December 2008 Archives

Unlike most year-end list makers, I prefer to actually wait for the year to end before compiling my review of the year gone and the look ahead into the year to come. The problem with this method is called, for lack of a better word, alcohol. So I'll be adding to this series the next day or two during the post-New Year's Eve detoxification process. Happy New Year, everyone!

My general impression of 2008 was that it was a very busy year for elite chess. The addition of the FIDE Grand Prix events, the Grand Slam final in Bilbao, the Nanjing Pearl Spring tournament, and the Dresden Olympiad made 2008 a bumper year in terms of a sheer quantity of top-level games. The traditional events of Corus Wijk aan Zee, Linares, and Dortmund were again joined by relative newcomers MTel Masters, Aerosvit Foros, and the Tal Memorial. The Russian Team Championship was again incredibly strong, probably deeper overall than the Euro Club Cup it was a qualifier for. There were many powerful rapid and blitz events old and new, from Melody Amber to Mainz to Yerevan and Cap d'Agde.

To top it all off, we had the remarkable world championship match we'd all been waiting for as Anand defeated Kramnik in Bonn. Anand's domination -- he led 4.5-1.5 at the half -- was startling. That took the drama, if not all the life, out of the match. Anand turns 40 in 2009 but is clearly still capable of playing the best chess of his life, although his dismal Bilbao performance showed he can no longer coast on sheer talent. Kramnik now begins what they call a "rebuilding year" in team sports. Meanwhile, Veselin Topalov dominated all his events in the second half of 2008 and starts the new year as the world #1.

We are supposed to have yet another world championship match in 2009, between Anand and the winner of the Topalov-Kamsky candidates match scheduled to take place in Bulgaria in February. Despite FIDE's best attempts to save/sabotage the world championship over the years, including this one, you have to admit at least we're getting some events. The problem continues to be that all the confusion and abuse is alienating fans, players, and sponsors. All the dropouts then lead FIDE to toss out makeshift "solutions" instead of dealing with the core problems of transparency and reliability.

Coming up, more stats than you can stomach and the reader polls you demanded dreaded. This is your last chance to submit an idea for a year end/start poll!

Now Vassily Ivanchuk adds his opinions on FIDE's recent announcement of a plot to add a candidates tournament to the world championship cycle currently in progress. One of the reasons for expanding things further, according to Ivanchuk, is that so many top players are "unable" to participate in the Grand Prix. The correct word is "unwilling," of course. FIDE has sabotaged it further with this latest change, as well as by allowing the sponsorship of several of the GP events to fall through. But last I checked the World Cup was still on course and everyone can participate there.

Apart from the fact that warping the current cycle is insane, the outline of the system Ivanchuk proposes certainly makes more sense than whatever Ilyumzhinov has come up with over the years. Matches are good, another round-robin not so much. But there is no way invitations should be handed out by rating -- or by organizer or FIDE fiat. Playing for the championship means playing for it, so some sort of qualifier for the matches is required. Otherwise it's just another super-elite circle-jerk with all the drama of lukewarm soup. Sure, slapping the "world championship" tag on San Luis and Mexico City raised the stakes and the interest level, but they simply don't compare to the big matches and the build up of the candidate elimination process.

Instead of giving the same players as many chances as possible to succeed, give as many players as possible a chance to succeed. Bring some excitement and some new blood into the process. Most importantly, make the entire thing transparent, fixed, and promotable instead of corrupt, ever-changing, and practically untouchable.

Actually, the weather here in NY is warmer right now than it was most of the time in California. Go figure. Too tired from lugging baby and her haul of presents through airports to go through games now. Will catch up on the Elista Grand Prix tomorrow, though it looks like that will put me right back to sleep. Three decisive games from the 21 played in the final three rounds? Eh? Coincidence or were people coasting to the finish and/or eggnogged out?

Re my hazy Cali post on Nanjing: as various people pointed out, Topalov hit 2813 in 2006. Kramnik's peak was 2809 back in 01-03, when he was briefly removed from the list for playing only three games in a year's time. Anand is the fourth player to ever crack 2800, doing so three times and peaking at 2803. But as with 2700 just over a decade ago, the absolute numbers really don't matter much. It will be surprising if we don't have five or six players over 2800 in a few years. Funny, looking at Kasparov's first supertournament sporting a 2800 (exactly) rating, Linares 1990, the next highest-rated player there was Ivanchuk at 2655. Garry won with a +5, 8/11 score and lost a few points, hah. Karpov wasn't there due to his candidates final with Timman. Karpov and Timman were rated 2730 and 2680 at the time. Soon enough we'll be talking about 2900...

