If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.
Policy / Politique
The fee for tournament organizers advertising on ChessTalk is $20/event or $100/yearly unlimited for the year.
Les frais d'inscription des organisateurs de tournoi sur ChessTalk sont de 20 $/événement ou de 100 $/année illimitée.
You can etransfer to Henry Lam at chesstalkforum at gmail dot com
Transfér à Henry Lam à chesstalkforum@gmail.com
Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
General Guidelines
---- Nous avons besoin d'un traduction français!
Some Basics
1. Under Board "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQs) there are 3 sections dealing with General Forum Usage, User Profile Features, and Reading and Posting Messages. These deal with everything from Avatars to Your Notifications. Most general technical questions are covered there. Here is a link to the FAQs. https://forum.chesstalk.com/help
2. Consider using the SEARCH button if you are looking for information. You may find your question has already been answered in a previous thread.
3. If you've looked for an answer to a question, and not found one, then you should consider asking your question in a new thread. For example, there have already been questions and discussion regarding: how to do chess diagrams (FENs); crosstables that line up properly; and the numerous little “glitches” that every new site will have.
4. Read pinned or sticky threads, like this one, if they look important. This applies especially to newcomers.
5. Read the thread you're posting in before you post. There are a variety of ways to look at a thread. These are covered under “Display Modes”.
6. Thread titles: please provide some details in your thread title. This is useful for a number of reasons. It helps ChessTalk members to quickly skim the threads. It prevents duplication of threads. And so on.
7. Unnecessary thread proliferation (e.g., deliberately creating a new thread that duplicates existing discussion) is discouraged. Look to see if a thread on your topic may have already been started and, if so, consider adding your contribution to the pre-existing thread. However, starting new threads to explore side-issues that are not relevant to the original subject is strongly encouraged. A single thread on the Canadian Open, with hundreds of posts on multiple sub-topics, is no better than a dozen threads on the Open covering only a few topics. Use your good judgment when starting a new thread.
8. If and/or when sub-forums are created, please make sure to create threads in the proper place.
Debate
9. Give an opinion and back it up with a reason. Throwaway comments such as "Game X pwnz because my friend and I think so!" could be considered pointless at best, and inflammatory at worst.
10. Try to give your own opinions, not simply those copied and pasted from reviews or opinions of your friends.
Unacceptable behavior and warnings
11. In registering here at ChessTalk please note that the same or similar rules apply here as applied at the previous Boardhost message board. In particular, the following content is not permitted to appear in any messages:
* Racism
* Hatred
* Harassment
* Adult content
* Obscene material
* Nudity or pornography
* Material that infringes intellectual property or other proprietary rights of any party
* Material the posting of which is tortious or violates a contractual or fiduciary obligation you or we owe to another party
* Piracy, hacking, viruses, worms, or warez
* Spam
* Any illegal content
* unapproved Commercial banner advertisements or revenue-generating links
* Any link to or any images from a site containing any material outlined in these restrictions
* Any material deemed offensive or inappropriate by the Board staff
12. Users are welcome to challenge other points of view and opinions, but should do so respectfully. Personal attacks on others will not be tolerated. Posts and threads with unacceptable content can be closed or deleted altogether. Furthermore, a range of sanctions are possible - from a simple warning to a temporary or even a permanent banning from ChessTalk.
Helping to Moderate
13. 'Report' links (an exclamation mark inside a triangle) can be found in many places throughout the board. These links allow users to alert the board staff to anything which is offensive, objectionable or illegal. Please consider using this feature if the need arises.
Advice for free
14. You should exercise the same caution with Private Messages as you would with any public posting.
Jobava's crush of Gelfand today in 30 moves not only allows him to join Andreikin and Nakamura for joint 1st, but he now enters the Top 20 for the first time (:
Jobava defeated Boris Gelfand in round 8 of the Grand Prix in Tashkent, and now ties for first place with Dmitry Andreikin and Hikaru Nakamura with three rounds to go.
In the 8th round Jobava was in fact the only winner (his third win as Black!). He faced an out-of-form Gelfand, and so a slightly provocative opening (1.d4 e6 2.c4 b6) was more likely to succeed than backfire.
On move 8 Gelfand took his queen on an adventure that made the game very complicated at an early stage. White was trying to avoid that Black could simply castle queenside and double rooks on the g-file, but eventually it was Gelfand who got into trouble. His pieces were somewhat clumsy, and lacked coordination. As soon as the center collapsed, White's whole position did.
Nakamura's quick draw as White had two reasons, as he explained at the press conference: 1) he got surprised in the opening — hence his safe play, and 2) “The players who also played in Baku are a bit more tired. It's important not to do anything stupid right now.”
