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Jack, looks like two players on the fast track to reach 2800 >>>>
Anish Giri 2792.5
Wesley So 2788.5
Who will get there first? What odds? :D
It certainly looks like they're both going to make it soon enough, Vlad. If Topalov can maintain his 2800 status, you're $20 is looking rather good I must say ):
They're paired tomorrow with interesting odds given Giri's plus 2, minus 0, equal 3 track record. I also find the Ding - Carlsen odds intriguing given they've never met. I haven't seen a Ding game yet (plus 6, minus 3, equal 2) at Tata Steel that wasn't exciting so I've very much looking forward to both these games tomorrow (:
Gennadi Sosonko is a guest commentator. He said that he first played at Wijk in 1973. He was in a C tournament and had to win all his games to be promoted the next year. In the café downstairs all the players would be there playing blitz or cards, analyzing and drinking coffee. But today they stay in their rooms preparing.
Statistics come up on the screen:
Aronian-Ivanchuk have played 38 games together
Aronian has won 11, Ivanchuk 12 with 15 draws
Most recent: Antalya 2014 with Aronian-Ivanchuk 0.5-0.5
That’s a lot of games and they beat the hell out of each other.
Yasser talks about the effect of Jack Nicholson’s The Shining on him when he first saw it and both discuss fischerrandom chess.
IM Jop Delemarre comes in and he and Yasser talk about the new and old generations and the digital age in chess. Sokolov’s book Winning Chess Middlegames: An Essential Guide to Pawn Structures is mentioned. Sokolov describes how he built his repertoire etc. and examines some of the positions with the computer. Timman in a review of it said that some of the positions Sokolov gives as worthwhile were once considered terrible. It is very tempting to stop everything here and order this book.
Wesley So stops in and helps Yasser with his analysis and does his own game. It is all very relaxed and So is quite impressive in his knowledge of the game.
Tata Steel Masters
Round 11, Jan. 23, 2015
So, Wesley – Saric, Ivan
C92 Ruy Lopez, Closed (9.h3)
It is not clear what has happened to Jobava in this tournament. Many of us have been waiting to crown him the new Tal. Some comments:
- Jobava is still surveying the ruins of his position…
- Jobava is the archetypal artist with real psychological issues by his own account
(From a May 2013 interview -
I had problems for the last three-four years. The sum of the reasons led to psychological problems and I was just extremely unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was just seeking for oblivion, so I decided to escape my troubles for several days. I know that's not a solution, but I just needed some rest. … I promise this won't happen again. I mean I don't say I won't ever drink again, but I won't do anything like this at the tournaments.)
- We don’t want all the top players to be robots but you don’t want to see one player lose all but two of his games either
- Jobava didn’t seem prepared to put the work in to be accurate at the end of some games
Tata Steel Masters
Round 11, Jan. 23, 2015
Carlsen, Magnus – Vachier Lagrave, Maxime
D85 Grunfeld, Exchange Variation
Youth is certainly being served at Tata Steel. Carlsen and MVL are the old guys at the top of the leader board at 24. Ding is 22, So 21, and Giri 20. And Wei Yi can't even buy himself a beer despite the 16-year-old drinking age in the Netherlands (18 for distilled alcohol) since he's still 15 (:.
Not quite Aronian in speed, but Wei Yi used all of 108 seconds today to absolutely demolish Anne Haast. If he can win again tomorrow with Black against A.R. Saleh Salem (2603), Wei will hit 2700 and surpass Magnus Carlsen as the youngest player ever to do so. It took Carlsen until 7 months and a day past his 16th birthday to attain 2700 and Wei doesn't turn 16 until June 2, 2015 so he's going to absolutely shatter Carlsen's record if he manages a win tomorrow. Salem and Wei have met once previously, in the 2012 WJCC, and had a 79-move draw with the same colours.
Yasser Seirawan is the commentator and he has GM Jan Smeets as his first guest. They discuss the Challengers game where Wei Yi just demolished Anne Haast.
