The Daily Dirt Chess News Blog

Incredibly Shrinking Linares 2010

2010-02-09T04:57:24Z

The global economic downturn is hitting the chess world, at least in the Iberian peninsula. First the Bilbao Grand Slam was shrunk to four players. Now our traditional flagship super-event, Linares, though always on the precipice of municipal sponsorship in Andalusia, has been reduced to a six-player round-robin. It still packs a punch, and it's better than nothing at all, which is what we almost got according to Spanish news interviews with the organizers. Reports have been rife with comments about possibly canceling this year's event and how they're going to cover expenses. The co-hosting plan with Dubai fell through, but might still be in the cards for next year.

The players: Topalov, Aronian, Grischuk, Gashimov, Gelfand, Vallejo. Russia's new champion Grischuk comes back as the defending champion. Most eyes will be on Topalov, who hasn't played much, or particularly well, lately. He spectated Carlsen's big Pearl Spring win from the second position back in October and other than that has only a trio of games from the Euro Team Ch to show for the last six months. Will the loss of his #1 ranking rankle or will he keep things close to the vest in anticipation of his title match with Anand, still two months away?

Grischuk just had his best year ever and turned in a solid showing for Russia at the World Team Ch. There he beat Gashimov, another Linares participant. The Azerbaijani, one of three who seem to be taking turns in the top ten, is getting his first turn at a traditional supertournament. It's hard to call him a newbie though, since he's been a frontrunner in the FIDE Grand Prix series, all very strong all-play-alls. Aronian and Gelfand also had good years in 2009, Aronian beating the Israeli a few weeks ago at the World Teams. Local hero Vallejo is back again and will try to add to his "next to last instead of last" Linares list, which I think is 2/5. He hasn't been here since 2006, when he finished last but took out Topalov with black in a fantastic game.

Place your bets and make your picks. Hard to go against the winner in the head-to-head between Topalov and Aronian. Round one is Saturday the 13th, off days are the 17th and 22nd. Start time is 1600 local, 10am eastern. I'll be doing some ICC Chess.FM, except for weekends.

Corus 2010 Wrap: Carlsen Comeback

2010-01-30T03:27:51Z

When Carlsen lost to Kramnik in round 9, I don't think anyone thought he would fold like a cheap Norwegian yurt, or whatever the Norwegian equivalent of a yurt is called, if Norwegians have indeed produced something akin to a yurt. He struck back immediately, playing the French, the French no less, for the first time in a professional game to beat Karjakin. Then he overpowered Dominguez, who defended well until a single slip put him into a lost endgame. That put Carlsen up to +4, good enough for a tie for first with Kramnik, who survived a fascinating endgame onslaught against Shirov in the 11th round. Shirov, who started the event with an incredible 5/5 score, was knocked off his pedestal by Nakamura in the 8th round. Two rounds later he had the misfortune of pushing Anand to the brink, which had the effect of rousing the world champion from his nine rounds of slumber.

Things got even more intriguing in the 12th round when we wondered if Vishy would again be up for a fight in a world championship rematch with Kramnik. In the previous round Anand had settled for a 15-move draw with black against Smeets, not exactly a sign of life. And when Anand played 1.e4, allowing Kramnik's Petroff, instead of the 1.d4 that brought him the title in 2008, a draw seemed almost preordained. But this same Petroff line, all the way to move 17, brought Kramnik his game one win in the 2004 world championship against Leko. Anand's new idea, 17.Qc1, began a strange queen zigzag: e3, c3, g3, in the next few moves. It netted a pawn, but Kramnik's typical defensive acumen guided him well under pressure until he first slipped with 26..Bc2 and then fell with 27..Nb3. It allowed Anand to sac the exchange for a wonderfully coordinated attack with the two bishops and a passed d-pawn. White's position doesn't look that menacing at first glance, and his knight hangs on h6 for an eternity. But after a long think and a few repetitions Anand went for it and converted confidently. (Apparently Kramnik actually thought it was a three-fold repetition after 33..Kh8, but Anand reminded him that the first time there had been a pawn on f7!)

So the sleeping Indian giant awoke to change the course of the tournament, taking out two leaders, Shirov and then Kramnik. The principal beneficiary of his revival was Carlsen, whose +4 was suddenly good enough for clear first if it held up in the final round. Before round 13 Garry Kasparov was a little nervous for his protege's chances. His own white against Caruana wasn't expected to be a roadblock and Kasparov didn't think Kramnik would do much with white against Karjakin. (For reasons of chess or inclination it wasn't clear, but he did turn out to be correct and the game was drawn in just 21 moves.) But Garry was concerned about Shirov beating Dominguez to get back to +4. In fact they played a fabulous tactical battle ending in a draw. Wonderful stuff from both players. Shirov sacrificed a rook and a piece but Dominguez fended off every threat. One cute detail: 29.Rd7 looks lethal but it loses to the pretty 29..Rf1+ 30.Ka2 Ra1+!! 31.Kxa1 Qxa3+ with mate.

As all the action was going on there, Carlsen managed to get himself into a spot of trouble with Caruana after an unnecessarily adventurous opening in a Spanish. The world #1's piece sac was turned back and he ended up down a pawn in a knight endgame. He narrowly saved the day and the tournament victory after nearly reaching the third time control. Kasparov was delighted, of course, although he said it was something of a shame that Shirov couldn't share the honors. "He played an amazing tournament with several great games," said Kasparov.

Only one game was decisive in the final round and leave it to US champion Hikaru Nakamura to grind out an 80-mover while the janitors are turning out the lights. After a hot start put him in reach of the lead the wind left Nakamura's sails with losses to Karjakin and Kramnik. +1 would have been a good result going in, but after tasting +3 it seemed a little bland. He made it back to +2 with a sitzfleisch endgame win against Tiviakov. An impressive display of technique and tenacity to end a very impressive supertournament debut. The final bishop sac to promote was a fitting finish to a tremendous fighting tournament. Nakamura is set to add a few dozen points on the next list and move into the top 20.

As mentioned, this year's Corus was notable for the amount of hard fighting at the top of the crosstable. Of the ten games between the top five finishers -- Carlsen, Kramnik, Shirov, Anand, Nakamura -- half were decisive. Anand was the only undefeated player. Short was the only player to go winless, an entirely unjust result considering how many interesting games he played and how he had big advantages against Ivanchuk and Kramnik. On the other hand, he should have paid the price for a bad case of Morphyitis in the final round against Smeets. He sacrificed two pieces in a wild romantic flurry and would have been dead lost had Smeets managed to see through the tactical fog and find 10..d6! The computer plays the steel king line 11.Ndf3+ Kg4 12.h3 Kg3 safe! Crazy. As much interest as you can squeeze into a 14-move repetition draw!

Giri won the B, locking it up with a quick draw, and will give the Dutch new hope in the A group next year. Strong play from the teenage Dutch champion. Naiditsch won in the final round to take clear second. In the C, early leader Robson faded badly in the second half and the way was clear for China's Li Chao, who won with an impressive 10/13 score.

Corus 2010 R9-10: Ecclesiastes 9:11

2010-01-29T03:54:06Z

To segue smoothly from the Old Testament to the 80s comic Emo Phillips, some mornings it just doesn't pay to wake up and chew through the straps. (If you're too much a heathen to know it and too lazy to look it up, the titular verse is the one that starts "the race is not to the swift..." and ends "but time and chance happeneth to them all.") We don't much like to use the terms luck and chance in chess. You make your own success and benefit when your opponent falters. But I think we're on safe ground to say it when someone has enjoyed considerable good fortune at the board. With three rounds to play in Wijk aan Zee, the pairings have blessed us with many clashes at the top of the crosstable in the second half. The players have mostly lived up to the challenge and delivered fighting chess.

