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That's right! Ivanchuk loses money from his prize and that is not his fault!
But it IS his fault! He was White in the last round, and he settled for a draw. If I'm not mistaken, he's a player normally known for playing with gusto, but in this critical situation he failed to produce the win that would have locked up first place.
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
Ivanchuk can not be criticized for playing for a draw in the last two rounds. He played risky positions against super grandmasters that ended in a draw.
But this is not the point. The point is that the chess players, not known for having money to spoil, work very hard to win a tournament. Countless of hours of hard work just to be able to squeeze a win at that level are traded off for a blitz game. Is this OK? I do not know the opinion of top players, but to me it seems not only unfair, but simply not professional.
The fact that the rules were given before the tournament does not make the whole thing "fair".
Originally posted by Laurentiu GrigorescuView Post
Ivanchuk can not be criticized for playing for a draw in the last two rounds. He played risky positions against super grandmasters that ended in a draw.
But this is not the point. The point is that the chess players, not known for having money to spoil, work very hard to win a tournament. Countless of hours of hard work just to be able to squeeze a win at that level are traded off for a blitz game. Is this OK? I do not know the opinion of top players, but to me it seems not only unfair, but simply not professional.
The fact that the rules were given before the tournament does not make the whole thing "fair".
I didn't write he was "playing for a draw". I wrote that he "settled for a draw", that is a big difference. I haven't seen nor played through his last round game, so I don't know how 'risky' he played, but one thing we can believe now is that it wasnt risky enough. Perhaps at some point he saw a very risky move, and he thought he would rather not play it and salvage a draw and thus some share of prize money rather than risk losing and get no prize money. Poker players make these kind of decisions constantly.
What you are calling unfair is a far cry from the bad beats and unlucky breaks that poker players experience regularly. And I would say poker players are closer to the reality of life itself than chess players will ever be. So Ivanchuck settled for a draw, had to play a playoff, and lost some prize money. Boo hoo.
The real point is that if you try and make chess more 'fair', you remove incentives to play risky (or riskier) chess. You'll end up with even more draws. Chess needs more risky play, not less, to keep what little entertainment value it has. Do you want everyone to play like Peter Leko?
It may be true that playing blitz is a poor way to decide prize money, but in many sports, when a contest is even and a draw or tie isn't allowed, there is some weird way to decide the winner. Hockey and soccer have shootouts. I proposed quite some time ago a rule change to chess that would make it virtually impossible for a game to end in a draw, but people protested at the shogi-like rule change even though it would only be available at rare times to stop things like perpetual check (which would not be allowed) and 3-time repetition (which would no longer allow a draw claim).
No matter how you do it, some people won't like it. But draws are something that chess, especially at the highest levels, does need to remove somehow, perhaps only making them a very rare occurrence. Perhaps on that you and I could agree?
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
ChessVibes says of this game: Going into the final round, Ivanchuk was still the sole lead with 7.5 points. On 7.0 were Vachier-Lagrave, Vitiugov, Kamsky, Dreev, Cheparinov, Al-Sayed and Zhao Xue. Playing Ivanchuk as Black, Vachier-Lagrave had to try and win his game and just like in the final round last year (when he played 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.f3 e6!? against Vitiugov), the French GM put the board on fire at an early stage.
Stockfish questions both 10.h3 and 11.g4. 16…f5 is a new move. Black gets a strong attack but Ivanchuk finds the defense for a draw.
Viewers’ Comments
- Congratulations to the organizers for the most stupid tie-break system among three players ever. I always thought that sum of progressive scores is a very fair system for Swiss tournaments, because it shows clearly how strong opponents you have faced. But if you absolutely have to make it rapid tie-breaks for some reason, at least _make_ _it_ _fair_.
- The lottery part of the 3-way tiebreak is clearly bad, as it could lead to this exact scenario: lowest-performing guy gets a direct shot at first place while the other two guys have to win two (potentially long) matches. Absurd. Nothing against Chepa, but his TPR was even only 5th overall.
- A pity Ivanchuk lost so much loot based on 3-minute chess when he had far tougher pairings.
- Where did white go wrong in Ivanchuk-Lagrave? After g4 black already seems to have the draw. Nb3?
- Quick database search: 9.Nb3 is the main move, ahead of 9.Nc2 (I have a hard time to understand that one - but it seems pretty common in such a structure). 10.h3 is rare and seems pointless if the follow-up g4 doesn't work - other moves are 10.e4 and 10.c5; the idea of e4 might be that black lost time with his queen that will now be exchanged.
I don't think it promises white much - but if you look for a 'guaranteed' opening advantage, already 2.c4 might be bad, as bad as anything else.
- It is mind boggling that they chose such an unfair quick chess playoff structure. Let's assume all three players where of equal ability. Then by pure dumb luck Cheparinov was given a 1/2 probability of winning the 20,000 pounds and Chucky and the Ice Man each only had 1/4 chance of winning the big cash prize. Cheparinov's chances of winning is actually even a little better than 1/2 because the winner of the first round is likely to be little stressed out from the first round.
- I completely agree.
It actually looks like an oversight of the organizers what would happen in a 3-way tie because it is not specified at all in the "prizes" section of the tournament site. In case of 5 players or more sharing first place, all but the 4 highest TPR scores would be eliminated, and the 4 best players would go to knock-out matches, while with 3 players tied nothing is specified about what should happen. In the playoff rules on the FIDE website, for three players a round-robin is played between the three, and if all is still equal (each player wins a match and loses a match), the player with the lowest tiebreak (here TPR) would be eliminated (here Cheparinov). Instead they improvised the drawing of lots to who would be seeded directly to the final, and Cheparinov won the lots. It looks inherently unfair, and contrary to the principles of the other tiebreak rules in the tournament. Drawing of lots will always be seen as unfair, when the ties can be broken with OTB games.
Prizes for Gibraltar Masters 2014
First Prize £20,000
Second Prize £14,000
Third Prize £12,000
Fourth Prize £10,000
Fifth Prize £ 6,000
The first prize may not be shared. All other prizes shall be shared where players have the same score
I agree especially on Peter Leko :-) Should he played in this tournament, he would have scored an impressive +1 = 9 LOL
I also agree that any type of playoff would be debatable. But at least should be bought off by the players, not only imposed by organizers.
Are the top players OK with the blitz system, and his extreme version called Armaggedon? I do not know. It seems they are, as I have not seen any proposal or negative reaction to this type of playoff. It might seem unfair to me, but maybe for Ivanchuck is OK, who knows?
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