Tromsø World Cup, Rounds 5 to 7

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Tromsø World Cup, Rounds 5 to 7

Fred,

What's your opinion on the Quebec Secular Charter?

[Kerry Liles]

Re: Tromsø World Cup, Rounds 5 to 7

Fred,

What's your opinion on the Quebec Secular Charter?

Off topic; I would not even suggest starting another thread - just don't bother bringing it up.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Tromsø World Cup, Rounds 5 to 7

I had to google misogyny and can't see much difference in the topics.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Tromsø World Cup, Rounds 5 to 7

Paul. Your post was the most offensive thing I've seen on a bulletin board in a long time (granted this is the only one I read). I wrote to Larry as soon as I saw it.

That's my opinion, and I assume Larry agreed (or maybe Nigel acted at the same time).

I know that Nigel is intelligent enough to correctly know the meaning of my remarks, but you I know nothing about.

So for your education:

The phrase "lipstick on a pig" is a well-worn metaphor, used extensively in political discussions among others. It has been used by many prominent U.S. politicians, including President Obama, Senator John McCain, and many members of both the House and Senate.

Another similar phrase is "a gilded turd".

When someone says something like "putting pictures of girls in bikinis on page 3 of the Toronto Sun is putting lipstick on a pig", that person is not guilty of misogyny or even of offending the girls being photographed. The girls are in fact the "lipstick", not the "pigs" as Nigel is deliberately misrepresenting. The "pig" in this example is the Toronto Sun newspaper.

Perhaps now you realize I was not comparing women to pigs. And no court, no judge, no jury would think I was. Nigel is guilty of libel for his deliberate misrepresentation of my remarks.

My remarks about Nigel himself are backed by his own statements on this forum. He considers Borislav Ivanov guilty of cheating without sufficient evidence, and he agrees Ivanov should be banned from chess. I had already compared this behavior to the Salem Witch Hunt, to the 1930's Gestapo, and to 1950's McCarthyism, and many have agreed with me. It is obvious that Nigel is not qualified to be moderator on this forum, he cannot be impartial. Added evidence to this is that he censors only posts that disagree with his own opinions. Someone just recently posted that one of my views was "idiotic", to which I believe Peter McKillop replied sarcastically "I suppose our benevelent, impartial moderator will censor that remark" (or words to that effect), and of course, Mr. Hanrahan did nothing of the sort. Further back, maybe 6 or 8 months ago, Bindi Cheng posted that I should "fuck off", again a post that went uncensored despite the guidelines on language. The evidence is preponderous that Nigel Hanrahan is an inadequate, prejudiced moderator.

Now, if you STILL think my remarks were offensive, please explain so that I can respond to the specific thing or things you found offensive. I shouldn't have to state this to anyone of decent intelligence, but I do not think women are pigs. If you thought I was comparing women to pigs, you only show yourself to be very poor in understanding use of a metaphor.

And since you are a long-time reader of this forum, you KNOW that insults and offensive language have been rampant here for a long time. Only recently, just as Nigel Hanrahan started posting his delusional viewpoints, has censorship been implemented, at least 4 times in the past few weeks, coincidentally on posts that were directed against Nigel's viewpoints. So stop with the play-acting, people can see right through it.

[Aman Hambleton]

Re: Tromsø World Cup, Rounds 5 to 7

I should "fuck off"

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Tromsø World Cup, Rounds 5 to 7

Be careful if and when you come to the U.S. for chess events. It can be a dangerous country.

And where is an impartial moderator to censor Canada's "Golden Boy" (LOL)?

This is a prime example of why offensive postings go on here. If one is going to stamp it out, one has to stamp it ALL out.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Tromsø World Cup, Rounds 5 to 7

You left yourself wide open for that joke. I thought it was funny. So cool it.

BTW, I got censored for calling someone an XXXXX. It had nothing to do with the moderator, that I can recall.