There have only been a handful of classical games between 2800s. I remember because I saw the first ones ever in Moscow. Four between Kasparov and Kramnik at the Botvinnik Memorial and two more a few months later in Linares , all drawn. (Plus six rapid and ten blitz, also at that 2001 Botvinnik Memorial event.) Two between Anand and Topalov, both wins for black at the MTel Masters in 2006. (Topalov scored +3 and gained quite a few rating points.) The 2803 Anand beat the 2804 Topalov in the Leon rapid final a month later.

Ivanchuk looked like a good bet to crack 2800 but will drop over 20 points on the next list. He and other 2800 contenders Carlsen and Morozevich will all be on the move at Corus in a few weeks. As for Topalov, we'll see if FIDE rates Pearl Spring for the January list. As it finished after the Dec. 15 cutoff, they aren't supposed to. He'd still stay number one by a good margin, however.

Speaking of the next list, two former great hopes who looked like they were becoming never-wases, Sasikiran and Vallejo Pons, are going to add tons of points to be in the top 20. Late bloom or fluke? I'd be stunned to ever see either of them in the top ten, but it can be a good thing to be stunned from time to time. Keeps life from getting boring.

I'm four kinds of pie into the holidays this week and we haven't even had dinner yet. This is why cross-religious marriages should be encouraged. More holidays, more food, more presents. I hope everyone out there is having a good holiday season and end of 2008. Don't forget to start working on various "best of 2008" lists and your 2009 resolutions for next week's polls. Player of the year, game of the year, clutch performance, blunder, quote, Dirt comment, we'll have it all.

Meanwhile, in the chess equivalent of the North Pole, Elista, the Grand Prix played today and it was definitely not peace on earth and goodwill to pawns. Five of seven games were decisive, leaving a knot at the top of the table with Jakovenko, Radjabov, and Grischuk on 6.5/10 with three rounds to play.

Not quite as catchy as the "Pearl of Zanvoort" or even the "Pearl of Wijk aan Zee," but Veselin Topalov will take it. He's taken everything else lately, so why not? The Bulgarian dominated the Pearl Spring tournament in Nanjing, China, with a big +4 score, 1.5 points ahead of Levon Aronian. Local hero Bu Xianghzi, who led for a while and looked sure of at least a solid second, lost his last two blacks, including being demolished by Ivanchuk in the final round. His even score was still good enough for clear third. Svidler bounced back after hitting his usual -2 inflection point, but then fell to the surging Topalov. Movsesian played some good chess for stretches but couldn't win after the second round. He was matched on -2 by Ivanchuk, who scored his only win against the fading Bu Xiangzhi in the final round.

It was an interesting event with everyone but Topalov looking sketchy at times. He was the only undefeated player and the only players he didn't beat were the two outsiders, Bu Xiangzhi and Movsesian. (Yes, I know Movsesian is higher-rated than Svidler at the moment, but his super-tournament experience is vastly inferior.) Topalov's use of the Caro-Kann is notable, as is his success with it. Hard to see him wanting to play it against a grinder like Leko though. There were some clientele situations with three players losing both games to one opponent. There were several spectacular games, though due to the 2am start time I'm not sure many of them had time scrambles. (Allow me my usual rage at how we ignorantly discard all the time per move information.)

This result should put Topalov at 2809 on the January rating list according to Runde's live list, consolidating his return to #1 after Anand's brief stint. For what it's worth, I believe that's the highest rating anyone other than Kasparov has achieved. It's also only a few points shy of the 2812 Garry retired with nearly four years ago, if a few miles short of his ridiculous 2851 peak. (Worth noting if we're going to have this discussion is 15 years ago it took +8 against top-ten players to score a 2800 result. Now it's +2.) We won't be seeing Topalov, Anand, or Kramnik in action again until mid-February, it seems. All are skipping Corus in January. In February Anand and Kramnik are in Linares and Topalov has his candidates match against Kamsky.

Instead of the usual blah-blah gabfest about best this, future that, and most likely to whatever, I thought it would be interesting to occasionally have a few questions related to sales and sponsorship for useful debate. Starting off with software. Feel free to expand on your answers or fill in your own in the comments. [Clicking "see stats" on the results page takes you to a different site.]

Suggestions for future "chess business" polls also welcome.

