September 2009 Archives

Ah, the dear old logo. I put up another auction to raise money for the Recycling Revel postage fund to send books and software to kids and clubs. A beautiful and very rare collectible poster for the 2000 KasparovChess Online Grand Prix. Fewer than 150 of these 18"x24" posters were printed in 2000 and most were given out as prizes many years ago. The poster commemorates the first online chess super-tournament. 16 of the world's top players faced off in a knockout format internet tournament held in the KasparovChess Online Playing Zone February 9-20, 2000.

They were: Kasparov, Morozevich, Svidler, Seirawan, Adams, de Firmian, Short, Piket, Milos, Gulko, van Wely, I.Sokolov, Illescas, Adianto, Barua, and top computer program Deep Junior. Kasparov made it to the final as expected. His opponent there, however, was quite a surprise. Dutchman Jeroen Piket eliminated two of the top seeds, Morozevich and Svidler, before shocking even himself by then beating Garry Kasparov in the final match to take the title and the $20,000 first prize. (Decisive game here.) Bid early and bid often!

Big thanks to David Llada and Shahar T, the winners of the signed Kasparov books I auctioned for the cause last week. I'll have time to put up a Revel page with all the supporters and participants next week. I sold/gave away over 50 old descriptive notation books at the Central Park tournament last weekend. Fun to see kids happy to have their very own chess book for a dollar. (It was set your own price, one dollar minimum. Many gave much more, validating my socialist tendencies.)

It's starting to look like we can make Magnus Carlsen an unofficial member of the "K" club. (It works better in Russian, where he's already Карлсен., so call it the "К" club.) But from the way he bashed a King's Indian yesterday in Nanjing maybe he's been working with Kramnik as well as Kasparov! In the refreshingly surreal poetry of the official site, Carlsen "played up the song of victory" against world #1 Veselin Topalov in round two. His second consecutive win moved the 18-year-old into a full-point lead after the other two games were again drawn. An impressive start, taking full advantage of the first spot in the draw and the two whites out of the gate. From memory, Morozevich and Grischuk did the same at Biel and Bilbao, respectively, though neither of them hung on to win!

Topalov surprised with a King's Indian and with 6.h3 Carlsen avoided the most popular variations of the Classical, particularly the b4 Bayonet lines. An original position arrived relatively quickly for a KID, with the atypical situation of Black going for a king assault on the queenside. White didn't have corresponding early play on the queenside, which would be bad news in a Sicilian. Here it slowly became clear that Topalov had little on the queenside despite the presence of White's king. Carlsen grabbed the black a-pawn and defended with what looked like ease while slowly getting his kingside attack rolling. You don't see Topalov go down with so little effective counterplay very often. Impressive control from Carlsen. Garry Kasparov certainly enjoyed the show his protege put on, though he told me he thought Carlsen's first-round win against Leko was even better.

In the other second-round games Jakovenko and Wang Yue turned in a sharp and creative Petroff (!) that nevertheless ended in a draw. From lead into gold there we had the opposite alchemy on the other board as Leko tried to turn Radjabov's Dragon into a narcoleptic gecko but misplaced his pieces during the exchanges. Another nice effort from Radjabov, who started with two blacks and held both the KID and Sicilian confidently.

Carlsen finally slowed down in round three, not a surprise with White against Wang Yue, aka "The Cooler." (My current choice since too many people actually believed me when I said his name meant "Sleepy Panda" in Chinese.) Actually these two have been anything but cool against each other this year. Wang Yue beat Carlsen at Corus and, spectacularly, in Linares. Then Carlsen doubled him up at Amber, beat him at MTel, and knocked him out in the Leon Rapid. Today they renewed their battles in the 4.Bf4 Grunfeld, though Carlsen went with 5..0-0 instead of the more popular ..c5 he's played in the past. In fact, Black performed the remarkable feat of not touching his c-pawn until sneaking it to c6 on move seven. His unusual 6..Be6 was played by yet another К, Korchnoi, well before Carlsen's father was born. It seems to invite 7.Qb3, but Wang Yue closed the center immediately. Mission accomplished, the black bishop headed to the usual g4 square a few moves later. 9.Qc2 looks really odd to me and Carlsen's reaction of 9..Nfd7, threatening to grab the initiative with ..e5, was right on point.

More aggressive play followed from the Norwegian, who went after White's loitering king with the pawn sac ..e5 and ..f6. Soon Black had his pawn back, the bishop pair, and a strong knight on c4. It looked like only a matter of time before Carlsen went to 3/3, but Wang Yue is nothing if not hard to beat and his play on the h-file arrived just in time to hold the balance after Carlsen's grip slipped with 27..Nd6. 27..Bf5 cuts the shenanigans. Black kept the edge while Wang Yue found many accurate moves to stay alive. On the final move of time control Carlsen had 40..Rxg6 threatening the nasty ..Rg5 followed by ..Rxg2+ (after removing the white queen's control of the g5 square). 44.Re8! saved the day for the final time. A fantastic game, if something of a disappointment for Carlsen fans. Still, although he missed some opportunities it was an impressive initiative grab early and inspired middlegame play with black.

Radjabov used his first white to give us our second Scotch in a row, which jibes nicely with the five in a row I could use right now after a long day with a feverish and angry baby. Radjabov went for an offbeat queenless middlegame with an open g-file as compensation for his fractured pawns. He often does well conjuring attacking chances in these positions so there's no point in criticizing his early diversions from the approved theoretical lines. That said, outshuffling an elite player from these not-quite-an-endgame positions is rarely seen unless Kramnik's the one doing the shuffling. White's tiny plus never added up to more than Jakovenko could handle. Topalov-Leko was an Anti-Marshall where White declines to enter the topical "Marshall Delayed" lines with 11.Nxe5, as Svidler played against Leko earlier this year. Topalov played against type by grabbing a pawn with the sham sac 22.Bxf7+ when he might have played for more activity with 22.Nb4. He did keep the pawn all the way into a R+N endgame. With the possibility of giving up the knight for a pawn always in the air these are very hard to win, and Leko and his active king drew it comfortably here.

Carlsen still leads on +2 with Radjabov, Wang Yue, and Jakovenko on even and Topalov and Leko on -1. Round 4: Wang Yue-Leko, Radjabov-Topalov, Jakovenko-Carlsen. The official site's 'results' page shows how someone unfamiliar to chess might do it, by listing each player next to their individual score. Funny. But apparently someone explained crosstables to the editor after the second round and the results and pairings are now up on the schedule page.

You can call it a coincidence but I won't believe you. Magnus Carlsen busted out the Scotch Game to beat Peter Leko in the first round of the Pearl Spring tournament. As far as I can tell this was only the second time Carlsen has played it since he was still in junior tournaments. That was a quick draw against Kamsky at the World Cup in 2007. Other than that, Carlsen plays 3.Bb5 as reliably as a Norwegian glacier. He used to play e4 as much as or more than d4, but lately he's been playing d4 more frequently. Carlsen might have had in mind that Leko hasn't faced the Scotch in a couple of years. It's a fairly rare bird at the top level and Leko only plays top-level events. It was quite notable when the 2008 Grand Slam Final in Bilbao saw three Scotch Games, two by Radjabov and one by Anand. Rublevsky and Morozevich also trot it out on occasion.

That's rare, but it used to be even more unusual to see a Scotch in an elite event. Timman gave it a try now and then, but overall it was considered archaic and uninteresting, akin to the Four Knights or Jay Leno. Then came game 14 of the fifth and final Kasparov-Karpov world championship match. Kasparov's 3.d4 was a bombshell, the first time it had been seen in a world championship match since Chigorin-Steinitz, 1892. It only got Kasparov a draw in that game, though he won with it two games later. Of course Kasparov scored tremendously with white in general, but his career Scotch score of +14 =9 -0 is still scary. Compare that 80% to 66% with the Spanish. That being the case it's a little curious that Kasparov dropped the Scotch entirely in 2001, even if it had mostly been a surprise weapon.

With the Carlsen-Kasparov collaboration out of the bag, you have to figure seeing the Scotch on the board today was an extra kick in the gut for Leko. White played a sharp pawn sacrifice line that gives white the bishop pair and a bind on the center. The black knights were without squares and the white rooks had open lines. The excellent, if not new, move 15.d5 replicated another Kasparov trademark, a move that "splits the board." It hampered black's development and pawns and cut the black pieces on the kingside off from the vulnerable black pawns on the queenside. Unfortunately I don't remember the author who described this tendency in Kasparov's games, often involving a pawn sacrifice. I found it very insightful and still do.

