media until after an official statement by FIDE is released. However, a few salient details are now known.

Independent sources in the meeting confirmed that the match will be held in Sofia, Bulgaria, in early February. The precise dates are not yet available [Update: Unconfirmed dates are February 16-28, which would seem to require Topalov to withdraw from Linares], and the precise timing proved to be one of the main stumbling blocks to an agreement. Kamsky is scheduled to play in the Corus tournament in Wijk aan Zee, from January 17 to February 1. Topalov is scheduled to play in Linares from February 18 to March 8. (Unlike previous years the 2009 Linares tournament is to be held entirely in Spain). The Bulgarian Chess Federation had proposed, in another open letter to the FIDE President, that the Kamsky-Topalov match be organized from February 3 to 15, 2009, putting it dangerously close to the dates of these two Grand Slam tournaments.

Danailov would not confirm how this situation has been resolved, but when asked whether Topalov has a contract with Linares to play, he replied, "Yes. So what?" He declined to say definitively whether this would or would not pose a problem.

Despite this potential conflict, there appear to have been no further obstacles to the match, according to those present. Said another attendee, "I was really surprised how smoothly everything went. It was very cooperative from both sides," adding, "I really didn't expect such a very high level from both sides."

Gelfer confirmed that it is expected that contracts will be signed this evening. "Everything is being taken care of to the satisfaction and with the agreement of both players," he said.

[Emphasis in the original.] So what, indeed? Contracts are for the little people. Well that's good news, though it's a shame it's going to mess with one or both of their schedules for 2009 thanks to all these delays. A good trivia mind-bender would be "when was the last time a FIDE event took place on the originally announced dates?" I suppose the myriad junior events aren't this bad. Glad to see that Chernenko character got the boot. We have enough of our own shifty-eyed scam artists in the chess world, thank you very much. Has the Linares field been announced, btw? Various players keep mentioning it, but I haven't seen a list.

Germany holds off Russia to keep a piece of the leaderboard, which is once again a mob scene. The four-draw split on the first table between The home team and the top seed meant there are no more perfect scores. Germany and Russia are now joined by today's winners Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and England with 9/10 match points. England has pulled off this feat despite two losses by top board Mickey Adams by beating seeds 50, 32, 109, and 44 and drawing with 19th seed Norway. The easy ride ends in Wednesday's round six when they face Russia.

Once again, ignore the PGN archive on the official site. Most of the scores I checked are wrong. The live scores look pretty good, at least for the top boards. Ooh, I do love serendipity. This just in from the organizers in Dresden:

Over 510 linked chess boards live on the internet - for the first time in history, all games of the chess Olympiad could be followed from the beginning without any problems. Michael Breidung, head of IT at the Chess Olympiad and of the Eigenbetrieb IT of the city of Dresden says: "We are very proud of this achievement. The Chess Olympiad in Dresden has the highest number of chess players, the highest number of boards, and still the equipment worked on a high level." During the first hour there were over one million views. On the first day 32 million file downloads were counted. 22 million times the chess boards were looked on, and 10 million times the homepage was retrieved. On the second and also on the third day there were over 60 million file downloads. The peak was between 7 and 8 pm.

Sigh. See my recent post on the Liverpool tournament regarding the hash these press releases inevitably make when discussing views and downloads (by which they must mean hits, which is actually technically close to accurate, if misleading in the vernacular). But this is better than most. For live viewing with every board counted as a page view, 50,000 visitors can easily rack up a million views in an hour. And I do agree that the IT has been solid. That means the hardware, of course. As for the site... Navigation was confusing in every language, there were broken links all over the place at the start and the gamescores are still a disaster. Pats to the hardware people, smacks to the web designers, and kicks in the nuts to whoever is in charge of the scores and the PGN archives.

Anyway, back to the chess, at least as far as we can make it out. I thought Russia might rest Kramnik, but he was ready to defend his Petroff against Naiditsch, who battered it with a nice novelty in Dortmund a few months ago. Morozevich pressed a rook endgame against my ICC Chess.FM homeboy Jan Gustafsson for a long time but eventually had to give up the ghost. Nicely done by Germany, I must say. I really thought they were going to get rolled today. Ivanchuk needed 127 moves but he finally brought home the point against Peter Leko and the match against Hungary. Great work from Ivanchuk, though it required some help from Leko in the bitter end. Even a technical master like Leko couldn't handle having to make only moves for so long with just a 30-second increment. Hell on the nerves. 124.Rf8 is the only move to hold the draw, sez Fritz. That win tipped the balance since Almasi beat Eljanov and Karjakin beat Polgar, who just hasn't been playing enough since her second child was born to back up her 2700 rating.

Azerbaijan finally turned the Norwegian coach back into a pumpkin. Wins by Mammadov and Gashimov were enough even with Radjabov chickening out of the expected board one matchup against Carlsen. Mamedyarov did well in the role and Kasparov said he was likely winning at several points. Perhaps knowing the match was already decided influenced his decision to take a draw, or at least interfered with his concentration. Another underdog, Netherlands, also had its piñata punctured by a top dog, in this case Armenia. Sargissian's win over Stellwagen was the decider. (26.Rxc5!) England beat Italy 2.5-1.5 despite Adams becoming the victim of Fabiano Caruana's third straight victory after starting with two losses. It's not often you see Mickey lose with his beloved Tarrasch against the French. Short and again Howell came to the rescue with wins. Short has 3.5/4 and Howell has won four in a row after an initial draw.

India duly dispatched overmatched Austria and most of the other mismatches went to the favorites. Scotland took 1.5 away from mighty China, only Shaw losing to Wang Hao. Not saying that it happened in that match, which was a good effort by the Scots, but there is little doubt that when a match win is secured with a draw your motivation for playing for a win is going to drop. Especially if there is any risk of a loss by playing on.

Ukraine-Germany 1 and the regional grudge match Azerbaijan-Armenian are the other highlights of round six. Speaking of regional grudges, USA-Cuba is another good one. Anybody still pissed off for Spain-Philippines? Finland-Norway must have a few partisans, too. Rwanda-Liechtenstein? Tomorrow, Tuesday is a rest day. Podcast coming up later tonight tomorrow. Check out Macauley and the ICC blog from Dresden, meanwhile. Update your predictions, if you like. Biggest surprise so far?

Podcast with animated diagrams and round wrap-up here.

There are only two perfect scores left in the Dresden Olympiad. One is no surprise, the top-seeded Russians. Kramnik has looked rocky on board one and they've won a few matches by the minimum, but they keep winning. The other is the home team, Germany 1, with some serious home mojo working so far. That mojo will be severely tested in tomorrow's fifth round when they face Russia. Today Russia squeaked past India 2.5-1.5 and Kramnik was in trouble with white against Sasikiran, who decided to force a repetition draw in time trouble instead of playing for a win by grabbing the b-pawn. Harikrishna exploded Svidler's Grunfeld in just the way the Grunfeld gets exploded occasionally. The spectacular rook sac 25.Rxe6!! wins instantly. Black gets mated if he takes the rook and in the game f7 is just too weak. Svidler resigned on move 27. Unfortunately for India, losses on the lower two boards cost them the match. Tough to match up when Morozevich is lurking on board four, yeesh.