Lady, umm, Fortune was on Shirov's side a few times during his amazing 5/5 start at Corus this year. He gambled and won, outplaying his opponents in tense positions and collecting every proffered gift as well. Caruana mystifyingly tossed a pawn to turn a drawn endgame into a loss. Smeets fended off a sacrificial attack quite well slipping off the precipice. Van Wely was lost before coming a missed brilliant move away from playing for a win himself in a wild time scramble. Now that Kramnik has taken over the clear lead on the strength of wins over Nakamura and Carlsen we can look back at his brushes with good fortune. Tiviakov seemed to have him dead to rights, up a pawn and with a solid position. Kramnik's last gasp of startling tactics bamboozled Tiviakov just enough to save the half point. It's harder to explain his draw against Short, which goes beyond luck and directly to some sort of divine intervention; if God has the free time to hang out in Wijk aan Zee paralyzing the brains of Englishmen. Even the thoroughly outplayed van Wely had a good chance for a save had he captured with knight instead of a bishop on c5 on move 47.

There's no such thing as a winner without at least a little luck, but you don't win Corus without a lot more than that. Kramnik is three rounds away from winning in Wijk aan Zee for the first time since his debut appearance way back in 1998 when he shared first with Anand. Those are three pretty long rounds considering the pairings, however, and none is more important than tomorrow's 11th round matchup against Shirov. In one stroke Shirov can retake the lead in the tournament and put to rest the scuttlebutt about how he got his early wins against the weaker segment of the field. He lost that lead when the lucky break went to his 10th round opponent, Anand. Shirov played a wonderfully creative game, whipping up a kingside attack while Anand looked like he was having trouble getting into gear after nine consecutive draws. Time trouble turned the tide, Anand blitzing his opponent and Shirov unable to find the shot 39..Ng3!!, offering the queen. 40.Nxg5 Rxe1 and the mate threat leads to the win of a piece. Shirov missed his chance and after the blunder 39..Rxe6 he was lost. Don't stop there though, as the conclusion contained some great tactics as well. Anand offered his queen to push his pawn, Shirov declined and went for checks with his queen, which were soon exhausted. A flawed but fascinating game.

Anand's first win gave Kramnik the clear lead despite being held to a short sharp draw by Ivanchuk. Kramnik had moved up the table with consecutive wins against Nakamura and Carlsen. The much-anticipated game between the former world champ and the 19-year-old world #1 did not disappoint. Carlsen played the Catalan, perhaps a bit of provocation by using Kramnik's favorite weapon. Kramnik defended this same line in another good game, his draw against Gelfand at the Tal Memorial. (His draw with Ivanchuk in round 10 was a curious mirror image of their game from the Tal. They reversed colors and Kramnik played the sacrificial attack Ivanchuk should have won with in that game.) Carlsen played an aggressive positional pawn sac 17.d5! to go after the black king. But his very next move let the advantage slip. Instead of 18.Bh3, Kasparov suggests 18.Rfd1 d4 19.Qf5 and White's forces are coordinated better than in the game. The lingering threat of moving the knight and playing Be4 creates too many threats. The complications are still immense but it looks like White is coming out on top in these lines. As the game went it turned into a great defensive effort by Kramnik, who danced his king around like Baryshnikov. With his knight and rooks out of the game, Carlsen had to retreat to deal with the mob of black pawns. He used almost all the rest of his time acknowledging this and he blundered fatally under Kramnik's first threat of the game. A savage battle illustrating the old "if the attack fails, the counterattack will likely be decisive."

Nakamura lost his second in a row in the 9th round, with white against Karjakin. It was a straight-up slugfest on just about every square of the board. White probably shouldn't lose after the more circumspect 35.Bd6. Nakamura went for the win and ran into the shot 36..Rc4! 37.Rg1 Rc2! A wild fighting game. Round nine was a big day for the locals. Smeets got his first win in a sloppy mess of a game against Caruana. First White dominated, then he couldn't find his way to continue and Caruana defended well and won a pawn. He made steady progress and had a nice shot, 39..Nxh3+!, to win another pawn that he missed in time trouble. The rest of the game is a scramble and somehow Smeets picked off a pawn, then a piece, and won. (48.Nd3 wins because of 48..Rd3 49.Rxd5 exd5 50.Qe8+ wins a piece.) You might call it winning ugly, but it counts the same and I'm sure Smeets will take it.

Carlsen bounced back in the 10th round against Karjakin. Desperate to get back into contention he turned to a surprise, his first professional French Defense. I guess experience isn't everything because White was practically in zugzwang by move 25. Incredible. The win put him into a tie with Shirov on +3, a half-point behind Kramnik. Then there's a big pack on +1: Karjakin, Dominguez, Nakamura, Ivanchuk, Anand. The leader doesn't have an easy ride home. He finishes with black against Shirov, black against Anand, and white against Karjakin. Carlsen has white against Dominguez, black against Leko, and white against Caruana. Shirov has black against Karjakin and white against Dominguez. Karjakin is unlikely to repeat his win of 2009 but he's certainly positioned to have a big say in who becomes his successor.

Round 11: Shirov-Kramnik, Carlsen-Dominguez, Ivanchuk-Karjakin, Nakamura-Leko, Short-Caruana, Smeets-Anand, van Wely-Tiviakov.

The official website and even the internet at the Corus press room had a bad day during round 10. Live coverage went down completely right at the critical moment on several boards in time trouble. The entire site was offline for over 24 hours, at least from here. They've had an extra day to try to get things back on track, but since there have been slowdowns and disconnects most rounds let's hope a back-end upgrade is in the works for next year. I'm off duty on ICC Chess.FM for the home stretch, busy with real life with Garry in town. I should be at his appearance and book signing at a scholastic event here in NY on Saturday morning. Jen Shahade is hosting with Larry Christiansen.

Stupid Time Control Tricks

2010-01-27T02:43:39Z

Word on the street is that Corus is using a time control with increment from move one because their usual control, with increment only after move 60, isn't on the approved list of controls eligible for norm tournaments, important for the C Group. I probably didn't notice since I rarely cover events were norms are needed. According to the language in the handbook, apparently taken from the ACP, specific allowable controls are listed instead of simply indicated a range. The vastly superior control that reserves increment for the endgame only is obviously still classical chess. (40 in 2hr, 20 in 1hr, 30'+15" per move till the finish, for example.) From what I remember from the various polls, not having increment from the first move was preferred by a majority of ACP members. But all the increment controls listed as eligible for norms have increment from move one. Not a huge deal, but annoying. Organizers should be able to customize the control within certain (narrow) parameters. And allowing the standard 40/2, 20/1, g/30 for norms but not allowing increment in that final control is ridiculous.

Kasparov on Man and Machine

2010-01-26T03:46:14Z

The New York Review of Books piece by Garry Kasparov is turning out to be quite popular. It was picked up by the Huffington Post, the Guardian, and now it's been cited in The Atlantic and the NY Times "Ideas" blog. I believe the NY Times Syndicate will also be offering it to subscribers abroad. At first it wasn't something we thought we had time for, but the more we talked about ideas for it, and how it worked in with some of the recent themes of Garry's business speeches, the more he wanted to do it. Now we're all glad it's out there. The main theme I'm referring to is that of "commercialism and incrementalism is replacing innovation and risk," to simplify it far too much.

With the supremacy of the chess machines now apparent and the contest of "Man vs. Machine" a thing of the past, perhaps it is time to return to the goals that made computer chess so attractive to many of the finest minds of the twentieth century. Playing better chess was a problem they wanted to solve, yes, and it has been solved. But there were other goals as well: to develop a program that played chess by thinking like a human, perhaps even by learning the game as a human does. Surely this would be a far more fruitful avenue of investigation than creating, as we are doing, ever-faster algorithms to run on ever-faster hardware.

This is our last chess metaphor, then--a metaphor for how we have discarded innovation and creativity in exchange for a steady supply of marketable products. The dreams of creating an artificial intelligence that would engage in an ancient game symbolic of human thought have been abandoned. Instead, every year we have new chess programs, and new versions of old ones, that are all based on the same basic programming concepts for picking a move by searching through millions of possibilities that were developed in the 1960s and 1970s.

Like so much else in our technology-rich and innovation-poor modern world, chess computing has fallen prey to incrementalism and the demands of the market. Brute-force programs play the best chess, so why bother with anything else? Why waste time and money experimenting with new and innovative ideas when we already know what works? Such thinking should horrify anyone worthy of the name of scientist, but it seems, tragically, to be the norm. Our best minds have gone into financial engineering instead of real engineering, with catastrophic results for both sectors.