I'm particularly interested in what people think about the various training videos/DVDs. I have a bunch of them and while they are cool and often informative, I feel the whole experience is too passive. You're just watching. Do any of them use interactive elements like pop quizzes or other things to take advantage of the fact that you are using a computer and not sitting in front of the TV like a vegetable? We had questions and such in the old distance learning video lessons we made at KasparovChess.com seven years ago.

This reminded me of an old and debatable quibble of mine about amateurs replaying games with software instead of in books and magazines. With a screen showing every move with a click or arrow press, you don't build any visualization power at all. You are always seeing the position, even the analysis. This is convenient, but it's like trying to learn to read from an audiobook. Or something. My gut says working through a game from five diagrams forces you to visualize, a critical skill. For those who don't play hundreds of serious games a year (and thereby develop their visualization in combat) it's a skill that must be practiced. I guess it's better than what so many amateurs do with printed material, which is skip from diagram to diagram without gaining much from what's in between.

Been a bit swamped with holiday plans, marches in Moscow, and, of course, taking care of baby. But there's been plenty of chess under the tree, or wherever you stick your presents.

Topalov has made his usual late move in the Pearl Spring tournament, winning his last two games against Svidler and Aronian. The win against Svidler's Grunfeld was yet another chapter in Topalov's long book of wonderful positional exchange sacrifices. But as Tal wrote about Petrosian, he consistently provides proof that rooks are actually not worth more than bishops and knights. Bu Xiangzhi kept pace with his second win over Movsesian. It was also a long-term exchange sac and the Chinese followed it up with some very precise calculation to bring home the point against Movsesian's desperate defense. Movsesian knows how to curry favor (kung pao favor?) with the organizers. Lose only to the local star!

The two leaders, both with 4/6, meet in today's 7th round, Bu Xiangzhi with white. Anyone out there know how much local coverage of this event is going on in China? On the TV news at all? I bet it will be if Bu beats Topalov, especially if he goes on to win the tournament, as would be likely at that point. Live here.

Meanwhile, 4071.64 miles (6552.50 km) away in Elista, Teimour Radjabov has taken the early lead in the third leg of the Grand Prix with a 3/4 score. Wins over Bacrot and Kasimjanov put him on top of Jakovenko, Grischuk, and Gashimov on +1. Bacrot bounced back at Leko's expense, but the Hungarian's pain is our pleasure thanks to the beautiful final move of the game. White to play and win in the diagram.

Leko is near the bottom of the crosstable on -1 thanks to another loss, to Grischuk, against a win over Cheparinov. Leko has really been all over the place this year. A good Corus, a disastrous Linares, victory in Dortmund, a mediocre Tal Memorial, and an excellent Olympiad before heading to Elista. I'm not sure if he's really trying to mix it up and be more aggressive or if he's just being pushed harder by the new generation. He had a tough defense against Bacrot's 17.g4!? pawn sac novelty. Usually giving up material against Leko is a very good way to lose. But this looks like a nice piece of prep by the Frenchman. Up until that brutal final move Leko must have thought it was his lucky day. Black is completely winning except for that tiny problem with the mate in 5.

Speaking of sacrifices, don't miss Radjabov's win over Kasimjanov's Dragon in round three. Classic Dragon-slaying with 19.Nf5+! Bacrot's miracle save against Mamedyarov is also worth a look. 40.Rd6+ would have wrapped things up for White. But Mamedyarov got grabby and Bacrot found a miracle save knight sac. Live here.

Elista, the capital of Kalmykia, which exists, isn't exactly a resort, but it is the chess venue of last resort. The third leg of the of the 2008-09 FIDE Grand Prix series was nearly amputated a few weeks ago when the original organization in Doha broke down. The event, like so many FIDE messes past, was quickly swept off to Elista, where FIDE president, also Kalmykian president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov always has a light on in the window and tax dollars to spend. Several of the players originally slated to participate aren't there, most notably Magnus Carlsen and Mickey Adams. Official site here, also with live games. The ICC is also showing the games live.

What remains is still a very strong event that has nothing to be ashamed of as a chess tournament. It's only as a symbol of FIDE's shambolic organizing that it merits censure. So now that the first pawns have indeed been pushed, let's focus on the chess. The players: Radjabov, Leko, Wang Yue, Jakovenko, Mamedyarov, Grischuk, Cheparinov, Eljanov, Bacrot, Alekseev, Gashimov, Inarkiev, Akopian, Kasimjanov. 13 rounds with free days on the 19th and 24th. Yes, they are playing on Christmas. (Which sort of makes up for FIDE's habit of scheduling big events to start on major Jewish holidays.) Rounds begin at 3pm local, noon GMT, 7am EST. With the Pearl Spring games starting five hours earlier you can really make a day (or night) of it with time for a snack in between.