Radjabov's surprise was playing the Ragozin, and already on move 11 Nakamura went for an ending, because he didn't like the middlegame positions that could have arisen after either e3 and Be2, or g3 and Bg2. That ending was just very equal, and in no time the players reached the necessary thirty moves.
Caruana and Kasimdzhanov then also drew their game, a Queen's Gambit (we haven't seen that one for a while!) where the world number two went for a quick ending.
“I have to say it wasn't a very good game from my side,” Caruana said, and that remark was mostly about one move: the weird 18.Bc7. “I don't have to get worse in a few moves which is what I managed. (...) I don't have an explanation for 18.Bc7.”
The press conferences have Anastasiya Karlovich asking a few questions but the grandmasters are left to explain the games without interruption. Alexei Barsov sits to one side and he is sometimes asked what the computer evaluation was. There are very few questions from the audience at the end.
The commentary of Barsov has been very good. He has fluent command of English and is knowledgeable. A single commentator, however, is always at a disadvantage when there are long games with nothing happening.
Barsov trained as a lawyer but became a chess pro in the early 90s. For some years he was the coach of Rustam Kasimdzhanov. He is 48 years old, born in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
Samarkand was the central position on the Silk Road between China and the West, and an Islamic centre for scholarly study. In the 14th century it became the capital of Tamerlane the Great, and his mausoleum is there.
Is Andreikin going to win the tournament? He knocks off one of his closest competitors here.
Jobava was looking for a playable position but was surprised by 12…c6. Mark Crowther tweet: “Jobava's opening choice of a Veresov seems to have gone badly wrong already”. It is interesting watching the two players passing back and forth between English and Russian in the analysis. How great would it have been if we had a Tal-Fischer press conference 55 years ago like this!
Jakovenko starts going downhill with 23. exf5, time trouble makes things worse. The final position has the bishop about to administer the coup de grace to the white rook.
[QUOTE=Wayne Komer;88829]Tashkent 2014
Round Nine
October 31, 2014
Is Andreikin going to win the tournament? He knocks off one of his closest competitors here.
Jobava was looking for a playable position but was surprised by 12…c6. Mark Crowther tweet: “Jobava's opening choice of a Veresov seems to have gone badly wrong already”.
Three games finished in a reasonable time in draws and three pushed on relentlessly.
In the press conference after his game Caruana said that he didn’t even have time to go home after Baku but came directly to Tashkent. Two tournaments in a row is hard but sometimes a professional has to do things like that. He is looking forward to the World Championship match and then he will be at London after that.
Caruana, Fabiano – Karjakin, Sergey 0.5-0.5
Kasimdzhanov, Rustam – Radjabov, Teimour 0.5-0.5
Nakamura, Hikaru – Jakovenko, Dmitry 0.5-0.5
It looked like Mamedyarov was going to win but was held to a draw by good MVL’s good defence
Mamedyarov vs Vachier-Lagrave was an absolutely fascinating battle and clearly the game of the round.
Even the players weren't sure what was going on — well, they actually had a completely different opinion about many positions! Mamedyarov thought that “everything is better for White,” but his opponent didn't agree at all.
Vachier-Lagrave: “After 23...Kh7 I was looking for a forced win.”
Mamedyarov: “Come on Maxime, you're joking? I have a pawn.” Vachier-Lagrave: “I have two bishops and four pieces towards your king.”
For what it's worth: the computer mostly agreed with the Azeri...
The last round starts impossibly early. With the return to standard time, I haven’t figured out the starting time Toronto/Montreal, but you might be able to catch the start of the games before going to bed tonight!
________
As reported in chess-news.ru
The penultimate round of the Grand Prix stage in Tashkent was actually not as peaceful as it could seem, and not only from the chess point of view: Baadur Jobava and Anish Giri had a bit of a verbal fight during their press conference.
The Georgian GM didn't like his opponent's disdain for his attacking chances which Jobava himself considered strong. See the video starting from 1:40:
Giri: "It's huge attack, of course".
Karlovich (smiling): "He's being ironic". <>
Jobava: "If you are not serious then why do you repeat moves?" (26. Bc1 - CN)
Giri: "First of all, I don't see why not to repeat; secondly, I had less time; and third, Baadur didn't repeat at the end; so I think that was fine. <> Probably Black isn't so much attacking after all, and this move (28... Qe8) probably proves that there's no such huge attack (smiling)"
Jobava: "Hey, if you continue to be ironic, I'll say another few words to you and the press conference is over, so speak normally, ok?" (Giri keeps smiling) "Not smile like idiot! I'm not the guy you can be ironic with. (Giri stops smiling.) <>Speak normal, you must respect your opponent.
Let us remind you that Giri had been very close to winning the endgame but had missed his chance.