The ending paragraphs of the article aren't really an endorsement to drop chess for poker, of course. But the investigation into teaching computers to play better poker seems likely to be more beneficial on a scientific level both for understanding human thought and computer intelligence than chess computing turned out to be in the end. I'm not overlooking the progress made in various areas, from parallel processing to the clever playing algorithms themselves, but even enthusiasts admit we didn't get what we came for, so to speak.

And yes, the programs have gotten smarter, not just faster, although it's the incredibly fast hardware available today that allows the "slow" programs to be effective. That is, it used to be that adding significant knowledge slowed the algorithm to a crawl, more than negating the beneficial playing strength effects of the knowledge. This trade-off is still very much in effect, but the faster the machines, the more knowledge you can work in and the better the program will be relative to the dumber programs, since the law of diminishing returns and the branching factor are so extreme. To again oversimplify, a smart program at 6 ply will get killed by a dumber one reaching 10, but a smart one at 14 will beat a dumber one at 18.

Those unfamiliar with the legendary NYRB might be surprised that the book in question, Chess Metaphors: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind by Diego Rasskin-Gutman, isn't mentioned much in the article. The Review doesn't really review books (four stars!) as much as it attempts to present good writing and interesting ideas on the topic in general. It was nice working on something other than politics and business!

The Review has asked Garry to do a podcast interview following up on the article; we'll see if he has time this week.

Corus 2010 R8: Here Comes Kramnik

2010-01-25T00:27:05Z

Unfortunately, he came all over Nakamura today at Corus. Wait, that doesn't sound right. Well, whatever, but former world champion Vladimir Kramnik won a critical game today against the US champ to swap places with him in the standings. Carlsen improved on his MTel loss to Shirov last year in the Sveshnikov and played an aggressive game with black. Shirov found a series of only moves before deciding to allow a repetition draw. Sharp stuff. Anand still can't get his motor running and gave up another easy draw with white, this one to Ivanchuk.

24 hours after taking out tourney leader Shirov, Nakamura was back at the board with one of the toughest pairings in chess, black against Kramnik. He went with the Dutch he used successfully against Anand and, as Kramnik explained later in the press conference, the Russian had guessed correctly and prepared this exact line. Black did eventually get the few dynamic chances Dutch players must have to balance the positional catastrophe they inhabit, but it just wasn't Nakamura's day and his best chances (..fxg3 before and instead of the big mistake ..Be6) were missed. Kramnik was the one who found the tactical shot to force an endgame up two pawns and he converted it easily.

I chatted with Nakamura on the ICC after the game and he made no excuses, saying things didn't feel right from the start. That much was clear from the clock times as he sank into deep thinks early on, having forgotten his preparation against Kramnik's Rb1, which Vlad described as a very strong and long-term pressure move in the press conference we broadcast live on Chess.FM. Nakamura said he'd made two blunders and that after two straight months of chess it was inevitable he was going to play a lemon of a game here at some point. He added it was probably best to have played it against a Kramnik or Anand instead of a 2600. That sounds about right to me since those guys can beat you even when you're at your best; so it doesn't hurt as much compared to coughing up a hairball against one of the tournament tailenders. Still very much in the hunt at +2 in fourth place behind Shirov (+4), Carlsen and Kramnik (+3), Nakamura sounded positive heading into tomorrow's rest day. He comes back on Tuesday with white against Karjakin, who scored his first win today.

Okay, back with the update; sorry for all the typos in the first bit I tossed up. Kramnik gave extensive comments in the press room at Corus, first on the game and then taking some questions about his opponent and the new generation he represents. We're almost used to this new Kramnik making jokes and making sarcastic cracks about his opponents, as when he said that sure, Nakamura would be a world championship contender, "after the rest of us here have retired in five years!" Zing! But he went on to say it was now clear Nakamura was talented enough to be in the top ten, a sentiment that is hard to deny after the American put up two ~2850 performances in 2009 and is sitting at +2 with five rounds to play at Corus. Even the most talented don't always have the consistency, durability, work ethic, and defensive toughness (what Kasparov called "resistance") necessary to be in the top ten for more than a brief spike. Of course the chess world would be pretty boring if everyone had all those characteristics because it would cost us our beloved loose cannons like Shirov and Morozevich. Guys who can lose five in a row like Shirov did at Corus 2007 and also win five in a row like Shirov did last week.

In the press conference Kramnik spoke about the game as if Black hadn't had a chance pretty much from the start. Black did have his chances, if fleeting ones, and the game would have continued a more interesting and natural course had Nakamura not blundered with 23..Be6 after Kramnik's somewhat extravagant rook lift to the center. Both 22..fxg3 and 23..fxg3 would have allowed the game to continue as a battle between White's lead in development and Black trying to make something happen on the kingside while the white bishop is still stuck. 23..fxg3 24.Nc5 looks strong for White, but Black isn't being blown away. 24.hxg3 Be6 works now because there's no pawn to lose on f4, although 25.Nf4 gxf4 26.R5xf4 fxg3 27.Qe4 looks a little scary. A shame not so much for the loss as for the loss of an interesting fight.

Shirov sounded impressed by Carlsen's novelty in the Sveshnikov, which improved on their last-round game from last year's MTel tournament. In that game Carlsen went in leading the event but Shirov beat him in just 30 moves to take first place. Shirov said he was prepared to revisit this line, but Carlsen's new move 22..Bc3 beat him to the punch. This is a wonderful line to begin with, white with three (!) extra pawns and black with a mobile pawn center, a bishop pair, and open lines. As Shirov put it, he was okay, but when White has to make a bunch of only moves in a row just to survive, clearly you're doing it wrong. Carlsen was looking for more and avoided one early drawing line: 23..Bxe1 24.Rxe1 Qc5 and it looks like White has to play 25.Qh6 and force a repetition. Another big matchup after the rest day as Carlsen takes white against Kramnik. As pointed out in the comments, Carlsen is psyching himself up and showing his sense of humor by setting his Facebook status to "Magnus Carlsen is going to crush Kramnik like a bug." Love it. A few might ruffle at jokes and cheek displayed by these young guys, and even by Kramnik this week, but to me it's nothing less than fantastic. Some open jabs and entertaining trash talk are much better than the petty sniping and self-important stuffiness that is the norm in the chess world.

Two players scored their first wins in the A Group. Sergei Karjakin broke his string of seven draws with a wild win against Nigel Short. The Englishman continues to be entirely unrewarded for his creative play. In this one he gave up his queen for a rook, then two, and attacking chances. Black could have virtually forced a draw on move 35 with ..R1e2 36.Bxe2 fxe2 37.Nf6+! and White forces a perpetual check. Once the white bishop got to f3 the white king was safe and the horribly uncoordinated black pieces were no match for the white queen in the long run. Karjakin, the defending Corus champ, steadily reeled in the full point. Caruana got a win, beating Tiviakov in a slightly superior endgame that it looked like Tiviakov might have held. Nice technique from the teen, who was crestfallen after missing a clear win over Dominguez in the 5th. Leko moved to a plus score for the first time by beating Smeets and the Dutchman's habitual time trouble in a game with an amusing, or tragic, final position. I suppose getting mated with your king on e3 is better than getting ground down for another 30 moves until the a-pawn wins.

Round 9 (Tuesday): Ivanchuk-Shirov, Carlsen-Kramnik, Nakamura-Karjakin, Tiviakov-Anand, Smeets-Caruana, van Wely-Leko, Short-Dominguez.

Corus 2010 R7: Shirov Unstoppable

2010-01-24T03:43:05Z

It's a whole new ballgame in Wijk aan Zee, and it ain't soccer, it's baseball. Or maybe hockey, considering Hikaru Nakamura's sports preferences. Today the US champion checked tournament leader Alexei Shirov hard into the wall with a beautifully played win. The victory moved Nakamura to +3, just a half point behind Shirov. Magnus Carlsen joined him thanks to a relatively easy full point from Bad Ivanchuk. With six rounds to play the heretofore unassailable and apparently unreachable Shirov has been assailed and looks quite reachable indeed. Shirov will try to bounce back with white against Carlsen in tomorrow's 8th round in another critical game for the standings.

