Millionaire Monday
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Re: Millionaire Monday
Youth is obviously being served in Vegas as well. Wesley So, who just turned 21 4 days ago, is the 2nd oldest of the final four. Both Ray Robson and Yangyi Yu are born in 1994 and still considered 'juniors'. I'm sure they're both thrilled they bypassed the WJCC in Pune for this event (:
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Re: Millionaire Monday
Looks like Ray Robson has horseshoes up his derriere. He made it to the final four when his R7 opponent, David Berczes, got a bad case of nerves and twice let won games slip away. Today, Yangyi Yu had Ray splattered, plus 7.87 pawns, after Ray's back-to-back blunders on moves 25 and 26, and proceeded to miss 3 easy wins, ultimately blundering the game away. This game may well haunt Yangyi for a long, long time given the amount of money at stake.
http://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2014-...gyi-Robson_Ray
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Re: Millionaire Monday
Yep, some lucky breaks for Robson there. But Yu's advantage was at some point, based on finding some not so obvious combinations.
First, he missed 28.Nd5, going for the check with Qh8. I'd say it's a very human reaction, especially if you have little time. The variations after Nd5 were not so easy to calculate, with many non-forcing moves. You know the move must be good, but you're afraid that maybe you'd miss something.
Unfortunately, the win after that was based on finding 32.Rxf5 (giving the rook for a pawn) and then giving the queen for the g8 rook and getting it all back with the knight fork on e7 (getting a piece and the queen back).
Really, it's all easy to say when you've got the engine running and giving +4s and +7s here and there. Not so obvious when you're all by yourself with a counter going down!
That's why I'm always a little cautious with computer evals. +7 is not always an easy +7. If you're two pieces up, you're at +7 and should win easily. But if the computer says +7 because there's a really complicated combination, based on finding some very difficult moves, it's another kind of +7, in my opinion.
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Re: Millionaire Monday
Given Yangyi had to sac a piece to get to the plus 7, Mathew, I'm still surprised he didn't see the continuation. And time was not the issue since Yangyi had a large time advantage. I don't think 32.Rxf5 would be more than a 2000 rated chess tactics puzzle at chesstempo.com. Strictly big money nerves, imho.
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Re: Millionaire Monday
I agree, it can be a matter of nerve.
The combination was not too hard to find... when you know there's a combination to be found! And Yu was most probably very short on time at that point.
Having instant computer evals has really changed kibitzing. It's not easy being a GM these days!
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Re: Millionaire Monday
Originally posted by Mathieu Cloutier View PostHaving instant computer evals has really changed kibitzing. It's not easy being a GM these days!
These days if a GM starts to find those intricate computer lines with regularity, people will start asking questions.
It's never been easier to be a chess spectator.Gary Ruben
CC - IA and SIM
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Re: Millionaire Monday
ChessBomb is definitely no longer live so I'd suggest the following site:
https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-to...14OpenKO/1/1/1
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Re: Millionaire Monday
Wesley So was certainly the deserved winner of the tournament and the $100,000 that went with it. And Roy Robson had to be the luckiest winner of $50,000 in the history of chess, dead lost in both his quarter and semi-final games (:
Wesley said he almost didn't play this tournament since it commenced on his birthday and he had vowed 7 years ago never to play chess again on his birthday since he had lost an important game in the 2007 World Juniors in Yerevan, Armenia. That could have been a highly expensive superstition (:
His game with Robson wasn't rated (i.e. standard) because of the time control so he remains 5.5 points behind Nakamura for top dog in the U.S. (assuming his membership eventually gets transferred!). There's no question who's the more consistent player, however. Wesley seldom loses a game of chess, including a streak of 42 consecutive games against players rated over 2700 without a single loss (5 wins and 37 draws).
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Re: Millionaire Monday
GM Alejandro Ramirez proffers an interesting perspective (Part 1 of 2) on the tournament at ChessBase today.
http://en.chessbase.com/post/a-2500-...aire-event-1-2
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Re: Millionaire Monday
Part two is up. A little more positive than part one, but still in general I would guess that Ramirez's letter grade for the tournament was somewhere in the C+/B- range?"Tom is a well known racist, and like most of them he won't admit it, possibly even to himself." - Ed Seedhouse, October 4, 2020.
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