The 2009 Tal Memorial Starts Tomorrow
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.)
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.)
Posted by Dennis Monokroussos on
Tuesday November 3, 2009 at 6:51pm
http://russiachess.org/content/blogcategory/157/403/
It looks like numbers were not assigned yet. Maybe today?
Whom do you mean? I get your point regarding Kramnik, Gelfand, Svidler and Leko - that's 4 out of 10.
BTW，World Blitz Championship will be held 16, 17 and 18 November in the showroom of GUM after Tal Memorial. In dvuhkrugovom tournament will be attended by 22 Grandmaster - Round Robin participants are personally invited by A. Karpov, A. Kosteniuk, L. Dominguez, A. Grischuk, D. Yakovenko, J. Polgar and six winners of the qualifying blitz "Aeroflot Open" - S. Karjakin , V. Gashimov, S. Mamedyarov, E. Bare, V. Tkachev and Zhou Jianchao.
Home games - 15.00 msk.
Thomas: Anand.
But my own question was, in any case, on-topic. 5/10 players is still "at most half the field". I think Anand and Kramnik "have something to prove" though maybe not in every single game - and with bad form they might switch into drawing mode. And I read that Leko was warned by the organizers that a series of _short_ draws as in Dortmund would not be appreciated. Anyway, given the strong and balanced field, a relatively high drawing percentage would not be surprising - and IMO not per se bad if the games are fought out.
We will know more starting tomorrow - let the games begin!
Round 1: Carlsen-Kramnik Morozevich-Leko Gelfand-Ponomariov Aronian-Svidler Ivanchuk-Anand
pairings for first round:
Carlsen - Kramnik
Morozevich - Leko
Ivanchuk - Anand
Gelfand - Ponomariov
Aronian - Svidler
First round pairings: Carlsen-Kramnik Morozevich-Leko Gelfand-Ponomariov Aronian-Svidler Ivanchuk-Anand
Round 1
Carlsen - Kramnik
Morozevich - Leko
Ivanchuk - Anand
Gelfand - Ponomariov
Aronian - Svidler
None of the "possibly drawish" players face each other ... . If I had to pick two games most likely to be drawn, it would be the first and the last one.
The organizers violated my rule:
pick *ONE* and only *ONE* of [Kramnik,Svidler,Leko].