I'm amazed people read your entire posts. All I read is the first screen. :D

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Tromsø World Cup, Rounds 5 to 7

Tromso World Cup Semi-Final

Round Six, Game Two

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Tomashevsky-Andreikin 0.5-0.5
Kramnik-Vachier-Lagrave 0.5-0.5
++++++++++

(ChessBase) - Dmitri Andreikin stayed faithful to his Orthodox set-up in the Queen's Gambit Declined to neutralize Evgeny Tomashevsky's attempts to take the match with the white pieces. Despite obtaining a small structural advantage as he was playing against an isolated queen's pawn, white could not really claim any significant edge. The players agreed to a draw in a position that was starting to become lifeless. Tomorrow the players will battle it out in the tiebreaks. Tomashevsky won an Armageddon against Ramirez and a Blitz thriller against Morozevich in rounds one and four, but has not played any tiebreaks besides that. Andreikin on the other hand has been on a tiebreak in every round except the second, in which he knocked out the Vietnamese player Nguyen Ngoc Truong.
++++++++

(ChessBase) - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was tortured by Vladimir Kramnik from the very beginning as white's initiative transformed into a more pleasant endgame which in turn ended in an endgame in which White had three pawns on the kingside against black's two, with only rooks and knights. Kramnik pressed forward and eventually got a winning position, but a huge blunder gave the advantage away and he was unable to convert the Rook and Knight against Rook endgame.

58…Rf1+?? was the decisive mistake for black, 58…Nd6 would have held. 62. Ke4 lost all the advantage for white, 62. Nd7! wins.
++++++++

I sent a question to the World Cup by email last night and it was the first one addressed by the guys on air:

“Why are the players so reluctant to identify who their seconds are?”

Dirk: That’s a good question because if we look at the four players we have here, we only know that Russian grandmaster Alexei Ilyushin is here with Tomashevsky. But for the others, Dmitri Andreikin is here with his wife, Svetlana, so he must have one or more friends at home, who give him advice or he prepares on his own.
Nigel: The main purpose of a second these days is to wash and iron your shirts because you have your computer to help you with things.
Dirk: Speaking of the reluctance to tell the names, when I spoke to Maxime and I said, “Who is helping you?”, he said, “Someone is helping me, someone is sitting at home but I hope you don’t mind that I don’t reveal the name.’
Nigel: The point is quite simple – all players have a certain repertoire and if you divulge the name of the player helping you that person may possibly be an expert in a particular opening and so by revealing the name you are indicating a high probability of playing an opening for which the player is an expert.
Dirk: In World Championship finals, many of the seconds are chosen because they are experts in a particular opening. Why reveal something, which you need not reveal?
++++++++

Dirk: (reads) Interesting to note that Tomashevsky didn’t expect to come this far as he had accepted an invitation to play in Poikovsky. I think that this is related to when people scheduled their departure date. Vladimir Kramnik has changed his departure ticket three times already.
Tomashevsky was to play at Poikovsky, which starts today. This was good news for Alexander Motylev, the second of Sergei Karjakin, because he was asked to replace him.
Nigel: I played last year in Poikovsky. It is in the middle of Siberia and not a lot going on there. They have vodka and oil and the oil pays for the vodka and the chess tournament.
The tournament is in honour of Anatoli Karpov. Am I allowed to tell an indiscreet story or will we have complaints – well, I shall.
At the end of this event they have a great banquet and you have your local dignitaries and officials and Karpov is invited. He makes a speech and toasts. The Russian way is that a speech is made and then more vodka is consumed. After about twenty speeches, Karpov was asked to give a second speech. My Russian is not terribly good but I noticed a marked deterioration in the quality of his speech by this stage. It was quite amusing. I said hello to him at the end and he could barely string two words together.
Dirk: That’s a fairly innocent story. It is one of the reasons why I haven’t gone there, it would be impolite to refuse to drink the vodka.
+++++++

(After a question about Caruana, with his rating getting into the Candidates):

Nigel: Sometimes the rating lists are done in a slightly improvised manner. I once went into the FIDE offices in Athens, which are just a short walk from my flat in Athens. When I was there, I said, “Why are they using the old rating list?” No one had bothered to check whether these were the up-to date-rating lists? Morten (Sand) said, “That’s a good point. Why are we using the old ones? Thanks for dropping by.” And then the Deputy President of FIDE Georgios Makropoulos came by and there and then a letter was sent to Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to sign, changing the regulations. Occasionally these things happen in a very unofficial way.
Dirk: In politics many things go that way.
Nigel: It was clearly an improvement. The idea of someone casually walking into the FIDE office though and changing the regulations by asking a simple question gives an illustration how things are done.
++++++++

Dirk: Yesterday we talked about the age that some people had got their grandmaster title and someone asked if there were some players who started very late and we came up with 12-year-old Botvinnik.
A viewer mentions that Tchigorin, the Father of Russian Chess, was in his early twenties when he learned to play chess. And, Blackburne – Joseph Henry Blackburne from Manchester in Lancashire, learned at the age of nineteen. He would have loved Poikovsky.
Nigel: He liked a drink or two.
Dirk: When someone played the Nimzo-Indian years before it was invented, he wrote, “I really don’t see what the bishop is doing on b4, its natural place is on e7”. He was right in those days. Aron Nimzowitsch thought differently and we still believe him.
They learned to play chess later in life and still became masters. Tchigorin should get more attention.
Nigel: He gets a lot of attention in Russia.
Dirk: Now they have renovated the Central Chess Cub in Moscow. The buildings are really beautiful and you can visit them. They have a Tchigorin Room and people can play there through the week.
Nigel: He played the Evans Gambit. Captain Evans died in Ostend. In those days people left England and lived in Ostend to flee their creditors.