Round one immediately ended the most interesting side story of the event: would Wang Yue ever lose again? China's first candidate for the top 10 had gone months, including two Grand Prix events, without a loss, running his streak to 82 games. (I only get 81 in my database for some reason; FIDE lists 80. A few Torch league games missing?) That threatened Mikhail Tal's famous streak of 93 games undefeated. I see ChessBase mentions Tiviakov had a 110-game undefeated streak, achieved in under one year's time from 2004-05. I can only come up with 98 games, but he plays in a lot of off the beaten track opens that don't always make the databases complete and I have no reason to doubt him. It is worth noting that only three of those games came against 2700+ opposition. Tal's opposition on average was also relatively weak compared to the elite-only diet today's 2700s usually face. But he was Tal and his winning percentage and risk-taking made his streak (and another over 80 games) all the more remarkable.

But Jakovenko put an end to the drama right off, outplaying Wang Yue in one of the Chinese player's favorite Berlin endgames. It's amazing that you can play over Almasi-Wang Yue from earlier this year and see the exact same ending and compare them to one another for a nice lesson. Jakovenko certainly put it under the microscope and infiltrated to victory. 39.c3 looks like the key idea, threatening to run the black bishop out of squares and forcing (?) ..c5, after which the white king has a way in, unlike in the Almasi game. Cool. The only other decisive game of the first round was also a Berlin, if an antique "declined" version that doesn't swap the queens immediately. Gashimov won a pair of pawns against Eljanov and ground him down in 93 moves despite opposite-colored bishops.

The Caro-Kann is definitely the flavor of the month in the Topalov/Cheparinov laboratory. Radjabov got a plus against Topalov's trusty second but here the opposite-colored bishops were enough to hold the draw. I've always liked the old g4 lines in the Advance and it was interesting to see Cheparinov defend it without ..h5. He later let White keep an extra pawn and proved it wasn't worth anything. Or Radjabov couldn't prove it was. Interesting stuff. Several games were drawn with almost no fight, or at least with plenty of fight left in the pieces, if not the players. With other top events adopting the Sofia rules these draws look even more pathetic.

After three rounds it's Bu Xiangzhi and Aronian at the top of a tight crosstable. Veselin Topalov has the unlikely role of drawing master so far and is on an even score with Movsesian, who got there with a win over Svidler and a loss to Bu Xiangzhi. Ivanchuk is at -1 with Svidler with two more rounds to go in the first half. After two fun and feisty rounds the third was a trio of fizzles. This Chinese chess blog is doing a good job of putting up photos and basic info from the scene.

I think a lot of amateurs laugh a little when they see top GMs playing the Giuoco Piano, as Movsesian did against Aronian in round three. There's an impression that anything that old and -- let's face it, popular with beginners -- can't be very good at the top level. This is the flip-side of the fatal desire amateurs have to study and play the hyper-sophisticated and nuanced openings the GMs play. And while the old quiet piano lines don't have the depth of the Ruy Lopez, quite a few GMs still play it occasionally with every intention of winning. After 3.Bc4 the Two Knights is almost as popular as 3..Bc5, if slightly less successful statistically. Only 15 percent of those were the club hacker's favorite 4.Ng5, by the way; the GMs go for 4.d3. Again using the ever-dubious database stats from GM games over the past two years, White is only a bit less successful after 3.Bc4 than 3.Bb5 and with slighty fewer, not more, draws. As ever, it's the life in the players, not their openings, that makes the difference.

That said, Movsesian doesn't have much of a score with it, often signaling his desire to play a short draw. He also drew against Aronian, but not before a very entertaining series of exchanges. In the first round Movsesian played Bc4 as early as legally possible against Bu Xiangzhi but got outplayed and forced into an inferior endgame. He bounced back against Svidler in round two when the Russian champion couldn't find enough energy in his position to back up an exchange sac. That was only more bad news for Svidler, who forced a repetition with a clear win against Ivanchuk on the board in the first round. The pretty 36..Rh5 was crushing. Is it only my memory or does Svidler do this sort of thing more than other top players? Off the top of my head I can remember a resignation in a drawn position and another agreed draw with a win on the board.

