The Chess Mind

More here. (Note for American readers and Nakamura fans: he won his last game too, further solidifying his status in the 2700 club.)

Another nice Wotawa study from the Dvoretsky & Pervakov book:


Wotawa 1937; White to move and win

White has lots of extra material, Black has the dangerous passed pawns. How will White win this? The answer will be given tomorrow - please save your comments for that post.

There was good news and bad news today for both Vassily Ivanchuk and David Navara as they finished their match.

The good news for Navara? He finally managed to avoid a loss with Black, drawing the eighth game. The bad news is that he suffered his first loss with White in game 7.

As for Ivanchuk, the good news is obvious: match victory in convincing fashion. The bad news is that it doesn't help fix his rating, because it was a rapid event. Still, I'm sure he'll take this result, and hopefully it puts him back on track when he plays in his next classical tournament.

More info here.

I believe this event ends today, and while I don't know one team from another, the event interests me because of the leading participants. That group includes Peter Svidler and Hikaru Nakamura (whose 3-0 performance so far this weekend has him back over 2700, according to the Live Top List).

So much chess, so little time!

Here's the problem, presented yesterday:


Wotawa 1935

It's White to move and win; can you solve it? The answer, which I sincerely hope you'll try to work out for yourself, can be found here.

After five rounds of the Chinese Championship, Wang Hao leads with a very impressive 4½ points and a 2997 TPR. All but two players are GMs, but it surprised me that in such a strong chess country there would be any non-GMs participating. The joke is on me and those like me, apparently, because one of the non-GMs, Ding Liren, is currently in clear second with 3½ points and the other, Ji Dan, is tied for third with 3. (More info here and here.)

In the Ivanchuk-Navara match, the Ukranian continues to lead on the strength of his results with the white pieces. Navara got his first win in game 5, in a nice technical performance, but Ivanchuk won his third straight game with White in round 6, and leads 4-2. The eight-game match finishes tomorrow.

Here's a neat little study from the Dvoretsky & Pervakov book:


Wotawa 1935; White to move and win.

I was pleased to solve it, and somewhat surprised by the way it happened. It's not that the position is that difficult, but the solution came to me in a flash (after thinking for a while - not right away!), as if it were a gift and not the product of mental labor.

However you solve it - as long as it is you who solves it - I'm sure you'll enjoy the success of figuring it out. I'll give the answer in a day or two; meanwhile, if you have comments about it, please do not include anything that could be used as a hint (or worse).

A good chess friend is looking for some old issues of New in Chess Magazine to complete his collection. (Specifically: 84/1,3; 85/11; 86/1,4,5,6,7; 87/2,7; 90/8.) If you have one of them and are willing to sell it, let me know and I'll put the two of you in touch.

What started (jokingly, of course) as a proposed 15 minute presentation on all of the Sicilians has now reached its fifth part, four on the Najdorf, with each telescoping in with further detail. This week's show covers three variations: the Poisoned Pawn with 10.e5 (after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Qb6 8.Qd2 Qxb2 9.Rb1 Qa3), 7...Qc7 and 7...Nbd7. (The latter is covered in less detail than in this past week's ChessBase show [think of that as part 4a of the series], but it's still substantial - you'll have an excellent idea about where to investigate.)

So if you're ready to dig in to some deep Najdorf theory, or just want to see how hard its advocates must work while you enjoy the easy life, have a look here. The show is free (for at least the next month or so) and is available on demand - as are its predecessors in the Sicilian/Najdorf series.

Next week, the Najdorf series wraps up with the 7...Be7 main line(s).

I recently had the occasion to pick up a copy of...well, I can't write Cyrillic letters here, so I'll refer to it by the title it will have in English translation: Studies by Practical Players. The authors are the well-known trainer Mark Dvoretsky, together with the brilliant study composer Oleg Pervakov. It's a fine book, and I've been enjoying the original Russian version.

Do I read Russian? Hardly a word, though I can generally transliterate what I read. And that's what makes it such a great experience! Here's the explanation: those of you who are familiar with Dvoretsky's books - and many chess book, for that matter - know that if you want to figure things out for yourself, you have to be super-careful. You want to avoid seeing the subsequent moves, and I have to be careful about that even in the Russian book. But more than that, there's often a lot of verbiage that will suck you in and give you unwanted hints, information, and sometimes misleading clues. And that is completely absent in this case. Perhaps I'm missing out a little this way (I'll get to see when the translation comes out), but the overall benefit for me when I'm trying to solve things for myself outweighs this.

I'm not going to rush out and buy all my favorite books now in Russian editions, but in this case, since it's a book of positions to solve, it worked out very nicely.

Which is to say that Ivanchuk again drew with Black in the first game, and again won with White in the nightcap. He leads their rapid match, which will resume on Friday, by a 3-1 score.

Here. This comes on the eve (or near it, anyway) of his forthcoming rapid match with world champion Viswanathan Anand. Like the Ivanchuk-Navara match, it will take place over four days (June 3-7, in Miskolc), with a rest day in the middle.

Vassily Ivanchuk drew with Black and then won with White against David Navara in the first two games of their eight game rapid match (the Čez Chess Trophy 2009). They play two more games tomorrow, take a day off, and then continue the two-a-days Saturday and Sunday.

The last week or two have seen both Hikaru Nakamura and Boris Gelfand win prestigious events: the U.S. Championship for Nakamura and the 3rd ACP World Rapid Cup for Gelfand. Both players like sharp chess, and it's not surprising that when they meet the result is an exciting and uncompromising game.

It's just such a game that we'll look at in this week's ChessBase show. Gelfand played the Najdorf, and Nakamura went into the abyss that is 6.Bg5. Herein one finds some of the most complicated and theory-intensive variations in all of chess, and as Gelfand regularly plays the variation 6...e6 7.f4 Nbd7 8.Qf3 Qc7 9.0-0-0 b5, Nakamura decided to put his opponent to the test. Gelfand passed, and when Nakamura pressed a bit too far, he won. As we'll see, the victory was a triumph on multiple levels: good preparation, good calculation, and good nerves, too. For us, it's not only an illustration of fine and entertaining play; it also illustrates the kind of all-out assault Black must survive in the 6.Bg5 Najdorf, along with the tremendous resources he enjoys - if only he knows how to use them.

So for the Najdorf players and others, join me tonight and take a step along that path. Watching is easy, too: just log on to the PlayChess server at 9 p.m. ET (tonight, Wednesday night; for those of you in Europe, it's 3 a.m. CET), go to the Broadcasts room and either look for my handle (Initiative) or Nakamura-Gelfand in the Games tab.

Hope to see you there!

P.S. for ChessVideos viewers. I've been doing a series on the Najdorf, and this show makes an excellent complement to what I've been doing there.

It looks very impressive, too, with all their big guys except for Wang Yue, and their biggest gal too. To elaborate, Ni Hua (2724), Bu Xiangzhi (2704), Wang Hao (2696) and Hou Yifan (2590) are all playing, and there's an accompanying women's championship as well. For non-Chinese readers, I'd recommend using TWIC's page as your portal; for those able to read Chinese, here's the website (and you can watch the live games there with ease, whether you know the language or not).

I like very much that Stefan Bücker has entitled his opening article on 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5?? "Lower Life in the Latvian Gambit". There's something remarkably appropriate there, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Anyway, while he reaches the conclusion that all sane people do and most of the insane ones do as well, I have a sneaking suspicion that in next month's part 2, he'll try to have the man bite the dog. We'll see!

I and some of my readers have lamented Ivanchuk's recent poor results, and now Hans Ree has added his eloquent voice to the chorus. It's a nice read, but I hope within a few days, Ivanchuk's play against David Navara (their rapid match starts today) will help us to forget about these recent woes.

Team events often go below the radar, but there's a strong one taking place now in Alushta. The Ukranian Team Championship runs from the 21st (last Thursday) through the 29th (this Friday), and stars such elite players as Ponomariov, Onischuk and Beliavsky.

For those for whom there's never enough chess, you can find a selection of the games from the Chicago Open on the Monroi server. It looks like Gabriel Sargissian and Jaan Ehlvest tied for first, and will play an Armageddon game some time tonight to determine the official champion. (Maybe they've already played it, but as of this writing the result hasn't been posted.) The Open Section was incredibly strong - just 50 players, but 17 of them were grandmasters, including former 2700 Loek van Wely.

With special gratitude to those who have risked their lives on behalf of free societies everywhere.

Boris Gelfand won the 3rd ACP World Cup, defeating Peter Svidler 3-1 in a very strange final. Whence the strangeness? In every game, Gelfand achieved worse and worse positions, yet his results improved as the match went on.

In game 1, Gelfand had White, and while he didn't achieve anything special, he was never worse either, and the game ended in a respectable draw. In game two, Gelfand came out of the opening in good shape, but had some loose moments and was occasionally on the verge of trouble. Still, he defended well, and in rapid Svidler was unable to make the most of the small opportunities he had. Then it was on to the two-game blitz playoff, when from the comparatively leisurely pace of a 20' + 5" time control it was down to 3' + 2". (Update/Correction: In the final, games 3 and 4 were also regular 20' + 5" and not blitz tiebreakers, which makes the conclusion of game 4 even more surprising!)

Here Gelfand got into all kinds of trouble. In the first game, again with White, Gelfand achieved an objectively lost but somewhat messy position, and Svidler failed to negotiate the complications as well as he could have. Eventually Gelfand found his way to a pawn down ending where his bishops offered full compensation, and he went on to win the ending comfortably. In the second game, it was even worse, as Svidler achieved a winning position without any mess.



Black has just played 55...Re3xa3; what should White do? The obvious move is 56.Kxh1, but why be a pawn up when you can have an extra piece? True, the ending after 56...Bxc4 57.Rxc4 Rxa5 58.Rb4 is a straightforward win*, but Svidler apparently thought he was getting something for nothing with 56.Bxd5??. It does win a piece, but there's a much bigger problem: 56...Ra1+ and White resigned, because after 57.Kh2 Ng3 mate on h1 is inevitable.

A most unfortunate end for Svidler, who dominated the games and would surely have made it to tiebreakers after 56.Kxh1.