Germany stayed perfect thanks to Naiditsch's third win. He beat Shirov on the black side of the Berlin defense. The heavyweight matchup of the round was Ukraine-Armenia, a battle between the last two gold medal winners. Ivanchuk netted an exchange against Aronian but couldn't convert. The other three boards also ended in draws. So two more perfect scores disappeared. Can I mention again how much I dislike the change to match scoring from board scoring? It's so conservative it's just painful. There's so little movement in the standings and if you fall off the pace it takes forever to get into the mix. We're used to seeing the cream rise (and the curds fall) fairly quickly. Here it is the fifth round and we're still seeing 4-0 wipeouts against teams with one GM, if that, by the top teams. Silly.

Cinderella team Norway continued to impress, this time drawing with England. Magnus Carlsen beat Mickey Adams on board one with a little help. White had pressure, but he would have a lot of work to do after 43..Rb4 or 43..Rc7. Howell saved the match for England with a win. They join the big pack of teams with 7/8, including Hungary, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Netherlands, and Armenia. Radjabov and Mamedyarov beat Kamsky and Nakamura, respectively, to put a big dent in the Americans' hopes to repeat as medal winners. Onischuk was finally held to a draw after starting with three wins. China bounced back by stomping FYROM 4-0.

Fabiano Caruana beat Korchnoi in rather brutal fashion. There was already no love lost by Viktor the Terrible toward Caruana after the teenager blitzed him from an inferior position at the "Rising Stars vs Veterans" event this year. Of course Korchnoi isn't shy about sharing such feelings after a loss and being cursed out by him is almost a rite of passage. Veselin Topalov and Bulgaria are trying to work their way back up after a slow start by beating Mongolia.

In the Women's event they are also down to two perfect score, Poland and China. They will meet in the fifth round. India surprised host Germany with a 3-1 win. A shout-out to Rusa Goletiani of the US, who has a 4/4 score.

Apart from the key Germany 1 - Russia matchup, some round five highlights: Armenia-Netherlands, Hungary-Ukraine, Norway-Azerbaijan (a Dragon on board 1?). The unbalanced pairings continue elsewhere with China-Scotland, England-Italy, and India-Austria. Something is just wrong when we have teams that have barely faced any GMs, let alone defeated any, on the top boards in the fifth round. Not blaming the teams and players, of course. Austria lost to Norway in round one and then beat Jordan, Sri Lanka, and Turkmenistan, who have no GMs among them.

Podcast with animated diagrams and a few game comments here on ICC Chess.FM. Don't miss Macauley Peterson's Olympiad blog with video and more direct from Dresden. Live games at the official site. Don't bother downloading the PGN archive from the official site, btw. So far they have been full of completely wrong scores. Stick with TWIC, where poor Mark is battling to get them from the live broadcast and verify them.

You might want to think twice before buying that new BMW. Apparently the legendary German efficiency is just a legend, at least if you can judge from the mess that is the official Dresden Olympiad website. The round three games ended hours ago and there's still no way to be sure who won the important Georgia-Ukraine match, for example. There are two completely different scores for Jobava-Ivanchuk, two different results for Volokitin-Arutinian, the same score for two different games, and two different results for the match. All on the same site! The scores in the PGN file now at TWIC and the one on the official site are often totally different. (Ivanchuk game, Caruana game.) Yes, this happens in just about every Olympiad, but that is no excuse. We are supposed to learn from our mistakes. Large craniums, opposable thumbs, you know the deal. From the way the results and games are coming out of Dresden you would have a pretty good argument against Darwin. I mean, what is this, Bavaria?!

The Chess-Results site is usually the savior in these events, and the Dresden site imports their pages in several places. Right now its says Ukraine beat Georgia thanks to Volokitin's win on board four. They even have the r4 pairings up with Ukraine on top with six match points, facing Armenia, so that's likely definitive. Let's hope someone is actually collecting the scoresheets. Pathetic to have such a mess even on the top boards of one of our premier events.

Even if we can't trust all the games and results, some of them seem clear enough to talk about. Just take them with a grain of salt. Russia finally got the big red Elo machine rolling and stomped Cuba 3.5-0.5 after squeaking by in the first two rounds. Kramnik drew with Dominguez while Svidler, Morozevich, and Jakovenko won. Moro's win is a classic in his style. One improbable move after another. The various outsiders who made it to 2/2 were duly crushed by favorites today. El Salvador, Malta, Faroe Islands, Malaysia, and Japan got the stomping that used to occur in the first round back when they didn't use accelerated pairings and match scoring. I believe those five teams scored a total of two points from their 20 games. Japan did get a win when 2100 Sano Tomu beat a Romanian GM on board four.

The biggest news was Norway's upset win over defending silver medalists and third seed China. And Magnus Carlsen didn't even win! No lie! I mean, yes Lie! That's Norwegian GM Kjetil Lie, who beat Bu Xiangzhi in the only decisive game of the match. Great sharp play from the winner. Hero of the Day for sure, and 19 seed Norway is one of the nine remaining teams with perfect 3/3 match scores. Self-proclaimed King's Indian basher Loek van Wely got another chance to show his stuff against Teimour Radjabov in the Netherlands-Azerbaijan matchup. The last three times the Dutchman has had white against Radjabov all ended up the same: "E97, 0-1". This time was different, however, and van Wely scored a critical win that drew the match. Radjabov's knight sacrifice on move 19 just didn't work, perhaps because van Wely had seen it before, eight years ago when Degraeve tried it against him. More in a bit, plus podcast.

Round 3 podcast here, now in Flash with a few diagrams.

Still in progress. Curiously, all four games on the first table, Poland-Russia, are still in progress when most of the day's games are finished. Probably not due to tension over the missile defense shield. All four games are up in the air. Btw, if you are watching at the official site, you can toggle between the single-game viewer and all four tiny boards of a match by just clicking the board. Of the completed matches, favorites China, Armenia, and Azerbaijan scored 3-1 over Belarus, Moldova, and Slovakia, respectively. Nice win by Ivanchuk with the cool 25.Bf5! More later, plus podcast.

Update: ICC Chess.FM podcast for round 2 now up here. Results, some on-site tidbits culled from the web and email, Hero of the Day, etc. 19 minutes. 4.3mb MP3. Right-click and save file locally for best results.

Thus continues the latest FIDE tragi-comedy, performed as a series of open letters and memoranda, of arranging the Kamsky-Topalov candidates match. The latest came yesterday from Gata Kamsky's manager, Oleksandr Chernenko, sent from a confidence-inspiring gmail account:

I was asked several times from several sides to give my point of view regarding the financing of the match Kamsky-Topalov from my side. It is especially topical after FIDE's letters of November 06 and November 07 blaming me that I lied about availability of funds for the match Kamsky-Topalov in city Lviv in Ukraine.

I don't want to blame anybody but I would like to explain why the announced amount of USD 935 thousand (including FIDE charges) was not transferred to the FIDE account. At first my sponsors and then I promised to do it, several times. I will explain now why it has not yet happened (the same situation will be with sponsors from the Bulgaria side). The money was and is available now.

The main reason is that FIDE did not present the necessary contracts beforehand: for the match Kamsky-Topalov and for match Anand-Kramnik. We asked about it dozen times. The position of FIDE, money first, is not acceptable for us. We don't know what kind of "tricks" can be contained in these contracts. As soon as the money will be on FIDE's account we could not change any issues, and FIDE will push on us to sign the proposed variant.

