The Chess Mind

As I mentioned some time ago, PowerBlogs is shutting down, permanently, on November 30, so I've had to pack my bags and find new lodgings. The new location is here, and I'm confident that all the strengths of this site, and more besides, will carry over to the new place.

There's a lot of work to be done, but what's there is at least a start. There's a brief welcome post and a report on round 3 of the Tal Memorial. (I'll pass on a ND football post for today - Navy won 23-21.) There are some links (you have to click on the "Link" link), a bit of info in the "About Me" section, and the original version of my blog (from blogspot) under "First Blog".

Please update your bookmarks to go to http://thechessmind.net, and send all your friends over as well! We have three weeks to make sure everyone goes to the right location; please help!

While today's games weren't as impressive as yesterday's, they had their moments. Even so, the players ended the round where they started the tournament: in a ten-way tie for last place.

The first game to finish was Kramnik-Anand, a main line 8.Rb1 Exchange Grünfeld. About a decade ago, this variation was insanely hot; today, most White players have looked for other anti-Grünfeld approaches. It was a lively game, but it had the sort of forcing flow that suggests that at least one of the players - Anand, to judge by his time usage - had already worked everything out at home.

The next game to finish was Svidler-Ivanchuk, a Berlin/Classical hybrid that looked very promising at the start, with lots of open lines and potentially vulnerable kings. Sadly, a quick queen trade and a repetition put paid to those hopes, and the game was drawn on move 25.

Leko-Gelfand was the only game to make it past move 40, but it wasn't really a long game in any interesting sense. Gelfand used his mighty Petroff power and easily achieved the draw. From the opening the players entered a tactical sequence where Gelfand sacrificed the exchange for a pawn, and when the smoke cleared on move 28 it was pretty clear that Black would hold the draw without much trouble.

The next-to-last game to finish was Carlsen-Morozevich. It was a 4.f3 Nimzo-Indian, and Morozevich went for the main line with 4...d5. White gets the bishop pair and an extra pawn, while Black gets easy development and the better structure. Carlsen had the initiative throughout, but with so many potential weaknesses Morozevich held comfortably.

Finally, Ponomariov-Aronian looked like the best chance for a decisive result. In another Exchange Grünfeld, Ponomariov did his best to build up an attack, but when he sacrificed a piece to break up Black's kingside he did so to force a perpetual. This was fortunate for Aronian, as Ponomariov could given him the choice between an unpleasant endgame or a lost middlegame.

There's no need to elaborate the standings, as everyone has one point out of two. Here are tomorrow's pairings:

Morozevich - Kramnik
Gelfand - Carlsen
Aronian - Leko
Ivanchuk - Ponomariov
Anand - Svidler

Games here, with my brief comments.

Every so often ChessVideos viewers will submit games or questions for discussion, and the resulting shows are often especially valuable. It's important to see master and grandmaster play - to see chess at its best - but as often as not looking at what happens in amateur play is even more instructive. Sometimes the play is at a high level (there are examples in this week's show), and when there are mistakes they are often common enough that discussing them will benefit a wide-ranging audience.

This may include some of my readers, so you might have a look here and see for yourself. The show is free (though free registration is required), and available on-demand for the next month or so.

But very good draws! Carlsen-Kramnik in particular was a thriller, but Morozevich-Leko had its high points, and none of the other games could be described as dull. If the play continues in this vein, we could be in for a special event.

Round 1 Results:
Carlsen - Kramnik 1/2-1/2
Morozevich - Leko 1/2-1/2
Ivanchuk - Anand 1/2-1/2
Gelfand - Ponomariov 1/2-1/2
Aronian - Svidler 1/2-1/2

Round 2 Pairings:
Kramnik-Anand
Carlsen- Morozevich
Svidler-Ivanchuk
Ponomariov-Aronian
Leko-Gelfand

Reports on the first round are available here, here and here. For this round, I'll only present the games, without notes - here.

Thanks to the many readers, who have already provided them in the notes to this post. For those who aren't comment-browsers or are brand new to this site, here's what we'll see if we watch live at 7 a.m. ET:

Carlsen - Kramnik
Morozevich - Leko
Ivanchuk - Anand
Gelfand - Ponomariov
Aronian - Svidler

Predictions for the games and the tournament? I'll go with the winner of the first game mentioned above. If it's a draw, then...I'm not sure.

