Today in the sixth round of the Altibox Norway Tournament in Stavanger, Levon Aronian smashed Vladimir Kramnik. I recommend playing through the game once yourself. Just give it a casual run through if you don't have a lot of energy. And then watch Peter Svidler's recap of the game. I'll embed the video here, but the video is on YouTube if you want to watch it on your TV instead.
Svidler's recap is pretty much a master class. I'm particularly struck by the section from the 6:30 to 8:24. The analysis flows quickly in the more tactical phase of the game, and I'm not going to pretend I caught all of it, especially in my current brain-dead state. But I'm going to go back to this again a couple of times this week - it's just that good. It's just over 22 minutes long, and I can't recommend it strongly enough.
Showing posts with label Kramnik. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kramnik. Show all posts
Monday, June 12, 2017
Thursday, November 10, 2016
I wanna rock watch chess right now!
Don't want to wait until 2PM tomorrow to watch some top chess? The European Club Cup is happening as we speak, with Ivanchuk vs Kramnik just under way. Watch the rest at your viewing portal of choice. Remember, folks, it takes two!
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Olympiad Final Round Update
In Round Ten, Jim won by forfeit against Congo, as I expected, and the Virgin Island team won their second match.
That left them playing a surprisingly strong team from Haiti in the final round, Round Eleven. Unfortunately, our guys lost all their games. So the final result for Jim is three wins, one draw, and five loses in games played, as well as the forfeit win and the team bye in Round Five. Overall, the Virgin Island team won two, lost ten, and the bye. Overall the Virgin Islands finished 167th out of 170 teams that played, with another ten teams that appear to have never shown up. Their seeding number was 158 (or 156 after adjusting for the absent teams), so that isn't too far off expectations.
Jim finished with a performance rating of 1974, and according to the website his new rating would be 2116. I don't know if that last bit is correct or not, though, as Jim's earlier rating was provisional, I believe. I'll try to remember to check the FIDE site next month for an update.
We'll have to wait to talk to Jim to see how he and they feel about it, but from here this looks like a decent result, and a good result if they had a good time. (Jim looked like he was enjoying himself in his photos posted to his Facebook page.)
I've looked for more photos of Jim on the official site, but I didn't see any. If anyone else wants to look the link can be found here.
In other Olympiad news, the US Team won the Gold Medals in the Open Section, with Wesley So winning individual Gold on the Third Board. Ukraine took Silver, and Russia a disappointing (for them) Bronze. The Open Board Prizes can be found here. Note that Board Prizes are decided on Tournament Performance Rating (TPR) and require a minimum number of games to qualify.
Some more Board Prize results: Caruana was third on the First Board while the Georgian Baadur Jobava (whose games I highly recommend) took Gold, Nakamura was fifth on Second Board while Kramnik took the Gold, So took Gold on Third Board, Sam Shankland finished a disappoint ninth on Fourth Board after taking Gold on that Board in the last Olympiad while Laurent Fressinet of France took Gold. Finally, on Board Five Andrei Volokitin of Ukraine took Gold.
The performance of Eugenio Torre (2447 FIDE) of the Philippines deserves special note. Playing in his 22nd Olympiad, he scored 9+ 0- 2=, was the only Filipino to play all eleven rounds, and won the individual Bronze Medal on Board Three with a TPR of 2836! Not bad for a man that turns 65 in a few weeks.
Caruana was First Board but Nakamura anchored the team, playing all eleven rounds. Caruana only skipped the first round, and So only missed the second. Shankland skipped the third, fifth and eighth rounds. The team only suffered three individual loses and had no team loses. They were the most consistent team of the event. On board points we would have only finished second, behind Russia (32) by a half-point, but that's only the second tie-break these days (after SB), not the primary scoring method, which is by match points.
In the Women's Olympiad, China took Gold (as expected), Russia Silver, and Poland Bronze. The US Women's Team finished sixth, which was their seeding number. The US Women played the 1, 2, 3, and 5 seeds in this tournament, so they had rough pairings. The Women's Board Prizes can be found at this link. None of the US women really came close to winning a Board Prize, from what I can see.
And thus concludes the best event on the Chess calendar. I'll see what stories or game notes I can get out of Jim when he gets back to the club.
That left them playing a surprisingly strong team from Haiti in the final round, Round Eleven. Unfortunately, our guys lost all their games. So the final result for Jim is three wins, one draw, and five loses in games played, as well as the forfeit win and the team bye in Round Five. Overall, the Virgin Island team won two, lost ten, and the bye. Overall the Virgin Islands finished 167th out of 170 teams that played, with another ten teams that appear to have never shown up. Their seeding number was 158 (or 156 after adjusting for the absent teams), so that isn't too far off expectations.
Jim finished with a performance rating of 1974, and according to the website his new rating would be 2116. I don't know if that last bit is correct or not, though, as Jim's earlier rating was provisional, I believe. I'll try to remember to check the FIDE site next month for an update.
