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I have been looking at the bottles of mineral water on the tables and find that it is Badamli, mineral spring water from the mountains of Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan. Badamli was supplied to the whole USSR from 50s till 80s.
The commentators are Dirk Jan ten Guezendam, the editor of New in Chess magazine and GM Evgeny Miroshnichenko. The 128 players have been reduced by elimination to 16. And the room, the Grand Ballroom of the Fairmont Baku Hotel, has been resized for the smaller number. The logo of the FIDE World Chess Cup shows the three flames of the Flame Towers symbolic of the new Baku.
There is my advertisement for Baku. I shall expect a case of Badamli to soon appear at my front door!
They talk about the Armageddon game yesterday and Nakamura’s two-hand castling and Nepo’s protest, which was rejected. That is the tragedy of the World Cup, Nakamura is sitting at the table now and Dirk saw Ian packing his bags to go home this morning. You get knocked out and you leave.
Miro says when the system was introduced the players joked, “There is a weird closing ceremony with only two players present and one of them upset!”
Online someone suggests that these blitz games be played not on the board but on the computer, so there will not be any violations! Great idea.
They talk about the possible American team for the Olympics. Dirk said at one time, the American team was really the second team for Russia, since it was made up of ex-pat Russians.
The games:
Peter does not go into a three-fold repetition earlier on and gets the win in the game of the day. It is the last game to finish and the commentators are afraid that Peter will come in and talk for an hour and are just slipping off when Peter comes in and talks with great gusto about the game with Miro.
World Cup 2015
Round 4, Game 1, Sept. 20, 2015
Classical
Svidler, Peter – Topalov, Veselin
B51 Sicilian, Canal-Sokolsky Attack
In summation, two favorites went down – Caruana and Topalov but they have white tomorrow. Eljanov’s string of wins was stopped by a draw and Nakamura sails on.
_______
Peter Svidler is an entertaining speaker. Here is part of an interview after the second classical game with Radjabov
Svidler mentions how he simultaneously pried into Kramnik - Andreikin encounter streamed on the screen.
"I just had a very comfortable seating position. I was facing all other tables with my back, while in front of me there were two huge screens which I couldn't avoid looking at. I know it is far from a professional behaviour, but I just can't stop myself from doing it. And it is pretty clear that once you fail to win such a position, the unpleasant feeling stays with you when playing the next one..."
Is Svidler counting on tiebreaks when playing his classical games?
"Not at all. Something just doesn't work for me in the openings when I am White, which is another question. You know, I am an old nervous guy, so I would love to have some rest days. Rest days are priceless in such a competition. You spent so much energy that the day you could spend on doing nothing or just having fresh air is simply priceless. But when you get a position like that, like the one I got yesterday (he means his second classical game against Radjabov )... I know that it might not have been very entertaining, hence exciting for the spectators. Still, for instance, already on the 13th move there was a pawn sacrifice which was declined, so I wouldn't say it was all that boring. In the last position, however, I have no chances to win at all. I have played Grunfeld in my career quite a lot, so I can evaluate the position and see how it looks for Black. I might not be worse in case of an accurate play, but I have no chances to win... Well, that of course if Teimour won't suddenly start playing terribly bad. But why should he suddenly do that?.."
Last edited by Wayne Komer; Monday, 21st September, 2015, 12:00 AM.
The top seed, Topalov, is now the 2nd longest shot at 16 to 1 to win the World Cup. And Caruana has dropped to 11 to 1 after his loss to Mamedyarov today. The latter is now the 2nd favourite at 24/5. Any serious punter, imho, should be putting their money on "Any Other"at 57/10 where you get 5 players, namely Ding Liren, Wei Yi, Pavel Eljanov, Dmitry Jakovenko, and Radoslaw Wojtaszek, and are guaranteed to have either two or three (if Wojtaszek can eliminate Giri) players in the round of 8.
The two betting favourites, Naka and Shakh, both draw their way to the quarteerfinals. Caruana is out but of course is already in the Candidates via the Grand Prix. Jakovenko loses his Caruana Candidates chip but still has his Naka chip. And it looks like he's heading to tiebreaks himself tomorrow against Eljanov.