Here it was very effective. Leko was left to look for a desperate kingside attack while he was picked clean on the queenside. (Or, as the official site has it, "facing the dilemma situation, Leko gave up the rear wing as the cost, and made counterattack in the chariot wing.") Carlsen was unfazed and defended calmly. Leko played on down a piece for a good while, hoping for a miracle. I think playing for a long time just on the 30 second increment melts a player's brain. You can't look away for a moment, let alone get up to take a breath or go to the loo. It's permanent time trouble, often from move 20. Horrid. [According to ChessBase.com, pointed out by Mark S below, the control is actually 40 moves in 90 minutes and then 60 minutes to finish, no increment. Still quite fast but not nearly as horrific as the 90'+30" still given on the official site FAQ as the time control. So Leko was likely playing on in mutual time trouble.]

Jakovenko defended against Topalov's steady Catalan pressure to earn a hard-fought draw. Wang Yue repeated the fairly tedious queen exchange line against the King's Indian he tried against Radjabov at Melody Amber earlier this year. These endgames are the sort of thing Wang Yue enjoys and most KID players don't, but White didn't get much as Radjabov defended accurately.

Round 2 sees the favorites battle in Carlsen-Topalov. More surprises from Karlsen? The other games are Jakovenko-Wang Yue, Leko-Radjabov.

Anyone waiting up till 3am to catch the action? That's NY time, which is 1500 local. I don't think I'm going to make it. The first round pairings are Topalov-Jakovenko, Carlsen-Leko, Wang Yue-Radjabov. According to the official site the time control is the very fast 90'+30", which I was happy to believe was becoming obsolete. Pro chess without a second control shouldn't be called classical.

Some fun tidbits from today's stadium opening ceremony, which apparently benefited from the services of the same translator as the official website. A few of the slogans projected on the screens during the ceremony:

"Grand Crosstable, Wise Game Harmonious Win-Win Embrace the World, We Are Family Civilised Nanjing, Intelligent Life Nanjing we Gather, Masters we Admire, Do not move around freely or make a noise." The introductions also contained a few gems. The women's event was twice dubbed the "Women's Grand Prefix" while Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was announced as "President of FIDE and the president of the Russian Communist Republic of Kalmykia"! It's almost enough to make me put on my old English teacher hat and head to eastern China. Maybe some of these should be sent here.

But if gathering intelligent life doesn't quite work out with the politicians, the players are looking good. This should be a great event, so we'll give them some slack on the language and the loopy website. Topalov, as befits the world's #1 ranked player, is the favorite to repeat his crushing victory in last year's inaugural Nanjing event. Carlsen will be looking to improve on his lackluster, for him, Dortmund performance in July. Let's hope all the hoopla around the revelation of his training with Kasparov hasn't been a distraction. Two other players, Leko and Jakovenko, tied with Carlsen in Dortmund behind Kramnik. Leko has been playing very well, but with his last-round troubles may need a 1.5 point lead going into the final round to really be sure.

Radjabov is a wildcard to me in this event, as in so many others. He hasn't played very often this year. For the longest time he alternated wild adventures in sharp lines with black with long streaks of unambitious play. But he seems to be steadily outgrowing the old stereotype and has become a stable fixture in the top ten. Wang Yue jumped up the rating list and then played in just about every top event for a year. His repertoire looked increasingly stale and though he's still solid, he's still looking for the upgrade he needs to make more progress.

The 9th annual Chess-in-the-Parks tournament takes place tomorrow near Bethesda Fountain in the heart of Central Park. It's too late to register, but you can always drop in and see if some of the 500 spots have opened up. Registration is at 11am. I should be showing up later in the day to get rid of dozens of old descriptive notation books from my expiring collection to all the good little boys and girls. Actually the point is that it's a little cruel and unusual to send too many old DN books to kids as part of the Recycling Revel, so I'm either going to donate them as prizes or sell them for a buck or two each to raise money for the Revel postage fund. I'll bring as many as I can carry on the subway.

The result we all saw coming, but we did get a little suspense in today's final day of Kasparov vs Karpov action in Valencia. The heavily favored Kasparov lost the very first of the eight games with the white pieces, coming out of the same QGD Exchange line we saw every time Kasparov had the first move. We did get a smidgen of variety when Kasparov twice played 1..d5 instead of the Grunfeld, though we got another pair of the g3 variety of that, as well. His QGA in game two resulted in the only uneventful draw of the entire event. Heck, there was only one other draw, period, and that was the final game of the blitz.

But after the loss and the draw, it was all Kasparov. He reeled of five wins in a row, including a methodical and accurate infiltration in the game three, which Kasparov said was the best of the lot when we spoke after the event finished. He was also happy with his brutal attacking win in game six, though slightly less happy when I mentioned what all the computer-enhanced kibitzers could see, that he could have won even quicker with 20..dxc4 21.Qxe4 Re8. Still, a nice win in his relentless style, even if Karpov's jaw wasn't much of a moving target at that point. Karpov's clock was again a problem, though in blitz this isn't really worth pointing out. But if the score is correct, and Peter Doggers has video-checked the latest version, Karpov flagged in game four in a clearly superior position, which is a shame.

The result, 3-1 in the rapid and 6-2 in the blitz, corresponded exactly to the players' Elo rating prediction, something first pointed out to me by acirce in the comments. This means Kasparov's old 2812 and Karpov's current 2619. So, either Karpov isn't overrated and Kasparov isn't rusty, or... In other words, since in Garry's words "augh, the quality was terrible!" Karpov's training sessions didn't exactly pay off. I won't call Karpov's rapid decline unprecedented since that would require actually looking things up and it's past 3am. But for someone who still plays in strong events on occasion, and whose intuitive style has never been what you would call energetic (i.e. required a load of deep prep and energy at the board), it is notable. Talent, especially world championship talent, usually ages well, or at least better than this. But few former champs have such busy lives away from the board. And it also says a lot about how much more rigorous the game is these days. By the time they were in their 50s Tal and Spassky could count on drawing a third of their games in fewer than 20 moves. Opening work just keeps getting tougher, and Karpov was never quite part of the computer generation.

58, while old for a pro, isn't ancient. Beliavsky is still swinging a mean bat. And Karpov is a guy who seven years ago knocked out Short, Kramnik, Morozevich, and Shirov at the Eurotel rapid before losing to Anand in the final! Just two years ago may have marked the real turning point. He showed a solid 2680 performance at a relatively minor tournament in Valjevo, Serbia. Nobody from the top 50 was there, however. Later that year he had another good result, in blitz no less, at the Ajaccio EU ch event, ahead of Bacrot, Bareev, Milov, etc. Perhaps later that year, 2007, in November -- always a bad month according to centuries of poets -- showed he wasn't able to keep up with the elite anymore. Last place in the Champions rapid event in Spain, then third from last in the mighty Moscow world blitz ch. It may well be the case that, as Karpov said from Valencia, he can beat anyone in the top 100 if he works at chess. But that's work he's clearly not doing. His business, of course, but it would certainly perk up these exhibitions a little if he could play a full game without flagging!

As for Kasparov, "terrible" might be a bit strong for some but not by his standards. 4.5 years away have taken a considerable toll. Several times, he said, he felt unable to concentrate after making a bad move. (12.exd5 in the first blitz game is one example.) While it's possible he might "play up" against a stronger opponent, and one who wasn't his old nemesis, it's more likely it would take considerable time before he would be anywhere near his old self. There's really no way to judge based on this event since Karpov's level of resistance was so low. Not that it much matters, mind you. Garry is quick to remind everyone he's still retired. Apart from another similar match with Karpov in Paris, and any others that might be arranged during this 25th anniversary period, he's going to settle for rooting for his part-time pupil Magnus Carlsen.

As for the fans, it was a fun ride. The nostalgia was worth far more than the chess in Valencia, no doubt. I may even find the time to work through the second Kasparov book on his matches with Karpov! Those were the days...

Are you ready to achieve some win-win? The 2nd Nanjing Pearl Spring tournament starts on the 27th. We finally get to see world #1 Topalov at the board. Carlsen, Radjabov, Leko, Jakovenko, and Wang Yue complete the cast of this double round-robin. Topalov dominated this event last year. Because he bailed out of the Bilbao Masters Final last month, we haven't seen Topalov in action since he tied for 2-3 at the MTel Masters back in May. As for Leko, we haven't seen him in action since 1996! Ha ha, I kill me.

To make amends I'll use that inexcusable and inaccurate cheap shot to point out that Leko has been playing both aggressively and very well of late. So don't all you Topalov and Carlsen fans trample each other picking your man to coast to victory. Speaking of trampling, littlefish and the other denizens of the deep in the message boards have the usual prognostication pool going on the results. No live radio for me this time since I think the games start at 3am NY time. Pass.

After losing twice on the first day by not playing and then by playing badly, Anatoly Karpov showed some spine and some teeth on day two by beating Garry Kasparov in a well-played third game in Valencia. That not only delayed the decision in the match and gave Karpov some peace of mind, but alleviated fears that total domination by Kasparov might make the exhibition look more like elder abuse in public and even put future matches at risk. Seeing the two legends back at the board is great, but it would be a little embarrassing if Karpov continued to look as helpless as he did on day one.