We'll have to wait to talk to Jim to see how he and they feel about it, but from here this looks like a decent result, and a good result if they had a good time. (Jim looked like he was enjoying himself in his photos posted to his Facebook page.)
I've looked for more photos of Jim on the official site, but I didn't see any. If anyone else wants to look the link can be found here.
In other Olympiad news, the US Team won the Gold Medals in the Open Section, with Wesley So winning individual Gold on the Third Board. Ukraine took Silver, and Russia a disappointing (for them) Bronze. The Open Board Prizes can be found here. Note that Board Prizes are decided on Tournament Performance Rating (TPR) and require a minimum number of games to qualify.
Some more Board Prize results: Caruana was third on the First Board while the Georgian Baadur Jobava (whose games I highly recommend) took Gold, Nakamura was fifth on Second Board while Kramnik took the Gold, So took Gold on Third Board, Sam Shankland finished a disappoint ninth on Fourth Board after taking Gold on that Board in the last Olympiad while Laurent Fressinet of France took Gold. Finally, on Board Five Andrei Volokitin of Ukraine took Gold.
The performance of Eugenio Torre (2447 FIDE) of the Philippines deserves special note. Playing in his 22nd Olympiad, he scored 9+ 0- 2=, was the only Filipino to play all eleven rounds, and won the individual Bronze Medal on Board Three with a TPR of 2836! Not bad for a man that turns 65 in a few weeks.
Caruana was First Board but Nakamura anchored the team, playing all eleven rounds. Caruana only skipped the first round, and So only missed the second. Shankland skipped the third, fifth and eighth rounds. The team only suffered three individual loses and had no team loses. They were the most consistent team of the event. On board points we would have only finished second, behind Russia (32) by a half-point, but that's only the second tie-break these days (after SB), not the primary scoring method, which is by match points.
In the Women's Olympiad, China took Gold (as expected), Russia Silver, and Poland Bronze. The US Women's Team finished sixth, which was their seeding number. The US Women played the 1, 2, 3, and 5 seeds in this tournament, so they had rough pairings. The Women's Board Prizes can be found at this link. None of the US women really came close to winning a Board Prize, from what I can see.
And thus concludes the best event on the Chess calendar. I'll see what stories or game notes I can get out of Jim when he gets back to the club.
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
Game of the Day: 2016 July 12 edition [UPDATED]
I give you Kramnik-Buhmann, from the third round of Dortmund. Just follow the link, you'll be glad you did, if your head doesn't hurt too much.
NOTE: The score for the last couple of moves is incorrect. Another DGT board issue.
UPDATE: Peter Doggers writes up some notes for the game in his report for Chess.com.
NOTE: The score for the last couple of moves is incorrect. Another DGT board issue.
UPDATE: Peter Doggers writes up some notes for the game in his report for Chess.com.
Monday, May 30, 2016
Check out those 'dos!
"Nirvana in Madrid"
— David Llada ♔ (@davidllada) May 27, 2016
Topalov and Kramnik, back in 1992. pic.twitter.com/o04lwsRq8I
Thursday, December 31, 2015
A minor dispute.
A few days back Paul Leggett wrote the following, concerning the participation of several top GMs in the Qatar Masters Tournament:
Mostly, I think the top players would have to adjust to the style of an open Swiss tournament by learning to take more chances. This would increase their variance, but it would do so both ways, and ultimately I would expect them to end up in about the same positions on the ELO scale. As evidence, I give you the top five players, by rating, from Qatar, along with their results:
It turns out that the top three players in the world all gained ELO points, as did the twelfth ranked player. And the tenth ranked player, who had a disappointing tournament, only lost 1.8 ELO. Not bad! The eighth and tenth seeds did get hammered, ratings-wise, but they're both outside the top twenty in the world.
This is one tournament, and thus a painfully small sample size, but I think these results would hold up over time.
Thus endeth a minor disputation over a particular inconsequentiality.
I am firmly in the camp that believes the top player's ratings are inflated because they tend to avoid playing in Opens (Kramnik played in his first open in something like 20 years just within the last year [I believe it was at last year's edition of the Qatar Masters. - ed.]), and this is an example of what can happen when the top dogs move to the shallow end of the pool.I meant to disagree (mildly) at the time, but forgot with all of the holiday hullabaloo. I do think the top players would probably get nicked sometimes, but I also think the top players are the top players because they really do perform that well. It hasn't been unknown for a player to soar to elite ratings status only to get knocked back down immediately upon getting into elite events.
These results are rare, but when the opportunity is present, the top guys will get nicked enough (a draw is a rating loss) to keep rating at a more accurate level.
Mostly, I think the top players would have to adjust to the style of an open Swiss tournament by learning to take more chances. This would increase their variance, but it would do so both ways, and ultimately I would expect them to end up in about the same positions on the ELO scale. As evidence, I give you the top five players, by rating, from Qatar, along with their results:
This is one tournament, and thus a painfully small sample size, but I think these results would hold up over time.
