The Chess Mind

If you've been interested enough in the tournament to follow any of it on here, you probably already know how the tournament finished! All the same, for the sake of completeness, I'll offer a brief recap of the last round, and offer some impressions.

First, the games. Radjabov followed in the footsteps of game 10 of the Kramnik-Topalov match, won by Kramnik. White had an edge out of the opening there, but Topalov had done his homework and drew with ease. That left the players tied for first, and while no one could pass them, Aronian had the chance to catch them with a win over Tiviakov. And so he did, winning easily when Tiviakov outclevered himself with the dubious 22...Nxe5 and the outright bad 23...Ng4.

Kramnik closed to within half a point of the leaders, beating van Wely with a vicious kingside attack. Anand and Svidler could have joined Kramnik, and both had White, but neither succeeded. Anand only drew with Navara, while Svidler had a complete disaster against Karjakin and lost.

Finally, Ponomariov-Motylev and Carlsen-Shirov were also drawn.


Final Standings:

1-3 Aronian, Topalov, Radjabov 8.5 (out of 13) (Names given in unofficial tiebreak order.)
4 Kramnik 8
5 Anand 7.5
6 Svidler 7
7-8 Navara, Karjakin 6.5
9 Ponomariov 6
10-12 Motylev, Tiviakov, van Wely 5
13-14 Carlsen, Shirov 4.5


Concluding Reflections

The big winner of the event, in my opinion, is Radjabov, as this is his first triumph in a chess "grand slam" event. (Now it's Mamedyarov's turn to do something spectacular - it seems these two Azeri youngsters have been one-upping each other for the last 2-3 years.)

The event is also a success for Aronian and Topalov, obviously. Aronian had a great start to 2006 but cooled off as the year went on; it's good for him to start 2007 with fresh momentum. Likewise, this was a useful confidence boost for Topalov after losing to Kramnik and an understandably terrible Essent tournament right after that.

Kramnik also has grounds for satisfaction: he gained points, went undefeated, and came in just half a point out of first. Kramnik's style is made for matches and, to a slightly lesser extent, to elites-only events; he's not as efficient a "fish-killer" as his top rivals. So this was a mild success for him, or at least nothing to feel bad about.

For Anand, however, the event must be a mild disappointment. Unlike Kramnik, he tends to thrive on mixed tournaments, generally holding his own with his peers while snacking on the lower-rated players. This time around, however, he wasn't as brutal on the expected victims and was surprisingly vulnerable against his peers; even so, his TPR was just 11 points below his rating. Thus, a mild disappointment.

Svidler must also be somewhat disappointed: he was having a good tournament, which became a really good tournament after defeating Topalov. After that dramatic victory in round 11, however, he lost his last two games with the White pieces to players well below him in rating and in the tournament table. Had he scored 1.5/2 in those games - a pretty reasonable expectation - he would have joined the troika in the first.

Navara, Karjakin, and Motylev all did well in their Wijk group A debuts, performing approximately to their ratings. That's what one would expect, speaking in the abstract, but when being tested by three world champions and other esconced members of the super-elite, it's an achievement!

Ponomariov and especially Carlsen underperformed somewhat, but not disastrously, and even Shirov can take solace: despite his horrifying .5/6 start, he managed an undefeated +1 score in the remaining seven rounds.

Finally, the two Dutch entrants, van Wely and Tiviakov, also had slightly poor tournaments. The Dutch have been among the lower seeds for quite some time, but it would be nice to see the natives rise up one year and surprise the invaders. As Cubs fans say, wait 'til next year...


Videos here and here, games here.