[The anecdote goes on with Dirk talking about Gerard Depardieu, which I will not quote because there is no chess interest]
++++++++

Nigel: The last move of Dmitri Andreikin is Nf6, on the principal of “A knight on the rim is misplaced”.
Dirk: A knight on the edge brings sorrow and shame is a translation of the German: "Ein Springer am Rand bringt Kummer und Schand." Or more simply “Ein Springer am Rande ist immer eine Schande.”
Nigel: I learned that as a kiddy and only found out later that there are all sorts of exceptions.

(to be concluded in the next post)

[Peter McKillop]

Re: Tromsø World Cup, Rounds 5 to 7

...

The phrase "lipstick on a pig" is a well-worn metaphor ...

Is that what this is all about (I didn't see your original remarks)? You used a well-known figure of speech and the moderator publicly accuses you of misogyny??? LOL I'd like to see the context you used it in because if that was reasonable then the moderator is way out of line.

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: Tromsø World Cup, Rounds 5 to 7

...
So for your education:

The phrase "lipstick on a pig" is a well-worn metaphor, used extensively in political discussions among others. It has been used by many prominent U.S. politicians, including President Obama, Senator John McCain, and many members of both the House and Senate.

...

I don't know what you wrote, but writing "doing X is putting lipstick on a pig" is not meant to be taken literally and doesn't mean you are comparing X to a pig.

[Laurentiu Grigorescu]

Re: Tromsø World Cup, Rounds 5 to 7

Short did it again! As is the case with boxing fighters, the result of so many punches shows later in life :-) In Short's case, being the Challenger of Kasparov was obviously tough.

Maxime saved the day and keeps hoping!

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Tromsø World Cup, Rounds 5 to 7

Tromso World Cup Semi-Final

Round Six, Game Two (continued and concluded)

In my August 25th post, Round Five, Game Four Tiebreak, there was an anecdote in a conversation between Dirk and Maxime. It has to be revised:

Dirk: And Vladimir said, “Anand with black, it couldn’t be better.” I talked to Vladimir the other day and he ruined this story. What actually happened, was that he had two opponents yet to play. One of them was Anand, and he had already done his prep for him. The other was you (Nigel Short), and he had not yet prepared and so that is what he meant when he said, “Anand, couldn’t be better” But Ivan thought, “What kind of confidence does this guy have!” I regret I asked Vladimir because it makes the story a bit less interesting. But now it is historically accurate.
+++++++

Dirk: We spoke earlier of seconds. A viewer tweets “Who were your seconds during your match with Garry Kasparov in 1993?”
Nigel: While I had three – Lubosh Kavalek, Bobby Hubner and John Speelman. I sacked Lubosh Kavalek after a week. I should have sacked him before the match – but that’s another story.

[Kavalek worked with Short for the two years before the World Championship Match. Short says this in a Sunday Telegraph article: Gradually though, our relationship became more strained. With each successful match Kavalek’s financial demands increased sharply. In part this reflected the increased workload, but only to a degree. Soon his wage demands were running well into six figures. I was so incensed at what I perceived to be an abuse of the trust that had been the basis for our relationship that I was for sacking him on the spot.]
+++++++++++

Nigel: Someone wanted some footage of Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Svidler doing some ironing. Peter Svidler has left now, but maybe we will get some footage of the players doing their laundry.
++++++++

Dirk: There is a viewer’s comment about my remark earlier about turning down a drink of vodka. He says: I am not a Russian, but in Russia they feel that a person not drinking has secrets that he fears he will give away after drinking too much.
Nigel: In vodka veritas
++++++++

Nigel: Andreikin has had an easy game. There are two ways of looking at him. Either he is an absolute genius, winning all rapid games and going through or a guy, who is incapable of winning any game with a normal time control. He has won just one game in classical chess.
Dirk: This is the Grischuk System or the Radjabov System – holding in the normal games and winning in rapid chess in the knockouts. Radjabov did this in Tripoli.
Nigel: I am glad you can remember what happened in Tripoli. I blundered a rook in an endgame against Krasenkow in Tripoli (2004). The bathroom was far away from the table and I had just a few minutes and couldn’t get there. Every time I got up, the b**r kept playing quickly and I was stuck there. On move 124 or something, I blundered my rook.