Both of today's games repeated the openings from day one. Kasparov sacrificed the exchange out of a Grunfeld in game three. He was holding the balance for a while until Karpov found the nice 27.Rxc5! piece sac to hyperactivate his rooks and threaten to get his d-pawn moving. Black's tangled minors couldn't get coordinated against the rooks on the open files and soon it was over. Good chess! Needing only a draw with white in the fourth game to clinch the match, Kasparov repeated the line from the first game and soon dominated the board, leading to a final score of 3-1 when Karpov's flag fell for the third time. I really hope Karpov has been practicing his blitz because if he hasn't, tomorrow could get ugly. Flagging in rapid with an increment in 24 moves is bad enough.

When I spoke to Kasparov after the rapid concluded today he sounded content. He considered Karpov's win in game three to be a quality game and the best of the match and was disappointed he hadn't been able to maintain the defense. In game two he said he was expecting the superior 21..Ne5 instead of Karpov's blunder 21..Nc5. Then he had planned 22.f4 Nc4 23.Qd4 b5 24.b3 Nxa3 and now the same 21.Nf6+! winning either the exchange or the black queen. Garry thought he outplayed Karpov well in the fourth game, though he criticized his 32.Be2 when 32.Rh1 would have been much stronger. I asked him if 10.f3 was a novelty and he said he wasn't sure, but "I always play f3 in those positions!" Just so, if you look at the stem game Karpov-Kasparov, Leningrad WCh (7), 1986! Well, he did say Karpov was his greatest teacher, after all. And he did play the structure with f3 later in this line on the white side the next year against Karpov in Seville.

Kasparov pointed out that one of the reasons for Karpov's time troubles in the first game was that he had never allowed this Grunfeld line with e4 against Karpov in the past, always going with 3..c6 or 3..c5 or playing 4..0-0 5..d6. The final position of the fourth game is just torture for Black. A computer might defend this for a while but it's difficult for a human to even look at. Since it's an exhibition I guess Karpov could have played some more moves, but after you look around for a while letting your time run out starts to feel awfully attractive. White has all sorts of moves to improve his position: f4, Bd1, Ne5, and Black can't do much of anything.

So on to the blitz! Garry declined to make any prognostications, but before the match I figured losing 2-6 would be a good result for Karpov unless he's been anonymously dominating the online blitz rating charts in his spare time. After seeing troubles in sharp positions and on the clock in the rapid, 1-7 might be optimistic. But hey, Karpov has already surprised us once. Let's hope we get some good games without too many time forfeits with plenty of play still on the board.

[This was supposed to go up last night but apparently it didn't publish to the homepage. Maybe the Spanish website is contagious? Deleting and trying again.] After he won the first two games in Valencia, I warned Garry that if he keeps up like this there won't be any more matches in Paris, London, or New York, let alone Moscow. But of course that warning should go to Karpov, who played like a karp on day one. (And not Rybka, to pummel the pun into oblivion.) Both players moved slowly in the first rapid game. Kasparov played a trademark pawn sac to activate his pieces (20..f4!? though 20..Ne4 also looks good) and although Karpov reacted well, it cost him dearly on the clock. That was time he didn't have and just a few moves later he actually flagged. All the training and GM seconds in the world don't help if you don't give yourself time to move. Before the match I was concerned about Kasparov's clock handling. The rhythm of play is something we see players have trouble with after layoffs far shorter than 4.5 years. And he did play quite slowly -- just not as slowly as Karpov.

At first I thought the final position was clearly winning for Black. But I missed a nice intermezzo that allows White to keep his e-pawn and after that it's a long and difficult fight. 24.Ne6 (Did they always record the final move even if the player flagged after making it on the board? For some reason I had it in my head that this used to not be the case and that, while interesting to know, the move didn't 'count.') After the ice-cold 24.Qd3, threatening to go to c4 and then play Ne6, White is still for choice. It looks like Black then has good defensive chances by giving the exchange. The computer says he can try the baroque maneuver 24..Rf5, but just taking on b5 or even taking the knight straight off look natural enough. Black either keeps the monster knight on d4 or gets the two bishops. 24..Qf5 is another possibility, though 25.Qc4 Bc8 doesn't much inspire a human mind.

After Karpov's 24.Ne6, whether it counts or not, Black wins the exchange immediately and the series of captures is forced. When I first saw the final position (at TWIC, where, FSM bless him, Mark has put up a JavaScript viewer so people on mobile devices can see the damn things, something I've been whinging about since I got my G1) I thought Black then had an easy job after 24..Nxe6 25.dxe6 Qxd2 26.Rxd2 Rxd2 27.Bxb7 and now 27.Rfd8 followed by ..Rd1 and the white rook comes off and the e-pawn will fall. Later I saw that White has the annoying 28.Bc7, saving the white rook and the e-pawn after either 28..Re8 or 28..R8d3. Not an easy move to find, and Black is still the one with the chances, but it's definitely a tough grind.

Really a shame to lose a game like that. And by that I mean a shame for the chess community to be robbed of an interesting position between Karpov and Kasparov, not a shame for Karpov, who brought it on himself. The opening, to do this recap entirely backwards, was a Fianchetto Grunfeld, which has a long world championship pedigree. And not just the two Karpov-Kasparov games from the 87 match (both drawn). Alekhine played it twice against Bogoljubov, once per match, and Botvinnik relied on 3.g3 against both Bronstein and Smyslov. That includes the wild Smyslov queen sac win in the 14th game of the drawn 1954 match, a game Kasparov annotated deeply.

Starting with the opening this time, the first few moves of the second game also looked familiar to WCh aficionados. The K's played both sides of these QGD positions with the early capture on d5. Even the position after 5.Bf4 c6 was tried by each K, Karpov with black in the second match and Kasparov in the third, both drawn. Kasparov played 6.Qc2 this time, putting Karpov into a deep think. Apparently he didn't include Kasparov's post-retirement simul games in his database! Garry used this move in Bastia last year against a 2200 named Humeau. Well, he also used it against Short in 1988 and Karpov himself chose it against Kasparov in that WCh game in 86. Kasparov played 6..g6 then, which is still played as often as 6..Nf6 and the move Karpov chose, 6..Bd6. After exchanges and 8.e3 they were still following that Kasparov simul game, oddly enough. But that continued 8..Nf6 instead of Karpov's 8..Ne7. The first new move was 10..h6, protecting the h-pawn the simple way instead of playing ..Nf6 or ..Qh6.

Kasparov used quite a bit of time on his plan to pust things open with Rad1 and e4. Karpov sank nearly eight minutes into 16..Ba6, but White's control of the center was still very dangerous after the exchange. Just how dangerous became apparent when Karpov used two minutes on the blunder 21..Nc5, allowing Kasparov a pretty and devastating piece sacrifice with 22.Nf6+! No insult to either K, but this sort of shot would have gotten a nice murmur during Monday's simul and isn't the sort of thing a GM should be walking into after a two-minute think. Counter-intuitively, the mating attack after Black takes the knight isn't much of a surprise, but the forced mate in four after 22..Kh8 23.Rh5 isn't something you see unless you look for it. Karpov didn't look for it. He played a few more moves and this time when his flag fell it was understandable. Since all of Black's pieces are defended it's still worth playing out for a bit, however. There's no mate or immediate win of material until the black king is forced to cross the d-file and the other white rook gets into the attack. A nice win by Kasparov but still not much of a test of his capabilities after his layoff.

It's easy to bury him now after such a horrible first day, but I don't think Karpov is capable of four games this atrocious against his old nemesis. Kasparov still has another white tomorrow though, so the result of the rapid match isn't in much doubt. And it's really tough to believe the blitz will be anything other than a massacre, though I hold out hope for some competitive chess.

Elsewhere in the penumbra, the two strong round-robin events of the SPICE Cup in Texas are well underway. Results, games, lots of photos and more are all somewhere in the interminable sprawl that is Susan Polgar's site. (But no PGN?!) Akobian, the only American in the A group, is in last place after four rounds. In the B group, 14-year-old Ray Robson is looking for his third and final GM norm. He's off the pace right now with 2/4. I think he needs six points for the norm.

Antwerp is hosting the Inventi Tournament, probably the strongest classical event held in Belgium since the 1988 Brussels World Cup tournament won by Karpov. There was a very strong SWIFT rapid and blitz event there in 92 as well, a KO won by Adams and with several memorable wins by Anand. Last year's InventiChess event was a Cat. 12 won by Bu Xiangzhi. This year Sutovsky leads over Bacrot and Timman after five rounds.