* Here's a possible continuation: 58...Ra7 59.b6 Rb7 60.Kg1 (rushing the king to the queenside) 60...Kg6 61.Kf2 Kf5 62.Ke3 Ke6 63.f5+! and now Black must give ground one way or the other. If he takes the pawn, then White's king gets to the queenside: 63...Kxf5 64.Kd4 Ke6 65.Kc5 Kd7 66.Rd4+ with an easy win. Or if Black declines the offer, then White's king switches gears and starts snacking on the kingside: 63...Kd6 64.Kf4 Kc5 65.Rb1 followed by Kg4 and Kxh4. Black can't afford to win the b-pawn at the cost of trading rooks, but if he attempts to stay in place the inevitable formation of a second passed pawn on the kingside will break his defenses.

None of this, after 56.Kxh1, is at all complicated for Svidler - it's a routine ending I'd expect a 2200 to win against a grandmaster at least nine and probably ten times out of ten. Svidler just thought he had found a simpler way, and as a result of nerves or exhaustion or a lapse of attention he just blundered. Even the great ones are human!

And it still isn't the last presentation! (So much for "super-fast".) In this week's installment, we finally get to 6.Bg5, the ultimate main line of the Najdorf. Yet it's still premature to call it the main line, because Black has so many options in response. After a brief discussion of some sidelines, I cover several replies to 6...e6 7.f4: 7...Nc6, 7...h6, 7...b5 and "all" of 7...Qb6 except for the old-fashioned and now trendy 8.Qd2 Qxb2 9.Rb1 Qa3 10.e5 variation. That, along with 7...Qc7, 7...Nbd7 and 7...Be7, remains to be covered.

For now, you'll still find plenty of material to keep you entertained and hopefully instructed as well. Just click here and watch. The episode will be available, free and on-demand, for the next month or so.

There were some very tough matches with interesting games in the second round, and the upshot is that two of the strongest players - Peter Svidler and Boris Gelfand - are meeting in the final. I hope to take a look at some games from this event later in the week, but for now, here were the results from day two:

Quarterfinals:
Grischuk - Moiseenko 1½-½
Svidler - Movsesian 2½-1½
Jakovenko - Naiditsch 3-2
Gelfand - Gashimov 2-0

Semifinals:
Svidler - Grischuk 1½-½
Gelfand - Jakovenko 3-2

Tournament website here.

It was a very exciting last round, with three interesting games and two decisive results. In the main game, Alexei Shirov parlayed the white pieces into a win against Magnus Carlsen, who had been in clear first entering the round. Carlsen played a variation of the Sveshnikov Sicilian where he sacrificed no fewer than three pawns. In return he obtained the bishop pair, an impressive-looking pawn center, and some attacking chances. Shirov's preparation was superior, however, and the game ended quickly. Black's attacking hopes never materialized, and when Carlsen resigned on move 30 he was down four pawns without a trace of a compensation.

If Veselin Topalov had managed to beat Wang Yue, he'd tie for first. His preparation was outstanding, but in this case, with the black pieces, it was only good enough for a well-played draw. It was an interesting decision on Topalov's part, because no matter what happened in the Shirov-Carlsen game, he could only hope to tie for first with a win. So I'd have expected him to play an opening without forcing play, where he could try indefinitely to go for a win. There were some chances for Wang Yue to go awry, but not enough.

Finally, Ivanchuk finally got off the schneid and won. Dominguez should have held the rook and opposite-colored bishop ending, but a little error here and a little error there eventually added up to a loss. It's good to see Ivanchuk bounce back a little, and to wind up back over 2700 again.

Final Standings, with TPRs and Post-Event Ratings:
1. Shirov (TPR 2866, Live Rating 2763.9) 6½
2-3. Carlsen (2823, 2772.4), Topalov (2815, 2812.8) 6
4. Wang Yue (2722, 2734.3) 4½
5. Dominguez (2690, 2716.4) 4
6. Ivanchuk (2607, 2702.9) 3

Tournament website here; games, with plenty of comments, here.

With one round to go, Magnus Carlsen leads the MTel Masters, but by only half a point over Alexei Shirov and Veselin Topalov. Carlsen defeated Wang Yue with surprising ease on the White side of a Chebanenko Slav. Shirov would have kept pace with a win, but with Black against Lenier Dominguez a draw was all he could achieve. Finally, Topalov defeated Vassily Ivanchuk in a long ending with a heart-rending finish. Ivanchuk, long lost, perhaps accidentally allowed a knight exchange leading to this position.



White has just played 73.Kf6xe5 (recapturing the knight after 72.Nc4-e5+ Ng6xe5), and now it's time for Black to resign. A 1300 having a bad day would win this with his eyes closed. When it's the worst tournament of your adult career, however, and you're about to go -5 and drop below 2700 for the first time since 2003*, you can do strange things. Ivanchuk continued for another eight moves before resigning - half a joke, I suspect, and half pure frustration. Hopefully he'll bounce back in the last round, get back over 2700, and play better soon.

Standings After Round 9:
1. Carlsen 6
2-3. Topalov, Shirov 5½
4-5. Wang Yue, Dominguez 4
6. Ivanchuk 2

Pairings for Round 10 (The final round):
Shirov - Carlsen
Wang Yue - Topalov
Ivanchuk - Dominguez

Tournament site here; games (without comments) here. IM Malcolm Pein has a nice report here.


* In January of 2003, he was 2699. Before that, he hadn't been below 2700 since 1995. What an awful year for one of the greatest players of our time.

The tournament won't start until December 7 (a day that will live...in infamy), but seven of the eight slots for the super-strong London Chess Classic have been set. They are:

1. Magnus Carlsen
2. Vladimir Kramnik
3. Ni Hua
4. Michael Adams
5. Hikaru Nakamura (great opportunity!)
6. Nigel Short
7. Luke McShane

More information about the tournament here.

The field has been winnowed from 16 to 8; here are the match results for the 1/16th finals:

Grischuk - Eljanov 2-0
Moiseenko - Bacrot 1½-½
Movsesian - Tregubov 1½-½
Svidler - Karpov 2½-1½
Jakovenko - Gurevich 1½-½
Naiditsch - Drozdovskij 3-1
Gelfand - Najer 1½-½
Gashimov - Efimenko 1½-½

Quarterfinal Pairings:
Grischuk - Moiseenko
Movsesian - Svidler
Jakovenko - Naiditsch
Gelfand - Gashimov

Tournament site here.

The status quo was maintained, and while the games were interesting, there don't seem to have been any major missed opportunities.

Round 8 Results:
Shirov - Wang Yue ½-½
Dominguez - Topalov ½-½
Ivanchuk - Carlsen ½-½

Standings after Round 8:
1-2. Carlsen, Shirov 5
3. Topalov 4½
4. Wang Yue 4
5. Dominguez 3½
6. Ivanchuk 2

Tournament site here, games here (without notes).

As in the first cycle, it's again Carlsen and Shirov who lead the pack. Shirov quickly assured himself of no worse than a tie for first when he achieved an easy draw against Topalov. Shirov repeated the Botvinnik System, and Topalov's attempt to confuse Shirov with a relative sideline failed. Both players probably had the final position in their laptops, and the game ended in a quick repetition.

Wang Yue-Ivanchuk was also drawn in fairly short order by repetition, but without first going through an exciting stage. Not a great performance by Wang Yue, who may have felt that continuing would have required more risk than he was comfortable with, but for Ivanchuk it's understandable and forgivable. He was in danger of falling below the IM norm standard, so if he draws the rest of his games (opponents willing), that would be psychologically understandable.

Last but definitely not least, Carlsen showed that Dominguez's resourcefulness does have its bounds. Dominguez played a very old-fashioned line of the Gruenfeld, but Carlsen was the first to innovate. If Dominguez had responded correctly to the new move, he could have equalized. Failing to do so, White was able to maintain a mighty center, and Black was eventually suffocated on the kingside. A nice win by Carlsen.

Standings After Round 7:
1-2. Carlsen, Shirov 4½
3. Topalov 4
4. Wang Yue 3½
5. Dominguez 3
6. Ivanchuk 1½

Round 8 Pairings:
Shirov - Wang Yue
Ivanchuk - Carlsen
Dominguez - Topalov

Tournament site here; games (with my comments) here.

It's a knockout event with 16 players, with a time control of 20 minutes with 5 second increments. It takes place in Odessa, Ukraine, from this Friday (May 22) through Sunday (the 24th). The first round starts at noon local time, which translates to 5 a.m. ET (blecch) and 11 a.m. CET. Subsequent Friday round times are (in local time) at 2:30, 5 and 7:30. Here are the participants:

Dmitry Jakovenko RUS 2753
Alexander Grischuk RUS 2748
Sergei Movsesian SVK 2747
Boris Gelfand ISR 2733
Vugar Gashimov AZE 2730
Etienne Bacrot FRA 2728
Peter Svidler RUS 2726
Arkadij Naiditsch GER 2700
Pavel Eljanov UKR 2693
Alexander Moiseenko UKR 2690
Zahar Efimenko UKR 2682
Evgeniy Najer RUS 2669
Anatoly Karpov RUS 2644
Pavel Tregubov RUS 2628
Mikhail Gurevich TUR 2613
Yuri Drozdovskij UKR 2603

Official site here (in Russian).

HT: Chess Today

Leonid Stein (1934-1973) was one of the great players of his day. He won three Soviet championships, two super-tournaments (at a time when they came once every several years rather than several times for every one year), twice earned (but failed to receive) entry into the Candidates cycle and had an overall plus score in his 56 battles with world champions.



Good enough? If not, there's more.

He was a great attacking player, and he not only defeated his fellow greats on a regular basis, he defeated them with speed and in style. Here's a partial list of very strong players he defeated in 26 moves or fewer: Petrosian, Portisch, Ljubojevic, Gheorghiu, Uhlmann, Dzindzichashvili, Bagirov, Bilek and Robert Byrne.

The game we'll look at for today's show went a bit longer - but not really. Icelandic IM (GM in 1975) Gudmundur Sigurjonsson made it to move 41 - through the time control - before resigning, but the heavy lifting was long over by then. As often happened against Stein, Sigurjonsson made what looked like nothing more than a minor inaccuracy here or there. Sigurjonsson was White in a 6.f4 Najdorf, and one would have thought that Black would have achieved equality or a slight edge at best. Instead, Stein's position came alive to both its strategic and tactical capabilities, and his opponent's seemingly solid position blew apart.

Stein was a great master at combining strategic pluses with tactical shots, and that makes his games both instructive and exceptionally exciting; this game is a case in point. So join us as we have a look tonight. The show is free to watch on ChessBase's Playchess.com server. Log on at 9 p.m. ET (3 a.m. CET), go to the Broadcast room, and either click on my nickname ("Initiative") or on Sigurjonsson-Stein under the Games tab. Turn your engines off, your minds on, and sit back and enjoy a fine historical game.