[Wikipedia - Round Two saw one major upset, and a number of smaller ones. The big surprise was number six seed Nigel Short being knocked out by Michał Krasenkow. In game one, Short (who had white) had the advantage of rook for knight and pawn, and was trying to squeeze a win out of it when, after around five hours of play, the position to the right arose. Short played the blunder 121.Re6?? and resigned a move later. He obtained a slight advantage in game two, but it wasn't enough to win, and the draw knocked him out of the competition.]
++++++++++++

Dirk: A tweet: From France – Kramnik is applying the ‘Do Not Hurry’ from Maxime Vachier-Lagrave’s favorite book Endgame Strategy by Shereshevsky.
Nigel: I think he wouldn’t mind hurrying but there are technical difficulties in moving forward. I don’t think there is any deliberate strategy.

[There is a small group of people who think that Mikhail Shereshevsky’s books are the best things since the invention of sliced bread. You may have seen copies of Endgame Strategy (1985), Mastering the Endgame (1991) and the enigmatic Soviet Chess Conveyor (1994). The latter is very hard to find in print but downloadable as a pdf all over the place. I believe Vugar Gashimov is a Shereshevsky fanboy too. I have never met any one who has sat me down and told me of the delights of Shereshevsky – maybe some day perhaps]
+++++++++

Dirk: Another tweet about knights on the rim. “Any rule, in any area of knowledge, is just an orientation for beginners. The difference between the professional and the beginner is to know special cases and not to depend on beginner’s rules". We agree.
Nigel: Did they teach you knights before bishops?
Dirk: Yes, and pawns in the centre..
+++++++++++

Dirk: A tweet: “The Internet was specially designed for chess. My local chess club closed and I was doubtful about the future of chess and then I went online and found it was alive and well”. It is an ideal platform for chess.
+++++++++

The guys talk about stimulants in chess, naming pawns, getting a good night’s sleep, dice chess and the 7 x 7 chessboard and a chess set made out of bread by an Iranian, twice imprisoned…Clearly, with one long endgame, one must keep commentating.

Finally the game is over. The players see from the computer where they may have gone wrong. The curtain lowers and everyone goes home.
++++++++

Viewers’ comments

- I'm positive that at the end MVL was hurt by Kramnik's attitude, if it was an equal position where you can create some chances "à la Carlsen", no! it was like a 150% drawn position, even my dog can draw this against Kramnik!

- Your post clearly suggests that you would have no chance drawing this against Kramnik. If you seriously think that any patzer can draw this endgame, have a look at this game:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070866

- Kramnik was clearly upset because he knew he was drawing a won position. Who wouldn't? So he played on more to calm his nerves than hoping to win. You're friends until you're at the board, but everyone's human. There's no shame trying to win until the end a drawn position, especially after 5 hours where MVL was certainly tired to defend and could have blundered (1% chance but why not take it).

- I don't know how much time Kramnik had at move 62, but apparently he spent a lot searching for a win - which existed, but either you see it or you don't see it. Vachier-Lagrave realized that he must be lost but didn't see how (not his problem ...), and it seems that both players "almost" found it in their postmortem but didn't spot 65.Ke4 at the end of the variation.

- The Kramnik Vachier Lagrave ending is incredibly reminiscent of the Kramnik Kasparov fourth game of the 2000 WCC match. Same material R+N+P vs R, same incredible result, draw! It is very likely that Kramnik's play was affected by this precedent failure. The difference is that today the pawn was a g-pawn, whereas it was an a-pawn versus Kasparov.

- It was interesting to read in the latest Chessbase article on the World Championship match coming up in Chennai about who might be commentating. The names mentioned there were Susan Polgar and Danny King.

- Given the format, the semifinals are more important than the final. And also one loss will send you home -- which adds to the randomness.
A possible solution to both is having a repechage format -- the losers starting from the 2nd or 3rd round onwards go into a repechage bracket. 
The repechage bracket winner gets to challenge the regular bracket runner up for the second spot to the Candidates.
 Now each match is important, also you could lose one match and still qualify.