In just a few short years we've gone from barely having any chess video to too much to watch without quitting your job. This is why I love transcripts. ChessBase comes through with one of the long Kasparov-Carlsen interview appearance on a popular Scandinavian talk show. Good stuff.

Another match is taking place, this one between Nigel Short and Ukrainian GM Zahar Efimenko. It's six rounds of classical chess. The players have exchanged wins with black in the first two games. Short's comment after game two: "Did I really wait 44 years before including the Open Spanish in my repertoire? Who says old dogs can't learn new tricks?" Not Efimenko, who is 24. Perhaps this match is being held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Mr. Efimenko Sr. impregnating Mrs. Efimenko? Coverage here. And at ChessBase.com, where they have two stories on it with analysis and none on Kasparov-Karpov as yet! I assume something big is coming, unless the Spaniards stole Frederic's video camera again.

Two Kasparov-Karpov rapid games today in Valencia, starting at 1900 local, 1pm Eastern. Official site has a live games link, so cross your fingers and pray to the FSM it works. Not to be a pessimist, but there's about zero chance of the blitz broadcast going smoothly even if the tech is in place. But we can dream, so dream we will. (At the blitz segment of the Botvinnik Memorial event between Kasparov and Kramnik in 2001 we had a foolproof broadcast method. GM Sergey Shipov watched the output of a video camera over the board and shouted the moves to a manual relayer. Who needs sensory boards?)

Karpov drew the white queen and will have the white pieces in rapid games 1 and 3. Kasparov will have white in the first blitz game Thursday. I know Karpov has been holed up with an impressive posse of GMs, but I still don't see him heading for a razor-sharp theoretical line he's not going to feel at home in. And Kasparov has warned that he's been keeping his database up to date despite four and a half years of retirement. His work on the Great Predecessors and Modern Chess books -- the latest of these a monumental series on all his games with Karpov -- require that. And now the work with Carlsen as well. As for Kasparov's seconds in Valencia, there aren't any. As he told me this evening, "say my seconds are [my wife] Dasha, my mother, and Nelly!" (another family member).

Today's press conference is up in a few places. Nothing earth-shattering, though Garry was impressed with the virulence of Karpov's statements about FIDE. Karpov's rambling story about how long they've known each other, their playing together at the Malta Olympiad (getting a dig in on how the Russian team has failed to win lately due to a lack of "team spirit"), always respecting each other despite difficulties and different views and events, that Kasparov would still be near the top if he dedicated himself to chess, then how FIDE wasn't present at the match, the WCh situation.. Later he mentioned the 1993 schism and Kasparov founding his own organization while he stayed with FIDE, and FIDE winning that war in the end... Then Karpov added, "unfortunately for chess!" Boom goes the dynamite! I can't remember if this is the 14th or 15th time Karpov has gone from exploiting FIDE to slamming FIDE, but I think he still holds a narrow lead over Kasparov in that department. [Funny, was that only in the Russian answer? Listening for his choice of words in the English-only ChessVibes video version I didn't hear him say that. Oh well.]

Garry went 20-0 in his simul in 2 hours, 15 minutes against very weak opposition. Karpov finished a few minutes later and Garry didn't know his score. We can probably assume another clean slate. I'll update this item later today instead of creating a new one for the results. Call'em like you see'em and post all your best coverage links. Fun to see chess back in the mainstream press again. The hyperbole, the mangled metaphors, the factual errors... just like the good old days! Both Ks emphasized they hoped this match and the expected others like it in the coming months might help spur global interest in the sport.

Both players are clearly disappointed they aren't playing in Moscow, where their first (and second) match took place. There is no doubt that it would be all but impossible for any Russian sponsor or venue to provide Kasparov with the huge amount of attention such an event would surely receive. He's been banned from the mainstream Russian airwaves for years, other than the occasional edited hit pieces saying he's a lunatic/American agent/traitor. When major hotel chains cancel our hall reservations when they find out who's meeting there it's hard to imagine even a potentially very lucrative event like this one happening in Russia. I imagined the Kremlin might allow it just so they could run the usual stories saying "see, he's abandoned politics and gone back to chess!" (And such stories are already present in the Russian news regarding Valencia.) But apparently the risk is too great to host such an event. A shame, since interest is very high. The Russian news internet is full of K-K this week.

As they did in their newspaper interviews, both players talked in the presser about the lack of "personality" and "character" at the top level today when answering questions about why their matches were so famous and why nothing like that is happening today. Of course I lay a lot of it at the feet of FIDE and Ilyumzhinov and the "WCh system du jour," but let's stick with the K-K aspect. There was an interesting study about a related topic a few years ago on big American team sports and how they rose and fell in popularity. The conclusion was that dynasties were good for the sport in terms of broadening appeal (as measured by media coverage and stadium attendance). Big rivalries like K-K (e.g. Celtics-Lakers in the 80s) were also good, but a single dominant team/player was even better. Think Tiger Woods. This reinforces how important Fischer was and, even more, how important he could have been.

I wish someone would put up a big online gallery of scanned photos from the first K-K match. There are a few here and there but nothing satisfying. You'd think an official site would be on this. I've seen some spectacular Russian books and magazine spreads with pics not only of the match site and the players, but also of mobs of spectators crowding around display boards, crowds following along on boards in the park while listening to the match on the radio, etc. I have a good German book on the first match that has a few less common pics as well. Need to fire up my new Canon scanner.

Some interview clips, these from Leontxo Garcia in El Pais. Here and here. Skipping or abbreviating the questions where obvious.

Garcia: Who is Anatoly Karpov to you?

Kasparov: Along with being my greatest rival during my sporting career, Karpov was my greatest teacher, the one I learned the most from both in chess and in life. What's more, I've never found another case in all of sports history in which a rivalry between two people had such an impact on history, and on the future.

Kasparov: Unlike Bobby Fischer, chess was never the only thing in my life, not even back then. Now I'm dedicated to important things and, more than anything, I do what my conscience tells me I must do; I fight against what is for me a corrupt dictatorship disguised as a democracy. This gives me peace of mind and I hope that this equilibrium helps me beat Karpov once more.

Garcia: Did you ever have nightmares about Karpov?

Kasparov: In that match no, because it was the first and for me it was basically just a sporting matter. But after that there began to exist tremendous pressure and political and social repercussions that saturated our rivalry for nearly ten years. That was exhausting and transcended the purely sporting aspects.

Garcia to Karpov: What has Kasparov meant to your life?

Karpov: He was my adversary in the greatest rivalry in sports history, which produced a golden age of chess with lasting impact. It was something unique and unrepeatable. As for our personal relationship, now it's much better than before. That's why I tried to visit him in jail when he was arrested.

Garcia: Regrets about the 1984-85 match, how you tried to score 6-0 without risking too much?

Karpov: My worst mistake was accepting to play that match in the USSR because only there could the organizers change the rules at their whim. The Sports Minister was an idiot who had no respect for me despite the fact that I was a national idol.

Garcia: One of the most exciting chapters in your matches was in Seville, in 1987. [Karpov was leading 12-11 going into the final game but lost, allowing Kasparov to retain his title. -Mig]

Karpov: I believe I played better than [Kasparov] in the last two matches, Seville 87 and New York-Lyon 1990, and I should have won both. But I drew the first and lost the second because I made mistakes in winning positions. In Seville, age was a decisive factor: I lost the last game in a drawn position because I was very tired.

Garcia: Did you ever have nightmares about Kasparov?

Karpov: No, I always had a very strong nervous system despite the tremendous pressure I was under.

Both spoke critically of top chess at the present but optimistically about the future.

Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov will renew their rivalry at the board in Valencia, Spain tomorrow to mark the 25th anniversary of their first world championship match. They will play two days of two rapid games each and a third day with eight blitz games. The official site is here. Being a Spanish chess site we can pretty much assume it will be un wreck de tren. [There are reports of the official site being "hacked," as apparently some people are getting an ad page. But that's just a host's parking placeholder, not a malicious act. They either moved servers very recently, screwed up DNS propagation, or someone in the chain of registrar-host-server admin screwed it up or set a very slow TTL. If it's just a recent server move it will fix itself as the world's DNS servers update their caches. Try a hard browser refresh, too. Not to be paranoid, but there's a chance this sort of behavior could be caused by a DDOS attack on the site (common against Kasparov's political news sites like the one I run), but no way to know that from the outside.] Let's just hope the live games function. Both players give simuls on Monday evening. The play dates are the 22-24 and the games begin quite late, 7pm local time, 1pm EDT. Rapid time control is the standard 25'+5" and the blitz is 5'+2".