I said at the start I could imagine Nakamura going -3 or +3 depending on how his gambling style panned out. He has refuted this conjecture not only by reaching +3 undefeated after seven rounds, but by how he has gone about it. His three wins, all violent Sicilians, have been aggressive and occasionally spectacular. All, however, came from solid positions of strength built up with a steady hand. And the murderers row that was supposed to be his real trial has resulted in two easy draws with black against Anand and Ivanchuk, pressing for a win against Carlsen, and now a win against Shirov. He still has black against Kramnik coming tomorrow -- never a day at the beach unless you mean Normandy -- but so far it's been very impressive stuff.

Today Nakamura outplayed Shirov out of an unusual line of the Lasker/Pelikan, a cousin of the Sveshnikov. White captured on f6 early, on move 8, and Shirov decided to head into original territory instead of moving back to the usual Sveshnikov with 9..b5. How original? Well, I've got around 40 games in my reference database after his 9..f5 and 4000 after 9..b5. Of course Nakamura loves to get games into original channels himself. After 10.Nc4 Shirov played the interesting 10..Nd4 instead of the more forcing 10..b5 11.Ne3 b4 that has been tried a few times. Nakamura's 18.Be2! is a very interesting move, offering the b-pawn. Taking ("never capture the queen's knight's pawn with your queen") gets Black into trouble after 19.Qxd6! and no matter how Black captures the bishop, or even if he doesn't, White has a crushing attack thanks to the weakness of the e5 pawn and the threat of Nd5. Shirov went for a combination of his own a few moves later, but it appears Nakamura saw deeper. Grabbing the f2 pawn is tempting and it looks like Black survives after 22.Qxd6 Rd8! 23.Qf6, threatening Re2, and now the trap is sprung 23..Qxf2! 24.Bc6+ bxc6 25.Qxf2 and White has won the queen. Shirov's dastardly plan is revealed with 25..Be4 26.Qf6 (26.Rg1? Rxg2! wins for Black) 26..Bxg2+ 27.Kg1 Rd2 and now White has to force a perpetual check with 28.Qxe5+ Kd7 29.Qf5+ Kd8 etc.

Nakamura didn't fall for it, however, and his immediate capture on b7 set Black difficult problems. The white bishop on d5 was a monster on offense and defense and White had all the the time in the world to consolidate and begin to advance his queenside majority. 30.g3! is an insane-looking move, but White has to open another front to make progress and the white king is surprisingly safe. It was clear then that Black was in real trouble. White can keep strengthening his position and poking around for weaknesses and Black has no active plans. Passive defense is not one of Shirov's many strengths. With time getting short he lashed out with 34..e4, though it was likely already too late to defend. Getting out of the pin with 34..Qa7 or 34..Qc7 still runs into 35.c5. After Black's move the computers -- and the ICC kibitzers who love them -- went nuts, showing a huge plus for White after the c5 push he'd been working up to. Nakamura had the additional benefit of a big time advantage and he sunk into thought working out the complications. It was therefore a big shock when he finally moved and 35.Qc3 came over the wire. After the game he explained his analysis to Macauley and he said he couldn't find the KO after 35.c5 Qc7. The answer isn't simple, but it is quite pretty when you see it. 36.cxd6 Rxd6 37.b6! Rxb6 38.Qxa5! Rb7 39.Qa6! and Black is tied hand and foot with too many threats coming.

After 35.Qc3 all that was off the table and we wondered if Shirov had his pockets full of rabbits' feet. He still had a few moves to go until time control, however, and White still had many threats. Nakamura made a few useful waiting moves and his strategy paid off when Shirov blundered with 36..Ka7. After 36..Qc5 it's not clear how White is going to make progress despite the total domination of his pieces. Given a second chance, Nakamura ended the game with a few precise hammer blows. A great game that reboots the tournament as well. Nakamura now has to get the adrenaline out of his system to play black against Kramnik while Shirov has to regain his composure to face Carlsen.

Ivanchuk tried a new development idea in a fairly offbeat Slav against Carlsen. His 6..Be6 looks logical enough, forcing the issue in the center White was basically forced to grab a pawn or allow Black to equalize easily. After a serious think Carlsen decided the c5 pawn wasn't poisoned at all, thank you very much. After 15.Rd1 is was clear he was right and that Ivanchuk was already in trouble. Instead of staying down a pawn we thought he might sac a piece with 18..Bxf2+, although it looked insufficient and still does. Black gets two pawns for a piece and the white king needs some time to reach safety, but as the saying goes, a knight is a knight. Instead Ivanchuk decided to go out in a blaze of glory, sacrificing his queen for a rook and a thoroughly hopeless attack that fizzled before it began. Ivanchuk played on till move 35 hoping for a blockade or a blunder, or perhaps because the cable in his room is out. As easy a win as you can hope for at Corus and one that shows that sometimes greed does pay.

The other round 7 games were drawn, leaving Kramnik in the hunt on +2 ahead of Ivanchuk and Dominguez on +1. Kramnik needed every ounce of luck, pluck and dour defensive skills to draw against Nigel Short. After the game the Englishman said he just got nervous and couldn't focus enough to calculate as the endgame win slipped through his fingers. Looking at the position now after, say, 32..Bg8 it's hard to believe Kramnik survived another five moves, let alone drew the game. White has an extra pawn, a distant passer, and the superior combination of Q+N vs Q+B. A very big fish to let off the hook, especially after Ivanchuk also escaped Short in an inferior endgame. The mundane 47.Qe7 isn't trivial but surely must be winning. Earlier White had an even clearer win by simply pushing his a-pawn. 43.a5 c5 44.Qb7 was GM Benjamin's suggestion on Chess.FM and Black is helpless. Threats to f2 can be ignored as there is no perpetual. 44..Qf6 45.a6 Qxf2 46.a7 Qxe3 47.Qb8 is curtains. Instead, he let the black queen get in front of the pawn. It seems like Short's nervous system responds positively to being on the defensive, as against Carlsen, but negatively when he's on the brink of a big win. I guess the glass half full aspect is that he's clearly capable of playing great chess; he had Kramnik's Petroff beat cold. As for Big Vlad, his second bullet dodge of the tournament.

No shots were fired in van Wely-Karjakin. Even the tireless fighter van Wely was beaten down by five straight losses. There were rumors that Karjakin was feeling ill himself, so the unwritten "ethical guidelines" of Corus of playing 30 moves or three hours were skirted without much in the way of commotion. Tiviakov and Leko played, but not so you'd notice. A dull position in Caruana-Anand livened up all of the sudden only to flare out into a perpetual check just as quickly. Seven straight draws for the world champion (and for defending Corus champ Karjakin). That's still shy of Carlsen's nine straight draws to open the A Group last year. Still, Anand is looking in serious need of a strong cup of coffee. Smeets and Dominguez played a spectacular piece of Najdorf preparation. It looked like the Dutch tailender would have to accede to a quick draw by repetition. But after a long think, he sacrificed both rooks in classic style on a1 and h1 to play for mate. Incredibly, he said after the game to Macauley that he'd actually worked on this line a few months ago. He just couldn't remember exactly how it went. Scary. Dominguez then went for a long think himself and both players arrived to the conclusion that it would be White forcing the repetition, not black.

Round 8: Kramnik-Nakamura, Shirov-Carlsen, Anand-Ivanchuk, Karjakin-Short, Dominguez-van Wely, Leko-Smeets, Caruana-Tiviakov.

Corus 2010 R5: Shirov Unstoppable

2010-01-21T20:15:50Z

Wow. Every risk is paying off for Alexei Shirov and he won again to move to 5/5 at Corus. During the game, the computer shot 34.Bg6!!, driving the rook off the rank and away from coverage of d5, looked like it might be enough for a miracle draw for van Wely. (34..Rh3 35.Be4 and now Black doesn't have 35..Bd5 as in the game.) Now with some time for the silicon to grind it, White might even be winning in that line. 35..Re8 36.Rb1 is very dangerous stuff. But when you're on a losing streak the miracles don't find you. And on the other side of it, forget van Wely. You might need van Helsing to stop Shirov! He has white against Short tomorrow before he begins facing the 2700 crowd in the final seven rounds. Ivanchuk started MTel 2008 with 5/5, btw.