Round 4 live here at 2am EST: Svidler-Aronian, Bu Xiangzhi-Ivanchuk, Movsesian-Topalov. A big test for Movsesian meeting Topalov's Sicilian. Or, egad, might it be another Topalov Caro-Kann? Ugh. I'd hoped Shirov beat the Caro out of the Bulgarian in Dresden last month, but he got an easy draw against Ivanchuk with it in round three in Nanjing.

I would like to have seen some more, say, Szechuan spice in this event instead of what is basically a copy of so many other super GM events on the schedule, but it's always great to welcome a new top-level event. I previewed this Nanjing tournament here a few weeks ago. Official site here and TWIC links to a few other Chinese sites covering it. The first has some fun pictures up of the players at the opening ceremony. Here's one of Aronian probably desecrating a sacred symbol, observed with horror by one of China's gold medal winning Olympic gymnasts.

Photo from blog.sina.com.cn/chessnews

I'd like to be optimistic about the web coverage, but that would be against both my nature and our years of long-suffering experience with chess websites in general. Or maybe it's because after the latest updates to the site, the HTML title on every page has been changed to "PEARL SPARING." I hunted down a live link here, so cross your fingers. (And I hope this doesn't mean I'll have to unblock the .cn domain from my server's spam filters, because it cuts my spam around 70%.)

The cast: Topalov, Ivanchuk, Aronian, Svidler, Movsesian, Bu Xiangzhi. Format: fast classical-ish control of 40/90' + g/30'+30". (I'm assuming this is what they mean; the description isn't clear.) This is sadly fast for a non-FIDE event. The Bilbao control, without increment, wreaked havoc. Amusingly, the official site schedule doesn't just list the start time, but the end time (1500-1900). That's Chinese efficiency! 1500 local time, which is 0800 CET, 2:00am EST; double round-robin. Schedule: Game 1 on Thursday the 11th; the one free day at the half on Tuesday the 16th; final round on Sunday the 21st. Prize fund: 250,000 euro with 80K for first, 20K for last. Sofia no draw offer rules in effect (yay).

Note that round one of the Doha Elista Grand Prix is on the 14th. Happily, at five time zones away the games there probably won't begin until the Nanjing games are over. Akopian has parachuted in to replace Carlsen.

It will be interesting to see if Movsesian has just been on a hot streak lately or has really raised his game. Now representing Slovakia after first leaving Armenia for the Czech Republic, he's a fun and emotional fellow who seemed destined for eternal B-list status, finishing in the lower half of most of the few supertournaments he was invited to and hanging on the periphery of the top 20. But his recent excellent results have put him close to the top ten and he can really make a statement by just keeping his head above water with this crowd. It would be refreshing to see an old guy (30!) make a move. New blood doesn't always have to be young blood, as Bologan proved at Dortmund in 2003.

This is also an important test for the local hero, Bu Xiangzhi. He got mauled in his first big supertournament appearance at the MTel this year, but was clearly playing terribly. Maybe some home cooking will help him keep form, though the additional pressure of playing in front of the massive home town audience -- not the mention being the lowest-rated player in the field -- might hurt instead of help. The other guys we know well and all have shown flashes of good and bad form this year. Topalov is coming off great performances in Bilbao and at the Olympiad and a strong result here might even tip him over Kasparov's retired rating of 2812 on the January list. Aronian, Ivanchuk, and Svidler are coming off of emotionally draining Olympiad experiences for very different reasons. If I have to make a prediction, my money is on Michael Phelps.

Dust off your "Hou's on first" jokes, as the Chinese 14-year-old has apparently, belatedly, earned her GM title. ChessBase has a nice item on her for the occasion. She obviously world have become a GM at least a year ago had she not been trotted out to dozens of women-only events with no norm possibilities. She's had at least four 2600+ performances going back to 2006. Not that I'm a fan of the title mill either, and having her bashing through First Saturday events in Budapest just to get a title early wouldn't have meant much. But it's still tragic that such a great talent has spent the past two years playing so many 2300s instead of all the 25-2600s that Karjakin, Ponomariov, and Polgar were playing at 12 and 13. If she does ever reach the elite it will be despite her handling and not because of it.

While we're on prodigy watch, 12-year-old Ilya Nyzhnyk has 3/4 in the Ukrainian championship so far. And don't scoff at the increasing proliferation of tot GMs. Just about all the names on that "20 youngest ever" list have hit the top 10, or at least the top 20, in due time. But it's not a coincidence that a few who seemed to get a lot of help producing the GM title as quickly as possible are the ones who haven't climbed so high.