[repechage = to fish out or rescue – an extra contest in which the runners-up in the elimination contests compete for a place in the final]

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Tromsø World Cup, Rounds 5 to 7

Tromso World Cup Semi-finals

Round Six, Game Three Tiebreak

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Tomashevsky-Andreikin 0.5-0.5
Vachier-Lagrave-Kramnik 0-1

From a Scotch, Maxime has lost in 22 moves with 12 minutes on the clock versus Vladimir’s 19 minutes.

C45 Scotch

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Bb4+ 5. c3 Bc5 6. Be3 Bb6 7. Bd3 Nf6 8. O-O O-O 9. Nxc6 bxc6 10. e5 Nd5 11. Bd2 d6 12. c4 Ne7 13. Qc2 Ng6 14. exd6 cxd6 15. Nc3 Qh4 16. Rae1 Ne5 17. Re4 Qh5 18. Be2 Qg6 19. Qd1 Bh3 20. Bf3 Bf5 21. Rh4 Bc2 22. Qxc2 Nxf3+ 0-1

[... Nxf3+ 23.Kh1 Qxc2 24.gxf3 Qxd2 25.Ne4 Qxb2 26.Rh5 Qxa2 27.Kg2 Rad8 28.Rh3 Qxc4 29.Rg3 f5 30.Ng5 f4 31.Rg4 h6 32.Ne4]

- now kramnik gets a real attack
- bye bye, Maxime
- Re4 was bizarre
- coffeehouse chess
- he's blundered
- MVL RESIGNED

(tweet) from Douglas Griffin – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave isn’t the first person to pay dearly for a Scotch in Norway!
Nigel: Not only Scotch but wine and almost every other alcoholic beverage!

Round Six, Game Four

Andreikin-Tomashevsky 1-0
Kramnik-Vachier-Lagrave 0.5-0.5

From a Reti, Kramnik has a perpetual from a superior position and the game is drawn and Kramnik goes through to the final.

Both players come in to the press conference.
Maxime doesn’t appear devastated and both players help the guys analyze the Andreikin-Tomashevsky game still in progress. I sense that Maxime needs to be with other people at this moment and that talking and analyzing is good therapy for him.

There is a total collapse by Tomashevsky and he resigns to Andreikin on move 42.

Andreikin through to the final, which starts the day after tomorrow.
++++++

Vladimir: It is a whole new story now. There will be almost another week here. Actually, tomorrow I’ll go fishing. There is an excursion.
Nigel: We are going too. Dirk, when is the last time you went fishing?
Dirk: It was the day Robert Kennedy was shot.
[June 5, 1968]

A viewer wants to know what the finals look like – how many games there will be. Vladimir has already indicated that he needs quite a few shirts for that because the final is four games.
Maxime: It is a good consolation to know that that they have four more games to play and perhaps fourteen more..
Dirk: In the game yesterday, is Ke4 a move, which a human could see?
Vladimir: Of course, but it was the end of the game. There were many possibilities and there was the clock. It’s possible not to see it. If I had had fifteen minutes, I would have found it.
Dirk: A tweeted question: “Vladimir Kramnik. What is there in your plastic bag?”
Vladimir: From some time on – after the Olympiad in Istanbul, I was not feeling too well during a couple of games. I decided to visit a dietician and asked just exactly what I should do during a game. Should I eat something or not and he gave me advice, which I follow now. I drink tea instead of coffee and eat some special things, like nuts. Everything you can buy in a supermarket but I just bring it to a game to keep my sugar level normal and to keep my concentration. It was my problem and is my problem now that I lose my concentration near the end of the game, like yesterday.
Don’t worry I passed the drug control – several months ago – I received an official letter from the committee that it was clean.

Dirk: So, the concentration is connected with your sugar level?
Vladimir: You need to eat a little bit before the end of the game. I am not seventeen any more. I just start to feel tire simply. I was making blunders due to that. I still make blunders but they are due to other causes. I was eating a lot of sugar during the game because I thought it was logical to do so..
Nigel: Tomashevsky has had a total collapse and has lost.
Vladimir: I have to go now for the drawing of colours.
++++++++

Dmitry Andreikin comes to talk to the guys.