Some more on the van Wely-Shirov game. It's a little unfair to the incredible effort Shirov put in to focus on how van Wely might have turned things around with one incredible computer-found shot in mutual time trouble. But it's such a beautiful sequence of tactics it's worth going over. Black has no good answer to 36.Bg6!!, but White would have to find several more difficult moves to back it up and Black has threats of his own. It's remarkable how many different options there are. Just on move one Black can try 36..Rh3, ..Rh8, or even ..Rh1+, all leading to different play. Honestly, it looked to us during the game like three kinds of voodoo that Black can survive at all with his king open, a rook out of play on a8, and white having two bishop and a centralized queen. It shows Shirov's confidence and his mastery of calculation that he rejected a repetition to play on with 28..Qc2.

Fantastic battle in Nakamura-Carlsen, though not the sharp middlegame or opening we expected. An Exchange Ruy (!) and a wonderfully rich endgame with Nakamura having a knight for three pawns, then two, and then... Carlsen found some incredible resources with his kingside pawns to hold the draw by the skin of his teeth. Amazing. More notes on this one later, but play through it. There are actually mating possibilities for Black in that pawn net at one point! Nakamura apparently spent most of his prep on Carlsen's three different Sicilians, so the Exchange Ruy was pragmatic bailout to avoid any surprises from KaCa Labs. White came quite close to landing in the endgame with the extra piece. Kasparov suggested 30..Rd8 and later 32..Bd6, keeping the bishops and heading to f4, as easier defenses. Carlsen's 49..h4+! was a lifesaver. One comical line was 52.Nb1, which White wants to play but can't here, 52..g5 53.Nd3? Kg6 threatens mate on the move! 54.Ne5+ saves the day, but 53..Bxg2 is even stronger for Black. Another line showing the hidden dangers for White: 49..b2 50.Nd2 h4+ 51.Kh2 Bc6! 52.Nb1? Ra4! The point of ..Bc3 and now Black is better!

Quotes from both players lifted again from Peter Nicholas in the LA Times sports blog:

"I definitely had winning chances,'' [Nakamura] said. "No question, because I was the one pressing more or less for the whole game trying to win. I think at some point I went wrong. ... Obviously, I'm quite upset with the result, but it's the way it goes.''
Standing next to his father, getting ready to leave, Magnus said he made a "really stupid mistake'' on the 10th move, pushing a pawn in a way that was too "ambitious.''

He downplayed the notion of a rivalry. For all his potential, Hikaru is still 28th on the world rating list. So for now, Magnus said, "I consider my main rivals to be (world champion Vishy) Anand, (former world champion Vladimir) Kramnik, and (Levon) Aronian. But Hikaru is playing very well now, so I guess in a short time I will consider him one of my main rivals.''

That's a fair point, and as an American Nakamura will always get an extra dose of attention, both positive and negative, just like the country he represents. But we also weigh by potential and in that department Nakamura must be considered a cut above names like, say, Navara, Eljanov, and Almasi, who are all currently rated above him. One way to measure potential is by peak results and Nakamura has Donostia and the recent World Team gold medal, two 2850 performances in one year. Plus several world class rapid and blitz results that are fair to take as at least vague signposts of talent that can translate into classical play. Now then, if Nakamura goes a year or two without sticking around in the top 20 and at least threatening the top ten (both the list and its individual occupants) then he may eventually end up in that "dangerous but not a rival" category populated by the likes of those mentioned above until proven otherwise. (Movsesian was one career second-stringer who recently had a cup of coffee in the top ten.) Nakamura's up to #18 on the live list at the moment...

According to Kramnik, speaking to Macauley after the round, he picked up a book on the Pirc on the way out of the hall the other day and decided to use it against Smeets. (He mentioned Chernin (there with Caruana) so likely "Pirc Alert!") He jokingly started the interview by saying he knew Smeets would refute the Petroff, so he had to play something else. Hilarious. I'm digging this laid-back Parisian Kramnik. I hope the whole clip goes up at chessclub.com. After four draws and "giving" Petroff draws to Dominguez and Caruana, Big Vlad was hungry for more and Smeets, with 0.5/4, was a tempting little piece of frikadellen. Sadly for the Dutchman, Kramnik's tactics were rewarded and Black was for choice by move 14, according to Speelman on Chess.FM. Queenless middlegames are what Kramnik lives for and he quickly showed why to notch his first win. Ruthless class warfare.

Caruana got a strong attack against Dominguez and it would be surprising to find he wasn't completely winning at one point. (24.Qd8! fits the bill nicely. 24..Bf6 25.Rc1! and White is winning a full piece.) The Cuban hung on into a Q+P endgame and managed to draw somehow. Short got a very good four-rook endgame against Ivanchuk but after some swaps Speelman called it a theoretical draw despite White's extra material and the players agreed not long after. Leko-Anand and, to a lesser extent, Tiviakov-Karjakin, justified our pre-game lack of faith in their turning into anything interesting.

Robson won again in the C and leads alone on 4.5/5. Will add some game notes tonight and occasional twittering as bits come in from all over.

Round 6: Anand-Carlsen, Shirov-Short, Ivanchuk-Nakamura, Kramnik-van Wely, Karjakin-Smeets, Dominguez-Tiviakov, Leko-Caruana. Has Shirov already won the exhibition, as the saying goes, or will he run into trouble once he hits the higher-rated half of the field? Has anyone ever lost a big tournament after starting 4/4, let alone 5/5? I remember that Nepomniachtchi started the 2007 Corus C with 7.5/8 and finished second.

Corus 2010 R4: Ready, Aim, Fire on Board

2010-01-19T23:17:50Z

There it is, the inevitable "fire" title when Alexei Shirov is burning down the house. Of course the Latvian-born Spanish representative is the author of the renown personal game collections "Fire on Board" and "Fire on Board 2, Revenge of the Sith." He scored his fourth consecutive win to start Corus today and takes a full-point lead into tomorrow's free day. Ivanchuk won his second straight to join the chasing pack on +2 with Nakamura and Carlsen. No one else has a plus score. Most of the five draws were interesting efforts, the exception being an Exchange Ruy between Karjakin and Caruana. Even that one was played out well beyond expectation, illustrating the fighting spirit typical of Wijk aan Zee and this year's field in particular.

Shirov-Smeets was a Petroff that looked headed the way of most Petroffs even when Shirov, as if by genetic predisposition, sacrificed a bishop on h6. Smeets defended accurately and Larry Christiansen on Chess.FM expected black to have fine chances with a piece versus White's three kingside pawns. But Smeets is a time-trouble addict, as we saw here last year, and with his king open and his flag nearing tilt he had bad clock problems and even worse Shirov problems. When the smoke cleared after the flurry of moves that came over the relay Black was losing a rook. It was over after 33..Rcd8, which fails to keep the knight from crossing over to the kingside with nasty intentions. 33..Rce8 serves the purpose and should hold, though the position is still very dangerous for Black.

Shirov's +4 matches Kramnik's hot start in 1998. The 37-year-old Shirov has always been a streaky devil, even back in the 90s when he spent most of his time on the high side of the top ten. In recent years his streaks have been more likely to be of losses. Just days after finishing ahead of Carlsen and Topalov to take the MTel, Shirov started the 2009 Poikovsky tournament by losing four straight. He lost the first three at the 2008 Tal Memorial. In 2007, he nearly buried himself in the sand at the Wijk aan Zee beach, starting Corus A with five straight losses. Talk about a way to make a comeback.

We're now seeing the upside of that instability, a relentless dynamism that can turn calm positions into infernos. For those looking ahead to the final standings, it's worth pointing out that Shirov's last three wins have come against three of the four lowest rated players in the field. There are still nine rounds to play and he has yet to meet his three closest pursuers -- Ivanchuk, Carlsen, Nakamura -- or Kramnik and Anand. But you can't do better than 100% and he's playing great chess and gaining confidence all the way, essential for a form player. For a little perspective, at last year's Corus the leaders were on +1 after four rounds and nobody reached +4 at any point!