Lately we've seen a few relatively elder statesmen make surprising jumps into the elite. What's the greatest age at which someone has made their first appearance in the top 10? Movsesian is threatening to do it at 30. Thinking back over the past decade I can't recall anyone doing it past even 25. Maybe someone ancient peeped in for a list or two before falling back? Whose your candidate for best late-bloomer? Korchnoi is usually mentioned as peaking late, but though not a prodigy it's not as if he was a wimp in his 20s and 30s.

Vassily Ivanchuk has done some eloquent speaking over the board this week in Benidorm, where's he's only given up one draw from eight games with two rounds to play. With Shirov trailing with 5.5/8, Ivanchuk only needs one draw to seal victory. It's a bizarrely unbalanced field, with Ivanchuk, Shirov, and Tiviakov on one side and Lahno and local players Gutierrez and Gazquez rated hundreds of points lower. But Lahno spiced things up a bit with a spectacular win over Shirov, who also endeared himself to the fans by losing to Gazquez. The live game page has sporadic moments of success but the official viewer and PGN are usually busted. There are a few in the viewer now, so check out Ivanchuk-Tiviakov while you can. As usual, we'll hope the scores end up in Mark's capable hands at TWIC.

Joining Shirov and Carlsen, Aronian tosses his own open letter into the ring here to protest against FIDE adding a new candidates tournament to the world championship cycle. Someone in the comments said Aronian was saying he would drop out of the GP if they didn't reverse the changes, but he doesn't say that or anything like it. He expresses his "disappointment" and points out that the canceled GP events of Doha and Montreux have found replacement sites (Elista and Yerevan). There's no ultimatum, just a calm letter of protest. A few clips.

With the [General Assembly's] recent actions, it seems that there is a democratic deficit within FIDE. The GA did not consult the players currently taking part in the Grand Prix in their decision processes. Please keep in mind a very important point - these players, including myself, have a legally binding agreement with FIDE regarding the World Championship cycle and the Grand Prix. Therefore it is FIDE's duty to consult the other party of the contract - the participants.

Does this mean that the chess players have lesser rights than others? The GA appears to act with no concern for the players. The decision to suddenly change the World Championship cycle has damaging effects on the career plans of leading chess players. It is also reasonable to ask: why should we go through several tournaments over several years and fight for a place in a tournament that another player gets by losing a match? The GA's decisions remove the motivation for players like myself to take part in the World Championship cycle. . . .

It seems that FIDE was on the right path towards a reliable World Championship cycle, which had the support of leading players and chess federations worldwide. However, with the GA's recent actions, FIDE has left the right path and will lose its credibility in the eyes of chess players world wide - not to mention, ruin its efforts to be recognized as a sport by the IOC. I hope that the above arguments will be heard before finalizing the decisions of the GA.

FIDE losing credibility in the eyes of chessplayers would be like Paris Hilton losing the respect of the Christian right. Anyway, it's great Aronian is speaking out. But we'll see if action is also on the menu if FIDE continues their usual habit of completely ignoring the players.

We are indebted to bondegnasker in the comments here with this report on the 14..Bb7 move in the Meran with which Anand won games 3 and 5 of his world championship match against Kramnik. Like many, I wondered at the time if we would ever find out who exactly came up with the idea. Perhaps it was better to ask, "who didn't?"

This just in from the Danish chess federation's magazine "Skakbladet", Peter Heine Nielsen commenting on Anand's 14...Bb7 in game three of the match (my translation):

"14...Bb7!?

The move is no novelty, but its reputation is so much poorer than 14...b4 and 14...Ba6 that it apparently came as a total surprise to Kramnik. Up until now everybody was of the conviction that developing the bishop to its most natural square and pretending that Black had an attack was just an unrealistic dream, but Anand shows that it is reality. Who invented it? Well, Kasimjanov prepared it for his meeting with Gelfand, but Anand had also found it. I recall a hint of disappointment at the first training session, when both Kasimjanov and Anand said that they had great ideas in the Meran and it turned out to be the same. But when we started analyzing it, disappointment quickly turned to joy."

Not much to add to that story, really. Great minds think alike! My guess is that Heine may have played a bigger role than he claims!?