Svidler takes a draw in a totally winning position and advances to the quarterfinals. Topalov is out but is a virtual 100% certainty to qualify for the Candidates via rating.
Miro and Dirk are in the commentators’ chairs again. Miro says that with the new analytical engines they have found that much old theory is no longer valid. Still, two openings that have survived it are the Ruy Lopez and the Queen’s Gambit and that great champions still need to be able to play these from both sides. And what happens? This round has 5 Ruys!
Round 4, Game 2, Sept. 21, 2015
Classical
Topalov, Veselin – Svidler, Peter
C84 Ruy Lopez, Closed
This was the last game to end. Wei Yi had K+Q vs Ding Liren’s K+bp+R. Finally, Wei Yi has an amazing comeback and wins the game.
White wins in 11 moves after 80…Kg2.
_______
As a result of today’s action Svidler goes on and Topalov goes home, MVL goes on and Wesley So goes home, Mamedyarov goes on and Caruana goes home, Nakamura stays and Adams departs. For tomorrow’s tiebreak round we have Ding Liren-Wei Yi, Giri and Wojtaszek, Eljanov-Jakovenko and Andreikin-Karjakin.
________
Some comments on the games &c.:
- MVL kicks So out of the top ten
- Le jour de gloire est arrive!
- This is the most shockingly unbelievable round of the whole tournament
- Caruana, Topalov and Wesley out!
- Ding will win the whole tournament
- Go on Wei Yi; I love this guy
- Wei Yi made it! What a treat that we’ll get to see a tiebreak between these great players
In fact, there was a huge amount of comment about Wei Yi and Ding Liren. Is Wei Yi the second coming of Bobby Fischer?
Baadur Jobava tweeted his support for Nepo with “Ian, Hang in there, Buddy”.
Peter Svidler was hyped up after his draw and near the end of the interview he said that Gusti (Jan Gustafsson) talked to him a while ago and said that there was an author who was even better at dialogue than Elmore Leonard (d. 2014 – best books Get Shorty, Swag, Three-Ten to Yuma, Rum Punch etc). And that author is Ross Thomas. Peter said that was impossible and then went out and bought 20 Ross Thomas’s to prove Gusti wrong. Now, to relax during the tournament, he is reading Thomas in his spare time.
Ross Thomas, d. 1995, is an American writer of crime fiction. He is best known for his witty thrillers that expose the mechanisms of professional politics. He also wrote several novels under the pseudonym Oliver Bleeck about professional go-between Philip St. Ives. His most mentioned books are Chinaman’s Chance, The Cold War Swap, The Fools in Town are On Our Side, Out on the Rim and The Brass Go-Between.
Finally, from Nakamura's Facebook page:
Another match is in the books, as I found a way to defeat the long time British #1, Michael Adams in the 4th round of the Fide World Cup.
There are many experiences I can share about Michael, but I will never forget watching him defeat Nick De Firmian in a spectacular Marshall Gambit in New York City in 1996. As a young kid who had just started playing chess, I found the game to be truly fascinating. There is something surreal about playing against people whom you once idolized.
While Michael might not be as strong as he once was, he still possesses a fantastic style and positional awareness which makes him a formidable competitor along with some of the older generation like Anand, Gelfand and Ivanchuk.
For now, it is time to relax and enjoy another rest day after nearly two weeks here in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Last edited by Wayne Komer; Monday, 21st September, 2015, 01:15 PM.
Reason: michael adams tribute from nakamura
Betting odds have certainly changed the past 48 hours. Mamedyarov is no longer the 2nd favourite. He's now in fact the 6th favourite of 7 ("Any Other" comprising Eljanov and Wei Yi), ahead of only Peter Svidler. Moreover, Karjakin is a surprising strong favourite against Mamedyarov in their quarterfinal match despite the fact that Mamedyarov has the empirical edge at all time controls - plus 5, minus 4, equal 15 at classical and plus 9, minus 6, equal 7 at Rapid/Blitz. Similarly, Giri is a strong favourite against MVL, again despite the fact that MVL has the empirical edge at all time controls - plus 2, minus 1, equal 15 at classical and plus 3, minus 1, equal 2 at Rapid/Blitz. There is very little empirical data in the other 2 matches. Svidler won his only game against Wei Yi earlier this year and Nakamura and Eljanov haven't played since 2010 when Nakamura won the only classical game and they exchanged wins in 2 Blitz games.