See you then!

The second round-robin started today, and Alexei Shirov again defeated the hapless Vassily Ivanchuk. (I don't know where Ivanchuk's hap went, but if anyone finds it please give it to him. He's lost without it!) The other leaders, Topalov and Carlsen, drew with each other, and Dominguez-Wang Yue was also drawn. The Topalov-Carlsen game had some life, but Dominguez-Wang Yue was rather dull. They resurrected the same Petroff line we saw in the Ivanchuk-Wang Yue tragicomedy, again reaching a two bishop vs. bishop and knight ending, but this time without any adventures at the finish.

Standings After Round 6:
1. Shirov 4
2-3. Carlsen, Topalov 3½
4-5. Dominguez, Wang Yue 3
6. Ivanchuk 1

Ivanchuk should probably take some time off from the game and rest up - his constant play seems to be taking a toll. (Or are these dramatic fluctuations what we should expect, statistically speaking, from someone who plays as much as he does? I have my doubts, but perhaps I'm mistaken.) His TPR is an abysmal (by his standards, of course) 2481, and he's actually in danger of falling below 2700. (According to the Live Top List, he's down to 2702.1 - a colossal free-fall from where he was just a few months ago.) Needless to say, though, Ivanchuk will not stop. The tournament ends on the 23rd, and by the 27th he'll have started a rapid match with David Navara. The man loves chess, but sometimes it's right to rest and recover.

Tournament site here, games (with comments) here.

Start here, and work your way forward. What I want to know is this: why is the chess reporting in Sports Illustrated better than what gets produced in Chess Life?

HT: Brian Karen

In round 2 of the MTel Masters, Ivanchuk fell for a very nice trick against Wang Yue and lost a king and pawn with two extra pawns. Prior to that, he had been pressing, but nothing close to a win - or at least so I thought. Frits Fritschy wrote in to say that in this position, after Black's 43rd move, Ivanchuk had a win.

If you want to figure out what that win might have been, here's your chance. To see what F.F. thinks it was, click on.

It looks like Pavel Eljanov is a maximalist. That no one could catch him coming into the last round of the Bosna tournament in Sarajevo and he had Black against Harikrishna didn't matter. He obtained some advantage coming out of the opening, and as a result his opponent had to sweat for 54 long moves before scraping out a draw. That's what we like to see. Predojevic-Sokolov was more the norm, a 13-move draw assuring Predojevic of his plus score, but he could lose his tie for second if Movsesian beat Wang Hao with the black pieces. As it turned out, he had nothing to worry about: Wang Hao won in the sort of academic bishop ending that's a delight to chess trainers everywhere. That dropped Movsesian to 50% and put Wang Hao into the tie for second place. Here are the final standings:

1. Eljanov 7 (of 10)
2-3. Predojevic, Wang Hao 5½
4. Movsesian 5
5. Harikrishna 4
6. Sokolov 3

The trends in this event are so pronounced they're almost caricatures. Topalov starts slow, then keeps winning. Ivanchuk finds new ways to blow half-points. And Dominguez keeps getting lost positions before pulling out a draw. It all happened again today, in round 5, as you'll see for yourselves when replaying the games. The upshot is that Topalov has caught Carlsen and Shirov in first, half a point ahead of Dominguez and Wang Yue. At the halfway point, only one player isn't in the thick of it: poor Ivanchuk. Tomorrow is a rest day, though, and hopefully he can bounce back and still be a factor.

Tournament site here, games with my comments here.

Whatever difficulties Hikaru Nakamura may have suffered against Josh Friedel the last few years, they clearly made no difference at all today. Nakamura was well-prepared for Friedel's Two Knights, and found some strong moves over the board as well. Friedel's sacrificial offerings were gratefully accepted, and when Nakamura trapped his queen on move 22 it was time to resign. Not a good day for Friedel, but a strong finish for the champion, who won his last three games.

He wasn't the champion yet, though. If Robert Hess had managed to defeat Varuzhan Akobian, he'd have caught him and a playoff would have ensued. He did manage to reach an ending with two extra pawns, but the bad news was that the ending was dead-drawn, thanks to the opposite-colored bishops.

So Hess finished half a point back, tied for second with Alexander Onischuk, whose win over his student, Ray Robson, prevented the latter from achieving his first GM norm. Also deprived of a GM norm was Michael Brooks, who lost to Ildar Ibragimov in the last round. So alas, no norms were won, but it was an exciting tournament and a bit of a coming-out party for Hess (second, and with a 2789 TPR!) and Robson. And of course it was another success for Nakamura, who has made nice progress this year and may be making a push to the very highest levels.

Round 9 Results:
1. IM Robert Hess (6) 2545 ½-½ GM Varuzhan Akobian (5½) 2664
2. GM Hikaru Nakamura (6) 2757 1-0 GM Joshua Friedel (5) 2568
3. GM Alexander Onischuk (5½) 2736 1-0 IM Ray Robson (4½) 2542
4. GM Jaan Ehlvest (4) 2649 ½-½ GM Gata Kamsky (5½) 2798
5. GM Yury Shulman (4½) 2697 ½-½ GM Gregory Kaidanov (4) 2662
6. IM Enrico Sevillano (4) 2549 0-1 GM Larry Christiansen (4) 2681
7. GM Joel Benjamin (4) 2650 ½-½ GM Alexander Shabalov (4) 2620
8. GM Ildar Ibragimov (4) 2628 1-0 IM Michael Brooks (4) 2419
9. IM Samuel Shankland (3) 2464 0-1 GM Boris Gulko (3½) 2631
10. GM Julio Becerra (3½) 2672 ½-½ GM Melikset Khachiyan (2½) 2632
11. Tyler Hughes (3) 2293 1-0 FM Doug Eckert (2) 2278
12. IM Irina Krush (3) 2496 ½-½ Charles Lawton (½) 2350

Final Standings:
1. Nakamura 7 (TPR 2807)
2-3. Hess, Onischuk 6½
4-5. Kamsky, Akobian 6
6-9. Friedel, Shulman, Ibragimov, Christiansen 5
10-15. Ehlvest, Robson, Benjamin, Kaidanov, Shabalov, Gulko 4½
16-19. Brooks, Sevillano, Becerra, Hughes 4
20. Krush 3½
21-22. Shankland, Khachiyan 3
23. Eckert 2 (of 6 played games)
24. Lawton 1
25. Zatonskih ½ (withdrew after round 3)

Tournament site here; Nakamura-Friedel here.

There are just too many events going on! Fortunately, almost all of them end today and tomorrow.

The Bosna tournament in Sarajevo is one that ends tomorrow (it's always important to at least finish before Mark Crowther finalizes TWIC), but first place was clinched today by Eljanov. With a win, Predojevic could have stayed in contention, but he had to work to draw with Eljanov. Likewise, Movsesian failed to defeat Harikrishna, so Eljanov's 1½ point lead remains intact entering tomorrow's final round.

The 17th World Computer Championship finished today, and Rybka remains the king (or queen, as its programmers fancy it a she) of the computer chess world. Rybka led Junior by half a point coming into the last round, and defeated it in a good tough game.

Final Standings:
1. Rybka 8 (of 9)
2-4. Shredder, Junior, Deep Sjeng 6½
5. Hiarcs 6
6. Jonny 4½
7. The Baron 3
8. Equinox 2
9. Pandix 2009 1½
10. Joker ½

Here are the results for the penultimate round of the U.S. Championship:

Round 8 Results:
1. GM Gata Kamsky (5) 2798 ½-½ GM Alexander Onischuk (5) 2736
2. IM Robert Hess (5) 2545 1-0 GM Yury Shulman (4½) 2697
3. IM Michael Brooks (4) 2419 0-1 GM Hikaru Nakamura (5) 2757
4. GM Varuzhan Akobian (4½) 2664 1-0 GM Joel Benjamin (4) 2650
5. GM Joshua Friedel (4) 2568 1-0 GM Jaan Ehlvest (4) 2649
6. IM Ray Robson (3½) 2542 1-0 IM Enrico Sevillano (4) 2549
7. GM Gregory Kaidanov (3½) 2662 ½-½ GM Ildar Ibragimov (3½) 2628
8. GM Larry Christiansen (3) 2681 1-0 Tyler Hughes (3) 2293
9. GM Boris Gulko (3) 2631 ½-½ GM Julio Becerra (3) 2672
10. GM Alexander Shabalov (3) 2620 1-0 IM Irina Krush (3) 2496
11. GM Melikset Khachiyan (2½) 2632 0-1 FM Doug Eckert (1) 2278
12. Charles Lawton (0) 2350 ½-½ IM Samuel Shankland (2½) 2464

Kamsky-Onischuk was a comfortable draw for the Berlin Wall.

Hess-Shulman started inauspiciously with 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 (yawn) exd5 4.Bf4 (anesthesia), but while many might use this as a shameless drawing attempt, Hess even managed to grind out a win. This game finished after Brooks-Nakamura, so it was he who caught Nakamura in first rather than the other way around.

Brooks-Nakamura was a 7.Nd5 Sveshnikov. Brooks' queenside fell apart, but some desperate tactics kept it exciting to the last move. With the win, Nakamura took the clear lead until Hess caught him.

Other games of note: Akobian defeated Benjamin, so he's within half a point of first. Friedel ended his losing skid with a win over Ehlvest, and Robson also bounced back with a win over Sevillano. Hughes didn't manage to add to his total today, losing to Christiansen, but Eckert did, capitalizing on a Khachiyan blunder to win his second game in five played rounds. Finally, Lawton managed to avoid bageldom, pulling out a draw against Shankland.

UPDATE: Here are the pairings for the last round, which starts at 10 a.m. (That's 5 hours earlier than it started during the week, and an hour earlier than Saturday's start time.)

