A minor dispute.

A few days back Paul Leggett wrote the following, concerning the participation of several top GMs in the Qatar Masters Tournament:

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.

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.

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.

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.

Game of the Day: 12/24/2015 edition

And now to look at some actual quality chess. Magnus Carlsen (FIDE 2834) faced Li Chao (2750) for the first time today. It was the first board of the fifth round of the Qatar Masters Open. Not many opens have an average FIDE rating of 2792 on the first board! (And we'll go higher in coming rounds, no doubt.) It was a "let's hand each other lit sticks of dynamite and see who goes BOOM first" kind of game. Carlsen played the currently popular 3 f3 line against Li's Grunfeld, and it went from there. I've only added a note about an amusing possibility on white's 28th move. If you want real annotations, look elsewhere! To that end, I recommend FM Mike Klein's article at ChessVibes both for annotations and post-game comments from Carlsen, as well as recaps of other action from the day. Here's the Carlsen-Li game.

Position of the Day: 12/23/2015 edition

And I'll conclude with something a bit more upbeat. Down the boards today Norwegian IM Johan-Seabstian Christiansen (FIDE 2385) played against German GM Stefan Bromberger (2521). I'll confess that I don't believe I've heard of either of these players before. A rather crazy game ensued (which I'll embed below), but the most amazing thing is this position from near the end of the game:

Christiansen - Bromberger, Qatar Masters Open

Position after 29...Q8d3+

White resigned in light of 30 Bf3 Q3xf3+ 31 gxf3 Qxf3# and 30 Bxd3 Qxd3+ 31Kf4 Qe3#.

Gruesome, isn't it?

Goat of the Day

More games from the Qatar Masters Open, with an eye towards finding the goat of the day.

In the runner-up position, we have the young Chinese star Wei Yi (FIDE 2730). After a fairly blunder filled game (at least according to Stockfish), Wei reached the following position as White against the Indian IM Vignesh (2422):

White to move

White is a pawn to the good, and Black has weaknesses, but White's king isn't too secure either, the presence of queens means that White MUST keep up the home guard, and the rook ending would probably be difficult to win if the queens come off (at least according to Svidler and Ramirez).

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.

Hero of the Day: IM Nino Batsiashvili

Today, IM Nino Batsiashvili (FIDE ELO 2498) drew as black against World Champion Magnus Carlsen (FIDE ELO 2834) in the First Round of the Qatar Masters Open. As typical, Magnus played the game to the bitter end, finally conceding the draw in the position below:

Screencap from Chess24.com

Congratulations to Ms. Batsiashvili, who is having a great year, professionally. I'm sure Maxime Vachier-Lagrave will be sending you a very expensive present soonest!

I'm also sure that somehow Magnus will still manage to win the tournament on tie-breaks after finishing on 50%. That's just how the organizers roll these days.