Anish Giri gives great interviews – youthful, enthusiastic, insightful and mixed with a little bit of trash-talking. Some bits and pieces from his exchange with Dirk during the Ding Liren-Wei Yi games:
Girl - Wei Yi catches Ding Liren in the opening, his own Chinese colleague which is interesting because they must read the same yearbooks and discuss all the theory at team breakfasts.
Dirk – Ding Liren did work with Magnus Carlsen. He admitted it but didn’t want to give details.
Giri – I think Magnus should leave China to the Chinese. The Chinese play extremely interesting chess but sometimes the quality is low. They should step back in a complicated position and make a simple, good move. They like tangled positions where nothing is clear.
Dirk – At the training sessions, perhaps the pieces are dumped on the board and the trainer says, “Play!”
Giri – They all live in a dorm and have training matches where they start from a particular position and play hundreds of blitz games from that. It gives them their own theory.
Dirk – They play as a team. The national team wore the same t-shirts for every game in the Olympics for solidarity and for luck and they got quite smelly at the end of the games.
Giri – Wang Hao was always the guy who was the rebel. He was the artist. There is always one guy who is a bit different and has his own view. He is a nice guy, likes Japanese culture and he worked with Levon Aronian in 2011. He must have got some cultural input from him.
Dirk – There was an incident in your games? You were touching pieces when you shouldn’t be?
Giri – Yes, it is a trend now. Actually, it is something I was not quite aware of – adjusting the position of pieces after I had moved. It is a habit, which comes from deep-down. I think it was the same with Hikaru and castling. I did it a couple of times and the arbiter warned me before the games started. I was warned and did it again. You get a one-minute warning and the next time you get a loss.
It is tough. They took away my bracelet, they won’t let me adjust my pieces after moving. They are trying to destroy me from the inside.
Dirk – They took away your bracelet? Of course, you are not supposed to wear a watch or anything like that.
Giri – I am not giving up. I keep fighting the tough fight. Really, if you want to cheat you can. At Dortmund, you could listen to the commentators if you wanted for example. You come and go as you wish. I don’t suspect anyone cheating at this level.
Dirk – This Bulgarian guy, Ivanov, cheated. Veselin Topalov has a theory, that they were just testing out their methods with chess but their real goal was to go to Las Vegas and use them for winning at poker! It was seeing how far they could go.
Giri – Chess is real and sponsors like it. What is the motto here – where the intellect takes the peak?
Dirk – You don’t have an Apple Watch?
Giri – This is the reason why I didn’t buy one. All the time I am playing chess, I wouldn’t be able to wear it. I have to remove my normal watch for games, so why buy an Apple Watch?
Dirk – Are you missing some of your friends now, with people leaving?
Giri – It started off like the Olympics and then with elimination, the number of players shrank, and now it is like an elite tournament.
_____
That gives you the flavor of his comments. I put him up there with Svidler and Grischuk as far as fun interviews go. He is an amazing young man.
I believe that in June 2015, Wang Hao tied for second place with Vassily Ivanchuk and Surya Shekhar Ganguly in the Edmonton International. I am not sure what he is up to recently.
Anish is one of the brightest brains of his generation. He came to my attention as a commentator for Topalov - Anand match in 2010, when he was about 15 years old. Actually I am rooting for him to win, or at least play the final, which will bring him to the Candidates.
Originally posted by Laurentiu GrigorescuView Post
Anish is one of the brightest brains of his generation. He came to my attention as a commentator for Topalov - Anand match in 2010, when he was about 15 years old. Actually I am rooting for him to win, or at least play the final, which will bring him to the Candidates.
Anish will almost assuredly play in the Candidates regardless of how he performs the next two rounds of the World Cup. He's a virtual lock for the 2nd ratings spot (along with Topalov) so doesn't need to make it to the final in the World Cup.