Speaking of form players on confident streaks, Nakamura passed a big test today by holding world champ Vishy Anand in their first-ever encounter. The American champion played to the crowd with his very first move, 1.d4 f5!, the Dutch Defense, which he just used against Grischuk at the World Teams. If he keeps doing this well with it he may do for the Dutch what Radjabov did for the King's Indian. LarryC was impressed with Nakamura's handling of the initial moves, though he liked the idea of ..b5 for Black instead of 10..a5. Later he was worried that Black's position was falling into the problems that often plague the Dutch: the structural weaknesses remain when the dynamic chances have ended. But Nakamura had a nice tactical resource with 21..Qa5 to hold the balance and the game was soon drawn. Not a bad thing to play against Anand since the champ is new to 1.d4 and has barely ever faced the Dutch in a serious game. (Though he occasionally played it himself as a pup.) Some comments from Hikaru in Wijk aan Zee in this otherwise tyro-oriented piece on the LA Times blog, including some interesting lines about his upcoming big game with Magnus Carlsen. (The author also quotes the spurious "vishyanand" Twitter feed. Unfollow!)

Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, Loek van Wely returned to the Najdorf. And, like swallows being fed into a meat grinder, he was pulverized in 26 moves by Ivanchuk. It was the Dutchman's third straight loss, making a distant memory of the early promise shown by his opening win over Short. van Wely knows his lines, but LarryC was baffled as early as move 12, wondering what Black was supposed to do after 14.e5. Black failed to answer that question in the game. He had to give up the exchange and failed to generate any compensation, resigning on move 26. Painful. It's not clear if van Wely thought he was improving on the topical line with 10..Bb7 11.g4 Be7, played in various recent top games, or if he bungled something by skipping ..Bb7. German GM Jan Gustafsson, who has seconded Loek in the past at Corus and is rooting for him, gave some trenchant commentary on Chess.FM on his friend's devotion to playing the sharpest and most principled lines at all times. He said he thought van Wely was really more of a superior technical player whose rating would jump 60 points were he to play more positional lines. But, he said, the Dutchman enjoys the challenge and the reputation of being a theoretical gunslinger. It also makes him a hit with fans, since he guarantees excitement -- albeit much of it at his own expense.

Kramnik took his second white into Tiviakov and got a hybrid Nimzo-Queen's Indian of the sort Tiviakov knows well. White built up a dangerous attacking formation against the black kingside. Kramnik spent a lot of time shifting his queen over to h3, but it didn't seem to achieve much. Black countered well on the queenside and by the time he played the standard positional lever 22..b4, Kramnik's attack was still going nowhere. Tiviakov won a pawn and promptly got the queens off the board and just like that Kramnik was headed for a big loss with white. He took a last gamble with 27.Bf4 and it paid off when Tiviakov missed 27..f6, which would have forced 28.Nxg6 with a relatively clear technical win ahead. Instead, Kramnik found a lifeline with the piece sac 30.Nxe5! Tiviakov missed his last chance to keep the game alive with 32..Rd8! with an extra pawn. Miracle save by Kramnik.

Against Carlsen, Nigel Short decided to avoid as much theory as can be avoided while still making legal moves. He played the Scandinavian, not really a shocker in a field with Tiviakov. Then he offered the 2..Nf6 gambit line, which Carlsen declined, leading the game into positional channels and a new position by move seven. Short lashed out with 11..f5 and White went to work on the center, daring Black to come up with a decent plan considering his limited space. 19..g5 probably should have landed Short in hot water when the white knight homed in on all the newly weakened squares around the black king. But as soon as Carlsen played the very strong 22.Ng3 the world #1 seemed to begin losing the thread. Direct attack or continue the squeeze? Swap off the Bf6 or not? Of all the options, 23.Qd3?! seems far too slow. 23.Nh5 was much more to the point. Did Carlsen simply miss 24..Nc5? (24..Ne5 was also good.) And what to make of 26.Re2, leaving White with little more than a slight plus in an endgame? The rest was excellent defense by Short and swaps down to a draw. Either we thought too much of White's chances most of the way, or it was a surprisingly weak series of moves by Carlsen to squander a sizable advantage.

The kibitzing on the ICC was about how Kasparov was surely going to take his charge to task for missing a shot at moving to +3. In reality, he was annoyed mostly by the fact that Carlsen apparently played two hours of squash yesterday! I'm not sure the nigh-limitless energy of a 19-year-old should feel any middlegame effects from some rigorous exercise the day before, but it's definitely not on the Botvinnik plan. Long walks and good naps, young man! Carlsen has black against Nakamura after the rest day in one of the most anticipated match-ups of the new year. From that LA Times post linked above:

"Kasparov revolutionized the game with his opening preparation,'' Hikaru said. "And so obviously, that gives Magnus a huge edge.'' ... "If you can avoid walking into that, at the end of the day you're going to be playing a game of chess -- against Magnus, not against Garry,'' Hikaru said.

Start popping your popcorn now! Dominguez-Leko was a typically razor-sharp Marshall line that Leko seemed to have analyzed significantly deeper than his Cuban opponent, based on the clock times. This despite Dominguez varying first from Svidler-Grischuk at the recent Russian Ch with 22.fxe4. Despite the hair-raising complications the computers agree that a repetition was the right result. As usual in the Marshall these days. Karjakin decided to test Caruana in a well-known Ruy Lopez Exchange endgame. White got further than LarryC expected, his king making it all the way up to f6. That still wasn't enough to threaten anything and the defending Corus champion had to settle for his fourth consecutive draw, putting him in the same boat as Kramnik, Anand, and Dominguez.

Round 5 (Thursday): Nakamura-Carlsen, Leko-Anand, Caruana-Dominguez, Tiviakov-Karjakin, Smeets-Kramnik, van Wely-Shirov, Short-Ivanchuk. Get ready to party like it's 1989 as the two oldest participants, Short and Ivanchuk, face off. Shirov will try to go 5/5 against the limping van Wely. Nakamura and Carlsen play for clear second place. Despite coming close several times, Leko hasn't beaten Anand in a classical game in five years, but at least it was at Corus.

Corus 2010 R3: It's a Black Thing

2010-01-19T02:57:15Z

More exciting chess at Corus today, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Carlsen and Nakamura won for the second day in a row, Shirov for the third to stay in the clear lead. Ivanchuk beat Smeets to move to a plus score. All four wins came with black, which isn't as odd as you might think since the rating favorites were playing the dark side in every case. We might see a similar sweep for the white side tomorrow, when just about everyone on the high side of the Elo chart and the crosstable makes the first move.

"Shirov is playing great chess," seems an obvious thing to say when you consider his 3/3 start, two wins coming with black. But when those words come from Kasparov, who isn't one to give out praise solely based on score, it weighs more heavily. Today the Spatvian ripped apart Tiviakov's deeply prepared line in the anti-Sveshnikov Sicilian with his bare hands before finishing him off with a trademark mating flourish starting with a bishop sacrifice. Tiviakov is generally unambitious in these big events but knows his systems very well, making this a particularly impressive piece of demolition work by Shirov. His 3/3 start is the first in the Wijk aan Zee A group since 1998, when Kramnik started with 4/4 before losing to... Shirov. With his next three opponents currently totaling 2/9 (Smeets, van Wely, Short), Shirov might already have his eye on Kasparov's 1999 seven-game win streak. Well, let's not jinx him; it's just great to see Shirov playing great chess at a top event. He did win clear first at the MTel last year thanks to a clutch last-round win over Carlsen, but he seems to have his game in a higher gear so far at Corus.

US champ Nakamura stayed in the early chase by beating Short on the black side of a somewhat stodgy 6.Be2 Sicilian that doesn't see much work at the top level anymore. Chess.FM commentator Jan Gustafsson wasn't impressed with White's setup, and guest star Peter Svidler expressed similar consternation when going over the game after it ended. Instead of playing a quick c4 and playing a positional game against d6, Svidler's recommendation, Short was likely caught by surprise by 13..Bg4 and was soon in trouble against Nakamura's aggressive play. 19..e4! is the star move, accurately judging that Black can back up the central push. Computers and GMs alike recommended dumping the b-pawn with 21.Bh5 in order to mix things up. In the game, Short quickly felt pushed to desperate measures with 29.Rxe4. Nakamura wasn't ruffled and chopped more wood until finding a pretty piece sac for promotion that forced Short to resign a few moves after the time control. (Speaking of, FYI there is a 30" increment from move one this year, likely as a reaction to messes like the Radjabov-Smeets game last year.)

