Chess discussions

[pillory]

Norway Chess starts for real tomorrow. Here are today's blitz results:

1 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime 6.5
2 Nakamura, Hikaru 6
3 Carlsen, Magnus 5.5
Giri, Anish 5.5
Anand, Viswanathan 5.5
6 Aronian, Levon 5
7 Grischuk, Alexander 4
8 Topalov, Veselin 3
9 Caruana, Fabiano 2.5
10 Hammer, Jon Ludvig 1.5

Top five gets you five whites in the main tournament. Rusty stuff from Carlsen, but at least he beat Nakamura and Anand (typically after Anand blundered in a winning position). Still amusing how bad Caruana is at blitz - #85 in the world, 250 points behind Carlsen, and still shedding rating every time he plays. (Topalov is actually even worse, I just discovered. He's so bad he gained rating points with this -3 performance.)

 

[Zen]

Anyway I can play Chess online with friends on iPad.........or computer with other friends ><

 

[Samid]

Anyway I can play Chess online with friends on iPad.........or computer with other friends ><

chess.com

 

[pillory]

Stereotypical Carlsen game today. All the other ones finished a long time ago. He has an extra pawn, and that pawn is on b7, but it's an opposite-coloured-bishops-with-queens situation, so I have absolutely no idea whether he's winning or not (my trusted Sesse says +4, but gives lines that doesn't look very winning to me, so I'm confused).

 

[pillory]

Er, did he suddenly lose on time in a totally winning position?

 

[stretford_oslo]

Jesus, that was silly
Took it well it seems.

 

[pillory]

Jesus, it looks like he lost on time because he forgot or didn't know there's no extra time to be had at move 60 in this tournament. What a clusterfeck.

 

[pillory]

Took it well it seems.

Surprising! He must be absolutely furious with himself (or his people for not reminding him of it 20 times a day).

 

[pillory]

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Oops.

 

[stretford_oslo]

He's saying in the norwegian studio he didn't know about this rule which is only applied in this tournament, but also admitting it's his own fault.
He was actually just waiting for his clock to go down to zero expecting it to pop up to 15 minutes.

 

[pillory]

Didn't he say it was mentioned in the contract (but also that he thought the organizers could have been more helpful)? Not watching the broadcast, just Twitter!

 

[stretford_oslo]

He said something about it probably was in the contract, but laughed while saying he didn't usually pay attention to "details" like this or something similar. No complaints about the organizers other than the fact he thought it was strange that they had this rule when it's not what chess players are used to. He really took it well it seems, just compared it to making a losing move in a critical position.

 

[pillory]

Cheers for the info. Has anyone explained why on earth they have this unusual time control? I gather it's the same for all tournaments of the Grand Tour or whatsitsname.

 

[pillory]

Now a midnight fire alarm and evacuation at the players' hotel, apparently a "medical situation in the corridor in the 4th floor". Does that mean someone collapsed and the fire alarm was triggered as a call for help? Strange day.

 

[pillory]

Jonathan Tisdall reminds me Topalov once resigned in an equal position against Carlsen (Linares 2007, see below), so maybe they're in some strange way even now.

Black to move. I guess Topalov thought he couldn't prevent 65. Qh7+ Kf8 65. Qh8+ Ke7 66. Qxg7 (64 ... Kf8 obviously doesn't help at all), but he could with 64 ... Qd5+ 65. [something] e5, which enables the queen to intervene on g8 after Qh8+.

Speaking of Tisdall, I've decided to adopt his views on 60th-move-gate:

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[pillory]

Carlsen is losing again, this time conventionally. Hammer on the other hand is surprisingly doing very well against MVL, who's in brilliant form.

 

[stretford_oslo]

No excuses from Magnus today, just made a few bad moves at the wrong time. He also gave Caruana credit for playing super solid.

Hope Hammer can win his game, he desperately needs a confident boost after two rough days.

 

[pillory]

Is it possible for Hammer to win without mistakes from MVL? Looks difficult to me.

 

[stretford_oslo]

I would never be able to answer that, I just like to watch Stockfish had him at 85% or something though, so he definitely had some chances.