Thus endeth a minor disputation over a particular inconsequentiality.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Grandmaster Instruction
Mark Crowther, of The Week In Chess fame, has been stating on Twitter that the last couple of years he felt like his understanding of the game has improved simply by watching top grandmasters go over their games in press conferences after rounds. I sympathize with this point of view, although it is hard to know exactly how much understanding translates into improved play, much less improved results. (If everyone you play is getting better at the same rate you are, you might not see any improvement at all!)
For example, I found it helpful to watch Vladimir Kramnik (yes, my favorite player) go over his game today. Kramnik is very fast and spews lots of lines (you can see Svidler struggling to keep up at times), but it is interesting to see what he's looking at, both positionally and tactically. Today he took on Naroditsky. The commentary is below, for those interested.
[I'm having trouble getting the video to embed. The link is below. The clip with Kramnik should be the second clip on the page.]
Note that Livestream classifies this as Sports/Extreme Sports! I had no idea an ironing board was involved....
For example, I found it helpful to watch Vladimir Kramnik (yes, my favorite player) go over his game today. Kramnik is very fast and spews lots of lines (you can see Svidler struggling to keep up at times), but it is interesting to see what he's looking at, both positionally and tactically. Today he took on Naroditsky. The commentary is below, for those interested.
[I'm having trouble getting the video to embed. The link is below. The clip with Kramnik should be the second clip on the page.]
Note that Livestream classifies this as Sports/Extreme Sports! I had no idea an ironing board was involved....
Escape of the Day: Vladimir Kramnik
Arab oil money can make strange things happen. A strange thing in the chess world is seeing several players in the Top Ten, including the top three on the live rating list, play in an open event.
In round one, no less a player than Magnus Carlsen got tagged for a half point against a woman International Master rated almost 350 points lower rated than Magnus. (This Swiss Gambit has worked out well for Magnus, as he still hasn't faced anyone within 300 Elo of his own illustrious rating. Kramnik & Giri, amongst others, haven't had such an easy time of it.) Yesterday, Kramnik got nicked for a half-point, albeit against a member of the 2600 club, one Kacper Piorun. But today Kramnik almost gave up a full point to the 2596 rated Daniele Vocaturo.
Up through the first 20 moves or so, Kramnik appeared to have everything under control. But on move 21 Big Bad Vlad started transforming the pawn formation and by the time the queens came off on move 28, his position was looking bad, with one weak pawn after another.
Kramnik shed his queenside pawns for activity, but by the time control at move 40 he was down three pawns, although White was destined to lose at least one of them.
But as I like to repeat, ad infinitum ad naseum, KEEP FIGHTING! And as the commentators Peter Svidler and Alejandro Ramirez pointed out, all three resulted were possible around move 43, as White's king was running out of space, and could find himself checkmated if White got careless. And within a few moves, Vocaturo had allowed Kramnik to repeat the position and Kramnik got his draw.
This game would probably also make for a decent exercise in looking for "Trends, Turning Points and Emotional Shifts" as Alex Yermolinsky wrote about in his book The Road to Chess Improvement - at least three inflection points occurred in this one! The full game is below.
In round one, no less a player than Magnus Carlsen got tagged for a half point against a woman International Master rated almost 350 points lower rated than Magnus. (This Swiss Gambit has worked out well for Magnus, as he still hasn't faced anyone within 300 Elo of his own illustrious rating. Kramnik & Giri, amongst others, haven't had such an easy time of it.) Yesterday, Kramnik got nicked for a half-point, albeit against a member of the 2600 club, one Kacper Piorun. But today Kramnik almost gave up a full point to the 2596 rated Daniele Vocaturo.
Up through the first 20 moves or so, Kramnik appeared to have everything under control. But on move 21 Big Bad Vlad started transforming the pawn formation and by the time the queens came off on move 28, his position was looking bad, with one weak pawn after another.
Kramnik shed his queenside pawns for activity, but by the time control at move 40 he was down three pawns, although White was destined to lose at least one of them.
But as I like to repeat, ad infinitum ad naseum, KEEP FIGHTING! And as the commentators Peter Svidler and Alejandro Ramirez pointed out, all three resulted were possible around move 43, as White's king was running out of space, and could find himself checkmated if White got careless. And within a few moves, Vocaturo had allowed Kramnik to repeat the position and Kramnik got his draw.
This game would probably also make for a decent exercise in looking for "Trends, Turning Points and Emotional Shifts" as Alex Yermolinsky wrote about in his book The Road to Chess Improvement - at least three inflection points occurred in this one! The full game is below.
Thursday, October 15, 2015
How to play old man positional chess in 2015
During his game with Sergey Karjakin at the World Blitz Championships today, Vladimir Kramnik showed how to play old man positional chess in 2015. It really is the best way to beat these callow youths. Enjoy!
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