Chess WC qualifying action

[Graendals favourite]

There'll be some interesting chess action starting from this thursday. The world champion's opponent for the WC match next year will be decided in a series of matches. Here is an article about it:

 

http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7195

 

Chess isn't the biggest sport for all, but I'll certainly be following this as well.

[ineedfourberfs]

I suck so bad at Chess. So bad. Which is a shame because I really enjoy it.

 

Makes me wonder, are the top players really quite intelligent? Or just well trained?

[Graendals favourite]

I think both in general, though the training has been intensive for them since they were young, and there's many kinds of intellect. The top players are good at what they do because they've worked hard for it, and have the capacity for what is required, sort of pattern recognition, memory, calculation skill. I wouldn't immediately what makes for a top player is intelligence per se, just the right mental skills + hard work.

 

You can follow the games here with a sort of commentary http://www.chessdom.com/news-2011/candidates-matches-2011-g1

[ineedfourberfs]

I just watched all four games, I have to say not ONE of them ended with a result?!

 

Hrmm. Interesting none the less. A few times I was genuinely floored by the moves these guys were making. Some of them so offensive-minded... I can't help but play defensive as hell when I do.

[Graendals favourite]

Yea, winning's tough at the top, everyone defends well. Though Aronian missed his win in the very end, though all credit to Grischuk for hanging on, they must have been tired there near the end, was it after 7 hours of play. Exchanging the pawn for the knight his night would have saved the day and win on the kingside, though the black pawns look dangerous. But Kd8 saved the draw.

[Graendals favourite]

After regular games round one, only Gelfand defeated his oppenent to advance to round 2. Mamedariov out, playing black last round he did not manage to impact Gelfand's game.

 

Aronian-Grischuk played a short game today, Grischuk was apparently happy to try the shorter time controls. Kramnik-Radjabov no really chances to win have occurred in their games thusfar.

 

Kamsky just found 49. ...Qc2, so he should draw the game and advance to play Gelfand 2. round, Topalov had the win but blundered it away with his 44. Kg1 and 45. Bf1. Kamsky now has a perpetual check in this game.

[Graendals favourite]

Oh, the quarterfinals ended.

 

My roundabout roundup would be thus:

 

Topalov-Kamsky: Topalov started as a favourite on paper, though he hasn't quite been the same since losing the WC match against Anand a year ago, on top of which I understand he got married last summer. Kamsky on the other hand had played very well before this tournament, for instance winning the US championships convincingly a few weeks past. The pairing was also a familiar one, since in order to qualify for a WC match against Anand last year Topalov had won defeated Kamsky convincingly the year before, though the grandmaster commentators pointed out that the result of that match had belied how tight it was at the board. My impression of Topalov is a very dynamic player who thrives in complicated tactical positions and who is glad to sacrifice material for attack or initiative, while Kamsky, who spent a long time away from chess, is more of a patient positional player, he is sort of enterprisingly positional.

 

However, this time Kamsky played solidly enough, and Topalov lacked the necessary confidence necessary to his enterprising style at crucial stages, so Kamsky took advantage of what Topalov let slip, is how I would judge it. In a match of course, one more win is enough. An upset despite that it was known Kamsky might well win.

 

Gelfand-Mamedyarov: Gelfand has been near the top a very long time, and he is the oldest, and experienced of the lot, which is only to advantage in these high-pressure things. Matches, even so short ones as these, are very different from tournaments, which on the other hand is what these guys try to win for a living. Gelfand is reckoned an extremely solid, experienced and patient positional player who is very skilled in endgames. Mamedyarov on the other hand is a very creative, almost impulsive dynamic player, whose rating however is not as high now as it has been.

 

In the match it looked Gelfand won fairly easily, Mamedyarov did not really manage to threaten Gelfand while Gelfand could the opposite.

 

Aronian-Grischuk: Aronian was the biggest favourite to win the tournament. He is a creative, patient but very sharp player who by ranking is amongst the very top players. Grischuk is somewhat the same, I think, perhaps less of the patience, though he has not been as successful. They are of the same age, once two of three bright new stars and have a long history of playing each other. This no doubt affected the match, these players know each other extremely well.

 

In the normal games Aronian was pushing most of the time with white, while not having too much trouble with white. Still, Aronian did not manage to score a win in those, and in the tiebreaks (shorter time controls) differences even out. Despite Aronian's great record in speed chess, Grischuk managed to win one more games of speed chess that Aronian, so the second upset was there.