 

[pillory]

He doesn't seem to know the answer himself:

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[pillory]

Apparently at least five of the players were unaware of the time control during the first round. The organizers have issued an apology. But still, it was in the contract, so I guess future organizers should assume that nobody knows anything about what they have signed up for.

 

[pillory]

Looks promising for Carlsen against Giri. He's never beaten him (+0−1=7).

 

[pillory]

I think Giri is toast if he doesn't take the knight on e3 now, but he might be reluctant to abandon all hope of an opposite-coloured bishops ending. Maybe. I don't have a clue. He's been thinking for 20 minutes anyway.

 

[Danny1982]

I think he's toast. He'll be pretty soon a full pawn down.

 

[pillory]

Bxg6! Action.

 

[pillory]

Too bad he didn't find the bonkers Bf7+.

 

[Danny1982]

A double blunder according to the computer, and Carlsen is now back to just being a pawn up.

Carlsen missed Bf7+ allowing the queen to penetrate on the king side. Now Rf8 stopped the queen penetration.

 

[pillory]

And Nxe5 throws away the rest of his advantage.

 

[Danny1982]

Wow! WTF Carlsen?! A knight sacrifice.....

 

[Danny1982]

Big move coming up for Giri.......

I have a feeling Giri will blunder here.

EDIT: nope. Rxd5 only move.

 

[pillory]

Carlsen chose Qb1, which leads to three pawns versus knight, plus rooks. Is it possible for Giri to lose that?

 

[stretford_oslo]

Carlsen will be kicking himself if he doesn't get more than a draw here. He's probably already realised he screwed up.

 

[FC Ronaldo]

Is chess even a sport?

 

[pillory]

I bet Carlsen would prefer not having Anand with black tomorrow.

 

[Danny1982]

He'll beat Anand tomorrow.

Btw, what the hell was Caruana doing today?! It's a dead draw. Well, was.

Interesting to see how many times the #2 player in the world has changed, while the #1 not even knowing about it. Aronian, Caruana, Nakamura, might have missed a couple more, all got to #2 before heading the other direction, and in Aronian's case really the other direction.

 

[pillory]

Interesting to see how many times the #2 player in the world has changed, while the #1 not even knowing about it. Aronian, Caruana, Nakamura, might have missed a couple more, all got to #2 before heading the other direction, and in Aronian's case really the other direction.

I believe Caruana, Nakamura, Anand and Grischuk have all been #2 in the live ratings this year.

 

[pillory]

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[NM]

Anand finally beats Carlsen!

 

[Danny1982]

Anand finally beats Carlsen!

Great win as well. Anand is amazing. At his age and after losing the WC like he did the first time you'd think he's finished..

People are making way too much of Carlsen's start though. He should have won two games, the first one he lost because of a stupid misunderstanding about the rules, and the other one he just missed the win under time pressure. And he lost two with black against two 2800+ players. So it's not like he's "collapsing". They're strong players and he might be still shaken up a bit after game 1.

He has a rest day now to recover, and I'm sure he'll put up a good fight in the second part of the tournament to finish it on a high.

 

[pillory]

I believe Caruana, Nakamura, Anand and Grischuk have all been #2 in the live ratings this year.

And now Topalov.

Great win as well. Anand is amazing. At his age and after losing the WC like he did the first time you'd think he's finished..

He'll win the candidates again, as I may have predicted a few times already!

People are making way too much of Carlsen's start though. He should have won two games, the first one he lost because of a stupid misunderstanding about the rules, and the other one he just missed the win under time pressure. And he lost two with black against two 2800+ players. So it's not like he's "collapsing". They're strong players and he might be still shaken up a bit after game 1.

He has a rest day now to recover, and I'm sure he'll put up a good fight in the second part of the tournament to finish it on a high.

Gashimov Memorial 2014 could have been very similar if the same time control had been in place there!

R2: Nakamura resigned once Carlsen made his 61st move, the move he waited too long to play against Topalov.
R3: Was probably winning against Karjakin, but drew.
R4: Lost a Berlin with black to Caruana (identical to Wednesday's game for the first 11 moves).
R5: Lost to Radjabov.
(Rest day
R6-10: +3=2.)