Photo AFP

I'll try to toss up some of the piles of coverage coming out in the Spanish press. There have already been several good interviews. As often happens, they feel freer to cut loose with the international mainstream press. (Karpov: "If the 1984 match hadn't been played in the USSR I would have won easily." Also, "I don't care [that I've fallen out of the top 100] because I know I can beat any of the top 100 players. The difference is they dedicate all of their time to chess and I do not.") Some more culled tidbits: The match is part of "Valencia: Birthplace of Modern Chess," with several days of symposiums. Yuri Averbakh and Lothar Schmid are two participants you'll know. Sulaiman Al Fahim, president of the UAE chess federation and all-round rich guy, is one of the major patrons of the entire event and is there to watch the match. One rumor has it he's also there with some sort of chess-related business plan under his arm. He was tipped to be working on Linares 2010. Also, he might be trying to recruit Spanish football star Villa for the UK team Portsmouth he owns.

Karpov arrived well before Kasparov and has a formidable team of seconds: Riazantsev, Onischuk, and Bologan. He's been training on the Spanish coast for a week. Meanwhile, Kasparov just arrived Sunday from a session in Norway with Carlsen, but you know he's serious because his mother Klara is there! Much is being made in the Spanish press about how Karpov and Kasparov aren't staying at the same hotel and are avoiding seeing each other until the opening day. Both players have pointed out this is simply tradition. Dutch veteran arbiter Geurt Gijssen is overseeing the match. He was also the arbiter of the last two K-K WCh matches in 87 and 90.

Kasparov is the prohibitive betting favorite, which to me shows significant ageism. I'm not at all sure four years without pushing a pawn in anger is worth less than 12 years of age. Chess is about concentration and regular practice is required to maintain it. Plus, you just know these guys would get up for each other were they 92 and 80. Karpov hasn't been playing well, for Karpov, but at least he's been playing.

It's difficult to overstate the supremacy of Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov in their heyday and the impact of their five consecutive world championship matches. The first pawn in the saga was pushed on September 10, 1984, in Moscow. Karpov was the defending champion in his prime at 33. He had battled through the legends of the previous generation and completely dominated his peers. Until Kasparov arrived Karpov's only real competition was the specter of Bobby Fischer. By 1984 Karpov was the veteran of two bitterly contested world championship matches against Viktor Korchnoi -- not to mention long candidates matches against Polugaevsky, Spassky, and again Korchnoi.

Kasparov had been touted as a future championship contender since he was 10, though few imagined he would make it so far so fast. He tore through his much older candidates opponents. But he was no match for Karpov in 1984, that much became clear very quickly. In an unlimited-length match with the winner being the first to win six games, Karpov won four of the first nine without a loss. It was over and the only question was how long it would take for the chastened and punch-drunk Kasparov to succumb. The string of draws that followed were at first a curiosity, then a comedy, then a head-scratching record. 17 draws, from game 10 on October 8 to game 26 on November 12. Obviously Kasparov was just trying to survive, but why did Karpov also start to play cautiously? The prevailing theory on this is that Karpov wanted the clean sweep, the 6-0 humiliation that would scar his young challenger forever. It would also imitate the famous 6-0 scores of Fischer's candidates match victories, in a way matching the opponent Karpov was never able to face.

That looked even more likely when the month of draws ended with another Karpov win in game 27. Now it was 5-0. But after four more draws Kasparov finally won his first game -- after an incredible three months of play. (I've long said Kramnik shutting out Kasparov for 15 games in 2000 was one of the greatest feats in chess history. Obviously the man and the situation were very different in 84, but Karpov shut him out for 31 games!) I won't get too far into the various controversies and irregularities that occurred during and after the match, such as interrupting it for a state funeral. There are plenty of books and long accounts on the web for all the details. Suffice to say there were 14 more draws in a row and the match moved into 1985. The "who was more exhausted?" argument usually goes to the slighter and older Karpov, and the four very short draws he took with white during this stretch would seem to back that up.

Kasparov then won again, game 47 (!) at the end of January, but the score was still 5-2 in Karpov's favor. The match was then postponed for a week, providing plenty of fodder for conspiracy theories present and future. Karpov hadn't won since game 27 back in November and Kasparov clearly wasn't the same overconfident youth who had started his first world championship match nearly five months earlier. The slugger had become a boxer, courtesy of 47 intense personal lessons from the world champion -- an impression verified by Kasparov in Valencia, where in an El País interview he called Karpov "my great teacher." The extreme difference in their playing styles was a factor in this effect as well. Karpov's unique positional genius baffled just about everyone, but after so many games Kasparov had absorbed so much from his opponent he could finally grasp, even predict, his opponent's moves. Just how much he had learned would only become clear in future matches, as this first one, known forever as the Marathon Match, ended abruptly after Kasparov won again in game 48.

Football has Maradona's "Mano de Dios." American football has Franco Harris's "Immaculate Reception."(It hit the ground, god damn it!!) In 1985, the first Karpov-Kasparov world championship match saw the "The Termination." The players had rested for eight days after the 47th game. After the 48th, the score now 5-3 Karpov, the organizers announced a six-day break. On February 14 came this stunning announcement from FIDE president Florencio Campomanes: "The match is terminated without any announcement about the result. A new match will begin from a position of 0-0 on September 1, 1985."

The real epilogue to this was Kasparov winning that second match (limited to 24 games), and its very first game, and becoming, at 22 instead of 21, the youngest world champion ever. But at the time, and still today, The Termination is one of the most controversial events in the long history of chess and many things about it are still disputed. (Mostly revolving around whether or not Karpov had lobbied for or at least accepted the termination in advance.) Kasparov protested loudly, though he admitted later his chances of winning the match were still poor. But there's no simple answer to his question at the time, "if they are only concerned about the players' health, why are they canceling the match now and not when it was 5-1 two games ago?"

With such a launch, how could their rivalry fail to become one of the greatest in sports history? All the controversy in the world, however, can't substitute for chess quality. The five K-K clashes (84-85, 85, 86, 87, 90) were between two of the most dominant sportsmen ever. The quality of the chess, especially the 85 and 86 matches, was the highest ever reached at the time. Add the drama, especially Kasparov having to win the final game in 87 to draw the match, and you have a six-year span that established an entire era. I was a bit young to follow the first matches myself, but I do sort of pity those who missed it entirely -- and what "K-K" meant. Older folks might say much the same about the original K-K, Karpov-Korchnoi. Karpov himself said he never felt as motivated by Kasparov as by his "natural rival" Korchnoi. But it was Karpov and Kasparov, riding the waves of the the chess boom launched by Fischer, who turned chess into a multimillion dollar concern and put it onto front pages around the world. We're certainly seeing how much their names and rivalry still resonate today, as hundreds of news stories pour out from Valencia.

On that topic, I'll give Karpov, in an interview from Valencia, the last word:

"There are few sports in which a duel like Karpov-Kasparov is so well known around the world. We have a degree of popularity like Pelé y Maradona. Today, the players who are numbers one and two in the world are very good. But they lack the character that would allow them to cross over the borders of the game."

Macauley is in Valencia for the ICC and will be filing video reports and more at the Chess.FM blog.

Not as catchy as "Let the wild rumpus start," but it'll have to do. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, so to help turn the mess of boxes below into a functioning extra room. Those boxes, and plenty of more like them, are full of chess books, software, and memorabilia and just about all of it has to go! Many interested parties representing clubs and classes around the US have already contacted me and with your help I'm hoping to hear from many more.

I also expect you to participate both by shipping out your own untouched-for-many years chess junk and by, well, getting more chess junk by bidding on my auctions. I'm selling signed books, posters, and anything else I can dig up that might have some value. How about a Braingames baseball cap? A bottle of Accoona hot-sauce signed by Irina Krush and Zhu Chen? (Really.) All proceeds will go toward shipping costs for me and anyone else who will send their old chess stuff to a good home. Just send me an email with what you've got to send and I'll send you the address of a place to send it! After it's received I'll send you the money for your shipping costs by PayPal or check. Send things as cheaply as possible, obviously. You might be able to get media rates if you ask. (Do not just send your stuff somewhere and then ask me to reimburse you.)

The first auctions are up now and end in just three days. (Real chess recyclers don't have time for five-day auctions.) Both are Garry Kasparov books hand-signed by the famous chess coach.

One is the rare "Kasparov Against the World" book about his Microsoft-sponsored internet game against the hive mind that, led by Irina Krush, came to include a remarkable number of GMs and computers, resulting in an incredibly high-quality contest. The other signed book auction is for the first volume in the "My Great Predecessors" series, on Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine. Signed by Garry with date and place. Both have very low starting bids. Posters and more to come.

And you're helping a worthy cause! My first shipment of books and software will be staying right here in Brooklyn, headed to IS 318, where the inimitable Elizabeth Vicary teaches a group that doesn't seem to need much more help. Boxes will also be headed to Texas, Long Island, and Florida, last I checked. If you know teachers with classes of kids in need of books and/or software, put us in touch asap! If you want to donate chess stuff, send me your list. (And you can simply donate cash, of course. Button on the left.) You'll join the Revel Hall of Fame here on the Dirt as well as changing the lives of some young chessplayers. Extra space in your pad + some warm fuzzies inside = good deal. Just spreading the world would be great, too.