Carlsen also kept pace with some very impressive preparation in his win over van Wely. An enterprising pawn sac from the Kasparov-Carlsen laboratory showed there's still life in the old database yet. The pawn sac with 10..Ne4 has been known for a while, instead of the usual 10..Nf8, as played by Short against van Wely in round one. For example, the game van Wely-Piket, 1997! Black's compensation for the pawn is quite speculative and White has done very well in its limited outings. The key new idea is 13..Bf8, threatening to win material immediately with ..Qf5. The new problems also put van Wely well down on the clock as Carlsen bashed out his prepared line. The zwischenzug 21..Rxd4 followed by the instructively accurate control move 22..Rb4 (preventing the desperado Nxa7 since that would leave the a-pawn under fire and it's needed to support the knight) left Black in clear control. van Wely got his rooks on the 7th at the cost of a pawn, but Carlsen mobilized very well to keep a plus. White's best chance in the four-rook ending was the ugly 35.Rxc4, giving up the f-pawn and exposing his king to doubled rooks. Svidler opined that White was still in trouble after 35..Ree2 36.Kg3 Rxf2 37.Rxb6! Rxa2, though this is definitely a lot better than the game. van Wely then hallucinated a perpetual check that wasn't there and it ended instantly. Earlier, one beautiful line we looked at was 37.Rac7 c2 38.a4 Ra2 39.Re7? b5! 40.axb5 Ra7!! 41.b6 c1Q! Awesome and an unusual repeated skewer/deflection theme, though there's still work to do after 42.bxa7.

Smeets took Ivanchuk's h-pawn and got a long defense for his trouble, one that he wasn't able to maintain. Black ignored the white e-pawn on move 21, preferring to keep his active pieces on the board to set deeper long-term problems for White. Eventually Ivanchuk crashed through in classic style with 27..a4 and 28..b4 and Smeets was quickly blown away in time trouble. It looks like we have a classic chase scenario on tap. The other favorites have rabbits to chase so they can't sit back and wait for the tournament to come to them. For Nakamura, Linares is about to begin, as the old Kasparov saying goes. He now meets the murderer's row of Anand, Ivanchuk, Carlsen, Shirov, and Kramnik! If he runs that gauntlet with his plus score intact he'll be in excellent shape. Tomorrow he has black in his first ever meeting with Anand.

Meanwhile, the current world champ and his predecessor haven't really gotten their engines started. Dominguez held on to Anand's sacrificed pawn all the way into a rook and bishop endgame, but Vishy seemed confident about holding it and did so without drama. (Anand's round 2 tweet: "sorry to disappoint u, still struggling with poor form, things just not going right for me, that incisiveness totally missing.") [Macauley spoke with Anand in Wijk today and confirmed that this Twitter account is NOT being run by Anand! Oops, got pwnd on that one, my apologies. When it appeared I asked a guy at The Hindu who interviewed Anand if it was him and he said yes, so at least I wasn't first. But my bad, big time. The Corus folks need to stop quoting that feed!] Caruana added his name to the long list of people to get squat against Kramnik's Petroff. (Bonus fame for the comment that gives what Kramnik's latest tweet would read if he twittered. Btw, I'm going to start putting up occasional asides to my Twitter feed here during events if you want to follow chessninja. Nakamura is here and he sounds stoked for today's matchup with Anand. Chess.FM tweets here.) Karjakin declined to use Leko's own 12..g6 with black against the Hungarian, who is well versed on both sides of this Queen's Indian line. Karjakin played a nice pawn sac to activate his pieces, getting the pawn back and drawing comfortably.

Round 4: Anand-Nakamura, Carlsen-Short, Ivanchuk-van Wely, Shirov-Smeets, Kramnik-Tiviakov, Karjakin-Caruana, Dominguez-Leko. As mentioned above, it's favorites and leaders vs outsiders and tail-enders, so it should be a bumpy ride. I'm on with Larry Christiansen for the show, and nobody loves a good bloodbath more than LarryC. I'll have time on Wednesday's off day to share more cribbed GM notes from rounds 2-4.

Speaking of, the ICC has put up a few gratis broadcasts for one and all to enjoy. These include our entire round two live show with Peter Svidler and Jan Gustafsson as well as Peter's Game of the Day analysis of Short-Nakamura. There are also some videos you can see without being a member. Check it out at chessclub.com. If you've been resisting getting into chess radio and video, listening to Svidler might just break you down.

Corus 2010: Early Leaders

2010-01-18T05:14:18Z

These 7:30 rounds will kill me if I don't get some sleep, so I'm mostly just posting to give you more thread. The official site has a nice recap up, with game commentary by Nakamura on his explosive win over van Wely. Shirov took advantage of a strange decision by Caruana to sac a pawn instead of taking a draw. He's now on 2/2 and in the clear lead with Nakamura and Carlsen on +1. The world #1 was outprepared by the Botvinnik Variation-obsessed Jan Smeets, but the Dutchman made one slip and that's usually fatal in this sharpest of sharp lines. Teenage Dutch champion Giri won again in the B group to take the lead there and American Ray Robson went to 2/2 in the C group with an extremely entertaining victory.

Almost all the Group A games were exciting and we had lots of great stuff on ICC Chess.FM with super-commentator Peter Svidler and guest star Jan Gustafsson. I hope to have more time to relay extensive game notes tomorrow. The dynamic GM duo will swap seats in round three, with Gustafsson on all day and Svidler dropping by.

Round 3: Dominguez-Anand, Leko-Karjakin, Caruana-Kramnik, Tiviakov-Shirov, Smeets-Ivanchuk, van Wely-Carlsen, Short-Nakamura

Corus 2010: Past, Present, Future

2010-01-15T20:37:34Z

World Champion Vishy Anand is back in action at the Corus supertournament in Wijk aan Zee, which starts Saturday. Former world champion Vladimir Kramnik is also there, as is the new world #1 and, most would agree, future world champion, Magnus Carlsen. One side effect of Carlsen taking over the top rating spot is we can stop saying things like "...but Topalov isn't there." I suppose that means we'll be saying "..but Carlsen isn't there" at Linares, but at least he's been playing a lot. Of course we complain when the same players are in all the events and then complain when our favorites are missing from a field, so either way there will be some complaining. The great thing about Corus is the sheer size of the field, 14 players instead of the six-player double round-robins that have become the dominant breed in recent years. 14 allows for a wide variety of players -- top ten, up-and-comers, locals -- and with seven games a day you'll always have at least a few hot ones.

The players: Anand, Carlsen, Kramnik, Ivanchuk, Leko, Shirov, Karjakin, Dominguez, Nakamura, Short, Caruana, Tiviakov, Smeets, van Wely. Rounds begin at 1330 local time, 7:30am ET. Live at the official site and of course on ICC Chess.FM where, starting Sunday, my mildly sunburned self will be contributing my usual mix of trivia, humor in poor taste, dubious historical perspectives, and wrongheaded opinions of all stripes in order to avoid dead air when our illustrious coterie of GM commentators need a pause to think, eat, or breathe. The impressive line-up this year: Kaidanov, Svidler, Gustafsson, Benjamin, Har-Zvi, Christiansen, Speelman, and relatively new but much heralded ferrners Andrew Martin and Gawain Jones. The ever-entertaining WGM Jen Shahade will be guest starring in the hosting chair for round one and might be back later as well. As an added bonus, Svidler has promised to talk about chess a little bit if we run out of cricket discussion and puns based on 19th century British literature.

It's not just seven games of interest now that the B and even the C groups have become so strong. We all love to watch the young stars and these qualifying groups have become training grounds for the world's top teens to cut their teeth against top competition and this year is no exception. Magnus Carlsen, lest we forget, was a C and B winner not too long ago. ~~Brooklyn's~~ Italy's Fabiano Caruana is following the same path so far and gets his shot at the big league players this year. As does veteran Nigel Short, who dominated most of the way in the B group last year until having a senior moment and losing to Caruana in the final round. Caruana fans should also remember that Carlsen finished last in his first A group in 2007, only to share first in 2008. Ah, they grow up so fast...