I see only one way out: conditional transfer. As soon as the contracts will be looked through, and as soon as the contract will be acceptable for everybody (Topalov, Kamsky, FIDE) and will be signed, only after that the money will be lodged to FIDE account.

I will be present at the FIDE Congress as the Manager of GM Gata Kamsky and as a sponsor also. I think we will find a solution to the main issue, and the match will definitely take place. I still hope that will happen in Ukraine (city Lviv). The time that is proposed by the Bulgarian Chess Federation is acceptable.

[Italics in the original.] Putting the money in escrow is totally normal and I don't see why this couldn't have been suggested and done many months ago if this weren't another delaying tactic. Who are these sponsors? What contracts is he talking about? Player contracts? Those should be for the players to deal with and treated as a separate issue. Or is Chernenko saying he won't follow through with the sponsorship until he sees what's in the player contracts? Obviously the sponsors should have their own contracts with FIDE about what the money is for and what their obligations are. That is, you don't wire FIDE nearly a million dollars if they can do whatever they want with it.

What happens if against all probability he does show up with all this money after missing all the deadlines? Ah the chess world, always entertaining and with more clowns than Ringling Brothers. Tune in next week when it turns out all the money was in a failed Ukrainian bank or Lehman Brothers stock.

So are they going to forfeit 100 people today or what? Or has that insane rule been altered? I agree one hour is weird for a professional sport, but 15 minutes for courtesy and confusion seems reasonable. Official site still not showing any sign of where to go for live games, which start at 1500 local, 9am EST. [Live game links are here. h/t evanhaut.] The ICC will be showing around 44 games live per day, mostly top teams and top players. I'll be doing podcast wrap-ups each day with occasional guests. I'm sure Ilyumzhinov will be crushed (not literally this time) to learn he missed cheerleaders and a Freddie Mercury impersonator at the opening ceremony. Update later. Post your best links.

Aronian-Caruana and Svidler-Korchnoi to start things off with a bang. USA gets Iceland and it looks like Nakamura gets rested. Remember, only five players for the four boards this year. -- Hmm, 9:05 and no moves yet. I can only assume all 1350+ players have been forfeited. -- Hey, moves! Caruana is the latest mortal to scoff at Aronian's prep in the Anti-Moscow Semi-Slav. On the official site you can only see one large board at a time and then you have to go back and choose another one, etc. If you click the bold live link above the other four on each pairing you'll get all four (tiny) boards. The Chessdom guys are doing some crazy constant posting here.

Update: Will somebody please finally confirm what's going on with the no-show rule? Are they sticking with forfeiting anyone not at the board at the start of the round? -- According to several people on the scene, they are sticking with the rule but aren't going to enforce it until round three. A few players were warned today. Place your bets now how many scandals there will be. If they forfeit someone on one of the top teams there will be noise.

Update: Susan Polgar is in Dresden and kindly posted her photo gallery links from the opening ceremony and round one. Thanks Susan! Any chance you can sneak in a few games for the US?! ChessBase has photos as well. Unsurprisingly, almost all of attractive female players, but at least they went with the strongest ones. In a few days they'll be trolling the lower tables for babes as usual. You can see the results and pairings easier at the Chess Results page instead of seeing their data crammed into the frame at the official site. You can see all the teams, all the players in order by rating, etc. Always nice. Round 2 pairings here.

If you've been feeling depressed and are looking for that last thing to tip you over into suicidal, you must check out today's "Chess Olympiad TV" at the official site. You have to download and install a client, but it doesn't take long and it's well worth it. Just the other day I was complaining about the dearth of ice-skating Freddie Mercury impersonators singing "We Will Rock You." Sweet lord almighty that's scary. On the other hand, many people in Europe think the Eurovision Song Contest is actually music, so there you go.

I'm doing podcasts after each round for ICC Chess.FM. I'll be tossing in a few diagrams and such in later editions, but I haven't slept in 36 hours so tough. That's also my excuse for why this first one is barely coherent, even for me. It's more like German opera than German chess. I promise I'll be perkier and much more succinct for the rest. Here's round one in a 5mb MP3. Link will probably change later, fyi. Depending on how your browser is configured, you probably just want to right-click it and download the file. Actually it's a rambling mess, so you probably don't. But if you do.

Check out the Ninja message boards for Russianbear's translation of Yuri Vasiliev's Sport Express interview with Kramnik, which took place in Bonn after the match. (Please reference and link when you steal it.) Some highlights:

Kramnik: At this time, Anand is the model of preparation, he is the best in the world! And when two equally matched opponents face off, that becomes a decisive factor.

Vasiliev: In game 10, when the game was waged on "your territory", it appeared that Anand didn't stand a chance. Was it not possible to pick variations like that from the very beginning- variations where the struggle is based around tiny nuances?

That was the whole thing: the opponent didn't me allow to do that, thanks to his preparation that was the most ingenious. A match is a fight between two concepts. We have completely different styles. In that particular game I managed to drag him into the territory where he wasn't that strong. And indeed, I outplayed him rather easily. But his preparation was great and he purposefully imposed his style upon me.

You've said you are going to change your game. Does that mean you are going to make your repertoire with black more aggressive?

In general I don't think I have some sort of game problems. I need to change my preparation approach. It is in that respect that I am behind Anand, and perhaps, behind Topalov, too. I don't have a team that works constantly. There is a need to create it. This is exactly what I am going to work on. If I am successful at that, I am sure I will be on the very top again.

Well, you are not giving up hopes to regain the title, are you?

I am not old yet. Anand and Ivanchuk will be 40 soon, but the game is at the very highest level. I still have time. I am sure I haven't shown all of my potential in this match and I expect to enter the struggle for the world championship title again.

I'm a little concerned for Kramnik hearing him blame the match loss solely on being out-prepared. Sure the Meran work by Anand was great, but it's what the Meran represents that was the bigger problem. Kramnik was okay in those openings, but he got completely outplayed in the complex positions that resulted. You can't always control what type of game you're going to get. This is why I called attention to his loss to Morozevich at the Tal Memorial a few weeks before the match. Kramnik again looked confused in a sharp position with an open king.

Kasparov discusses this in his upcoming New In Chess article on the match, drawing the parallel to how Kramnik got him to fight on uncomfortable turf in 2000. With so many aggressive sharp young players on the scene now it's hard to imagine Kramnik staying "at the very top" unless he works on this aspect of his chess instead of trying only to avoid it.

Chessdom has the goods. The president of the Bulgarian chess federation, Stefan Sergiev, has responded to Ilyumzhinov's ultimatum about the Kamsky-Topalov candidates match.

1. The Bulgarian Chess Federation confirms its wish to host the semi final match for the World Title in chess between Veselin Topalov and Gata Kamsky. We are extremely surprised why the financial arrangements for the match have been change without sufficient arguments. It is in the best interest of chess and the necessity for this match to take place in order to determine the contender for the world title and we guarantee that we can raise the necessary USD 250,000 for a prize fund as well as USD 50,000 FIDE charges and will cover all organizational costs related to preparing and hosting the match.