Some creative googling hooked this video of Magnus Karlsen, sorry, Carlsen, and Garry Kasparov taking on Norway's Minister of Education today. While Tromso's chances at the 2018 Winter Games now look slim, it sounds like a bid for the 2014 Chess Olympiad might be in the works. Kasparov suggests it would be a nice complement to Norway's having the man who might be the world #1 by then. Only by then?!* Should have more tomorrow.

*Was it over a year ago when I asked hereabouts when Carlsen would become #1? There were answers ranging from "before the end of the year" to "never." Carlsen pulled it off, at least for a few days, last year in Bilbao before losing his two last games, but Topalov put it into another gear in Nanjing to pull away from the pack. Of course hitting #1 is all well and good, and few doubt Carlsen will take his turn on an official list eventually (especially as they're coming out every two months now). But becoming world champion is another matter because winning when it matters most requires at least a little good fortune. That's more true today with FIDE changing its system around every other weekend. Carlsen should qualify for the candidates by rating (he dropped out of the Grand Prix along with Adams after FIDE changed yet another venue) but even then the matches are only four games long. And while it's not practical to have rigorous long matches at every stage, four isn't long enough to favor the stronger player by much.

Tiviakov drops out of the Dutch championship after the third round because the organizers insisted he would have to play the final round and appear at the closing ceremony. Both sides of the story at ChessVibes. I'm not even getting into prearranging a draw for the final round of a closed national championship event, which is horrible and inexcusable no matter how many mitigating factors there are. Apparently the Dutch federation didn't keep its word to Tiviakov about altering the dates so he would be able to play and still fulfill his obligations in Croatia. That's bad. But when that happens you don't start the event anyway hoping it will all work out as if by magic. Tiviakov had to make his choice as soon as the conflict was unavoidable. Playing a few rounds and then dropping out is the worst possible outcome for everyone. He's supposed to be board one for the Dutch at the upcoming Euro Teams; wonder how that's going to go now.

Kasparov is in Oslo and will have a press conference with Magnus Carlsen tomorrow. He's also trying to get in some training for his match with Karpov, which starts in Valencia on the 21st. My suggestion? Focus on the clock. Play as many training games with the same control as possible. After a long layoff the biggest problem we see is time trouble. Garry's still pretty devastating at the board in online blitz, so I don't think tactics will be a problem. And his work with Carlsen has probably kept his openings up to snuff. Karpov will be up for this though, and has been training with Russian GM Riazantsev. It appears to have helped Riazantsev if nothing else. He was leading the recently completed Russian championship most of the way until Tomashevsky overtook him.

Vlad Tkachiev, the French champion (And yes, I think the "French champion" part matters here, if only a little) who revived the Stoli Variation of the Siesta Gambit in Calcutta a few weeks ago, sent out a brief open letter. It's something of an explanation, not an apology, which seems like a bit of a miss to me.

September 9 was the deadline for confirming participation in the Khanty-Mansiysk World Cup, which starts on Nov. 20. The list of qualifiers is impressive, but how many of the top players will actually participate? Slighting these events has become something of a tradition among the elite, even though there's decent money and the winner goes to the candidates. Carlsen and Kramnik have the inside track on the rating spots now that Aronian is into the candidates as the Grand Prix winner. Radjabov, Wang Yue, and Gashimov have the best chances of becoming the second GP qualifier. Nobody playing in the London Classic will be in Khanty-Mansiysk, which takes Nakamura, Ni Hua, and just about every top UK player out of contention for the candidates. Note the wildcards so far; the include Robson, Caruana, and... Tkachiev!

The old, factually challenged, bit about how the late replacement player always wins the tournament actually happened this time in Bilbao. Okay, Aronian was the top seed despite coming in as a late sub for Topalov so it's not exactly an underdog story. To toss out a few high-profile super-subs from memory: Kasparov was a late replacement for Nigel Short when he won his first Wijk aan Zee tournament in 1999; Salov a very unexpected non-1.e4 player late-substitution winner of the Polugaevsky Sicilian thematic tournament in 1994. He might have filled in for Gelfand but all my books are still in boxes so I can't check that one. I think it was Leonid Stein who earned the title "super-sub" for scoring +7 as first reserve on the 1964 USSR Olympiad team, but I might be mixing up him or the event.

To tangent from that tangent -- taking license since Aronian already had Bilbao wrapped up and both games were drawn today -- the last time we mentioned the long-retired Valery Salov on Chess.FM a listener in Turkey sent me this link to a recent appearance Salov made at a chess club in St. Petersburg. I either missed this or forgot about it.

Back to Bilbao, Grischuk had the most interesting comment to Leontxo Garcia at the venue after his game ended yesterday. He complimented Aronian and said, paraphrasing here, that Aronian's carefree image wasn't the reality, that he worked very hard on his chess and this was the result. No doubt, and this emphatic win puts Aronian quite close to world champ Anand's spot as #2 on the rating list, though he hastened to say he didn't really care about rating. Topalov is still a long sight ahead at #1, and Aronian doesn't need to worry about qualifying by rating for the candidates since he won the Grand Prix.

Aronian said he couldn't remember winning four in a row since his junior tournament days. Svidler said the same, confirming unscientifically how rare it is at the top level. Ivanchuk started with 5/5 at the MTel last year. Topalov scored 4/4 to finish the 2006 MTel and famously won five in a row (and 6.5/7) at the San Luis FIDE WCh tournament in 2005. Part of the difficulty, if a small part, is that few players are trying too hard to win with black and take draws when they are equal or even slightly better. So such streaks are more likely in events with the Sofia rules. Probably not a coincidence that the three most recent 4/4 streaks were all in events with anti-short-draw rules. Other good recent winning streaks at the top level?

Grischuk finished second thanks to the Bilbao 3-1-0 scoring system functioning as a tiebreaker. He had the same even score as Karjakin, but with an extra pair of decisive games to give him eight points to Karjakin's seven. (Aronian had 13.) Shirov's -3 score was quite possibly better than his play. He had a great shot at finishing on a high note today, getting an overwhelming and sharp position against Grischuk in a Keres Attack. It was the sort of position you would normally expect Shirov to execute with his usual spark, but he just isn't himself. By the time the game had faded into an equal endgame, Chess.FM guest commentator Peter Svidler remarked that had Shirov been playing like Shirov, it would have been over long ago. Hard to disagree, especially after Svidler tossed out a few variations. 20.Rdf3 Rg7 (20..Qa5!?) 21.g5! hxg5 22.Rxf7! and Black is toast. Later, 34.Rd4! looks very strong. It was Grischuk who was again in bad time trouble but he held up well while Shirov lost the thread.

Aronian's unusual handling of the black side of Karjakin's "at least it's not a Marshall" Exchange Ruy led to a very interesting middlegame. I thought the point of his offbeat 5..Be7 was 6..Bf6, but instead the tourney winner put his pawn there. Speelman was also curious on Chess.FM, but later sounded impressed with the development plan that took shape. He was critical of Karjakin's 11.d4 push, saying it "helped Black's position to make sense," a frequent GM turn of phrase I much appreciate. It illustrates a sort of holistic approach to evaluation that is more visual and instinctive than many would care to admit in this day and age of Our Lord Rybka. But a veteran like Speelman first feels a position with a sculptor's hands, searching for harmony and logic. Human chess! Coincidentally or not, the comps agree in this case. When Karjakin missed the chance to play 20.b5 Black was fine, and later even better than fine. If he hadn't already locked up the tournament Aronian surely would have continued with 33..Nd4 and good chances.

I like tournament narratives even though I know they are mostly artificial. Karjakin's is the toughest one to tell. He lost rather helplessly to a strong Aronian effort and then played a wonderful attacking game against Grischuk. After that it was draws of various flavors, twice in the deep Zaitsev line both Shirov and Grischuk failed to dent. He certainly didn't look overmatched at all. Grischuk's early lead disappeared along with the time on his clock. His obsession with early time trouble ruined any hope of defense in both his losses. Only his famous blitz skills and considerable help from Shirov saved him from a third loss today.

Next up on the calendar there's Kasparov-Karpov in Valencia on the 21st and Pearl Spring in Nanjing on the 27th with Topalov, Carlsen, Radjabov, Jakovenko, Leko, and Wang Yue. And Svidler gave us the line-up of the Tal Memorial in early November. Looks like the strongest event of the year: Anand, Aronian, Carlsen, Kramnik, Leko, Gelfand, Ivanchuk, Morozevich, Svidler, Ponomariov. Plus the accompanying blitz event. Yowza.

This is, to borrow a phrase from Andrew Sullivan's blog, the view from my window right now.