Tomorrow, Magnus Carlsen makes his debut as a 2800 in the Tal Memorial, and it's not much of an exaggeration to say he has taken the chess world by storm. Although he is just 18 (19 later this month), he has been a prominent, elite player for some time now. While it has been some time since anyone else has been a leading player at such a tender age, there are precedents. Carlsen's most notable predecessor in this regard is, of course, the late Bobby Fischer.

By age 15, Fischer had already qualified for the Candidates (the final elimination tournament to see who would play for the world championship), and at 19 he had done it twice, won an Interzonal and no less than five U.S. Championships. And as fantastic a player and talent as Carlsen is, the gap between him and his contemporaries is significant but not (yet?) huge; with Fischer, however, only the young Spassky was even in the same galaxy, and it took him three years longer to become a grandmaster than it did for Fischer.

The point of the comparison is not to denigrate Carlsen, who may be on his way to becoming the greatest player of all time, but to remind the reader of Fischer's early achievements, before he demolished the chess world in his run from 1970-1972. Speaking of those early achievements, we'll look at one this week: his victory over William Lombardy from the 1960 U.S. Championship. It was played in round 2, but may have decided first place, as Fischer won the event two points ahead of Lombardy.

It's a very interesting game (and possibly well-known to you, if you have a copy of Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games), with interesting moments in the opening (5.f3 vs. the 2...d6 Sicilian), middlegame (a dynamic ...d5 pawn break/sacrifice, and a long combination with a sneaky punchline), and endgame (no foreshadowing for this one). It's a very nice game to watch, and you can do so tomorrow night. Here's how:

Log on to the Playchess server at 9 p.m. ET (Wednesday night; that's 3 a.m. Thursday morning, CET), go to the Broadcast room, and select Lombardy-Fischer under the Games tab. The show is free for Premium Members (in most cases, this will be individuals who have a registered copy of Fritz 12); it's 50 ducats for everyone else.

Hope to see you there!

The participant list looks like this:

1. Carlsen 2801
2. Anand 2788
3. Aronian 2786
4. Kramnik 2772
5. Gelfand 2758
6. Svidler 2754
7. Leko 2752
8. Morozevich 2750
9. Ivanchuk 2739
10. Ponomariov 2739

It's a round robin starting in Moscow tomorrow and continuing through the 15th, after which there will be the usual high-prestige blitz tournament. It's clearly a very strong tournament; the only question is if it will be a bloodthirsty one. (At least half the players are occasionally a bit draw-happy, so we'll have to see.)

The official site is here, but it's in Russian. If those of you who can read it can find the first-round pairing information and what time the games start tomorrow, please include it in the comments. (Oddly, the English version of the site - see its upper-right corner - gives Tal Memorial info from 2007. Not very helpful.)

Sergei Zhigalko led or co-led from round 4 all the way to the finish, but despite this it was Maxime Vachier-Lagrave who won the World Junior Championship title on tiebreaks. From rounds 2-6 they had the exact same score, and the rest of the way (excepting round 9) there was an alternation between Zhigalko's being half a point ahead and their being tied. In round 7, Zhigalko won and Vachier-Lagrave drew; in round 8, the opposite. In round 10 Zhigalko won, in round 11 they were tied, and the same pattern occurred in rounds 12 and 13. Normally this would greatly favor Zhigalko in the tiebreaks, as a player in the higher score group would normally play stronger opponents, but it didn't happen this time - or didn't happen enough to give Zhigalko the overall victory. In the end, the players both had 10.5/13, but with his last round victory over Dmitry Andreikin, top seed Vachier-Lagrave won the title.

Zhigalko, obviously, came in second, and then there was a huge gap - a point and a half! - to the next score group. Three players had nine points - Michal Olszewski, Ivan Popov (who drew with Zhigalko in the last round), and Alex Lenderman. (The other U.S. representative, Ray Robson, finished with 7.5.) The nine-pointers are given in tiebreak order, so Olszewski was the bronze medalist. Congratulations to the winners!

(Final crosstable here.)

The only drama there would be in the Anand-Karpov match was whether Anand would exceed Kasparov's 3-1 ratio against Karpov, and the answer is that yes, he did. Anand won 2-0 in today's games, and finished with a 3.5-.5 match victory. Anand was better prepared, faster, and played better after the opening too. Sad to say, I have to agree with Mark Crowther, who acidly wrote that "Karpov really does have to do at least some remedial work on his game if he is to play any more of these exhibitions. At the moment they're close to being a waste of time." You can replay those games, with my light comments, here.