1. IM Robert Hess (6) 2545 - GM Varuzhan Akobian (5½) 2664
2. GM Hikaru Nakamura (6) 2757 - GM Joshua Friedel (5) 2568
3. GM Alexander Onischuk (5½) 2736 - IM Ray Robson (4½) 2542
4. GM Jaan Ehlvest (4) 2649 - GM Gata Kamsky (5½) 2798
5. GM Yury Shulman (4½) 2697 - GM Gregory Kaidanov (4) 2662
6. IM Enrico Sevillano (4) 2549 - GM Larry Christiansen (4) 2681
7. GM Joel Benjamin (4) 2650 - GM Alexander Shabalov (4) 2620
8. GM Ildar Ibragimov (4) 2628 - IM Michael Brooks (4) 2419
9. IM Samuel Shankland (3) 2464 - GM Boris Gulko (3½) 2631
10. GM Julio Becerra (3½) 2672 - GM Melikset Khachiyan (2½) 2632
11. Tyler Hughes (3) 2293 - FM Doug Eckert (2) 2278
12. IM Irina Krush (3) 2496 - Charles Lawton (½) 2350

On paper, Nakamura has the best chance to finish the round in clear first. Akobian is higher-rated than Friedel and will probably be more strongly motivated (he's only half a point back, while Friedel is mathematically eliminated from first-place contention). On the other hand, Friedel has had excellent results against Nakamura the last few years. Since 2006, the score has been +2 -1 =3 in favor of Friedel, and in a couple of those draws he was pressing pretty hard.

If there is a tie for first, there will be a playoff Sunday evening. In norm-land, Robson gets his first GM norm if he draws with Onischuk (his coach!), while Brooks needs to beat Ibragimov for his first GM norm. Both have Black, and since Onischuk needs a win to have a shot at tying for first, a quick buddy-buddy draw is most unlikely.

Is this the start of another typical Topalov comeback? We'll see, but his mood and confidence must be upbeat after butchering Wang Yue in round 4 of the MTel Masters. Wang Yue tried to improve on a line in the Slav, but Topalov whipped up a tremendous queenside initiative. At the cost of a pawn, White got all sorts of play while Black's pieces slumbered on the kingside, and the result was an attractive and convincing win.

Dominguez found a very nice new idea on the white side of a Kan Sicilian, but Ivanchuk's creative play led to a winning position in a very crazy middlegame. The game was so complicated, though, that I'm sure both players - especially Ivanchuk, who rarely needs any excuse - got into terrible time pressure, and Ivanchuk squandered many wins. These two players have had opposite sorts of tournaments, with Ivanchuk dropping half-points and Dominguez saving his third lost position in four games.

Finally, Carlsen-Shirov saw the latter take up an old favorite of his, the Botvinnik Variation of the Semi-Slav. Carlsen didn't play the most testing line (or at least the line generally considered to be the most testing), and Shirov achieved a comfortable draw. The big question is whether Shirov will play this system again in the tournament, or if it was a one-off bluff.

Round 4 Results:
Carlsen - Shirov ½-½
Topalov - Wang Yue 1-0
Dominguez - Ivanchuk ½-½

Standings after Round 4:
1-2. Carlsen, Shirov 2½
3-5. Topalov, Dominguez, Wang Yue 2
6. Ivanchuk 1

Round 5 Pairings:
Shirov - Dominguez
Ivanchuk - Topalov
Wang Yue - Carlsen

That will close the first cycle, after which the players will have a rest day.

Tournament site here; games, with my comments, here.

First, let's get caught up on computer events. Before getting to the main tournament, let me mention the blitz tournament and the so-called Olympiad. Both were won by Rybka, and the only loss in the two events came in the blitz, when it lost on time in a won position to Jonny.* As for the "Olympiad", it was an open hardware event and Rybka ran on a 9x cluster. (Take that, Hydra!) A couple of Rybka's wins from that tournament were already posted on my blog, here.)

As for the regular World Championship, which we've sporadically followed on the blog, Rybka continues to lead, but was just nicked for its first draw. Rybka has 6½/7, half a point ahead of Junior (also undefeated) and a point ahead of Hiarcs (lost to Junior). Another half-point back is Shredder, which is also undefeated and got the draw against Rybka.

Enough about the chips. Bosna looks like it's going to end with a whimper, as neither of Eljanov's closest pursuers seem especially interested in trying to close the gap. Eljanov started the round (the 8th of 10) with a 1½ point lead over Movsesian and Predojevic, and had White against the former. Eljanov-Movsesian was drawn in just 16 moves. OK, we can chalk that up to Movsesian's having Black, but what about Predojevic-Wang Hao? That thriller went like this:

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Nbd7 8.Qf3 Qc7 9.0-0-0 Draw.

That's not impressive, but it is understandable. Predojevic is young and he's the lowest-rated and probably least experienced player in the field. He had been having a great event until losing in the previous round, and probably wanted to consolidate his position. Further, since he's the local representative, he has that pressure on his shoulders as well. If the tournament ends successfully (e.g. he manages to keep a plus score and perhaps a tie for second), this little "time-out" will look like a good decision; if not, then not.


* According to "Titu", who wrote me about the blitz event and to say that Rybka won the "Olympiad"**, the time loss occurred because the moves are entered manually, which means the problem was that the human operator wasn't fast enough. If this is true, then this is one of the most idiotic things I've heard in a long time. Whether Rybka is the strongest blitz-playing chess engine or not depends on its operator's hand speed? I'm not sure that even FIDE could come up with such a stupid arrangement - at least not unless they thought it would help prove that chess is a sport. I just hope they drug-tested Jonny's operator.

** Sorry, I can't bring myself to write "Olympiad" without scare quotes. They don't occur every four years and there's no team/national aspect to it, as far as I can tell from the website.

Two notable figures in the chess world recently passed away. Robin Smith (1952-2009) was an American correspondence chess grandmaster who twice won the national championship. (A little more about him can be found here - see the May 6, 2009 entry.) Mikhail Podgaets (July 23, 1947-May 14, 2009) was a strong IM who switched fairly early in his career to training; most notably, he worked with Anatoly Karpov for many years. My condolences to the families and friends of both men.

There wasn't any change in the relative standings in round 3, and only in the Topalov-Dominguez game were there any missed opportunities. After a lot of blogging this past week, however, I'm going to bestow upon my readers the privilege of pointing out where Topalov missed whatever he missed, and will simply present the games as-is.

Round 3 Results:
Wang Yue - Shirov ½-½
Carlsen - Ivanchuk ½-½
Topalov - Dominguez ½-½

Standings After Round 3:
1-3. Wang Yue, Carlsen, Shirov 2
4. Dominguez 1½
5. Topalov 1
6. Ivanchuk ½

Round 4 Pairings:
Carlsen - Shirov
Topalov - Wang Yue
Dominguez - Ivanchuk

Tournament site here, games here.

Borki Predojevic had been doing an excellent job of hanging around, despite Pavel Eljanov's terrific start, but today it fell apart. Eljanov crushed Ivan Sokolov in just 24 moves - with Black, no less - while Predojevic lost quickly to Sergei Movsesian. With three rounds to go, Eljanov has 5½/7 (TPR: 2917) and a 1½ point lead over Predojevic and Movsesian. It's not over, but it's close.

Tournament site here, convenient game replay here.

Continuing our series on the Sicilian, presented in speedy overview format, we offer this week a further exploration of the Najdorf Sicilian (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6). Last time we looked at the 6.Rg1, 6.a4, 6.h3, 6.g3, 6.f4 and 6.Bc4 lines; this time, 6.Be2, 6.Be3 and 6.f3. Next time, the granddaddy of them all: 6.Bg5.

The show is here, it's free, available on-demand (for the next month or so) and requires no special software to watch. Have a look!

Defending champion Yuri Shulman and Varuzhan Akobian entered the round tied for first with 4½/6, half a point ahead of six pursuers. Out of those six, up to four could gain a full point, and four did.

On board 1, Shulman (4½) had White against Onischuk (4), but wound up in a bad bishop vs. good knight ending. Shulman eventually swapped off the minors, but the cost was a pawn-down rook ending he went on to lose.

On board 2, Nakamura (4) beat Akobian (4½), convincingly beating him on the White side of a Classical French. In Nakamura's opinion, Akobian's plight was the result of a cascading series of errors. He castled on move 13 thinking he'd have a certain resource on move 15, only to realize that he didn't. Then on move 16 came another serious error, after which White enjoyed an overwhelming advantage. Nakamura converted it without difficulty, so he and Onischuk were now tied for first.

But not alone. On board 3, Benjamin (4) - Kamsky (4) was an Exchange Caro-Kann that was equal until the time trouble phase. Benjamin blundered a pawn, and that was all Kamsky needed to win the game. Thus Kamsky was part of the tie for first.

Finally, on board 4, Hess (4) continued his great tournament, defeating Friedel (4) with Black in a Steinitz Deferred, of all things. I'm not sure what happened there, as Hess has only a slight advantage where the game score leaves off (at least where it leaves off in the PGN file from TWIC, after Black's 29th move). Since the US Championship relays have had some problems, I assume there's more to the game and that it will be revealed later on. (If not, then Friedel must have lost on time, had a touch-move error and chosen to resign, or had a cell phone accident.)

Also notable is yet another triumph of local IM Michael Brooks, who upset upstart Ray Robson. Robson was in good shape, but as Brooks started to get some play in an ending that was always either equal or slightly better for Robson, the youngster lost the thread and the game. In other underdog stories, Tyler Hughes continued to enjoy success, defeating Sam Shankland go reach an impressive 3/7, while Charles Lawton's horror story continued - he has the same number of points as late actor Charles Laughton. (No "Mutiny on the Bounty" jokes, please - at least not unless they're clever.)

