European Championships: An Almost Final Report
The European Individual Championships have ended - almost. The tournaments (both open and female) were scheduled for 11 rounds, but there are ties in need of playing off.
Let's start with the open (men's) competition. Ukranian GM Andrei Volokitin led most of the way, and with two rounds to go he led the chase pack by half a point. In round 10 he drew and was caught by Vladislav Tkachiev, with 33 of their closest friends half a point behind. With big money, a prestigious title and qualification to the important and lucrative World Cup on the line, you'd expect lots of fighting chess in the last round, right?
Not quite. Jakovenko beat Volokitin, who played atrociously, Tkachiev drew his game, and five other players (Cheparinov, Sutovsky, Sakaev, Pavasovic, and Iljin) won to tie for first (pending the tiebreak results on Sunday). But the other 12 games relevant to first place were drawn - mostly without fight.
Tomashevsky had White against Tkachiev, but drew in 13 moves. And that was one of the longer "efforts"! Vitiukov-Malakhov went six moves. Roiz-Almasi was the marathon the group, stretching all the way to move 19. Gustafsson-Tiviakov went to move nine, Gajewski-Beliavsky saw 13 exhausting moves, V. Georgiev-Avrukh got to move 8, Nevednichy-Volkov went 11 moves, Landa-Khalifman went to move 8, and Rodshtein-Galkin concluded on move 7. (What would Dvoretsky say about this?)
The bottom line: a 7-way tie for first (for now) with 8/11, with 37(!) players half a point behind. As the terrible drawsophilia was a regular guest at the tournament, the TPRs weren't extraordinarily high: the best numbers were Pavasovic's 2765 and Jakovenko's 2763.
Well, not quite. The real hero of the tournament wasn't in this event. It's Tatiana Kosintseva, who won the women's tournament with a terrific 10/11, two full points ahead of older sister Nadezhda, former women's world champion Antoaneta Stefanova and Hoang Thanh Trang. Kosintseva's TPR? 2774, better than any of the performers in the open section!
Congratulations to the winners.
Let's start with the open (men's) competition. Ukranian GM Andrei Volokitin led most of the way, and with two rounds to go he led the chase pack by half a point. In round 10 he drew and was caught by Vladislav Tkachiev, with 33 of their closest friends half a point behind. With big money, a prestigious title and qualification to the important and lucrative World Cup on the line, you'd expect lots of fighting chess in the last round, right?
Not quite. Jakovenko beat Volokitin, who played atrociously, Tkachiev drew his game, and five other players (Cheparinov, Sutovsky, Sakaev, Pavasovic, and Iljin) won to tie for first (pending the tiebreak results on Sunday). But the other 12 games relevant to first place were drawn - mostly without fight.
Tomashevsky had White against Tkachiev, but drew in 13 moves. And that was one of the longer "efforts"! Vitiukov-Malakhov went six moves. Roiz-Almasi was the marathon the group, stretching all the way to move 19. Gustafsson-Tiviakov went to move nine, Gajewski-Beliavsky saw 13 exhausting moves, V. Georgiev-Avrukh got to move 8, Nevednichy-Volkov went 11 moves, Landa-Khalifman went to move 8, and Rodshtein-Galkin concluded on move 7. (What would Dvoretsky say about this?)
The bottom line: a 7-way tie for first (for now) with 8/11, with 37(!) players half a point behind. As the terrible drawsophilia was a regular guest at the tournament, the TPRs weren't extraordinarily high: the best numbers were Pavasovic's 2765 and Jakovenko's 2763.
Well, not quite. The real hero of the tournament wasn't in this event. It's Tatiana Kosintseva, who won the women's tournament with a terrific 10/11, two full points ahead of older sister Nadezhda, former women's world champion Antoaneta Stefanova and Hoang Thanh Trang. Kosintseva's TPR? 2774, better than any of the performers in the open section!
Congratulations to the winners.
Posted by Dennis Monokroussos on
Sunday April 15, 2007 at 1:45am
"I've had a decent tournament, and am now tied for third. A draw will keep me in the same spot. There's something I can put on my resume. But if I lose, I'm going to get catapulted to 37th place---and that's not good for anything."
Is this realistic? It seems that the penalty for losing is so much greater than the gain of winning that it's not surprising that players draw a lot at the end.
Or perhaps I'm missing something---I'd appreciate comments from anyone who actually knows what they're talking about.
Someone like Mikhail Golubev can answer as a professional, but I can say the "resume" answer really doesn't come into it. There are two relevant factors here: money and qualification. For the money at least, the rational thing to do is to go for it.
Suppose A &B have the same score and play in the last round. In scenario 1, A wins; in scenario 2, B wins. The way tournament prize funds are set up, the prize money won by A &B will just about always outweigh the prize money by the players in scenario 2.
Some people are more risk-averse than others, and by the end of a tournament they're tired, too, and that doubtless exacerbates the risk-aversion. And it's tough to play for two weeks, have a great tournament, and then walk away with (almost) nothing with a last-round loss. So these quick draws are understandable, psychologically speaking, but they're financially irrational - especially for the player with the White pieces.
Qualifying is another story. If one is sure to qualify for some further event by drawing, then that's a reasonable policy. In this case, there are going to be playoffs for the qualifying spots, so I again suspect that fighting with the White pieces would have been the correct approach.