Perhaps, since Nielsen has worked with so many top players. I assume the encounter he refers to was Kasimjanov's June 2007 candidates match against Gelfand. Unfortunately for Kasimjanov, who went on to lose that match after epic tiebreaks, and fortunately for Anand, Gelfand played 9.a4 instead of the 9.e4 main Meran line Kramnik went for. (When they met later in 2007 in the world blitz in Moscow, Kasimjanov played the Albin Countergambit against Gelfand. I guess he couldn't convince Vishy to try that one.)

Update: StefanLoeffler in the comments adds that Anand credited Kasimjanov for "most of the work" on the innovation in the interview he did with Anand for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that ran on October 31.

The election for FIDE president is long over, but Magnus Carlsen, the world's 3rd-ranked player and the top young chess star in the world, has voted with his feet and dropped out of the FIDE Grand Prix. From his father Henrik's blog:

We have just informed FIDE by e-mail that Magnus withdraws from the Grand Prix series due to the dramatic change to these regulations approved by the General Assembly. Magnus is simply not motivated to continue the GP series with the dramatically changed conditions approved in Dresden, and the uncertainty related to any future changes that may be decided by FIDE. . . .

Having withdrawn from the Grand Prix series Magnus does not have to spend more time and energy on the uncertainty involved, and may fortunately now concentrate on playing several well organised and interesting top level events elsewhere. In the first half of 2009 he has agreed to play some Grand Slam events as well as some great rapid events, starting with a rapid tournament in Gjøvik, Norway January 2nd - 5th and the Corus A from January 16th onwards.

Congratulations, FIDE. Carlsen tied for first in his only GP event, in Baku. What a shame, but you can hardly blame him. And this isn't a veteran of feuds with longstanding issues. Carlsen and his father are of irreproachable integrity and this should be taken as a serious smackdown to FIDE's business as usual: "We can do whatever -- cancel events, add new ones, change conditions, all behind closed doors -- and the players will still show up when we tell them to."

If more of the elite players followed Carlsen's example Ilyumzhinov would get the bum's rush he so deserves. Or would he? He might just hang on like a chessic Mugabe, buying and bullying his way through elections forever as things crumble around him. It's times like these when all the attacks on Kasparov and Short for breaking away from FIDE in 1993 come into perspective. Is a schism worse than the corruption and ineptitude we have now? Unified idiocy is still idiocy. Speaking of, as far as I can tell, world champion Anand has been silent on all this so far. What will he do if/when they start jerking him around, too? He's already going to be playing more defenses in a shorter time than any champion in history thanks to FIDE's blatant favoritism.

Ilyumzhinov keeps rolling out big plans and we watch them fall to pieces and/or end up in Elista. If FIDE wants players to act like professionals with 'zero forfeits' and contracts, it has to meet the same standards itself, at the very least. But they couldn't care less as long as it doesn't hurt their bottom line. As Kasparov predicted several years ago, it looks like only the new generation has the guts to stand up to this garbage. Carlsen doesn't see why he needs FIDE and he's right. He's letting them know he's not going to put up with them messing with his career, and thank god.

Garry Kasparov, fresh from his rocking speech at the big "Leaders in London" business expo on Wednesday, will be at the London Chess Centre to sign copies of his new book, "Modern Chess Volume II, Kasparov Vs Karpov 1975-1985". The signing begins at 11am, but show up early as the line tends to get long. Full details here. Send me a pic if you go.

When Bessel Kok left Global Chess, I mentioned this did not bode well for the Grand Prix circuit. There had already been a whisper campaign about several of the events being in trouble, whispers confirmed by the last-second move of Doha this month and now, it seems likely, the cancellation of Montreux in April. A source tells Chessdom that the GP's falling apart is the main reason for the out-of-nowhere candidates tournament Ilyumzhinov popped up with last week. If the Grand Prix is limited to only four events the entire qualification system it is a part of will be a shambles, since there won't be enough events for all the participants to have a shot.

Chessdom adds, but doesn't source so it might just be an educated guess, that "It is very possible that UEP, the company behind the Anand-Kramnik match, will organize both candidate tournament and 2011 World Championship match. The bidding process will be started in a day or two, following the official announcement on the FIDE website."

Of course UEP is a Kramnik vehicle, so if it's a guess it's surely not a bad one.

Henrik Carlsen, writing on behalf of his son Magnus, in an letter published at ChessBase, expresses their frustration and says Magnus's participation in the GP is at risk.

What we want from FIDE are transparent processes, fairness and predictability. Significantly changing the GP regulations to the detriment of the GP players in the middle of the cycle is clearly unacceptable, and the reactions we are considering include legal action and withdrawal from the cycle.