2. We guarantee best conditions for both contenders for the world title to be able to demonstrate their merits.

3. Bulgarian security authorities guarantee the full safety and security of Gata Kamsky and the members of his staff.

Bearing in mind the importance of this major chess competition, we believe that the timeline proposed for its preparation is far too short (preparation of the playing hall, accommodation, PR, the design of the logo and the advertising material etc.) and therefore we would like to propose the match to take place in Sofia from the 3rd to 15th February 2009 (opening Feb. 3, first game Feb. 4 ... tie-break in case of possible draw 4:4 and closure -- Feb. 15). We are ready to talk about details and signing the contract for preparing and hosting the match.

If you are a veteran FIDE-watcher, your eyes went immediately to the phrase "we guarantee we can raise the $$$." I.e. we don't have it yet. That's not unreasonable since FIDE just upped the bid by $100K out of nowhere. The Nov. 6 FIDE ultimatum said to respond by Nov. 14 and then the match will start as scheduled on Nov. 29. It also told the players to confirm their participation in writing by Nov. 14.

I'm glad to see things moving forward. FIDE waited far too long on the apparently spurious Lvov proposal and Ilyumzhinov was left looking ridiculous after guaranteeing the prize fund of something that didn't even exist. Indeed I wonder if the entire Lvov bid was a trick to get Ilyumzhinov to pay when they never had any money at all. A swindle attempt worthy of Marshall himself if so. Have any living and breathing potential Lvov sponsors ever been heard from, or only Chernenko?

Barring a last-second miracle sponsor elsewhere, it's Bulgaria or nothing. So the question is: on what grounds can Kamsky reasonably refuse to play? Obviously it's disagreeable to play on your opponent's home soil. But I'm not aware of any contractual veto right on venue or guarantee of a neutral location, only a preference for such. A change in dates will also require the agreement of the players.

Then there's FIDE's aforementioned June 1 press release regarding the Lvov bid: "FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov guarantees the organizer's offer by backing the event from his personal finances." Is that enough on which to sue FIDE instead of playing in Sofia? I doubt it, but Kamsky's the lawyer, not me! It does seem clear to me that long before any legal outcome between Kamsky and FIDE, Shirov will have played Topalov in Sofia as Kamsky's replacement, which would be a shame (nothing against Alexei, of course).

According to various reports in the Russian press in the past few hours, FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was in a car accident today in Moscow. He had minor injuries and was taken to the hospital. According to one report, he was in the front passenger seat and hit the windshield because he was not wearing a seatbelt. He was in a chauffeured Mercedes, and the accident was with a woman in a Ford Focus. The state of her health has not been given yet from what I can find. A few of the reports add "the woman had the green light," but "responsibility has not been decided." I hope everyone is all right.

Several reports mention Ilyumzhinov won't be able to attend the opening of the Dresden Olympiad tonight. I'm sure he'll be missing out on some serious lederhosen action during the inevitable folkloric dancing/torture section of the ceremony. Remember the first rule of these things: withhold your jokes until we're sure he's all right. You'd feel terrible if he suddenly took a turn for the worse and Sarah Palin had to take over FIDE.

152 federations are represented in Dresden. 156 teams in the open and 119 in the women's section. Plus the second German team -- a standard host luxury -- and the teams of the IBCA, ISCA ICSC, and IPCA. (Blind, deaf, and dumb physically disabled, respectively.) A record number of teams and players. There are several changes to the format of the Olympiad this year, several of them horrible no matter how well-intentioned. But overall it should be another great festival of chess, camaraderie, and nationalistic fervor.

The official Dresden website was limping along for a while but at least a few basic facts were available. After a face-lift, with just a few days to go, good luck finding anything. If you go to "Olympiad & News" and then "Participating Federations" (so far, so good), you get a page with pics of all the German players. There's a link at the top, inside the page, to "all participating federations and teams." Okay, a little convoluted, but at least it's a logical path. But wait, it's a blank page! Sneaky. Even odder, if you click on "Press & Media" and then "Outlook 2008" you get a frame with the excellent chess results site's Olympiad material, with all the teams, players, and captains! Or you can just click here. Maybe the results will be listed under "Excel 2007." Most of their databased content seems busted right now, so maybe it will all come back at once when they get it fixed.

The schedule is here. Opening ceremony Wednesday night. Round one begins on Thursday. All rounds begin at 1500 local time (9am EST) except the 11th and final round, which begins at 1000 local, 4am EST. Tuesday the 18th and Monday the 24th are the off days. The ChessBase preview item on the Olympiad, mentions the controversial decision to automatically forfeit anyone who isn't at their board at starting time, instead of the usual one hour leeway. But according to my conversation with Peter Svidler and Jan Gustafsson on Chess.FM during the WCh, this insane rule has been revised. Don't recall what the new rule is, maybe 15 minutes? (With so many players from so many countries staying in so many different hotels you would have had dozens and dozens of forfeits in the first few rounds.) I don't have confirmation on that forfeit rule, however, so if you're a player and you're not sure, be prompt! There is also a ban on draw offers before move 30.

The main change this year is cutting the Open teams down to five players (four boards, one reserve) and adding a board to the Women's event so that's also five players. This way the strong players will be more tired and play worse, but in compensation we'll get a few hundred more games between unrated women. Good job, Dresden. If you want to make a stand for equal rights, abolish the Women's event entirely. No, I'm not really in favor of that. Now don't get me wrong. I'm all for Title IX and making sure women have equal access and protection against discrimination in sports. But as is made clear by the women playing in the Open section -- in 2006 I believe there were seven -- access isn't the issue. It's a culture thing. And I'm fine with affirmative action in general. We need to find ways to encourage more women to take up and stay with the sport, absolutely. But doing it this way, swapping 2500-players for 2000-players even up and bringing in dozens of players who are practically beginners, it looks silly.

Okay, enough on that. We won't really notice it once things get going and I'm sure ChessBase will be delighted to have dozens more just-happy-to-be-here young women to photograph for their in-depth chess coverage.

The favorites in the main event are, as usual, the Russians. Kramnik is back on board one in an attempt to recover from 2006, when he led the top seeds to a miserable sixth-place finish in Turin. Kramnik himself actually had the best performance rating of the event, but Svidler was off and Rublevsky a disaster. This time they have the highest-rated team ever, a 2756 average, with Kramnik, Morozevich, Svidler, Grischuk, and Jakovenko. The loss of the second reserve board cost Alekseev a spot. But I'm sure there's a spunky reserve Women's player from, say, Korea who just learned to play on the flight to Dresden who appreciates the change.

Then there's Ukraine, again without Ponomariov. Led by Ivanchuk and Karjakin, they also failed to medal in 2006. China is the third seed this time with Wang Yue on board one. They took home silver in 2006. Surprise Turin bronze medalists USA are there with Kamsky, Nakamura, Onischuk, Shulman, and Akobian. They're the 10th seed. And what about the reigning gold medalists, Armenia? They are the 9th seed this year, again led by Aronian and Akopian. Their incumbent 3rd board, Karen Asrian, died suddenly this year on June 9 (my birthday, so hard to forget) at age 28. Tigran L Petrosian is on the team to replace him and one of my favorite players, veteran Smbat Lputian, was cut.