My third-floor window. Apparently a street fair or block party of some sort. Right outside. The generator keeping that damn thing inflated is also making a racket. Lovely. Time to go to the park.

Open thread. Jibber-jabber.

That is to say, with Bilbao. The top seed didn't let his first round loss to Grischuk slow him down at the Grand Slam Final. It seems instead to have inspired him to new heights. Today the Armenian won his fourth consecutive game, beating Shirov near the time control after a long stretch of maneuvering in a roughly balanced position. Shirov had multiple chances to push ..e4 and change the position, but in the end the e-pawn died on e5. The win sealed victory in the tournament by any known scoring system, including the 3-1-0 they're using in Bilbao. He has 12 points, followed by Grischuk with seven and Karjakin with six. This was Shirov's third loss and his second to Aronian.

Grischuk, whose time as a leader of this even seems like the distant past, tested Karjakin in the same long K-K '86 Zaitsev line that Shirov whiffed with the other day, an unusual occurrence in a fairly mundane line. Grischuk played Kasparov's original 22.Bb2 instead of the more popular Re3 or Shirov's Nxb5. They stayed in theory until 25.Nb3 and from there the literal Novi Ruski Karjakin slowly outplayed Grischuk to reach equality in an endgame with the potential for more thanks to his bishop pair. Grischuk decided it was best to ditch his knight for the last black pawns, leading to the popular R+B vs R, which he held without undue excitement. This isn't routine at all unless you've done work on it, and even then there are a few tricks. (Unlike, say, R+N vs R, which can usually be held with a little time on your clock and common sense. Though it is still usually played out by GMs.) R+B vs R is still regularly lost on the GM level, though we should charitably assume time trouble in many cases. Grischuk certainly knows it, having won the stronger side in the Russian championship two years ago against Rychagov.

Thanks to Aronian's amazing streak tomorrow's final round is mostly for sport. But with only three games of ten drawn so far, we might still get some excitement. It's Karjakin-Aronian, Shirov-Grischuk. I'll be wrapping it up with GM Jon Speelman on Chess.FM. Note that the round begins an hour earlier than usual, at 10am EDT.

If this looks like it was recorded on a train with a cell phone that's only because it was recorded on a train with a cell phone. But I sort of like the effect. Except the part about not being able to hear him too well. I tried to boost the audio and filter out the background noise a bit in this version. Macauley heroically blitzed out a transcript while doing his Grand Slam Final coverage in Bilbao! Gracias, compadre. There are a few inevitable typos ("rooting interest") and guesses in there that I'll try to fix up in a transcript here later, but there are a few blips in the audio that will probably keep us all guessing. Nothing critical from what I can tell.

Feel free to distribute this as you like. There will likely be a press conference with both Garry and Magnus in Oslo in a few days.

Aggressive players and sharp lines. That's what we have plenty of at the Bilbao Grand Slam Final. And deep lines, plenty of those, too. Today we had two bishop sacrifices. One a startling novelty on move nine from Aronian in his win over co-leader Grischuk. The other was a bail-out by Karjakin in a position that looked good for him against Shirov. It was Aronian's third win in a row after starting out with a loss to Grischuk. It was Grischuk's second loss in a row after his impressive start. He's still in clear second place thanks to the 3-1-0 scoring system in use in Bilbao. On points he's tied with Karjakin on an even score. Shirov is still bringing up the rear without a win. If you're trying to keep score at home, that's 9, 6, 5, 2.

Grischuk played an awkward variation of the Slav that really doesn't look like it suits his dynamic style. But he's played it before, and so have Movsesian and... Aronian. 7.a3 is Aronian's compatriot Lputian's patent. I wonder if they'd looked at these positions together at some point, and how long Aronian's been waiting to play 10.Bxb5. It really doesn't look that shattering, easy for me to say. But both Larry Christiansen on Chess.FM and Garry Kasparov, who was spectating at the start of the round, thought Black was doing okay after 11..Ra6 12.h3 Nh6 13.c6 Nc5. Grischuk sank nearly 40 minutes of the first control's 90 to play a different, and soon clearly inferior, plan with 11..Rb8. The game turned into a mirror of their first round encounter, when Grischuk's novelty put Aronian into the tank for a long time.

Similarly, Grischuk battled well here against Aronian's imprecise play only to have his early clock usage catch up with him. Grischuk was well under ten minutes when he had a chance at a miracle save. 23..Rc8!? is a computer clockwork device: 24.Bxb4 Bxe3! 25.Kxe3 Rxc2 26.Rxc2 Rxe5+ 27.Kd4 Bxb3 with a miracle draw. Down to minutes even the Moscow blitz champion couldn't work that out and his 23..Rbd8 put him back into a lost endgame. Aronian, with 30 minutes, decided to blitz as well and that gave the Russian another lease on life. Down to seconds, Grischuk couldn't find the right moves and was soon lost yet again and for the final time. Surprisingly unsteady technique from Aronian, but in the long view his opening surprise and his quickplay strategy paid off.

Shirov spent a long time trying to envision a new shape against Karjakin, who surprised with the Zaitsev. He came back to the wheel after all, arriving at the well-trodden path of Kasparov-Karpov, 1986. 22.Re3 is the standard move, not the K-K 22.Bb2. Shirov took a long think, trying by sheer force of will to come up with something new. His 24.Nxb5 is technically new, though of course the obvious capture was analyzed in 1986. Karjakin responded aggressively and seemed to be getting the better of things. 27..g6 28.Ne3 Ba6 puts a lot of pressure on the white position. After the game, in comments to Macauley in Bilbao for Chess.FM, Karjakin said he couldn't see anything better than the bailout bishop sacrifice 27..Bxb5 that led to a quick repetition. Shirov might have played on with 30.Nxh6+!? but the black d-pawn is scary and there are many repetitions.

This was only the second draw of the tournament and it was between the same players who drew the first, and in similar fashion. Tomorrow it's Grischuk-Karjakin and Aronian-Shirov. It's double-barreled GM time on Chess.FM tomorrow, with Benjamin and Har-Zvi tag-teaming the mic. FYI, Macauley should be putting up my 10 minute train interview with Kasparov on the Carlsen coaching thing tomorrow at the Chess.FM blog.

We all enjoy surprises, but sometimes things work out just like you expected. Four of the sharpest and most aggressive players in elite chess have come together in Bilbao for the Grand Slam Final and five of the first six games have ended decisively. Sure, now we'll hear about mistakes and inconsistency, etc., just so we can go back to complaining about too many draws and not enough risk-taking at the next event where cooler heads prevail. So let's just enjoy it. The 3-1-0 scoring system probably doesn't hurt, but really that has never seemed to do much, or even altered the final standings at the top in most cases. With guys like these four they'd slug it out for roasted peanuts in the park.

In round two Grischuk took the early lead by winning his second in a row, over Shirov, in a nice endgame. Meanwhile Aronian bounced back to play an impressive queenless attacking game against Karjakin. Everything was scrambled in today's third round as tailender Karjakin beat leader Grischuk in a very nice Lopez sustained kingside attack. Much less nice was Shirov's horrible loss to Aronian on the white side of a Marshall Gambit. Shirov lost on the black side of this same line last year to Gashimov. He gets credit for declining to repeat moves, but he regretted the decision very quickly. White was so tied up he just resigned before waiting for the hammer to fall on g3. Ugly stuff to play a half-dozen moves out of theory and then resign with white. It's hard to say what he missed.

Wednesday is a free day. More tomorrow after I get some sleep.

The news that 13th world champion Garry Kasparov has been training Magnus Carlsen broke today. This has been going on in secret for six months, including a two-week session in Croatia where Garry always takes his summer holidays. ChessBase has the most extensive report, with a few pics of them working in Croatia and a translation of the Norwegian article that released the story today. The ICC blog also has the news, though it shouldn't be only in the future tense as they've been working together for a while now.

Since it was translated into Norwegian and then back into English there, which resulted in a few tweaks, here's Garry's original statement:

At just 18 years of age, Magnus Carlsen is already close to the peak of the chess world. In six months of working with Magnus I have seen in him many of the qualities of the great champions. With so many victories coming relatively easily to his immense talent and fighting spirit, the final crucial ingredient of relentless work will guarantee his place at the summit.

Garry's appreciation for Carlsen's attitude was as much a factor in this as his "talent," which, despite its inevitable use and overuse, is a bit too abstract a term for Kasparov's view of what makes up a great chessplayer. From Carlsen's earliest days on the world stage Garry was impressed with the way he fought at the board and how he was, seemingly simply enough, "a winner." That is, he really wanted to win not just games, but events, instead of thinking about rating points or being intimidated by his opponents and his surroundings.

There will be much more about this coming out in the coming days, and then of course more when Garry goes to Oslo on the 15th. If you have some questions for him on the topic, feel free to post them below.