Round 7 Results:
1. GM Yury Shulman (4½) 2697 0-1 GM Alexander Onischuk (4) 2736
2. GM Hikaru Nakamura (4) 2757 1-0 GM Varuzhan Akobian (4½) 2664
3. GM Joel Benjamin (4) 2650 0-1 GM Gata Kamsky (4) 2798
4. GM Joshua Friedel (4) 2568 0-1 IM Robert Hess (4) 2545
5. IM Enrico Sevillano (3) 2549 1-0 GM Gregory Kaidanov (3½) 2662
6. IM Ray Robson (3½) 2542 0-1 IM Michael Brooks (3) 2419
7. GM Jaan Ehlvest (3) 2649 1-0 IM Irina Krush (3) 2496
8. GM Ildar Ibragimov (2½) 2628 1-0 GM Melikset Khachiyan (2½) 2632
9. GM Boris Gulko (2½) 2631 ½-½ GM Alexander Shabalov (2½) 2620
10. IM Samuel Shankland (2½) 2464 0-1 Tyler Hughes (2) 2293
11. FM Doug Eckert (1) 2278 0-1 GM Larry Christiansen (2) 2681
12. GM Julio Becerra (2) 2672 1-0 Charles Lawton (0) 2350

Round 8 Pairings: (Note: Friday is the event's one and only rest day; round 8 will take place on Saturday.)
1. GM Gata Kamsky (5) 2798 - GM Alexander Onischuk (5) 2736
2. IM Robert Hess (5) 2545 - GM Yury Shulman (4½) 2697
3. IM Michael Brooks (4) 2419 - GM Hikaru Nakamura (5) 2757
4. GM Varuzhan Akobian (4½) 2664 - GM Joel Benjamin (4) 2650
5. GM Joshua Friedel (4) 2568 - GM Jaan Ehlvest (4) 2649
6. IM Ray Robson (3½) 2542 - IM Enrico Sevillano (4) 2549
7. GM Gregory Kaidanov (3½) 2662 - GM Ildar Ibragimov (3½) 2628
8. GM Larry Christiansen (3) 2681 - Tyler Hughes (3) 2293
9. GM Boris Gulko (3) 2631 - GM Julio Becerra (3) 2672
10. GM Alexander Shabalov (3) 2620 - IM Irina Krush (3) 2496
11. GM Melikset Khachiyan (2½) 2632 - FM Doug Eckert (1) 2278
12. Charles Lawton (0) 2350 - IM Samuel Shankland (2½) 2464

The tournament site is here, while Nakamura-Akobian, with my comments, is here.

Round 1's winners at the MTel Masters, Carlsen and Shirov, drew in round 2. Carlsen played a very exciting Dragadorf against Dominguez that ended with a sort of perpetual against his (Carlsen's) queen, while Shirov had to work a little to draw with Topalov. Both games were enjoyable enough, but the real show came in the Ivanchuk-Wang Yue game. Wang Yue played the Petroff, and for a long time the game was even duller than usual for that opening. The one ray of sunshine was White's bishop pair, and Ivanchuk was making a little progress.

Shortly after the time control, the position became a bit more tactical. Wang Yue found an absolutely brilliant idea, suckering Ivanchuk into an exchanging combination that left the Ukranian up two pawns in a king and pawn ending - and dead lost! This is one of the greatest traps I've ever seen, so I hope you'll have a look. (I've annotated the games here.)

The second cycle of the Bosna tournament started today with two draws and a Predojevic win. That brought him within half a point of Eljanov, the leader. Meanwhile, in the 17th World Computer Chess Championship, Rybka defeated The Baron while Junior was held to a draw by Deep Sjeng. That means that Rybka's 5/5 is good for a half-point lead over Junior, with Hiarcs, Shredder and Jonny a further point back at 3½.

Enjoy.

If you're feeling generous and feel you've benefited from four-plus years of my work on this blog, you have the opportunity to put those generous feelings into action, thanks to the "Donation" button near the top of the right sidebar.

Thanks.

The games Akobian-Shulman, Kamsky-Hess and Onischuk-Nakamura were all drawn, so the top of the leaderboard looks the same: Akobian and Shulman remain half a point ahead of the pack. They have more neighbors, though, as not only Kamsky, Hess, Onischuk and Nakamura but also Friedel and Benjamin (thanks to their wins over Brooks and Khachiyan, respectively) are all within a mere half a point of first.

Round 6 Results:
1. GM Varuzhan Akobian (4) 2664 ½-½ GM Yury Shulman (4) 2697
2. GM Gata Kamsky (3½) 2798 ½-½ IM Robert Hess (3½) 2545
3. GM Alexander Onischuk (3½) 2736 ½-½ GM Hikaru Nakamura (3½) 2757
4. IM Michael Brooks (3) 2419 0-1 GM Joshua Friedel (3) 2568
5. GM Melikset Khachiyan (2½) 2632 0-1 GM Joel Benjamin (3) 2650
6. GM Gregory Kaidanov (2½) 2662 1-0 IM Samuel Shankland (2½) 2464
7. IM Enrico Sevillano (2½) 2549 ½-½ GM Jaan Ehlvest (2½) 2649
8. GM Larry Christiansen (2) 2681 0-1 IM Ray Robson (2½) 2542
9. IM Irina Krush (2) 2496 1-0 GM Julio Becerra (2) 2672
10. Tyler Hughes (2) 2293 0-1 GM Ildar Ibragimov (1½) 2628
11. GM Alexander Shabalov (1½) 2620 1-0 FM Doug Eckert (1) 2278
12. Charles Lawton (0) 2350 0-1 GM Boris Gulko (1½) 2631

Round 7 Pairings:
1. GM Yury Shulman (4½) 2697 - GM Alexander Onischuk (4) 2736
2. GM Hikaru Nakamura (4) 2757 - GM Varuzhan Akobian (4½) 2664
3. GM Joel Benjamin (4) 2650 - GM Gata Kamsky (4) 2798
4. GM Joshua Friedel (4) 2568 - IM Robert Hess (4) 2545
5. IM Enrico Sevillano (3) 2549 - GM Gregory Kaidanov (3½) 2662
6. IM Ray Robson (3½) 2542 - IM Michael Brooks (3) 2419
7. GM Jaan Ehlvest (3) 2649 - IM Irina Krush (3) 2496
8. GM Ildar Ibragimov (2½) 2628 - GM Melikset Khachiyan (2½) 2632
9. GM Boris Gulko (2½) 2631 - GM Alexander Shabalov (2½) 2620
10. IM Samuel Shankland (2½) 2464 - Tyler Hughes (2) 2293
11. FM Doug Eckert (1) 2278 - GM Larry Christiansen (2) 2681
12. GM Julio Becerra (2) 2672 - Charles Lawton (0) 2350

There were lots of great games tonight, at least one of which I hope to post later. (I did comment on today's MTel games, so don't complain too much.) For now, you can check things out on the tournament site.

There were technical problems besetting the MTel Masters, but the results are in and the games are available.

Round 1 Results:
Ivanchuk - Shirov 0-1
Wang Yue - Dominguez ½-½
Carlsen - Topalov 1-0

Ivanchuk made a very poor opening choice and went down without a fight, Wang Yue was winning almost to the last move, but a blunder ruined the fruit of his labor (and rewarded Dominguez' scrappy defense); finally, Carlsen crushed Topalov when the latter mistimed the ...c5 pawn break in the Moscow Variation of the Semi-Slav.

Round 2 Pairings:
Shirov - Topalov
Dominguez - Carlsen
Ivanchuk - Wang Yue

Games here, with my comments.

Forget Anand and Topalov; the real champions (even if they don't actually exist as things in their own right) are playing. The 17th World Computer Chess Championship is underway in Pamplona, Spain, and after four rounds of this 10-engine round-robin, both Junior and Rybka are 4-0. Fritz isn't playing, but those familiar with the ChessBase stable will be glad to see that Shredder and Hiarcs are tied for third (with Jonny).

Yesterday was a rest day, and today was a second one for Predojevic and Eljanov, who drew in just 14 moves. It made sense for Eljanov, who drew with Black against his closest pursuer, but not for Predojevic unless he disliked his position. The other two games were considerably longer. Wang Hao-Sokolov was always interesting, and the culminating tactical flurry even more so:



White threatens mayhem starting with 38.Rh8+, but it's Black to move and he uncorked 37...Rd8!. Either capture allows mate in one, so 38.Qe4+ f5 39.Rxd8 fxe4 40.Rxd4 ensued. If White gets in 41.Re1 or 41.Ra3 Black will lose the e-pawn and probably the game, so 40...e3 was played. It looks like a perpetual check is coming, and it is - but it was given by White: 41.Re1 exf2+ 42.Kxf2 Qh2+ 43.Kf3 g5 44.Rd7+ Kf6 45.Rd6+ Kf5 46.Rd5+ Draw.

Harikrishna-Movsesian was the last game to finish. It wasn't as exciting as Wang Hao-Sokolov, but it did go to bare kings.

That concluded the first cycle (it's a double round-robin), and Eljanov leads with 4/5, ahead of Predojevic (3), Movsesian (2½), Harikrishna and Sokolov (2 apiece) and Wang Hao (1½).

Tournament site here.

If you're a chess fan who likes to criticize organizers, it's a great time to be alive.

We need organizers, obviously, and on the whole the right attitude towards them is gratitude. Unfortunately, organizers are, like all of us, often all too human. We've already seen some snipes here about the U.S. Championship (poor site transmission [mostly if not wholly fixed] and some questions about the invitation policy), but it's hard to top FIDE when it comes to chess (dis-)organization.

As reported on TWIC, Chess Today and elsewhere,

FIDE Press Release / 12-5-2009

FIDE announces that the negotiations with Universal Event Promotion (UEP), the original bidder for organising the final stages of the World Championship cycle 2009-2011 (Candidates Tournament and Final Match), did not reach a final agreement. FIDE is already in contact with other organisers and sponsors interested in holding these events.

Released by the FIDE Secretariat - 12 May 2009

As Chess Today acerbically comments, "So, after destroying the previously announced world championship system in 2008 (the reason for making changes was exactly the proposal from UEP), now FIDE informs the chess community that the final agreement with UEP is not achieved. Nice job, as usual!" It was these changes that induced Magnus Carlsen and others to jump out of the Grand Prix series, and it looks like he was right (or at least reasonable) to do so.

UPDATE: The update is an excision: MTel's not broadcasting today's games is due to technical difficulties. It's very strange that a technology that has worked successfully for years has failed recently in three major events: MTel, the US Championship, and the Azerbaijan-Rest of the World match. Anyway, as things are running fairly smoothly now at the US Championship, hopefully the same will be true of MTel tomorrow and in the rounds to come.

It's sad that British grandmaster Matthew Sadler is no longer with us. No, don't worry - I don't mean that he has died. It's rather that he's no longer part of the chess world, deciding in his mid-20s (around the turn of the millennium) that he'd prefer a larger and more stable income in IT to the vicissitudes of life as a chess professional. That's a pity, as Sadler was not only an elite GM (near-2700 when that was much rarer than it is today), but also one of the best writers on the game.

We'll commemorate his short but successful career with a short and successful game of his. Played in 1995 against the strong Spanish GM Miguel Illescas Cordoba, the game highlights Sadler's ingenuity in opening preparation. With Black in a Queen's Gambit Accepted, Sadler found a major new idea on move 7, with the startling idea to sacrifice a piece a move later. To say that it worked brilliantly would be an understatement - but I'll leave the gory details for the show. Let's put it this way: the show might well last longer than the game did.