The top six in the field are all known quantities, if not necessarily consistent ones. Anand has won this event five times and I hope he's hungry after not getting a slice of first since 2006. (He didn't play in 2009.) He didn't win much of anything last year and this will be his last big event before his WCh match with Topalov in April. Kramnik has been devastating since returning to action in the second half of 2009 and would like to add the "future" sobriquet to his world championship status as much as Carlsen. He's never won Wijk aan Zee, usually having trouble keeping up with the more dynamic players in such a large field. Ivanchuk took first way back in 1996 and finished a disastrous 11th last year before sharing first in Linares a few weeks later. So is the way of the Chuckmeister. Leko is another former winner, in 2005, and somehow managed to both play some of his best chess ever and fade on the list at the same time in 2009. There are just too many strong young players pushing up. It's great to see Shirov here again and there's no way he can do worse than his 2007 performance of -4 and a share of last. That was a share of last place with Carlsen. I'm sure if you asked him he'd be happy to share placement with Carlsen again this year! Karjakin is the defending Corus champion, back with a new flag on his table. He still has something to prove in this field, however.

Of the relative outsiders, US champion Hikaru Nakamura will be looking to follow up his gold medal performance at the World Team Ch by competing on equal terms with the top ten in his first big supertournament. He's capable of +3 or -3 depending on how his gambles pay off and he guarantees both excitement at the board and plenty of discussion (and web traffic) off of it. USA! Leinier Dominguez has become a supertournament regular for what seem to be mostly geographical reasons. The Cuban is the strongest player from Latin America since Mecking and usually plays interesting games. He isn't entirely an affirmative action case since he did make a +1 score at last year's Corus event. Nigel Short won Wijk aan Zee twice long before it was named for Corus Steel. I think maybe it was Bronze or Stone, in fact. But after an autumnal return to form he's back in the A group after finishing 12th in 2005.

Loek van Wely is playing in his 19th consecutive Wijk aan Zee top group (!). He's finished as high as fourth (2003), but is usually trying to finish ahead of his Dutch compatriots while taking a scalp or two. He's had nearly two years in the wilderness of opens, team events, and dropping out of the top 100 and could really use a strong performance on his home turf. Smeets is a student who hasn't played more than league games since winning the NH Tournament in August. Tiviakov is the bizzaro-Smeets, a lifelong pro who plays constantly. He's the top-rated Dutchman but hasn't played here since 2007.

Let the games begin! But first, the wild-ass predictions in the comments!

Russia Takes World Teams

2010-01-13T20:38:51Z

Russia is always the top seed in every team event they play in, but in the past decade they've regularly played second (or third, or sixth) fiddle to smaller neighbors like Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. This time, despite playing without big guns Kramnik and Svidler, they got the job done at the 2009 World Team Championship in Bursa, Turkey. They made their move in the final two rounds, beating Egypt and then taking out the strong Israeli squad 3-1 in the final round to seal the deal and finish ahead of the USA and India. Russia's match score of +7 =1 -1 was complemented by 24 board points, which also led all teams. I prefer board points over match points for the first and have whined about the change in the Olympiad to match point scoring. Match points do emphasize the team aspect, but I always enjoyed the swings and drama created by board point scoring.

Upstarts USA and India finished ahead of powerhouses Armenia and Azerbaijan, a remarkable achievement in both cases, especially since the Americans were without Kamsky and India without world champion Anand. The US was in the lead with two rounds to play, but they had yet to face Armenia and Azerbaijan, a gauntlet they were unable to pass unscathed. US champion Hikaru Nakamura's great 5.5/6 run was brought to an end in a fantastic battle with world #5 Aronian. Former King's Indian aficionado Garry Kasparov called their decisive encounter a great game, full of creativity. The US drew all four games with Azerbaijan today in what seemed like an oddly perfunctory match. The Azerbaijanis would have taken silver with a match win, but they rested Radjabov and Gashimov, though the latter has been in terrible form. As I understand the slightly stilted rules, the draw guaranteed silver for the USA since they held the head-to-head tiebreak over India. So even had the Indians beaten Brazil 4-0 instead of the 3.5-0.5 pasting they delivered today, they would still have taken bronze.

Mamedyarov was the real hotshot performer of the event. It's quite a luxury to have an occasional top-ten player on board four, especially since that gave them the flexibility to give him seven whites in nine games. His 8/9 score was good for a performance rating around 2950. Onischuk was an ironman for the US on board two, going 6.5/9 undefeated for an individual gold. Despite the loss to Aronian, Nakamura's 6/8 on board one was still very impressive, especially with his spectacular win over Gelfand as icing on the cake. His 2850 TPR was the second-highest among those who played at least seven games and it was also enough for the gold medal on board one. (All medal winners here.) Vitiugov was the well-balanced Russian team's secret weapon, scoring 5.5/6 on board six. With reserves like that, Russia had the chance to rest players in an event without any off days. They could also sit Morozevich in the final rounds, since he was far from his best and finished with a -2 score.

Greece was a surprise despite finishing +4 =0 -5. Upset wins over Russia and Armenia made this a successful event for them. Every member of the Israeli team underperformed significantly except for Sutovsky. America's teen reserves, Hess and Robson, both scored 50% playing just two games each. I'm a little surprised they didn't see more action after Shulman started with 0.5/3, but you don't argue with a silver medal! Congrats to all the winners and to the US team in particular.

Advanced Chess In the Wild?

2010-01-10T00:17:11Z

I make a habit of collecting as many of the large numbers of ads with chess imagery in them as I can. This one, which I saw today on my HSBC online banking page, deserves a double-take. Yes, they are playing chess. The board seems to be turned the right way and the position, though not clearly seen (unclear?), at least doesn't seem entirely random. I didn't even notice when I first saw it that both of them -- father and son, we assume -- are using laptops!

I rather doubt advanced chess is what the ad company had in mind. What are we supposed to think, though? "Unpressured"? A relaxing game of chess while checking stocks and playing World of Warcraft? Weird. "Let's toss in a couple of Macbooks to make it look more modern!" was probably more like it.

And the "dad" looks quite a bit like Josh Waitzkin, which reminds me of the nice interview with his childhood chess rival Jeff Sarwer at the Chess Life site. (Members only, unfortunately. Or not, say others.) He's a poker pro based in Poland these days.

World Teams '10: Messing with the Zohan

2010-01-09T19:30:58Z

More on rounds 4 and 5 here later, but just had to get an item up to rave about Hikaru Nakamura's tactical fiesta against world #6 Boris Gelfand in today's fifth round of the World Team Championship in Turkey. The sensational sacrificial win, which started with a knight sac and involved leaving his queen en prise to a pawn for several moves combined with a threat to mate with a pawn, led the US team to victory over the powerful Israeli squad. PGN after the jump. Taken along with Nakamura's spectacular KID win over Beliavsky at last year's NH tournament, you can see the King's Indian is a natural fit for Nakamura's insanely sharp gifts. Wow.

]]> [Event "7th World Team Championship"]
[Site "Bursa TUR"]
[Date "2010.01.09"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Gelfand, B."]
[Black "Nakamura, Hi"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "E97"]
[WhiteElo "2761"]
[BlackElo "2708"]
[PlyCount "66"]
[EventDate "2010.01.05"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5
Ne7 9. Nd2 Ne8 10. b4 f5 11. c5 Nf6 12. f3 f4 13. Nc4 g5 14. a4 Ng6 15. Ba3 Rf7
16. b5 dxc5 17. Bxc5 h5 18. a5 g4 19. b6 g3 20. Kh1 Bf8 21. d6 axb6 22. Bg1 Nh4
23. Re1 Nxg2 24. dxc7 Nxe1 25. Qxe1 g2+ 26. Kxg2 Rg7+ 27. Kh1 Bh3 28. Bf1 Qd3
29. Nxe5 Bxf1 30. Qxf1 Qxc3 31. Rc1 Qxe5 32. c8=Q Rxc8 33. Rxc8 Qe6 0-1