More importantly, Garry and fam came to Brooklyn on Saturday and he was a big hit at the Brooklyn Public Library. Here's a shot of him in front of the building giving the TV crew some footage of him walking up to the camera.

After that he was just another dad pushing a stroller in Park Slope, the kid capital of the US, where we live. Stroller traffic is worse than car traffic in our neighborhood.

I'll toss in here that a December Paris series similar to the Valencia format has been added to the Kasparov-Karpov 25th anniversary tour. Not sure if it's all signed yet, will confirm. Still hoping for one more in Moscow as well, probably in 2010. [Paris not signed yet, says Garry. But sounds pretty solid.]

On a more serious note, Shirov and Grischuk impressed in the first round of the Bilbao Grand Slam Final. Shirov, who doesn't seem to get much love in the Spanish press despite being the ostensible local representative, flashed an impressive double pawn sac in a formerly stodgy line of the Dragon against Karjakin. He was quickly rewarded with an easy draw in just 24 moves when Karjakin decided the risk was too great to take the second pawn and allowed a repetition. Wonderful prep from Shirov. Now everyone else's computers will see if White can really play 21.Rxe7 and survive.

Grischuk also had a novelty in an off-road variation of the ultra-topical Anti-Moscow Semi-Slav against Aronian. The Armenian used a lot of time to decide he had nothing better than to bail out with an exchange sac. Which was quite good, in fact, and his bishops and pawns set up an impressive and dangerous defense. But down to a minute he spoiled in the last five moves before control and was dead lost after it. Being Aronian he tried a few cute tricks, but Grischuk wasn't cooperating and reeled in the big fish to start off with a huge win over the top seed.

Definitely the sharp fights we expected with these four warriors. Tomorrow on Chess.FM Macauley Peterson helms with GM Ronen Har-Zvi. On Tuesday it's a special treat as Russian champion, cricket fiend, and all-round mimsy borogrove Peter Svidler rocks the mic with Macauley and dishes the dirt on his colleagues in Bilbao.

I've only been looking at the Spanish version of the official Bilbao site until putting some links together. The purple prose in Spanish is hilariously over the top, as if their web writer does bodice-ripping romance novels by day. Still, at least it's interesting. Curious about the translations into English I found this gem in Shirov's bio:

His turbulent love life is a reflection of his unceasing exalted mind, which probably helps to understand his irregular performance.

That's got to be a pretty unusual depth for a capsule bio on an official site. And hey, I hear on TV commercials that irregular performance affects two out of three men.

This second edition of the unfortunately translated "Final Chess Masters" in Bilbao isn't as high-powered as the inaugural event. Anand (right before facing Kramnik), Carlsen, Aronian, Radjabov,Ivanchuk, and eventual winner Topalov slugged it out in the glass cube in the center of the Basque city. This year there are only four players, a more modest Elo average, and a far more modest prize fund, roughly 25% of last year's. Only Aronian returns and only a substitute for Topalov, who qualified (post-facto) by winning in Nanjing but dropped out late when the reduced prize fund was announced.

But excepting his absence, a better line-up of fighters could hardly be imagined. Linares winner Grischuk, MTel victor Shirov, Corus winner Karjakin, plus Aronian. Karjakin isn't as consistently aggressive as the other musketeers but he's always keen for a theoretical battle and will be looking to make his mark against his three more experienced opponents. And of the four, the 18-year-old has the longest length of draws with white. A somewhat dubious stat, I admit, but from the "money's worth" perspective it does seem notable that Karjakin's draws with white last an average of 44 moves and Aronian's 38. The average is about 40; the easy-going Anand notches 35, somnolent Svidler 36 and tenacious Topalov 45. The famously obdurate Kamsky and Ponomariov, 48 and 52. Not quite as good as the Chicken Factor (tm), but an acceptable quick and dirty metric.

It's a short sprint of just six rounds and only two games to watch, but with players of this breed and with the Sofia rules in place, we should get our money's worth every day. I'll be on ICC Chess.FM tomorrow with GM Nick de Firmian for live coverage starting at 11am EDT, 5pm local time. [It now says "except the first round at 12pm EDT and last round at 10am EDT" I knew about the typical last-round shift, but the old schedule didn't mention the first round starting later. Sorry about that.] Also live with webcam here.

Well, it took him long enough! Garry will be speaking at the Brooklyn Public Library Central Branch, also my own beloved local library, Saturday at 2pm. I haven't hyped it here since the registration filled up in less than a day over a month ago and... his talk and the Q&A will be in Russian. Oh well. But I thought you'd like to know.

From indianexpress.com on 3rd-round action at the Kolkata Open.

In an unusual incident at the ongoing Kolkata Open Grandmasters Chess Tournament on Thursday, a top-rated French player had to concede his game after he couldn't sit through his match against his opponent. Reason -- he showed up drunk at the venue, slept through his moves several times over, and eventually had to be carried off.

No bonus points for guessing who it was. One of our favorite, well, one of the only, chess party animals. Last time for something like this? I believe there was a "sporting violation" of sorts when most of the members of a team showed up much the worse for wear at a Russian team championship last year. Drunk vs hungover isn't really a line we need to walk, I suppose. Did they test his BAC?

The match lasted over an hour, with the French player repeatedly dozing off while contemplating a move. Each time he fell asleep, players around would try to wake him up with a shake of the shoulder. Some even offered him water, and Tkachiev, having briefly refreshed himself at the change room while his opponent waited, dozed off again and eventually had to be carried off. Russian-born Tkachiev, aged 35, is an accomplished chess player, and had played against Viswanathan Anand in the World Chess Championship Knockout back in 2001. Chess star Nigel Short, the biggest attraction at the event, expressed his disgust at the incident, advising the organisers to promptly eject him from the tournament.

But he apparently came back to play in the next round. The UK Times has a little more, extrapolating from the Indian Express original, doing some googling, and adding some background to paint the recently crowned French champion as more suitably Dionysian. Over on the other boards where people were conscious and presumably sober, the resurgent insurgent, Nigel Short, freshly returned to #1 UK status, started out his third consecutive event with a 3/3 score. He then gave up a draw to sit a half-point back of Chanda. Top seed Mamedyarov hung a pawn to 13.Nxa5 in the 4th round and lost.

Just took a quick break from book-project deadline lunacy to breeze through a few games from the Montreal International going on right now. I'm glad I did! Vinay Bhat, the former future of US chess along with so many others, is playing and just turned in an non-stop fireworks show of a game against Tiviakov. Wow. Prepare to have your swashes thoroughly buckled. PGN after the jump. Bacrot leads with 4.5/6 with Naiditsch and Kovalyov a half-point back. Akobian dusted off Naiditsch in a pretty miniature in round six, also worth a look. Onischuk and Shulman are also there for the US.

Slightly off topic, but it's interesting how these North American invitationals, and there are very few, often don't have all that many players from the host nation. Only Bluvshtein and Roussel-Roozmon are there for Canada. No others strong enough to deserve a shot? And the upcoming SPICE Cup in Texas is an impressively strong field (2630) but includes only one American, Akobian, in the field of six. That said, the B Group norm event has more locals (3/10), including Ray Robson, who will be going for his final GM norm. Just one month ago he had none! Nice to see Wesley So in action as well. He hasn't been seen outside of the Far East for a while. [Apparently Bhat (suddenly he's everywhere!) is replacing Simutowe in the B Group.] I don't see dates for the SPICE Cup anywhere. Anyone? [Dmitri sends in the dates September 19-29. Thanks.]

After hearing a little misinformation, it appears Ukraine's Sergey Karjakin really is settling in as a new player in the deep Russian stable. He just finished equal second in the Moscow blitz championship, won by Grischuk. Nice report with photos from Misha Savinov at ChessBase. But the funky new September rating list still gives Karjakin's federation as Ukrainian. How long does such a transfer usually take? Are there eligibility issues for him playing team events for Russia? Amazingly, even though he's #20 in the world, he wouldn't make the Russian Olympiad team right now. Since they reduced the size of the squad to five, he's preceded on the Elo list by Kramnik, Morozevich, Jakovenko, Svidler, and Grischuk. Scary.

What was the last transfer of allegiance at a commensurate level? Shirov going to Spain? Are national federations allowed to set their own rules, strict or lax, or does FIDE have oversight on such things? That is, if the Russian federation said it was okay for Karjakin to play in the Russian championship in a few months, would FIDE have anything to say about it? How about in the Euro Team Ch coming up even sooner? Or do they only set restrictions on the Olympiad? Anyway, it appears likely Karjakin will be playing with a Ukrainian flag on his table in Bilbao at the Grand Slam Final Masters starting on the 6th. Or we could have one of those fun situations where officially he's playing for Ukraine but gets a Russian flag by request. Throwback to Karpov-Korchnoi shenanigans. Just as long as they don't play The Internationale...