I think you'll enjoy it, but see for yourself. It's free if you watch it live, and here's how to do it: log on to the Playchess server Wednesday night at 9 p.m. ET/Thursday morning at 3 a.m. CET, go to the Broadcasts Room, and then either double-click on "Initiative" under the list of players or Illescas-Sadler under the Games tab. After that, sit back and enjoy - and don't blink, or you might miss it. See you then.

Another excellent round for the fans. Nakamura and Kamsky played each other in a tournament game for the first time in five years, and it was a good fight. Kamsky, with Black, outprepared his opponent and obtained the better position, but after a number of errors he allowed Nakamura to escape with a draw. Ironically, that was the only game featuring leaders where White even managed to escape with a draw. Friedel prepared fairly deeply for Shulman's French, but at some point mixed something up and wound up with an inferior ending. By his own admission his subsequent play was even worse, and Shulman won pretty easily. Ehlvest-Akobian was also a French, a Tarrasch with the Nbd2+Ngf3 gambit line. Akobian was ready for it, and to keep his flagging initiative alive Ehlvest had to sac his queen. It made for a lively game, but Akobian returned some (but not all) of the material to break the attack; he won easily.

In the "feel-good story" realm, Hess beat Khachiyan and Brooks beat Becerra. (If Brooks isn't careful, he might have a shot at a GM norm.)

Round 5 Results:
1. GM Hikaru Nakamura (3) 2757 ½-½ GM Gata Kamsky (3) 2798
2. GM Joshua Friedel (3) 2568 0-1 GM Yury Shulman (3) 2697
3. GM Jaan Ehlvest (2½) 2649 0-1 GM Varuzhan Akobian (3) 2664
4. IM Samuel Shankland (2½) 2464 0-1 GM Alexander Onischuk (2½) 2736
5. IM Robert Hess (2½) 2545 1-0 GM Melikset Khachiyan (2½) 2632
6. GM Julio Becerra (2) 2672 0-1 IM Michael Brooks (2) 2419
7. IM Ray Robson (2) 2542 ½-½ GM Gregory Kaidanov (2) 2662
8. GM Joel Benjamin (2) 2650 1-0 Tyler Hughes (2) 2293
9. IM Irina Krush (1½) 2496 ½-½ GM Larry Christiansen (1½) 2681
10. GM Alexander Shabalov (1½) 2620 0-1 IM Enrico Sevillano (1½) 2549
11. GM Ildar Ibragimov (1) 2628 ½-½ GM Boris Gulko (1) 2631
12. FM Doug Eckert (0) 2278 1-0 Charles Lawton (0) 2350

Round 6 Pairings:
1. GM Varuzhan Akobian (4) 2664 - GM Yury Shulman (4) 2697
2. GM Gata Kamsky (3½) 2798 - IM Robert Hess (3½) 2545
3. GM Alexander Onischuk (3½) 2736 - GM Hikaru Nakamura (3½) 2757
4. IM Michael Brooks (3) 2419 - GM Joshua Friedel (3) 2568
5. GM Melikset Khachiyan (2½) 2632 - GM Joel Benjamin (3) 2650
6. GM Gregory Kaidanov (2½) 2662 - IM Samuel Shankland (2½) 2464
7. IM Enrico Sevillano (2½) 2549 - GM Jaan Ehlvest (2½) 2649
8. GM Larry Christiansen (2) 2681 - IM Ray Robson (2½) 2542
9. IM Irina Krush (2) 2496 - GM Julio Becerra (2) 2672
10. Tyler Hughes (2) 2293 - GM Ildar Ibragimov (1½) 2628
11. GM Alexander Shabalov (1½) 2620 - FM Doug Eckert (1) 2278
12. Charles Lawton (0) 2350 - GM Boris Gulko (1½) 2631

Note that Akobian-Shulman is a reprise of their recent rapid & blitz match (won handily by Akobian).

Tournament site here; games coming later tonight or tomorrow, I hope.

Just in case anyone thought to make an auxiliary bonus prize for a player going 8½-½, that was taken care of in round 4. Both games with players at 2½/3 were drawn, though with effort. Gata Kamsky had a big advantage against Josh Friedel, but the latter defended like a lion and eked out a draw. The other game, between Yuri Shulman and Hikaru Nakamura, was less dramatic. Nakamura managed to reach a pawn up ending with queens and opposite-colored bishops, but Shulman was able to hold the draw without too much difficulty. That put all four players at 3/4, and they were caught by Varuzhan Akobian, who defeated Julio Becerra.

Other games of note (or more accurately, that caught my eye):

Robson-Ibragimov. The 14-year-old IM (Robson) outplayed his strong GM opponent in a tactical melee.

Christiansen-Shabalov. Perhaps the two most aggressive players in the tournament went at it hammer and tongs, and the game was a crazy draw.

Brooks-Benjamin. On the merits, the game was as dull as watching paint dry, but they made up for it by finishing with a repetition. A six-time repetition. (Is there a 25-move rule for draws?)

Round 4 Results:
1. GM Gata Kamsky (2½) 2798 ½-½ GM Joshua Friedel (2½) 2568
2. GM Yury Shulman (2½) 2697 ½-½ GM Hikaru Nakamura (2½) 2757
3. GM Alexander Onischuk (2) 2736 ½-½ IM Robert Hess (2) 2545
4. GM Varuzhan Akobian (2) 2664 1-0 GM Julio Becerra (2) 2672
5. GM Gregory Kaidanov (1½) 2662 ½-½ GM Jaan Ehlvest (2) 2649
6. IM Michael Brooks (1½) 2419 ½-½ GM Joel Benjamin (1½) 2650
7. GM Melikset Khachiyan (1½) 2632 1-0 IM Irina Krush (1½) 2496
8. IM Enrico Sevillano (1½) 2549 0-1 IM Samuel Shankland (1½) 2464
9. GM Larry Christiansen (1) 2681 ½-½ GM Alexander Shabalov (1) 2620
10. IM Ray Robson (1) 2542 1-0 GM Ildar Ibragimov (1) 2628
11. Tyler Hughes (1) 2293 1-0 Charles Lawton (0) 2350
12. GM Boris Gulko (0) 2631 1-0 FM Doug Eckert (0) 2278

Round 5 Pairings:
1. GM Hikaru Nakamura (3) 2757 - GM Gata Kamsky (3) 2798
2. GM Joshua Friedel (3) 2757 - GM Yury Shulman (3) 2697
3. GM Jaan Ehlvest (2½) 2649 - GM Varuzhan Akobian (3) 2664
4. IM Samuel Shankland (2½) 2464 - GM Alexander Onischuk (2½) 2736
5. IM Robert Hess (2½) 2545 - GM Melikset Khachiyan (2½) 2632
6. GM Julio Becerra (2) 2672 - IM Michael Brooks (2) 2419
7. IM Ray Robson (2) 2542 - GM Gregory Kaidanov (2) 2662
8. GM Joel Benjamin (2) 2650 - Tyler Hughes (2) 2293
9. IM Irina Krush (1½) 2496 - GM Larry Christiansen (1½) 2681
10. GM Alexander Shabalov (1½) 2620 - IM Enrico Sevillano (1½) 2549
11. GM Ildar Ibragimov (1) 2628 - GM Boris Gulko (1) 2631
12. FM Doug Eckert (0) 2278 - Charles Lawton (0) 2350

Tournament site here.

After yesterday's damp squib of a round (three out of three short draws), the pattern mostly changed today. Sokolov-Predojevic was another non-event, drawn in 17 moves, but Eljanov-Harikrishna and Movsesian-Wang Hao were both full games. White won them both, in 81 and 63 moves, respectively, and now the standings look like this:

1. Eljanov 3½
2. Predojevic 2½
3. Movsesian 2
4-5. Sokolov, Harikrishna 1½
6. Wang Hao 1

I wouldn't count on his continuing his pace, but Eljanov's TPR so far is 3035.

Tournament site here.

The MTel Masters starts this Wednesday, May 13, and runs through May 23, with the 18th as a rest day. It's a 6 player double round-robin with the following participants:

Veselin Topalov Bulgaria 2812
Magnus Carlsen Norway 2770
Vassily Ivanchuk Ukraine 2746
Alexei Shirov Spain 2745
Wang Yue China 2738
Lenier Dominguez Cuba 2721

It should be a fun event, but can it really compete with the US Championship?*

* Note to the humor-impaired: please don't write in.

When it was first announced that there would be a $64,000 prize for the player, if any, who won the event with a 9-0 score, I made fun of it as a publicity stunt, and was sure that the money was as safe as it could possibly be. Sure enough, here we are, only three rounds into the U.S. Championship, and that quest is already over.

After two rounds, there were only three perfect scores, and they belonged to Yuri Shulman, Gata Kamsky, and Robert Hess. The first two were paired today and they drew, while Hess "downfloated" to Nakamura and lost. The three who didn't lose are all tied for first with 2½, joined by Josh Friedel who beat Joel Benjamin with the black pieces. Very impressive! In round 4, Kamsky will have White against Friedel; Shulman White vs. Nakamura.

Also noteworthy in round 3: Boris Gulko continued his losing ways, this time falling to Irina Krush. That puts him at 0-3 for the event. A sadder bit of news has to do with Anna Zatonskih, who has apparently taken ill. The tournament's email suggests on the one hand that it's a "minor ailment", which is good news. On the other hand, it's serious enough that she's in the hospital, and her round 3 game against Kaidanov was at first postponed and now looks like a forfeit loss. Her replacement, at least for round 4, is Illinois master Doug Eckert. Whatever ends up happening with that, I don't know, but I hope Zatonskih is better soon.

Finally, also from the pre-round 3 email, is an interesting bit of news about a round 2 game:

In a footnote to yesterday's round two, local player Charles Lawton discovered the hard way the difference between the standard of play at the U.S. Championship and local tournaments he's more used to ruling the roost in. In a time scramble when he was down to his last 5 minutes, he opted to save valuable seconds by stopping to score his game, only to flagged for an infringement of the rules by chief arbiter Carol Jarecki as she warned him he had to continue to keep a score of the game.

But Lawton lost on time in the ensuing dispute with the arbiter as he tried to keep his score up to date as he fell foul of International FIDE rules (which govern all national championships) and local USCF rules. With FIDE (the French acronym of the governing body of world chess), if you have 5 minutes or less on your clock you still have to keep a score of the game, with USCF rules you do not have to do so.

You have to know the rules!