It is understandable that the FIDE board is unhappy about the fact that several top players decided against taking part in the Grand Prix. But, this should not have come as a big surprise and was anyhow known before the start of the GP cycle. Subsequently giving privileges to the players involved in the current World Championship cycle is obviously not the right way to solve their problem.

Amen! Preaching to the choir here, as the saying goes, but will FIDE listen even to the superstars of the chess world? Let's hope they keep speaking out, and more. Kasparov took a lot of flak for his feuds with FIDE, but will the current elite actually resist beyond open letters? They complain but take the money in the end and nothing changes. Should they and how can they? We don't need another schism, but Ilyumzhinov's destructive tendencies must be battled. Where is the ACP in all this?

With the confusing URL ajedrezbali.com, the VII Benidorm chess festival is underway in Spain. (Bali is the name of the hosting hotel.) The "stars" event is about to begin and the program lists Alexei Shirov and Vassily Ivanchuk as participants. Maybe they can discuss the ongoing Ivanchuk drug test affair and Shirov's open letter on the topic. The site hasn't been updated in a while so hard to say what's really going on. Anyone with info?

Visiting family is gone, so back to the news. Unfortunately, FIDE is still trying to show it is more important than chess and chessplayers. Now it seems their idiotic drug testing policy has finally clashed with reality, as Vassily Ivanchuk did not take a required test after his dramatic final round Olympiad loss against Kamsky. ChessBase has the chronology and details here. Alexei Shirov, one of the few top GMs with balls enough to talk about these things publicly on a regular basis (not including cases of obvious self-interest), has an open letter that mentions the drug testing stupidity and Ivanchuk case as well as the recently announced candidates tournament being tacked on to the 2011 cycle that is already in progress. (That's for a separate item.)

According to the rules, Ivanchuk's Olympiad results could be stripped and he could even be banned for two years. I refuse to believe either of these things will happen. It usually requires the high-profile breaking of a stupid rule for its stupidity to be clearly seen by all. Consider it a constitutional challenge, the way bad laws get overturned all the time in the US. Of course FIDE is plenty dumb enough to actually enforce this, at least the Olympiad part, in order for Ilyumzhinov and his cronies to be able to continue attending IOC cocktail parties with FIDE money. More likely, they will find a way to make everyone unhappy and to postpone the reckoning that is needed. A warning to Ivanchuk, perhaps a slap on the wrist, and the continuation of this idiotic drug-testing regime. And don't forget the drug testing isn't just for largely nonexistent IOC privileges, there is also substantial money involved.

The ChessBase article concludes with "The case is now pending: a five-man medical commission of FIDE has to convene and decide on the consequences, no later than three months after the incident. The quandary remains: FIDE can penalize a top player and redistribute the medals, or alienate the IOC Doping Commission and endanger the recognition of FIDE as a IOC sport (which is why the fairly nonsensical drug testing for chess players was installed in the first place).

However: there is a way out: in Article 6.1 (a) the FIDE Anti-Doping Regulations state: "If the Player establishes that he or she bears No Fault or Negligence for the violation, the Player's individual results in the other Competition shall not be disqualified." One can only hope that Vassily Ivanchuk and FIDE will find a way to establish just this."

FIDE has needed a new slogan for a while now. How do you say, "FIDE, taking the piss since 2002" in Latin?

Well, just a tiny bit. The Daily Herald, "Suburban Chicago's Information Source," has a snippet on Yuri Shulman's role in bringing home the US bronze medal. They might have mentioned he's the US champion instead of "won a U.S. chess title earlier this year," which is rather ambiguous. Google journalism, I assume. The USCF did a decent job of coverage, and their stories are in the usual news searches, but I don't think they pay for press releases to go out on the wires. The AP covered it, which is rare and likely only because Rob Huntington is pushy/hungry (in a good way) and bugs them into sending him. Because so many countries participate, the Olympiad is usually relatively well represented in the mainstream press around the world. Lots of "Chess Team Sets Off for Dresden" items and such. Did you see any in your country? Regular coverage? Mention of the team's final result? Links if you got'em.

And before we start complaining about the lack of coverage, ask not what chess coverage can do for you. You have to do your part to create the demand. Did you send in a note to your local paper about the event? They aren't going to look it up. Have you ever written to your local news sources requesting more chess coverage or a regular chess column? If not you, who? Even an online only version? It's easy to do this in this age of online forms and copy-paste, but they appreciate snail-mail, too.