Azerbaijan is another heavyweight, with two top-10 players leading the way in Radjabov and Mamedyarov. Peter Leko and Judit Polgar are playing for Hungary for the first time since the team won silver in 2002. Hungary had a great result in 2006 without them. Eternally under-performing England has Adams and Short again, this time with young David Howell on board three, replacing Speelman, who has socks older than Howell. Topalov is playing for Bulgaria for the first time since 2000. Anand, sadly, is sitting it out after playing in the last two Olympiads. A little surprised to see young Negi not on the team either. Koneru could make the Indian Open team, anyone know why she's not playing? Shirov is there for Spain, Gelfand for Israel, and Carlsen is playing for Norway. He should have a good shot at an individual medal since his relatively weak teammates will probably force him to play weaker opponents than the other top guys will face. And don't sleep on the home team, at least the first one. Naiditsch, Khenkin, Gustafsson, and Fridman are a formidable group.

I don't see the regulations on the official site but dug them up from some old PDFs they left lying around. The time control is 40/90'+30', g/30'+ 30". The other big change this year is going to team scoring instead of board scoring, which should guarantee less action and drama than usual on the boards. I suppose it does allow for more match upsets, but who cares about those if they come at the cost of increasing the draw percentage? Ugh. And of course it's all been cut down to 11 rounds instead of 13, or 14, of past years.

So who's your dark horse? Pick a team outside of the top ten you think could make a medal run. It doesn't happen very often. I'll say Spain and Georgia might sneak up on a few people. Will be fun to see Kramnik take out his frustrations (and preparation) on everyone. And who knows, maybe someone will get punched at the Bermuda party. And of course, Go Brooklyn, Go USA! I'll be putting up daily round-review podcasts for ICC Chess.FM and Macauley Peterson is there doing all sorts of creative things, as usual. Don't forget to waste hours of time at the fantastic Olimpbase website.

Fue una a semana de grandes éxitos para los ajedrecistas latinoamericanos. Primero, el cubano Leinier Domínguez, quien está al toque de entrar en la lista de los 20 mejores del mundo, le ganó al Campeonato Mundial de Ajedrez Relámpago en Almaty, Kazajstán. Domínguez terminó con un puntaje impresionante de 11.5 de 15 e invicto (¡!) contra varios de los mejores jugadores del mundo. Basta ver los nombres ilustres que terminaban debajo del cubano: Ivanchuk, Svidler, Grischuk, Radjabov, Mamedyarov, Morozevich, Kamsky...

Sorry, got carried away there. What an upset by Cuba's Leinier Dominguez! Okay, it's just blitz, but to take clear first undefeated ahead of such a strong field is very impressive to say the least. The 25-year-old Cuban played in a blitz training event in Cuba while working with the Olympiad team and clearly it helped. He finished a half point ahead of defending world blitz champ Vassily Ivanchuk. It's a pity that many of the games in the PGN files at TWIC and the official site are garbage. Haven't they learned not to rely on the automated boards for blitz? Put a decent player next to each board with a scoresheet. One for each player if you must.

Dominguez has been moving up the rating list steadily and is poised to cross 2700 and enter the top-20. This is the biggest win for Cuban chess in a long time and the first big FIDE title since the world junior wins of Walter Arencibia (1986) and Lázaro Bruzón (2000). ChessBase has a photo report up.

In the virtual world, young Venezuelan GM Eduardo Iturrizaga won the ICC online qualifier to play in the prestigious Corus C group next January. He defeated Brazil's GM Fier 3-1 in the final. The games took place with proctors observing the players. It started as a KO with 16 players. I'm not sure if Iturrizaga was a GM in time to make our list of countries with exactly one Grandmaster a while back. There are quite a few of those in Latin America.

Anyone out there know of simuls in 1988 in Utrecht, Netherlands, by Kasparov and Anand? They were there as the world champ and junior world champ. Probably 88, small chance it was 87. Was their first meeting. Any info welcome, but I mostly want to confirm the date.

Update: And the winner is: my London 2000 WCh comrade in arms Fré Hoogendoorn, who actually played in the Utrecht event! "Wednesday evening, 27 April 1988. There were four GMs giving simuls: Kasparov, Anand, Timman and Van der Wiel." Apparently the event was held at a shopping center next to where the expanded train station was being built. (A chess event to celebrate the expansion of a train station? I love the Dutch.)

Thanks to everyone who helped out. That was the first time Kasparov met Anand, as he reminisces in his upcoming column in New In Chess on the Anand-Kramnik match. We wanted to peg down all possible details. Garry does, however, remember what they both ate for lunch...

In what apparently was not intended to be yet another open letter, Gata Kamsky nevertheless provided his personal take on the latest FIDE organizational train wreck.

(Quick contest: Homepage bold-type glory to the best comment to finish this SAT question: "FIDE is to professional chess sponsorship what _____ is to _____." E.g. "what a crocodile is to a nest of baby ducks." or "..what Mig is to grammar.") [I'll call it for tomohawk with "FIDE is to professional chess sponsorship what Hummers are to the environment." Sounds about right. Destructive and almost exclusively for the rich and oblivious to the greater good. Honorable mention to Lakejen, a fellow member of the new dad club, for "FIDE is to professional chess sponsorship what a newborn baby is to nightly sleeping - There's a lot less of it, the little there is is much harder to come by and you appreciate it twice as much when you do manage to get some - yet you never feel completely satisfied."]

Kamsky's email was sent from Almaty where he just finished in the middle of the pack at the World Blitz Championship. (Sensationally won by Lenier Dominguez; more on that in a bit.) ChessBase has put the missive up for all to see, while also providing the back story of correspondence from the USCF board to FIDE and blessedly ignoring the sniping that went on amongst the board members. The meat from Kamsky:

Throughout the negotiations with my managers, FIDE did nothing to find a sponsor on their own, despite the fact that it was solely FIDE's decision to create this match, and thus to allow Mr. Topalov a backdoor into the final steps of the qualification proceedings for the world championship title, quite unfairly, I might add.

FIDE's entire purpose, for chess players, for fairness, has been changed into a special interest group organization and I personally believe that any negotiations with FIDE rulers or tsars, or whatever you like to call them, will be unsuccessful.

The time for the negotiation is over and the only way to fight FIDE is to expose their mistakes, and perhaps fight them in a court of law if and when FIDE broke the law. Therefore, I would respectfully request all USCF Board members to unite and find ways to make sure that justice and fairness will prevail.

That last paragraph does not bode well for this match ever taking place. It's not as if there's someone with $300K sitting around waiting to sponsor this match. As Kamsky points out, FIDE dug itself into this pit by foisting this superfluous match on the chess world. The situation wasn't helped by Kamsky's manager (?) Chernenko going on about $750K offers from Ukraine, either. Why would FIDE look for a sponsor if Chernenko told them there already was one? It's almost like Kamsky is saying, "surely you should have realized my manager is a pathological liar and tried to find a real sponsor!"

Jokes aside, here's a brief timeline: The original $150K Bulgarian bid was accepted on February 11, 2008, with a deadline of April 11 for a better offer to come in. $150K was the original announced minimum prize fund, given in June 2007 when Topalov's parachute drop into the cycle was announced. $250K was given as the minimum to "raise" with an alternative bid, after which the Bulgarians would have the chance to match it. On April 9, 2008 FIDE extended that deadline without explanation to April 23, over the protests of the Bulgarian federation. Just two days later, well-connected Russian chess journalist Yury Vassiliev reported a $750K offer from Lvov, Ukraine, and confirmed it in mid-May. (In his announcement, Vassiliev quotes Kasparov as saying it was a "pipe dream" such money existed for this match and that it would disappear "like a soap bubble." I really hoped he was wrong.) Nothing official was heard from FIDE for weeks, until on June 1 Ilyumzhinov issued his now famous guarantee of the Lvov match.