Round 3 Results:
1. GM Yury Shulman (2) 2697 ½-½ GM Gata Kamsky (2) 2798
2. GM Hikaru Nakamura (1½) 2757 1-0 IM Robert Hess (2) 2545
3. GM Alexander Onischuk (1½) 2736 ½-½ GM Jaan Ehlvest (1½) 2649
4. GM Joel Benjamin (1½) 2650 0-1 GM Joshua Friedel (1½) 2568
5. GM Julio Becerra (1) 2672 1-0 Tyler Hughes (1) 2293
6. GM Varuzhan Akobian (1) 2664 1-0 IM Ray Robson (1) 2542
7. IM Samuel Shankland (1) 2464 ½-½ GM Melikset Khachiyan (1) 2632
8. IM Michael Brooks (1) 2419 ½-½ IM Enrico Sevillano (1) 2549
9. GM Ildar Ibragimov (½) 2628 ½-½ GM Larry Christiansen (½) 2681
10. GM Gregory Kaidanov (½) 2662 PPD/1-0 IM Anna Zatonskih (½) 2503
11. IM Irina Krush (½) 2496 1-0 GM Boris Gulko (0) 2631
12. Charles Lawton (0) 2350 0-1 GM Alexander Shabalov (0) 2620

Round 4 Pairings:
1. GM Gata Kamsky (2½) 2798 - GM Joshua Friedel (2½) 2568
2. GM Yury Shulman (2½) 2697 - GM Hikaru Nakamura (2½) 2757
3. GM Alexander Onischuk (2) 2736 - IM Robert Hess (2) 2545
4. GM Varuzhan Akobian (2) 2664 - GM Julio Becerra (2) 2672
5. GM Gregory Kaidanov (1½) 2662 - GM Jaan Ehlvest (2) 2649
6. IM Michael Brooks (1½) 2419 - GM Joel Benjamin (1½) 2650
7. GM Melikset Khachiyan (1½) 2632 - IM Irina Krush (1½) 2496
8. IM Enrico Sevillano (1½) 2549 - IM Samuel Shankland (1½) 2464
9. GM Larry Christiansen (1) 2681 - GM Alexander Shabalov (1) 2620
10. IM Ray Robson (1) 2542 - GM Ildar Ibragimov (1) 2628
11. Tyler Hughes (1) 2293 - Charles Lawton (0) 2350
12. GM Boris Gulko (0) 2631 - Doug Eckert (0) 2278

UPDATE: Zatonskih is out and headed to Germany for surgery. (Why and what sort of surgery, I don't know.) Eckert is her replacement for the rest of the tournament. (Sources here and here, respectively.)

Eljanov continues to lead the Bosna Tournament in Sarajevo; his 2.5/3 gives him a half point lead over (bottom seed) Predojevic (and more over the rest of an impressive field).

Whatever the demerits of the Swiss System, especially for prestige events like a national championship, at least it gives rise to fighting chess in the early rounds. And, in the case of a tournament with a fairly wide spread of ratings, upsets. We had both in round 2, with 9 wins in 12 games - four of them upsets.

Round 2 Results
1. GM Gata Kamsky (1) 2798 1-0 GM Varuzhan Akobian (1) 2664
2. GM Jaan Ehlvest (1) 2649 ½-½ GM Hikaru Nakamura (1) 2757
3. GM Melikset Khachiyan (1) 2632 0-1 GM Yury Shulman (1) 2697
4. IM Robert Hess (1) 2545 1-0 GM Julio Becerra (1) 2672
5. Tyler Hughes (1) 2293 0-1 GM Alexander Onischuk (½) 2736
6. GM Joshua Friedel (½) 2568 1-0 GM Gregory Kaidanov (½) 2662
7. GM Joel Benjamin (½) 2650 1-0 IM Irina Krush (½) 2496
8. GM Larry Christiansen (0) 2681 ½-½ IM Samuel Shankland (½) 2464
9. IM Ray Robson (0) 2542 1-0 GM Boris Gulko (0) 2631
10. IM Anna Zatonskih (0) 2503 ½-½ GM Ildar Ibragimov (0) 2628
11. GM Alexander Shabalov (0) 2620 0-1 IM Michael Brooks (0) 2419
12. IM Enrico Sevillano (0) 2549 1-0 Charles Lawton (0) 2350

Among the notable games, Kamsky demolished Akobian when the latter walked into some nice tactics (though there may have been a coronary-sized hiccup at one point); Nakamura was held to a draw pretty easily by Ehlvest (perhaps it should be phrased the other way around); defending champ Shulman beat Khachiyan in a tactical slugfest, and IM Hess obtained his second GM scalp with a win over Becerra. Upsets among the non-2-0 players were Friedel's win over Kaidanov (only a slight upset), Robson's win over Gulko (the latter is now 0-2), and local IM Brooks' win over Shabalov (also 0-2).

Round 3 Pairings:
1. GM Yury Shulman (2) 2697 - GM Gata Kamsky (2) 2798
2. GM Hikaru Nakamura (1½) 2757 - IM Robert Hess (2) 2545
3. GM Alexander Onischuk (1½) 2736 - GM Jaan Ehlvest (1½) 2649
4. GM Joel Benjamin (1½) 2650 - GM Joshua Friedel (1½) 2568
5. GM Julio Becerra (1) 2672 - Tyler Hughes (1) 2293
6. GM Varuzhan Akobian (1) 2664 - IM Ray Robson (1) 2542
7. IM Samuel Shankland (1) 2464 - GM Melikset Khachiyan (1) 2632
8. IM Michael Brooks (1) 2419 - IM Enrico Sevillano (1) 2549
9. GM Ildar Ibragimov (½) 2628 - GM Larry Christiansen (½) 2681
10. GM Gregory Kaidanov (½) 2662 - IM Anna Zatonskih (½) 2503
11. IM Irina Krush (½) 2496 - GM Boris Gulko (0) 2631
12. Charles Lawton (0) 2350 - GM Alexander Shabalov (0) 2620

Tournament site here; the Kamsky-Akobian and Khachiyan-Shulman games (with my comments) here.

Some highlights for your replaying pleasure.

They are - assuming we can trust the US Championship site - as follows:

1. GM Gata Kamsky (1) 2798 - GM Varuzhan Akobian (1) 2664
2. GM Jaan Ehlvest (1) 2649 - GM Hikaru Nakamura (1) 2757
3. GM Melikset Khachiyan (1) 2632 - GM Yury Shulman (1) 2697
4. IM Robert Hess (1) 2545 - GM Julio Becerra (1) 2672
5. Tyler Hughes (1) 2293 - GM Alexander Onischuk (½) 2736
6. GM Joshua Friedel (½) 2568 - GM Gregory Kaidanov (½) 2662
7. GM Joel Benjamin (½) 2650 - IM Irina Krush (½) 2496
8. GM Larry Christiansen (0) 2681 - IM Samuel Shankland (½) 2464
9. IM Ray Robson (0) 2542 - GM Boris Gulko (0) 2631
10. IM Anna Zatonskih (0) 2503 - GM Ildar Ibragimov (0) 2628
11. GM Alexander Shabalov (0) 2620 - IM Michael Brooks (0) 2419
12. IM Enrico Sevillano (0) 2549 - Charles Lawton (0) 2350

The Azerbaijan-Rest of the World massacre concluded today with 2½-1½, 3½-½ and 2½-1½ wins for the World team in rounds 6, 7 and 8 respectively. The World thus won 21½-10½ - a better than 2-1 margin! The Azeris only managed to win two games in the entire event, and their best performer (Radjabov) did worse than the World's worst performer (Shirov). Kramnik had the best overall performance, going 6½/8 with a 2968 TPR, but as this was a rapid event no rating points will change hands. (More info and downloadable games here.)

Round 2 of Bosna is in the books now, and with his crushing win over Ivan Sokolov, Pavel Eljanov is in clear first with a 2-0 score.

I'll annotate Eljanov-Sokolov a bit later, and will probably have some bits from the first event as well.

(And I write this blissfully unaware that I'm using technology to communicate the point.)

Three high-level events occurred today, and one of them even managed to successfully communicate the games. That would be the Bosna tournament, which successfully coped with the burden of transmitting three classical games. Eljanov defeated Wang Hao with Black, and the games Harikrishna-Predojevic and I. Sokolov-Movsesian were both drawn. Those games can be replayed here.

As for the Azerbaijan vs. the Rest of the World and U.S. Championship, no such luck. More than half the game scores in each event were partial and/or corrupted. It's a disheartening state of affairs, but at least we can supply the results.

Azerbaijan vs. The Rest of the World

Round 3:
Anand - Mamedyarov (AZE) ½-½
Shirov - Radjabov (AZE) ½-½
Gashimov (AZE) - Karjakin ½-½
Guseinov (AZE) - Kramnik 0-1

Round 4:
Karjakin - Radjabov (AZE) 1-0
Gashimov (AZE) - Shirov ½-½
Mamedyarov (AZE) - Kramnik 0-1
Mamedov (AZE) - Anand ½-½
[Three Whites for the Azeris? This seems like still another error.]

Round 5:
Karjakin - Gashimov 1-0
Kramnik - Guseinov 1-0
Mamedyarov - Anand ½-½
Radjabov - Shirov ½-½

The ROW team is having an awesome event so far. After a solitary loss in the first game, they have gone undefeated, winnings today's rounds 2½-1½, 3-1 and 3-1 for an overall lead of 13-7. It has been a very good day for Kramnik as well, but remember that this is rapid chess, so his 3-0 day won't translate into "real" rating points.

US Championship:

1. GM Yury Shulman (0) 2697 1-0 IM Enrico Sevillano (0) 2549
2. GM Ildar Ibragimov (0) 2628 0-1 GM Gata Kamsky (0) 2798
3. GM Hikaru Nakamura (0) 2757 1-0 GM Alexander Shabalov (0) 2620
4. GM Joshua Friedel (0) 2568 ½-½ GM Alexander Onischuk (0) 2736
5. IM Robert Hess (0) 2545 1-0 GM Larry Christiansen (0) 2681
6. GM Julio Becerra (0) 2672 1-0 IM Ray Robson (0) 2542
7. IM Anna Zatonskih (0) 2503 0-1 GM Varuzhan Akobian (0) 2664
8. GM Gregory Kaidanov (0) 2662 ½-½ IM Irina Krush (0) 2496
9. IM Samuel Shankland (0) 2464 ½-½ GM Joel Benjamin (0) 2650
10. GM Jaan Ehlvest (0) 2649 1-0 IM Michael Brooks (0) 2419
11. Charles Lawton (0) 2350 0-1 GM Melikset Khachiyan (0) 2632
12. GM Boris Gulko (0) 2631 0-1 Tyler Hughes (0) 2293

There were some upsets there, but none bigger than the one on the last board. White was Boris Gulko, a former US and USSR champion, with a plus score against Garry Kasparov. Black? Tyler Hughes, a national master whose participation seemed rather dubious. All of this made it a blowout on paper, but over the board Hughes defeated his great opponent. "All" he has to do is repeat the result eight more times, and he'll be the US champ!