Last edited by Wayne Komer; Sunday, 2nd November, 2014, 01:12 PM.
Reason: added girl-jobava dustup
Is Andreikin going to win the tournament? He knocks off one of his closest competitors here.
Jobava was looking for a playable position but was surprised by 12…c6. Mark Crowther tweet: “Jobava's opening choice of a Veresov seems to have gone badly wrong already”.
Karlovich – Rustam, would you like to add anything about this game?
Kasimdzhanov – The only thing I can add is a quote from Seinfeld. You are probably too young for this but it was a highly successful American tv series from the 90s. There is one episode where George (Costanza), one of the characters, says, “Everything single thing I have ever done in my life was wrong, every single natural feeling I had, everything single thing I thought of was wrong – so from now on, I will do the opposite”. I think that applies not only to this game but to what has happened to me in the past 15 games. Probably every single thing I did was wrong and from now on I can only play better.
Karlovich – You cannot do much worse?
Kasimzhanov – I cannot play much worse than I did in this tournament. There is something to be learned from this.
At the end of the Tenth Round press conference between Anish Giri and Baadur Jobava there was an unpleasant exchange, which I gave in my Round Ten summary.
Jan Gustafsson writes about it in chess24.com under the heading of Jobava – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The longest game was Giri-Jobava, where the Dutch GM had excellent winning chances in an ending and in fact missed one win at some point. Jobava said he was “completely out of oil after yesterday.”
For a moment the press conference was somewhat unfriendly. Jobava felt he had attacking chances, but Giri didn't agree, and at some point the Dutch GM played a few moves of his opponent (27...Qh5, 29...Qh8) and smiled: “This proves that Black is not so much attacking after all.”
Jobava didn't like this and said: “If you continue ironic I will now say some words and them move over the press conference to you. Speak normal, OK? Not smile like [an] idiot, keep normal. I'm not the guy you can ironic... Speak normal. Have some respect for your opponents.”
Luckily after this intermezzo the post-mortem continued normally.
Some chessvibes comments:
- People complain about Kasparov or Topalov or I don't know who, but they played top events for several decades and as far as I know never spoke like that to a colleague even after their worst defeats. And Jobava, in his first real top event, where he is doing very well, after drawing a difficult game, goes on like that?!
- Part of the "fun" of press conferences straight after a tense game is that incidents can happen!? A later remark by Giri might have been even more sneaky: "Here Baadur started to swear and shake his head, it's difficult to play against such a resourceful opponent." As far as I can judge the next words exchanged between the players (in Russian which I don't understand) any tension between them was gone. And the concluding sentence by Kharlovich was spot on: "Thank you, have a good rest".
- "Luckily Jobava appears to have completely missed the reference to his swearing. He asks for clarification in Russian and Giri merely translates his comment on his opponent being resourceful. A puzzled Jobava responds, “I made only moves”. By such margins are wars avoided."
BTW Giri is "a bit less than half" Russian: Russian father, Nepalese mother, living in and representing the Netherlands (where his father found a job as an engineer some years ago).
- In Russian language, "idiot" is not as insulting a word as in English and Jobava's phrasing suggested that he probably thought out the phrase in Russian (in his youth, he lived in Russian-speaking Eastern Ukraine and graduated from a Russian-speaking school, so it's not that much of a stretch) and then spoke it in English, unaware of different connotations. If I'm right, what he meant to say was something along the lines "don't speak to me with such a goofy smile", and Giri, who obviously knows Russian too, seemed to understand that.
This interview was conducted by E. Surov of chess-news.ru right after Dmitry Andreikin drew his last game at Tashkent and became outright winner of the second leg of the Grand Prix.
E. Surov – What was your feeling at the end of your last game?
D. Andreikin – There was the press conference with Giri and those with my closest rivals and I found I was alone in first place. I felt fine. This was the first time I have been first since 2012.
E. Surov – And this tournament came almost immediately after Baku, also a Grand Prix tourney, where you were unsuccessful.
D. Andreikin – I would not say I failed – I lost five rating points but I had not played in a long time, so I don’t consider that a failure.
E. Surov – It is clear that playing in two consecutive tournaments is an incredible burden. Boris Gelfand, first in Baku, shared last place in Tashkent. How did you manage to be in first from beginning to end?
D. Andreikin – When I am not playing for a long time, I am rested and have fresh ideas but I lack hard match practice. With Baku, I fell down and started with 1 out of 4. With a poor start though it is impossible to play well.
You could even say that Baku was a tournament just for the fun of it. 8, 9 or 10th place is no big deal. I just played for myself without investing a lot of energy.
Here in Tashkent, things started quite easily. In the middle of the tournament (Round Six) I beat Karjakin and had the burden of leadership. The second half of the tournament was hard enough.