[Prior to that, ICC's Macauley Peterson, in Sofia for the Mtel tournament with Topalov and Kamsky in May, wrote this excellent investigative piece in Chess Life Online on Chernenko and the entire bid. Don't tell me I have to start reading CLO for useful information!]

Since then we've had monthly non-updates and complaints with the match still scheduled to begin at the end of November. FIDE has now formally tossed the ball back to the Bulgarians, insisting on a $250K minimum prize fund with a $50K FIDE chaser instead of the $150K the Bulgarians put on the table in February. Only FIDE could spend nine months doing nothing but chasing bubbles and then come back with soap on their faces to ask for $100,000 more than they were asking before from the same people. They expect the Bulgarians to outbid themselves? I'd love to have FIDE bidding on my Ebay auctions. "I offer $20! No, $30!" Nuts.

So the relevant questions are: 1) Will the Bulgarians come up with the extra $100K and accept the bid? 2) Is Kamsky just playing hardball to maximize his leverage or will he really refuse to play in Bulgaria? I don't recall seeing anything about the players having veto rights on the venue. If FIDE could be sued for incompetence it would have gone bankrupt long ago. FIDE's new ultimata seem to be in the wrong order. It's a), c), b), obviously. Or do they really expect the players to agree to play in something that doesn't even exist yet? Who in their right mind would sign a piece of FIDE paper with the rest of it to be filled in later?

But apparently it should be "Roustam" and if he signs it that way, I'd recommend spelling it that way, too. His has an open letter out on his son's candidates match against Topalov, well covered here over the past few days. Anyone who remembers Gata Kamsky's career before retiring in 1996 also remembers his father's vitriolic and occasionally violent nature when it came to protecting what he saw as his son's best interests. With that perspective in mind, this letter is pretty tame stuff.

He points out that FIDE is, as usual, asking players to commit without having all the details. Here's the meaty part of the letter.

The foremost important issue that FIDE omitted from its agenda for the technical meeting in Dresden on November 18th, 2008 is to have both players and their attorneys to discuss and negotiate the terms of the contract. During prior months FIDE remained silent to numerous requests for a contract for the Kamsky-Topalov match made by GM Kamsky's attorney. Yet having no contract, FIDE mandated on November 6, 2008, that both players must confirm their participation by November 14, 2008. Before any confirmation can be given a player must know the time, the place and the prize fund for the match. FIDE is trying to use time pressure to force players into confirming to unknown terms that could later become critical. GM Kamsky is asking for the minimum - an honestly and fairly organized match in neutral location. If that does not occur both players instead of fighting against each other should unify to fight against FIDE in the court of law. . . .

It is clear that FIDE has a direct duty and responsibility to organize the world championship match Kamsky-Topalov. However FIDE's latest response is to place its burden upon players, thus confronting the players even before their battle on a chess board. I anticipate that in these uncertain times Gata's life could be in danger: no person - no problem.

I'd agree about FIDE's obligation mostly because they dug this hole by jumping into bed with the Bulgarians to gift Topalov this match in the first place. But the neutrality aspect of père Kamsky's missive is dubious. Neutral location is preferable, but not always enforceable. As Alexei Shirov pointed out here recently, plenty of candidates matches have taken place on one player's home soil. (And Kamsky should note that the visitor almost always wins!) Not great, but better than nothing. This match shouldn't have existed to begin with, of course. If they just canceled it and made Kamsky the challenger I wouldn't shed a tear. But it was set up in advance and if the Bulgarian offer can meet the requirements and the money is in the bank, it should happen.

The Stalin-Putin paranoia at the end was a nice touch. But FIDE wouldn't kill anyone unless they were standing in the way of a lot of money and that's not the case here. I'm assuming his referring to the match as a world championship was just a Freudian slip. Earlier he says Anand would have done better against Kasparov in 95 had he not included "as his trusted seconds grandmasters from the former Soviet Union." The only members of Anand's 95 team to fit that description were Elizbar Ubilava and Artur Jussupow. (Speelman and Wolff were the others.) Is he suggesting Ubilava (Anand's trusted second of many years) and Jussupow sabotaged Anand? And what about Kasimjanov on his team this year?

It's including crazy things like this that sabotage the credibility of anything else he has to say. That said, the point about there not being a contract is entirely valid and it's been valid every time FIDE does this. They don't have the credibility to expect players to take their word on anything. I do hope this is worked out.

Did we say Lvov? Nevermind. And what did this mean?

June 1, 2008:

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has announced that the World Championship Challenger Match between Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria) and Gata Kamsky (USA) will take place in Lvov, Ukraine in November 2008. The organiser offered a prize fund of 750,000 USD and to hold the match on the "neutral" territory of Ukraine, as the players wanted to avoid Bulgaria or the USA. FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov guarantees the organiser's offer by backing the event from his personal finances.

FIDE shouldn't be obliged to finance and organize the entire thing if Lvov was really vaporware from the start. The "guarantee" we enjoy giving Ilyumzhinov a hard time about can't really come into effect if there's nothing there at all. Still, he was either willing to kick in some money or he wasn't. Looks like not. Anyway, on to the latest FIDE press release, which basically tossing things back to Sofia as long as they can guarantee (!) the $250K minimum plus the $50K FIDE fee for sandwiches.

a) The Bulgarian Chess Federation will be re-awarded with the event if it accepts in written form, by 14 November 2008 12:00 GMT, to hold the match with a prize fund of 250,000 USD plus 50,000 USD as contribution to FIDE and all organising expenses covered. In this case, the dates of the match Topalov - Kamsky remain as already announced (29 Nov. - 12 Dec. 2008)

b) By 14 November 2008, 12:00 GMT, both players have to officially confirm, in written form and in a clear and explicit way, that they will play the match. If GM Topalov refuses to confirm his participation, then GM Kamsky qualifies automatically for the 2009 WCC match. If GM Kamsky refuses to confirm his participation, he will be replaced by GM Shirov (the runner-up of the World Cup 2007).

c) If the Bulgarian Chess Federation will not confirm that it accepts the financial requirements of (a), an open bidding procedure will be launched with a deadline of 31 December 2008. The best bid will be awarded with the event which will then be held in February or March 2009.

Bulgaria seemed ready to go a few months ago. Will that have changed for some reason? Will Kamsky play in Bulgaria? It certainly wouldn't be the first time a candidates match has been held on the home soil of one of the players. (Though as listed here a while back, the home team loses just about every time, oddly enough.)

It's a long way off yet (Jan 16 - Feb 1), but the good folks at Corus just announced the completion of the 2009 Group A field. Many recent winners, but lacking the marquee names Anand, Kramnik, and Topalov.