Since my Super-Fast Sicilian video was (surprisingly!) well-received, I decided to press on with a further video on the only main system I had omitted; to wit, the Najdorf. As it turns out (and I expected this, as you'll hear from the little joke at the beginning of the presentation), there's so much material in the Najdorf that I was unable to cover all the lines even in the "super-fast" style. So in this week's video, you'll get the 6.Rg1, 6.a4, 6.h3, 6.g3, 6.f4 and 6.Bc4 lines; for 6.Be2, 6.Be3, 6.f3 and the great big monster that is 6.Bg5, wait 'till next time!

Watching is easy (just follow the link and hit play) and free (at least for the next month or so). Enjoy.

The U.S. Championship starts today, and here are the first round pairings:

1. GM Ibragimov, Ildar (0.0) 2628 - GM Kamsky, Gata (0.0) 2798
2. GM Nakamura, Hikaru (0.0) 2757 - GM Shabalov, Alexander (0.0) 2620
3. GM Friedel, Joshua (0.0) 2568 - GM Onischuk, Alexander (0.0) 2736
4. GM Shulman, Yury (0.0) 2697 - IM Sevillano, Enrico (0.0) 2549
5. IM Hess, Robert (0.0) 2545 - GM Christiansen, Larry (0.0) 2681
6. GM Becerra, Julio (0.0) 2672 - IM Robson, Ray (0.0) 2542
7. IM Zatonskih, Anna (0.0) 2503 - GM Akobian, Varuzhan (0.0) 2664
8. GM Kaidanov, Gregory (0.0) 2662 - IM Krush, Irina (0.0) 2496
9. IM Shankland, Samuel (0.0) 2464 - GM Benjamin, Joel (0.0) 2650
10. GM Ehlvest, Jaan (0.0) 2649 - IM Brooks, Michael (0.0) 2419
11. Lawton, Charles (0.0) 2350 - GM Khachiyan, Melikset (0.0) 2632
12. GM Gulko, Boris (0.0) 2631 - Hughes, Tyler (0.0) 2293

Predictions, readers? (Not for the first round results, but for the winner.) I'll go out on a minor limb and predict Onischuk as the winner. If you ask who I'm rooting for, the answer is Christiansen.

Also starting tomorrow is the 39th Bosna tournament in Sarajevo. It's a double round-robin with the following participants:

Sergei Movsesian (SLO, 2747)
Wang Hao (CHN, 2696)
Pavel Eljanov (UKR, 2693)
Pentala Harikrishna (IND, 2686)
Ivan Sokolov (NED, 2669)
Borki Predojevic (BIH, 2652)

Let the overload begin!

Some of the game scores are only partials (at least the last time I checked), so in the hopes that they'll eventually get filled out I'll come back to them another time. For now, here are the results of the first two rounds of this Schevingent-style event:

Round 1:
Mamedyarov (AZE) - Shirov 1-0
Radjabov (AZE) - Anand ½-½
Karjakin - Guseinov (AZE) ½-½
Kramnik - Gashimov (AZE) ½-½

Round 2:
Mamedyarov (AZE) - Karjakin ½-½
Anand - Gashimov (AZE) 1-0
Radjabov (AZE) - Kramnik ½-½
Shirov - Guesinov (AZE) 1-0

Thus the Azeris won the first round 2½-1½ and lost the second 3-1, making the overall score 4½-3½ in favor of the World team. The event continues Friday and Saturday; website here.

Who (very recently) wrote this?

The great Vasily's games [referring to Ivanchuk] rarely fail to provide pleasure and inspiration. But occasionally he just goes bleeping nuts!

The late Miroslav Filip (1928-2009) isn't well-known to contemporary chess fans, and that's partially the fault of his fairly solid style. Perhaps it's true, as one recent obituary article suggests, that after achieving his greatest successes he became a more safety-first player, someone who hated losing more than he liked to win. Possibly so. Nevertheless, anyone who qualifies for two Candidates events, as Filip did in 1956 and 1962, deserves to be remembered by chess fans.

Therefore, we'll take a look in our ChessBase show for this week at one of his best-known games: his win over the great Mikhail Tal in the 1962 Candidates tournament in Curacao.


(This picture is from the post-mortem of the game in question.)

Tal, just one year removed from the title, had a very good score against Filip in their previous encounters, and with the white pieces went for the attack. The aim was justified, but Filip kept his cool. Normally Tal wore his opponents out in the complications, but not this time. Filip gave as good as he got, and when Tal went awry he took over, winning with a powerful counterattack. It almost looks easy, but considering how many players over the years buckled when Tal attacked, it turns out to be an impressive achievement.

In addition to the game's historical value, it's also a nice model of some typical Sicilian themes, so I believe viewers will benefit from that aspect of the show as well. To tune in, just show up on the Playchess server at 9 p.m. ET tonight (Wednesday night; or, if you're across the pond, use 3 a.m. CET Thursday morning as your reference). Once there, go to the Broadcast room and either double-click on my handle (Initiative) or find Tal-Filip under the Games tab. Hope to see you there!

[Addendum/errata to the Akopian-Kasparov show a couple of weeks ago:

(1) I wrote in my blurb that their career score in tournament games was +1 -0 =3 in Akopian's favor. That's true, but it's also misleading, as the "+1" - the game I presented - was from a rapid event. Their classical score is simply =3, and Akopian enjoys a 1-0 edge in rapid chess.

(2) Using Wikipedia before finding the quote, I claimed that Kasparov labeled "most" of the participants in the 1999 World Championship event in Las Vegas "tourists". In fact Kasparov's comment was made before the quarter-final matches, and only applied to three of the eight remaining players (Movsesian, Nisipeanu, and...Akopian). The full quote can be found here.]

It doesn't seem like the full interview, but here are seven minutes' worth of Bobby Fischer on the Dick Cavett Show, from back in 1971.

(HT: Brian Karen)

Here's a nice message I received on a chess server earlier today:

Hi Dennis. We fuddy duddies can still improve - I just got my first IM Norm yesterday at age 50! (see http://www.chessscotland.com/archives/gmimnorm.htm) - Graham Morrison

It can be done, folks. Just keep working. Good luck with those last two norms, Graham, and thanks very much for your note!

Miroslav Filip (1928-2009) was a Czech grandmaster whose greatest chess accomplishment was his twice qualifying for the Candidates (in 1956 and 1962). He died of natural causes, but unfortunately that was not the fate of problemist Mejnun Vahidov (1946-2009). He was killed in Baku, at the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy, by a gunman who killed 12 innocent people before killing himself. (It would be nice if these murder-suicides would reverse the order.)

More about Filip here, and about Vahidov here.

HT: Chess Today.

In what has now become cliche, here's yet another article ("Genius: The Modern View" by David Brooks) presenting the infamous "10,000 hour" rule in support of the "genius is earned, not made" thesis. To the extent that it encourages people to work hard, promoting the idea is altogether worthwhile. But I have yet to see the argument presented in a way that looks like a proof of its thesis. In other words, it doesn't follow from

(1) All world-class achievers in a given field put in tremendous amounts of work

and even

(2) All such achievers had special opportunities to develop those gifts

that

(3) There's no such thing as natural talent (whether "God-given" or explained by some other means).

Maybe such research exists to discount the thesis, but I haven't seen it, and popularizing essays like the one referred to here don't make that case. Brooks mentions Mozart, noting that while he was composing at an early age, his compositions were nothing special. Yes, but he composing at an early age! Brooks' response: "he would not stand out among today’s top child-performers." In other words, we should infer from the fact that in a time when many millions of kids take music lessons and have far more resources than Wolfy had, the fact that the (very young) Mozart would not outstrip the small and elite group of today's very best young musicians means that talent is a myth. Riiiiight.

On the other hand, talent doesn't matter to most of us. For those of us whose natural gifts place us in the meaty part of the bell curve, hard, smart work continued for many years will lead to genuine success, even if not to a Kasparov-like stature.

HT: Charles Sullivan

Feeling empty in the absence of a super-tournament? Don't worry, there's more big-time chess to come.

First, there's the French Teams Championships (Top 16); that's finishing up today.

Then, there are two events starting later this week. Azerbaijan is a very strong chess country (and would be even stronger if its all its native sons (e.g. Sutovsky and especially Kasparov played for it), but maybe it's getting a little cocky in having a "Rest of the World" match. The Azerbaijan team consists of Radjabov, Gashimov, Mamedyarov and Guseinov. Not bad, but they're going up against Anand, Kramnik, Shirov and Karjakin. It's a rapid event that will run from the 7th to the 9th; watch here for the announcement of an official site.

Finally, the USSR Championship; New World Division US Championship starts on Friday. Participants include:

Varuzhan Akobian, Julio Becerra Rivero, Joel Benjamin, Michael Brooks, Larry Christiansen, Jaan Ehlvest, Josh Friedel, Boris Gulko, Robert Hess, Tyler Hughes, Ildar Ibragimov, Gregory Kaidanov, Gata Kamsky, Melik Khachiyan, Irina Krush, Charles Lawton, Hikaru Nakamura, Alexander Onischuk, Ray Robson, Enrico Sevillano, Alexander Shabalov, Yury Shulman and Anna Zatonskih.

Here, on the Mainz website.

HT: Chess Today

This is a great post on IM Jens Kristiansen's blog. It's in the spirit of some posts I wrote several weeks ago (start here and work forward through the given links), but takes things even further. Purists can ignore it, but I think everyone else will enjoy it and get a good mental workout to boot.

HT: Thomas

For many years, writing a computer program capable of beating strong human players in chess was considered a landmark accomplishment, but those days are long behind us. Despite the cultural cachet chess enjoys in the western world, Go has proved a far greater challenge for computers. The best humans are still far better than the strongest software, but the first cracks in human supremacy are showing up there as well, according to this story. The end is nigh...

HT: Brian Karen