Dirk: Congratulations, Dmitry. So, you are pretty awesome in rapid play..
Dmitry: I have the experience of playing in blitz tournaments on the Internet and play quite often with Nigel. I cannot say I was a favorite in the rapid matches here. Probably there is something about this place, which makes me play well.
I am somewhat stressed because the final is ahead and there is no time to relax.
Nigel: You have earned yourself a rest day. What are your plans?
Dmitry: I had only one free day after the second round and I went with my wife to the botanical park and to the sea and I am hoping to do this tomorrow.
Nigel: Would you be interested in tomorrow’s planned fishing expedition?
Dmitry: No.
Dirk: How difficult was it to play against Evgeny, who is a good friend of yours?
Dmitry: We had great doubts that we would ever meet in a game. He was playing against Svidler and I was playing against Kamsky.
I would like to say that we are playing for the same club, the University team Economist. I don’t really have a connection with Saratov. I play for my native city, Ryazan. So, I was kind of miffed that people said there was a semi-final between Saratov players.
I am really impressed with the play of Vladimir in this tournament, unfazed in the time breaks. Unlike the others, he was not nervous, playing with a small smile. Time will show, in our match.
Really, I am nervous here, even though I don’t show it. To lose a game is not a catastrophe for me. I have a philosophical attitude during the games.
++++++++++

Viewers’ comments

- So Andreikin is in the Candidates for the CLASSICAL World Championship having won exactly one classical game

- which was versus a 2625 player.
What a waaaaoooow advertisement for this absurd format for a qualifier.

- I take your point, but Andreikin is current Classical Russian Champ and it's not as if he's a) 'won the World Championship', which used to happen via World Cups, or b) even qualified for a World Championship match; all that's happened is he's qualified for the qualifier, time will tell how he gets on there.
 Yes he's only won one classical game, but you can't deny that the players who have gotten to the final stages are all undoubtedly high-class GMs and in my opinion the World Cup has been entertaining, worthwhile and has 'found it's place' in the Championship cycle.

- Yes, Andreikin has LOST rating points thus far.

- So what? Andreikin is in the candidates because he didn't lose any classical mini match (and not a single classical game in them either). Well played!
World cup is a nice format to distribute a few tickets imo.

- Andreikin went by the rules: he may have won only one classical game, but he held the likes of svidler and tomashevsky (who beat Aronian) in classical chess (hey, he didn't lose either! is he inferior because he didn't lose?) and proved to be the best when tiebreaks were needed?

- Think about this scenario:
 Next Candidates in Khanty with 90% Soviet players. Mamedyarov and Grischuk can wear those little fur hats they won at World Rapid/Blitz, they will need them. 
Is this progress?

- Yesterday, in the commentary, Nigel explained how FIDE make up the rules as they go along and can be influenced by a visit from the right people to their office in Athens, so expect a line of top class chess seconds to be forming outside sometime soon.

- So the World Cup is over...What a pity it's been tremendously exciting!
 On a brighter note: Andreikin and A. Karlovich turn up into commentary room and are being interviewed by Short-Geuzendam team. The happy but tired Candidate answers questions, the lady acting as interpreter to the Russian. The question is on his pastime in Tromso. Andreikin answers in Russian that on his only free day (when he didn't need to play tiebreaks) "we went out for a seafront promenade". Karlovich turns it into English " during the day off together with my wife we went out for a walk".


- Andreikin plays Chess with respect for the game, with class. It seems that some harass him here because he doesn't speak English, and talks as an authentic Russian...It's ridiculous to see that some occidental people just have extreme difficulty accepting people and culture from other parts of the World. I'm not Russian, in fact I'm Brazilian...

- Andreikin - How is it pronounced? One twitter poster suggested "and Ray Keene"

- I was impressed and delighted by MVL's humility, composure and humour after the match with Kramnik. These are great days for chess, when we have so many bright and humble personalities among the top players.
++++++++++

In the 14th International at Poikovsky, Tomashevsky’s substitute, Alexander Motylev, has drawn with the American Alexander Onischuk in the first round. The Russian grandmaster Ernesto Inarkiev, named after Ernesto “Che” Guevara, is there. I long to see the vodka party when the tournament is over but I dare say that it will not be televised.

[Laurentiu Grigorescu]

Re: Tromsø World Cup, Rounds 5 to 7

The news of the day is that Andreikin and Karjakin are the Candidates, but the chess media focused on MVL's blunder and Tomashevski loss! As hard as it could be for these players to lose at this stage, the hero of the day is Andreikin, who qualified after tough matches, especially having eliminating Karjakin (!!) and Svidler.
As for the remaining two spots available, Mamediarov, Grischuck and Caruana have the best chances. I see Caruana being picked by FIDE, especially if he does well in the last Grand Prix.
Exciting time for chess!

[Gordon Ritchie]

Re: Tromsø World Cup, Rounds 5 to 7

The interesting question is, who is Andreikin?
He seems to have come out of nowhere to take one of chess's top prizes.