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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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Ray Robson and Wesley So who were roommates at Webster U (and took almost all the money at the Millionaires Open last year) faceoff today. Will it be interesting? I hope so.
Wesley is +3 =2 in 5 previous encounters so it's no surprise that Wesley is the prohibitive betting favourite despite wielding the Black pieces. Wesley is 17/10 while Ray's at 61/10, with 81/100 draw odds.
Tangentially, given Samuel Shankland has only lost once in the past 70 games or so, to Wesley So in R2, I rather like his 62/25 draw odds against Naka (:
U.S. Chess Championship 2015
Round Six
April 7, 2015
IM John Donaldson joins Maurice Ashley in the second hour for an interview. He is an author, organizer and captain of the U.S. team at Olympiads.
His books include The Life and Games of Frank Anderson, The Unknown Bobby Fischer, Legend on the Road (Bobby Fischer’s 1964 simul tour) and Akiba Rubinstein.
He is in St. Louis and giving a lecture at the World Chess Hall of Fame on Thursday, April 9 on Bobby Fischer. Specifically, his early development from 1956 to 1958 when he went from being a player with a strength of about 2200 to one of the best in the world. The title is A Prodigy’s Progress.
He says that Sam Sevian became a grandmaster at the age of 14 and is a stronger player than Bobby Fischer was at that age. This seems like a golden time for American chess. John will be going to the Chess Olympiad in Azerbaijan next summer, where the team will be at full strength. For the Team Championship in Armenia later this month, So and Nakamura have commitments elsewhere and Kamsky will not be playing because of a self-imposed limit of 40 years of age.
A problem is that when the Team Championship is on in Armenia, Azerbaijan is holding the Gashimov Memorial in Shamkir. If you look at the map of the two locations of the two events, you will see that they are less than 100 miles apart but because of the bad blood between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, they might well be 100,000 miles apart.
The team the U.S. is fielding has Naroditsky, Akobian, Lenderman, Onischuk and Shankland. The tournament is so tough that the U.S. is seeded ninth out of ten. We are arriving in Yerevan about four days before the start to acclimatize. It is held an hour north of Yerevan in a former Soviet training camp.
With the team at full strength for the Olympiad, the two highest countries in terms of rating are Russia and China, so the Americans will be in the hunt for medals.
Just before John Donaldson was introduced, Jennifer Shahade said that “repetition is the soul of wit” but Yasser and Maurice did not seem to agree.
The actual quote is from Shakespeare’s Hamlet where Polonius says that “Brevity is the soul of wit”. Philidor wrote that “the pawns are the soul of chess”. Probably it is best to stay away from quotes about things that are the soul of other things!
U.S. Chess Championship 2015
Round 6, April 7, 2015
Nakamura, Hikaru – Shankland, Samuel
B12 Caro-Kann, Advance Variation
Ray beats Wesley in mutual time trouble. The commentators are talking of a meltdown. One viewer says, “a meltdown is what happens when a nuclear reactor is running so hot, that the fuel melts, causing a catastrophic failure of the reactor. Basically, So was running "too hot" (under too much pressure and stress) and self destructed.”
Round 6, April 7, 2015
Robson, Ray – So, Wesley
C67 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defence, Open Variation
The top 3 boards all promise to be intriguing affairs. The 14-year-old Sam Sevian puts his 2711 TPR on the line against Nakamura, playing him for the very first time in his young career. Ray Robson has only scored 0.5/3 against today's opponent, Daniel Naroditsky. And Wesley So has not fared well against Alexander Onischuk, scoring 0.5/2, albeit both those games were played in 2010 at the Spice Cup. While yesterday I thought the Sam Shankland draw odds screamed 'bet me', I can't say I see anything quite so attractive today.
Maurice Ashleyism of rd 6: snoozefest. According to Maurice 3 of the 6 games in the open were a snoozefest and the most exciting games were in the womens championship. He said if you have insomnia the snoozefest games were the ones to watch.
Rd 6 had six classical openings. The English, the Caro-Kann, the Ruy Lopez (a surprising rarity in this tournament), the Slav Defence, QGA, and Queens Indian.
Actually according Maurices commentary there were 4 snoozefests and he couldnt bear to watch them so he spent most of the round commenting on the womens games which fortunately had much more action.
One for the snoozefests (at least starting out) was Robson - So. It started Ruy Lopez and seemed to be heading towards the Berlin. Fortunately Ray found a much more active continuation which gave him the initiative.
After sacking the exchange Ray had a healthy advantage on the queenside but after inaccuracies in time pressure Wesley had opportunities for a winning advantage. Instead in mutual time pressure some bizarre moves happened including g5?! from black which wasnt necessary. After further subpar play the game degenerated into a lost endgame for black. According to the commentators it was a meltdown on Wesley So's part but from both sides a subpar performance. Strange.
Strangely Kayden Troff opened with an old line in the English but his opponent Sam Sevian wasnt willing to let things ride. He counter attacked with b5 allowing a connected passed pawn for Kayden but in a complex positon which looked good for Kayden, Sam found amazing counterplay and in tactical complexities tourned the game around and then with great precision in a very tricky endgame with rook vs knight brought home the point. Nice play from Sam Sevian at the finish!
Nakamura - Shankland was definitely the highlight of the round. Kudos to Sam Shankland for sticking to great strategy in the Caro Kann and outplaying Hikaru. However Hikaru's timing was good in simplifying to a draw. Amazingly Olympic gold medalist Sam Shankland has yet to score a win in the championship (after six rounds!) but I think hes due soon.
Irina Krush had another big hiccup this round. She had sacked the exchange for dangerous passed pawns on the queenside and at one point it looked obviously over but she allowed counterplay and her opponent escaped with a draw. Its starting to look like its not Irina's tournament to win but dont count her out yet - shes a great fighter.
Jennifer Yu - Kate Nemcova saw interesting play by Yu with forcing tactics in the opening simplifying towards a drawn endgame but some sly counter tactics by Nemcova allowed her to trap the white king in the centre with a spectacular checkmate. Nemcova now leads the field by one point.
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