E. Surov – Were you also playing for fun here?
D. Andreikin – In the Candidates I started with 0.5 out of 4, if I’m not mistaken. With such a start it is reckless to say that you are going to win five or six games in a row and take top spot. So I started to play for fun. Well, maybe not for fun, but just tried to find some interesting ideas. I try to cling to every half-point. In the end, I tied for third place, which is not bad. You shouldn’t give up. Saying I “play for fun” just means that I just play chess. I could be defending heavy positions as was the case against Anand and Aronian in that tournament. I try to cling to every half point, which is the healthy approach.
When I got the lead in this tournament, it was difficult to tell if it was giving me pleasure. I had a long, hard game against Gelfand in Round Ten. Some times you have to look at your position in the standings. I would have liked to play something more interesting against Gelfand and instead a game resulted in which I had to suffer.
E. Surov – Do I understand that your best game in this tournament was in Round One, which you won against Mamedyarov? Objectively you won from an equal position..
D. Andreikin – The first game is very important and I had some luck. (Editor: A rather strange game. Andreikin was fine from the opening, but underestimated how weak his d-pawn was. After losing it he entered a worse rook endgame, simply down a pawn but with excellent drawing chances. Then, in time pressure, Mamedyarov imploded and he panicked. Andreikin played precise moves to take advantage of the situation and his passed pawns proved more powerful than his opponent's).
E. Surov – Do you have a coach?
D. Andreikin – No, I am independent.
E. Surov – What physical preparation during and before a tournament?
D. Andreikin – We have a small child and spend a lot of time outdoors. There are household chores and a great deal of physical exertion. After all we sleep well.
During a tournament I don’t have any set routine. By the end of a tournament a chess fatigue has set in and you are thinking of options that you had during your play. Today I could not disconnect from all this and just go out and so I played the opening poorly.
E. Surov – You are thinking of options and opportunities for 24 hours a day?
D. Andreikin – Exactly. By the end of the tournament everything accumulates. Even when you sleep you are still thinking. And it is in no way associated with the nerves. Nerves are not present here, it is fatigue. Apparently some method is required to periodically clear the head of it all.
By the way, I can say that I had a similar condition in 2013, just when I was winning tournaments. It is hard to say if you can be a happy person in this state. In everyday life, my head of chess is much less than when playing in a tournament, and I think that is good.
E. Surov – Do you and your family live in Saratov?
D. Andreikin – No, now we finally moved to Ryazan. That is my hometown. We moved three months ago, so with apartment renovation I have something to do besides chess.
E. Surov – So you are trying to be a chess player, a devoted father and a family man?
D. Andreikin – Definitely. For me being a diligent father and a family man is in first place. I treat my chess duties as a professional and chess provides for my family. I like to live as I currently live.
E. Surov – Will you sooner or later have to pick one – either family or chess, in order to reach the top in chess?
D. Andreikin – The question will arise but not the family or chess but simply the question “am I ready to give up everything and only deal with chess?” That is, if my goal is to become world champion.
E. Surov – How do you rate your chances overall in this series?
D. Andreikin – It is a big plus that I have won Tashkent and won it alone. Now the Tbilisi tournament has a sporting value. I think that placing in the top three will give me a chance of advancing in the series. This is very good, so there is something to strive for.
E. Surov – Where would you have rather played – in Tehran or in Tbilisi?
D. Andreikin – Truth be told, I did not want to go to Tehran. Also February 15 is not a convenient date for me. I would like to play in Khanty-Mansiysk. I have not had much success there in the World Cup and in the World Blitz and Rapid in the past. Perhaps May will be more congenial than February.
E. Surov – You have something to prove to those who believe you are an accidental participant in the tournament?
D. Andreikin – If fate gave me the opportunity to play in the Candidates and the World Cup finals, that is no coincidence. Each person knew what they were fighting for and the winner deserved the title. What else can I say?
E. Surov – Who from the younger generation stands out from the rest?
D. Andreikin – Myself, I am one of the few young players who has a wife and child. But it’s probably not something that distinguishes me. And if you talk about chess, I think everyone is universal. A lot of young players are working on theory.
I like playing Fabiano Caruana, because he is one of the few top players, who more than any other is set to win with either colour. He often refuses to repeat moves and so on. I also am sympathetic to Kramnik. He is already old but still has some appetite for chess.
E. Surov – And you plans for the future?
D. Andreikin – I am waiting for Tbilisi and will not play until February. I will rest, deal with day-to-day affairs and spend a lot of time with my wife and daughter. We will walk, ride and play in the snow. I think it’s good that I have now successfully finished the tournament, it puts me in a good mood for a long vacation. I will still train for Tbilisi for I would like to qualify for the Candidates.
Tweet
Comment