 

Kramnik-Radjabov: The fourteenth world champion Kramnik was a clear favourite for this one, though as with Kamsky, Radjabov certainly should have chances. Kramnik has a very solid, defensive, positional style, so he rarely wins with black, but he can torture the opponent for a long time when he gets just the slightest advantage, and this is what he strives to do in a game. It is unknown if he is in form, since he had a terrible speed/blind chess tournament in the spring. Radjabov is an attacking player, but I would consider him fairly all-rounded. As I recall, he was the next new bright young star after Aronian, Grischuk and Bacrot.

 

In the match, both players played extremely solidly and carefully, neither could really get a pull. This continued to the speed games (20+min). In the blitz games (5+m) things got heated. Radjabov was quite unlucky, for he was disadvantage by a failure of the chess clock that keeps the time. He had managed to win the first of such, and was on the way to defending a draw in the second, which would have seen him through, when while both players still had 15 seconds left on the clock (and an additional 3 seconds for each move) , the chess clock reset itself. It took 13 minutes to set the clock back into function, allowing at the same time a very long time for the players to analyse the position (these kinds of players hardly need a board for that), and though the position at the board was drawn, after resumption Radjabov quickly made a few mistakes in succession and lost the game. Clearly his concentration and rhythm had been disturbed. Kramnik managed to win the second set of these blitz games, while in the fourth one Radjabov fell into allowing Kramnik to take a perpetual check, so Kramnik was through. Of course, to avoid luck factoring in, one should win in the regular games, where neither of these players took any risks whatsoever.

 

 

Anyway, tomorrow begin semifinals, Kamsky-Gelfand and Grischuk-Kramnik, at this moment Gelfand has seemed by far the most convincing, while two of the biggest favourites are out and Kramnik left it to luck. There are good video reports on the games here:

http://chessdom.blip.tv/posts?view=archive&nsfw=dc

[Graendals favourite]

Oh the significance of this tournament for chess competition is fairly great. Anand is the fifteenth world champion, and who beats him in a WC match gets the label 16th, for one (unless it is Kramnik, who was already 14th). The WC match will be next year, then the next year from that is the next time a challenger will be chosen, the next WC match being in 2014. Since the Stenitz-Lasker-Capablanca-Alekhine-Euwe-Botvinnik-Smyslov-Tal-Petrosian-Spassky-Fischer-Karpov-Kasparov-Kramnik-Anand title carries weight and also money, it is a thing to get if one can. I don't know if any of these four would be a favourite to win against Anand in a match, but it is one of these that will have a shot at it next year.

[ineedfourberfs]

Thanks for the coverage GF. It's been quite interesting as a non-chess-follower-type-guy to watch Chess in such a dramatic and meaningful tournament. Gives a bit more of a history to the game.

[Graendals favourite]

Now I was distracted by the Finnish thrashing of the Swedes, 6-1, in Ice Hockey World championship final, but as I'd thought it before, deservedly, Grischuk won against against Kramnik and Gelfand against Kamsky. I will recap this more thoroughly tomorrow. As well as my thoughts. This now promises a very gooodd candidates final.

[Graendals favourite]

For now, Chessbase really has very good reports: http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7222

 

Though I would be more pointed, and though that will have to wait a bit, soon my commentary. For now, the candidates final looks good!

[Graendals favourite]

Well the qualifications ended a while since, with Gelfand found as a worthy challenger to Anand. Gelfand totally deserves this.

 

The tournament of short matches itself turned out to be a failure. This format encouraged the players to avoid risks. I think, this instance made it totally clear that the so-called Sofia rules, which prevent the players from agreeing to a draw, are needed even in the highest level of chess: nothing is worse than the players just agreeing not to fight when people are expecting them to fight. But also, the format was not successful, too much was decided in the tiebreaks. One needs, as Kramnik stated on chessbase, longer matches, or a double-round tournament.

 

But congrats to Gelfand, he did seem the most strong of the bunch after the first round.

[Graendals favourite]

There's a good chess tourney starting this weekend: best of the world and best of britain it seems in London Chess Classic .

 

11 participants, ten rounds, so the player who is not playing that day will be commenting on the games live. Sounds very good. The link is to the news article, there is a link to the official web pages below, where this live thing can be watched.

[Graendals favourite]

Oh the WC is going on now btw:

 

http://www.chessbase.com/ and

http://moscow2012.fide.com/en/

[Graendals favourite]

I quite recommend the last link to friends of the arts. Among the game commentaries, which I gather are all there, there are commentaries of these artworks at this Tretyakov Gallery. The second day, there were interesting comments on the internet, when everyone wanted to hear these experts talking about the game, but for 45 minutes they were talking about this Byzantene icon. Well, the sponsor of the match wishes to promote the arts, so not only do the contestants play in an art museum, but also the commentary is interspersed with discussion on masterpieces of arts in the gallery.