Tata Steel Challengers
Round 12, Jan. 24, 2015
Wei, Yi – Haast, Anne
B48 Sicilian, Taimanov Variation
It looked like Aronian was going to win. Black’s 31st move takes the rook with the knight and gives check – very tempting but just draws – 31….h5 was indicated.
MVL (tweet) - A bit lucky today, but it was never as bad as it looked, and my calculations were alright. Tough last game to hopefully seal a nice result!
Ding Liren comes in to demonstrate his draw with Carlsen.
Macauley Peterson comes in. He is the Content Director for chess24 but better known as the man who produces the technical part of these chess webcasts. He is a multimedia producer, who also finds time to write about chess. Born in 1979 in the U.S.A.
He says that the last time Carlsen played Saric, Saric won. Tomorrow it is Carlsen as White and Saric is not doing well, so Carlsen is in the catbird seat. (This baseball idiom means having the upper hand or advantage and I first saw it in a James Thurber short story (1942).)
He also mentions that Magnus has been undefeated when Peter Heine Nielsen is at a tournament with him so he is mentor/body guard/good luck charm.
Yasser comes back from a break and says that he is rather shocked. Timman was playing Gunina. She made her 40th move and time control and walked away from the board to collect her thoughts and when she got back found that Jan Timman had resigned and left the board. She too was shocked because she felt she had left an unclear position! My search engine shows that Timman has the advantage. What do you think?
It took 111 moves, but So's 55-game undefeated streak came to an end today against Giri. Giri has become somewhat of a nemesis to So with 3 wins and 3 draws in their 6 encounters. Giri has inched past Anand now for #5 ranking and can cross 2800 tomorrow if he can beat Wojtaszek with Black. Giri has a win and 2 draws against Wojtaszek in 3 prior meetings.
I must say I'm surprised to see both Ding Liren and MVL going off at better than 7 to 1 in their R13 games tomorrow. Granted, they're both playing Black but those odds seem excessive. Ding has a win and 2 draws against Aronian in 3 prior encounters while MVL is dead even with Caruana at plus 2, minus 2, equal 7 (and plus 5, minus 3, equal 8 if you include shorter time controls).
That probably explains why he'll probably never make it to the big match.
Underscoring your comment, Gary, Dennis Monokroussos, at his 'The Chess Mind' blog, had this to say about Aronian's irresponsible time management in his game today against MVL:
Despite having the white pieces, MVL was quickly outplayed by Levon Aronian in a Catalan. At a certain point Aronian had a choice between two promising-looking continuations. Both seemed to win, but only one did, and needless to say Aronian chose the wrong one. It was a good trap by Vachier-Lagrave, but Aronian had loads of time to double-check his analysis; sadly for him, his mistaken decision took only 27 seconds.
If Dennis Monokroussos of 'The Chess Mind' truly believes there's a 99% chance of a draw between Jobava and Radjabov tomorrow, he should open an account post haste at Marathon and get in on the 6 to 5 draw action. Here are his exact words:
Some comments. First, expect Carlsen to put in a little extra oomph trying to beat Saric. Doing so ensures that no one catches him, plus it will give him revenge - he lost to him in the Tromso Olympiad last year. I expect to see Giri go for it, but without going too crazy, especially if he sees Carlsen come out of the gate with a great position. I hope to see So bounce back after such a huge disappointment; if he wants to compete for the world championship he's going to need to be resilient and not just a strong player when everything is going his way. The other games involving 7 and 7.5 pointers should be interesting, but Jobava-Radjabov is 99% likely to be drawn.
I must say I'm surprised to see both Ding Liren and MVL going off at better than 7 to 1 in their R13 games tomorrow. Granted, they're both playing Black but those odds seem excessive. Ding has a win and 2 draws against Aronian in 3 prior encounters while MVL is dead even with Caruana at plus 2, minus 2, equal 7 (and plus 5, minus 3, equal 8 if you include shorter time controls).
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