Alexander Morozevich (RUS, #2)  Elo: 2787 DOB: 1977
Vassily Ivanchuk (UKR, #3)      Elo: 2786 DOB: 1969
Magnus Carlsen (NOR, #4)        Elo: 2786 DOB: 1990
Levon Aronian (ARM, #7)         Elo: 2757 DOB: 1982
Teimour Radjabov (AZE, #8)      Elo: 2751 DOB: 1987
Wang Yue (CHN, #11)             Elo: 2736 DOB: 1987
Michael Adams (ENG, #12)        Elo: 2734 DOB: 1971
Sergei Movsesian (SVK, #13)     Elo: 2732 DOB: 1978
Sergei Karjakin (UKR, #15)      Elo: 2730 DOB: 1990
Gata Kamsky (USA, #16)          Elo: 2729 DOB: 1974
Leinier Dominguez (CUB, #21)    Elo: 2719 DOB: 1983
Loek van Wely (NLD)             Elo: 2618 DOB: 1972
Daniel Stellwagen (NLD)         Elo: 2605 DOB: 1987
Jan Smeets (NLD)                Elo: 2604 DOB: 1985

I'm glad to see the hungry young Dutchies in there at last. They aren't getting any younger and weren't exactly breaking toward 2700 of late. A decent result here might give them a kick-start. Of course it's more likely they will struggle to stay out of the cellar, but having a pack of local players at the bottom of the Wijk aan Zee table won't be new.

Aronian has tied for first two years in a row. Last year he was matched by Carlsen at +3, 8/13, a modest score for such a large field that illustrated the tighness of the field overall. Missing Topalov, Kramnik, and Anand is a big deal for fans and for the Elo average, but in the last two editions only Topalov had a share of first, in 2007. Anand was +2 in both events while Kramnik finished even and Topalov on -1 last year. More amazing is that Carlsen finished equal last in 2007. Seems like an eternity ago. This year he comes in as =3-4 in the world.

Wang Yue will get a lot of scrutiny. He's been putting up very solid numbers in elite events, going undefeated through two FIDE Grand Prix tournaments. He juiced his rating up to the #11 spot with a sky-high score at the NH youth vs veterans event in August. Elder abuse won't be on the menu in Wijk aan Zee, but nobody doubts Wang Yue is the real deal. Karjakin is due for a bump, though it's unfair to expect him to be as meteoric as Carlsen just because they are the same age. The top ten isn't going anywhere. Dominguez has had a very good year, including finishing ahead of Carlsen in Biel. Still, he's only won two games against 2700+ competition in the last two years.

Good news is that they are finally going to use my favorite time control at Corus, 40/2, 20/1, g/15'+30". Always nice to see an increment in the final control (and not in the other controls). Let's hope Linares follows suit.

This email was sent by the USCF president on Nov. 4 in response to Ilyumzhinov's announcement.

Thank you for your email. Everyone hopes that Mr. Chernienko's money finally arrives. But if not, why would FIDE even think about reopening negotiations with the Bulgarian Chess Federation?

On June 1, FIDE issued and posted the press release below, announcing that the Lvov match and its prize fund were guaranteed by the backing of FIDE President Ilyumzhinov. Surely, FIDE cannot be considering reneging on this public promise? This would be a terrible blow to the prestige of the organization and of world chess, as well as probably being illegal.

Bill Goichberg
President, US Chess Federation

So I guess it was the same Kirsan Ilyumzhinov after all. Or maybe his evil twin. Wait, I guess that would be his competent twin? Whatever. As much as I'd like to see my Brooklyn homeboy Gata Kamsky playing for buku bucks, let's remember that this is an eight-game candidates match and that the winner gets what should be a good payday against Anand in 2009. The problem is that chess and FIDE sponsorship have the credibility of a man who swears he has no idea how that lipstick got on his collar. Kamsky had his rightful shot at Anand, won in battle at the Khanty-Mansiysk World Cup, intercepted by FIDE shenanigans and has no reason at all to trust them now.

Speaking of Gata, I'm glad he's being the coolest cat in town and waiting for this all to play out. But this Chernenko (as it's usually been written) character doesn't seem to be doing much better than FIDE in the promises department so far. It may come down to Sofia or nothing this week.

By the way, Chessdom has a bit saying Topalov won't play Corus 09 because it would interfere with his preparation for the world championship. Eh? Weird. h/t peach in the message boards. Kamsky IS playing there, btw. There are still three open spots in the Corus A field, I believe, with Anand and Kramnik not confirmed or denied yet to my knowledge. [Macauley says below that Anand is definitely not playing in Corus.] Ivanchuk, Carlsen, Morozevich, Aronian, and Radjabov are the top seeds right now. Movsesian is the qualifier from last year and his rating has also jumped up a lot. Van Wely is back after a horrible 2008 with the additional motivation of making Jan Timman eat crow. Stellwagen and Smeets are being thrown to the lions, which is good. Sink or swim sometimes creates some pretty good swimmers. [The complete field is now up, adding Wang Yue, Adams, and Dominguez to reach 14.]

Blogging from bed on my G1 so I'll keep this brief for now. FIDE prez Ilyumzhinov has issued a stern memo and another deadline, today, for Kamsky's manager to make $935,000 appear for the Lvov bid. Or else he's going back to the Bulgarians. Didn't Ilyumzhinov personally guarantee the Lvov match fund? Must have been another Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.

Get yer post-election groove on. As an excuse, I've even got something to relate it all to chess, as if I care that much about staying on topic. This is a Kasparov editorial piece for the LA Times Syndicate running in various papers around the world in quite a few languages this week. Here's the English version as run in The Australian. I worked on the piece with Garry and I've added back a few small changes and punctuation elements the editors removed somewhere along the line. As ever, the title is entirely the creation of the editors. No matter what you put, they go their own way. (The suggested titled we sent was "The World Is Round," which isn't much either, I admit.)

Lynch Mob Lies

Garry Kasparov | November 05, 2008

There is no doubt Barack Obama's election as the next president of the US would have an impact on how many in the rest of the world think about the sole superpower. Obama represents a new generation of leadership, and he sounds and looks very different from his predecessors.

Here in Russia, as in most places I have visited recently, Obama's appearance -- he would be the first black leader of any world power -- is getting the most attention. His victory would mark the end of the view of the US still promoted by many in Russia, a line used by the Soviets to counter accusations of repression: "Ah, but in the US they lynch Negroes!" It is practically conventional wisdom, and not just in Russia, that in the US the rich WASPs and Jews exploit the poor blacks and Latinos. If Obama wins, it will be as if suddenly everyone can see the world is undeniably round.

Unfortunately, most would rather talk about what this is likely to mean for race relations in the US instead of confronting the racism and xenophobia in our own nations. But the only thing that will matter, and surprisingly soon, is whether Obama acts differently. The window of opportunity for Obama to take advantage of the world's curiosity and goodwill will be small. The crises we face are too big; the next US president will not enjoy much of a grace period.

Obama would be halfway there simply by virtue of not being George W. Bush who, rightly in some cases and wrongly in others, has come to symbolize every problem anyone has ever had with the US, Americans and US power abroad.

Bush is seen as practically a bouquet of the classic American stereotypes, the ones so easy to hate: rich, inarticulate, uninterested in the world, stridently religious and hasty to act. (And the images of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina seemingly exemplified the stereotype of Americans as racists and were viewed largely without surprise abroad. "Of course they wouldn't rescue poor black people!") Obama would explode these stereotypes. But the world's multitude of grievances against the Bush administration quickly would be laid on Obama's doorstep if he were to fail to back up his inspiring rhetoric with decisive action.

He could get off to a good start by making it clear he does not consider the people of Russia to be the enemy of the US. As in most authoritarian states, the Putin regime does not represent most of its citizens. Kremlin propaganda works hard to present the US as Russia's adversary. Obama could strike a blow against that image by speaking out against dictatorial leaders in Russia and across the world.

