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In another thread, GM Sambuev says that Anton Kovalyov is Canada's best player. He plays for the University of Texas A, has a 2700 USCF rating and yesterday tied for first in San Francisco.
According to many it seems that would be the case. Bator is rather modest I think; he is of course very strong
and his record of playing in just about every significant tournament (within his geographic range) is remarkable.
There are several GMs under the Canadian flag who are quite strong - it is probably pointless to argue about
something so subjective and fleeting. I hope those who attain that level continue to play actively in/for Canada.
I guess that is the point of the rating system - to tell you who performs better. GM Sambuev is very modest, in my opinion, as he could definitely lay a claim to being the best player. Watching him in tournaments is great, his games are sharp and he plays to win no matter what. And his record vs. IM's from Kitchener to Montreal is pretty impressive.
But to answer your question, not necessarily.
My vote would still go to Canada's current #2, Eric Hansen. Eric is the reigning 2012 Canadian Chess Player of the Year (2013 still to be determined) and the 2013 winner will clearly NOT be Anton Kovalyov. Anton played all of 23 FIDE rated games in the entire calendar year 2013, compared to Eric's 132! Anton's FIDE rating seems to have flatlined the past 3 years and, imho, Eric will ultimately surpass Anton as Canada's #1 FIDE rated player.
My vote would still go to Canada's current #2, Eric Hansen. Eric is the reigning 2012 Canadian Chess Player of the Year (2013 still to be determined) and the 2013 winner will clearly NOT be Anton Kovalyov. Anton played all of 23 FIDE rated games in the entire calendar year 2013, compared to Eric's 132! Anton's FIDE rating seems to have flatlined the past 3 years and, imho, Eric will ultimately surpass Anton as Canada's #1 FIDE rated player.
This discussion reminds me of the time before the Fischer - Spassky match in 1972 when I used to write the chess column in the Toronto Star. I was often asked who was the better player. Here was my answer>>>>
"Imagine yourself standing at the foot of a 200 foot cliff (we were not switched to metric then) and straight above you at the top of the cliff are standing two men - one is six feet tall, the other is six feet one inch. So tell me which one is taller?"
In another thread, GM Sambuev says that Anton Kovalyov is Canada's best player. He plays for the University of Texas A, has a 2700 USCF rating and yesterday tied for first in San Francisco.
Just if anyone will be able to find a sponsor for an invitational Canadian Closed - round robin with our 6-8-10-12 top players, and we will find the answer at the end of the tournament.
Top 10 Canadian players based on the average rating between CFC and FIDE ratings (January 1st, 2014)
1 GM Kovalyov, Anton Verdun, QC 2650 2617 2634
2 GM Sambuev, Bator Montreal, QC 2706 2542 2624
3 GM Hansen, Eric Calgary, AB 2634 2559 2597
4 IM Hambleton, Aman Ottawa, ON 2616 2481 2549
5 IM Gerzhoy, Leonid Toronto, ON 2579 2481 2530
6 IM Noritsyn, Nikolay Richmond Hill, ON 2608 2451 2530
7 IM Panjwani, Raja Kitchener, ON 2549 2468 2509
8 IM Krnan, Tomas Burlington, ON 2565 2439 2502
9 IM Cheng, Bindi Toronto, ON 2526 2438 2482
10 IM Samsonkin, Artiom Toronto, ON 2543 2413 2478
You can take my views with a grain of salt as a non-chess player (my little guy Nicholas fills the chess shoes in the family), but the notion of "best" is both vague and ambiguous. "Best" might mean many things - "best right now", "best over the course of the last year", "best-rated by FIDE", "best-rated by CFC", "best at the most recent Canadian Open", "best given his age", etc.
But more importantly, it is quite likely that between indivduals there can be lapses in transitivity in terms of who is better than who. Smith might be better than Jones having played him several times. Jones might be better than Adams. But I'm sure there are cases where that Adams just happens to have Smith's number and is better than him. I'm sure where there are major differences in ratings if A beats B and B beats C, A will beat C. But given there are different styles of play (at least to my eyes) it is possible for A to beat B and B to beat C but C beat A.
Jeff has a good point. This is why we have ratings. Ratings allow to objectively classify players according to their results. In this particular case, Anton has 75 more rating points, which is quite significative at this level. He also got his GM title at the age of 16 and was the 6th strongest junior in the world. On the other hand, Eric represented us twice at the World Cup, which is also a great achievement.
That said, as it was pointed out earlier, both players took equally difficult decisions : Anton to go back to school and Eric to play as a professional. Obviously, this mean that Eric will have much more time to improve his rating, and might be Canada's next top rated player.
In any case, for those who hope to see games between our top players, the 2014 Canadian Open will be a great opportunity, as we hope to have at least 4 Canadian GMs.
"Who's the best Canadian chess player? Hmm, well...there are a couple of us" LOL
Or so the joke goes :)
I guess any of the GMs has a right to think so. I hope one Canadian chess player will figure out how MVL or Giri (for example) made it to 2700+
What else? We can think whatever we want, but the only real thing is result. Any other things (style, talent etc) exist only in our heads and cannot be measured.
Many things can get measured. Win percentage; Win percentage x average rating of opponent; Wins in major tournaments; All are very good indicators; but none are without their flaws. In tennis and golf, winning in a major tournament counts for very much. In other sports there are "big game" players who only seem at their best for the games that really matter.
As well, there could be other rating systems developed, no less valid theoretically, that factors in elements like the type of tournaments played. A rating system is a model trying to capture a notion of "best". A World Championship is another such model (like the Stanley Cup Championship). Models, like maps, do their best, but always necessarily engage in some kind of distortion to some hopefully small degree.
Still - the current rating system is without a doubt a key indicator.
Well, until recently some people could have reasonably argued that Anand was the best, simply by having the World Champion title, even though Magnus was clearly higher rated.
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