As for the World Junior, Sergei Zhigalko's win over Avetik Grigoryan put him in clear first entering the last round; previous co-leader Maxime Vachier-Lagrave could only draw against Ivan Popov. (As for the Americans, Robson lost and Lenderman won.) So Zhigalko has 10 out of 12, but can only guarantee first place with a last round win over Ivan Popov, though he'll also clinch the title with a draw and a non-V-L win against Dmitry Andreikin. Here are the leading last round pairings:

Zhigalko (10) - Popov (8.5)
Vachier-Lagrave (9.5) - Andreikin (8.5)
Olszewski (8) - Margvelashvili (8.5)
Iturrizaga (8) - Lenderman (8)
Yangyi Yu (8) - Grigoryan (8)

Only the first two are relevant to the battle for first, but there's the silver and bronze to be decided, too. Full pairings here, and full round 12 results here.

Yesterday I offered this position, from a 1944 battle between future world champion Mikhail Botvinnik and one Abram Khavin:



It's Black to move, and the question is whether he can safely grab on d4. When you think you've got it figured out, click below.

But not because people felt sorry for Karpov getting executed, but perhaps because a (potential) sponsor apparently prefers that it occur in March of 2010 instead. We'll see! (More here.) Meanwhile, Anand-Karpov resumes in the morning (at 8 a.m. ET, at least if they repeat their schedule from Saturday).

Those are two different ratings: the "real" ones are the ones that count, those of the international chess federation (FIDE). The live ones are those generated by 2700s and up on a daily basis, here. They have always been accurate, as far as I've seen, but FIDE is more deliberate about making these things official. So, here are the top 10s for FIDE, as of November 1, followed by the Live List's top 10.

FIDE's Top 10:
1. Topalov 2810
2. Carlsen 2801
3. Anand 2788
4. Aronian 2786
5. Kramnik 2772
6. Gashimov 2758
7. Gelfand 2758
8. Svidler 2754
9. Leko 2752
10. Morozevich 2750

(The full top 100 list is here.)

The Live Top List's Top 10:
1. Topalov 2804.7
2. Carlsen 2800.8
3. Anand 2788
4. Aronian 2779.5
5. Kramnik 2772
6. Gashimov 2766.7
7. Gelfand 2758.4
8. Morozevich 2755.3
9. Svidler 2753.4
10. Leko 2752

The two big stories here are Carlsen's being the youngest player ever - by far - to hit 2800 and Gashimov's remarkable rise to #6. Among the young Azeris, Radjabov and Mamedyarov have been known quantities for years, and they remain highly placed on the rating lists. But while I've known of Gashimov, and even noticed some time ago that he was over 2700, he had never caught my eye as a member of the super-elite. We'll see if he stays up there; even if he doesn't, though, it's still a remarkable achievement.

And yes, it's the usual suspects. Once again, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Sergei Zhigalko are tied for first, both with 9/11. Zhigalko only drew with Andreikin, but Vachier-Lagrave beat Alex Lenderman (darn it!) to catch him. They are a point clear of their nearest rivals, Ivan Popov (who just put an end to Robson's first-place aspirations) and Avetik Grigoryan, and they are a foursome for the penultimate round: it's Popov vs. Vachier-Lagrave and Grigoryan vs. Zhigalko.

Full round 11 info here; full round 12 pairings here.

Here's the position after White's 23rd move in the game Botvinnik-Khavin, USSR Championship 1944:



The question is, should Black grab the pawn on d4, or not? The answer will be given tomorrow.

The first two games of the Anand-Karpov rapid match are now history, and they've gone about as one would expect: Anand won with White, then drew with Black. Games 3 & 4 will be on Monday. (The games can be replayed here.)

Interestingly, both Anand and Karpov are not only past (and in Anand's case, present) world champions, they are also former world junior champions as well. Whether any of this year's world junior participants will have a career of that sort is hard to say, but the inside track to at least win the junior title is currently held by Sergei Zhigalko, who defeated Michal Olszewki with Black and now has 8.5/10. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave only managed to draw, so he's half a point back, and Eduardo Iturrizaga is another half point back at 7.5. Another half point back are six other players, including Americans Ray Robson and Alex Lenderman, who both won their games.

Tomorrow's top pairings look like this:

Zhigalko (8.5) - Andreikin (7)
Vachier-Lagrave (8) - Lenderman 7
Grigorian (7) - Iturrizaga (7.5)
Robson (7) - Popov (7)
Margvelashvili (7) - Rodshtein (6.5)

(Full round 10 results here; full pairings for round 11 here.)

And it wasn't even that close!

Season Record: 6-2
Next Victim: Navy