Then those words must be quickly followed up with deeds.

Garry Kasparov, a leader of The Other Russia coalition (theotherrussia.org), is a former world chess champion and lives in Moscow.

The image abroad of America as a deeply racist country is not limited to consumers of official propaganda. In my ten years living outside the US, I was always startled by how many people, well-educated as often as uneducated, simply assumed white Americans, and me personally, hated all black people. Argentines (just to take the example I know best) who had never met a black person in their lives, let alone an African-American, would say spectacularly racist things about blacks, fully expecting me to sympathize. After a while I realized that while they very well might be racist in their own ways, in this case it was mostly a strange form of distance-learned bigotry, some of which I attribute to Hollywood. (I used to get a kick out of asking people in Lat. Am. what percentage of the American population was black. I rarely got a number lower than 40. But if you really want to start a fight at a crowded youth hostel anywhere in the world, ask how many continents there are...)

Of course race and racism are huge issues in America. Yes, even now, an hour after Barack Obama was announced as the next President of the United States. Of course it's usually limited to a racist friend, or a friend of a friend, or a family member we're a little embarrassed about, never us. Ahem.

Reactions from around the world.

I've had some good political exchanges with chessplayers both foreign and domestic over the years. Anyone have the gumption to check Fundrace to see if any GMs were on any bandwagons in this campaign? The only hit for "chessplayer" under occupation is $200 from a Thomas Dorsch in Nebraska to the Dean campaign in 2004. Yeeearrrgh!

The World Blitz Championship in Almaty I mentioned a few days ago looks like the next event to distract us until the big schnitzel that is the Dresden Olympiad is served on Nov. 12. The first prize in the 16-player blitz event is a whopping $54,000. Pretty nice paycheck for two days of work. It runs Nov. 7-8. Anyone betting against Ivanchuk? I'd certainly take Chukky, Morozevich, and Grischuk against the rest of the field for first.

Should also give a shout for the Pan-American Continental Chess Championship underway somewhere in everyone's favorite swing state. Many of the top USers are in action, including Shabalov, Becerra, Stripunsky, and young hope Ray Robson.

I few tidbits I've been sent recently from the chess world's greasy area behind the stove.

Ever-entertaining GM Jan Timman sounds off in a can't-miss interview with a major Dutch paper. You don't need to read Dutch to understand the headline. You can also make due with the Google translation for the yin of the zin. In summary: Nice to have unified title, too bad Anand is boring. The FIDE knock-out events were jokes. My 1993 FIDE title match with Karpov was a joke. Kasparov caused problems but at least he put butts in the seats. We're all waiting for Carlsen to take over and save us. Ilyumzhinov is a crook with poor listening skills. It was a pity Bessel Kok didn't win the FIDE presidency. The new Dutch players couldn't carry my wine supply. van Wely is a joke.

Edward Labate would like the world to know the result of the legal brouhaha he got into with sleazebag (my word, not Labate's, whose words are far stronger) Ed Trice. This was related to the "61 Memorable Games" Fischer ripoff book I called shenanigans on last December.

From the "more things change..." sub-dept. comes an amusing report on originality-challenged UK GM Ray Keene, once again in the pages of Private Eye. It's gotten to the point that you feel left out if Keene hasn't swiped some of your material over the years. Geoff Chandler brings the goods at the Chess Edinburgh site and links to bonus info at the Streatham & Brixton Chess Club site.

America's Hikaru Nakamura saved his best for last and won his first rapid game of the ko phase against Ivanchuk to take the title. Ivanchuk had white in the first game of the final and they drew a sharp knight vs bishop endgame (foreshadowing). In the second game it looked at first like Nakamura was swapping down into a tame draw and the blitz tiebreaks he has dominated so far. Perhaps world blitz champ Ivanchuk was lulled into thinking the same and was already looking ahead to the tiebreaks. [Nakamura says Ivanchuk offered a draw after 19..Rxd5 but by then he realized he could play on with no risk. He also confirms my general impression he (Nakamura) was understandably content with taking the match to blitz at the start.]

But instead Nakamura was headed for a completely winning knight vs bishop endgame that he finished off with precision to take the title. The black king is sealed off beautifully on the kingside and the bishop is helpless on its own. Not often you see Ivanchuk look this bad, losing without a serious blunder. This was only the fourth decisive rapid game of the 14 in the KO stage. (Carlsen beat Bu and Karpov and Caruana swapped wins.)

Vidcap from the Europe Echecs Cap d'Agde site, which doesn't tell us how much that giant check is worth. Perfect size to slip under your mattress in this economy though.

Though he didn't face other favorites Carlsen and Radjabov (both eliminated by Ivanchuk) in the KO phase, Nakamura has again staked a claim to a piece of the fastest chessplayer title. Why isn't he playing in Almaty next week? Was he invited? It's going to be very hard to get his rating up to the top-20 level required to get automatic invites playing in opens. He's currently #30. Let's hope this big win opens some more doors.

Nakamura blogs about his Cap d'Agde victory (h/t FBX). JFern thinks that's a 16,000 euro check.

Nice pics of Anand and Co. from the last day of the match from Freddy at ChessBase. From 1.e4! of game 11 to the celebratory bubbly. They also put up collection of interviews and media clips from the Indian press here.

Some flashbacks from pre-match interviews. Both players probably have at least six months worth of preparation left over. Kramnik could probably sell his as "Like New! Never Used!" on Ebay.

Anand: "I have been studying Kramnik since the end of April, up to ten hours a day, here at home in my cellar, where I have my office. I have a database and construct game plans. I try to neutralise positions in which Kramnik is strong. He is doing the same thing with my game, which I must of course take into consideration. Let me put it this way: I must remember that he is thinking about what I am thinking about him. In any case one is working for months with the computer, trying to find new paths."

Kramnik: "So basically my preparation started - let me see, when did we sign? - well sometime in November. From that time I started to collect my team, I started to check the games of my opponent, to think about different possible strategies. But it became fairly intense from somewhere around April - more intense with more concrete chess work."

I heart qualifiers for major round robins, even if they are online rapids. The Internet Chess Club is hosting a massive international qualifying tournament for a coveted spot in the prestigious Corus C tournament. They are playing rapid chess with proctors monitoring each player. Most of the players are youngsters, keeping with the usual Corus C theme. First round today, Nov. 1, at 10am EDT. More info here.

Reigning world blitz champ Vassily Ivanchuk eliminated Magnus Carlsen in blitz after two drawn rapid games. Hikaru Nakamura demolished Karpov after another two draws in rapids. You almost felt sorry for Karpov having to deal with Nakamura's typical rain of tactical blows in the 3'+2" tiebreak games. It was a Halloween horror show. On the other hand, the vet did make it to the semis and had his shot in the rapid games. The Ivanchuk-Nakamura final is a classic old master versus young hotshot match-up. By the usual silly chance of the group stages Ivanchuk has had a tougher route to the final, which shouldn't mean much. Live and results here.

You may now resume your candy coma.

First rapid game with Ivanchuk with white drawn. If this goes to blitz could we pretty-please have them play 10 games instead of two?

Update: No blitz necessary! Hikaru Nakamura beat Ivanchuk in the second rapid game to win the Cap d'Agde Trophée CCAS!