I'm sure Grischuk is hoping Giri makes it to the final. If Anish qualifies for the Candidates via the World Cup, then Grischuk replaces Giri for the 2nd ratings spot. Similarly, Jakovenko is rooting for Nakamura to make it to the World Cup final since Jakovenko would then inherit Naka's Grand Prix spot for the Candidates.
If neither Giri nor Nakamura make it to the final, and neither Karjakin nor Svidler make it to the final, then the Candidates would have no Russian players for the first time in history. At the moment we have Anand, Caruana, Nakamura, Topalov (via rating), Giri (via rating) heading to the Candidates with the two World Cup spots still to be determined.
In Round 4 Game 5 Wei Yi - Ding Liren (game score in above post by Wayne) move 12 Qg3!! - described by Willy Hendriks in his book Move First Think Later as the most amazing move he'd ever seen. Idea if Black plays Nxg3 13.Ng6+ hxg6 14.hxg3 checkmate next is a nice way to coordinate your pieces. Shows the tactical level that Wei Yi plays at!! (in a 10 minute game no less)
Nakamura drops from the overwhelming favourite to the longest shot on the board at 10 to 1 with his loss to Eljanvov today. "Any Other", comprising Pavel Eljanov and Wei Yi, is the new betting favourite at 2 to 1.
We are in the Quarterfinals now having gone from 128 players to 8. It actually seems rather lonely on the playing floor.
The commentators are Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam and Evgenij Miroshnichenko. Some find Dirk dry or boring. I think he has an amazing fund of chess knowledge. If he has one fault, it is that he manages to mention “Linares” every time he commentates. Today, it was this, ”Pavel and Hikaru have rarely played each other. The first time was 14 years ago in the Ubeda Open. Ubeda is a small village, 50 km from Linares.”
No points for knowing that Dirk is the author of a book called Linares! A Journey into the Heart of Chess.
Miro is rather a dominant presenter, just below Tiviakov class! He speaks well although there is one word he pronounces that makes me smile. One kibitzer says it exactly:
- Honestly, I love the way he says “meuve” (for move) ‘cos he sounds like Inspector Clouseau.
There were two quick draws and two long games.
World Cup Baku 2015
Round 5, Game 1, Sept. 23, 2015
Classical
Svidler, Peter – Wei Yi
D42 QGD, Semi-Tarrasch
Wei Yi’s English is not strong. I shudder to think of how I would have dealt with Chinese or any other foreign language if I had to give an interview, on television, at 16!
Evidently, Wei Yi saw that Maxime was going up to give an interview after his game and so he went up too, hesitatingly. But Miro talked too fast and was very mouse-possessive. What he should have done was to let Wei Yi sit down, give him the mouse and let him explain the draw that way.
Dirk and Miro talked about what Anish had said about the quality of the chess in Ding Liren-Wei Yi being low. They put this down to the fact that the computer assessment in that game kept swinging up and down, whereas Anish’s games are remarkable for their stability.
______
Ramirez in ChessBase.com says of Mamedyarov-Karjakin: “Mamedyarov sacrificed an exchange relatively early against his Russian opponent. He had very good compensation, but the resilient Karjakin kept holding on to his position. He sacrificed a piece for the Azerbaijani's passed d-pawn, creating a situation that was certainly dangerous to Black. It is hard to say if White was winning at any point: the computers give Mamedyarov a big advantage in the endgame of two pieces vs. rook, but it was never anything clear, at least to me. Endgame experts might find a winning plan, but it was never easy, and definitely not easy with the clock ticking.”
Round 5, Game 1, Sept. 23, 2015
Classical
Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar – Karjakin, Sergey
E21 Nimzo-Indian, Three Knights
I have spoken about the bottled water supplied to the contestants before. They seem not to take anything else – coffee, orange juice etc. Today however, I saw a can of Red Bull. The curious thing though was that Karjakin did not seem able to unscrew the cap on the water bottle. Normally I would not think of pointing out someone’s disability but Dirk and Miro did. Saying that after not being able to open the bottle, Sergey went off to find either Peter Svidler or a security guard to do it for him. Later, the camera was on Mamedyarov, who opened his bottle with one quick motion.
_______
The game of the day was Eljanov-Nakamura. Pavel is a big man and today, all dressed in black, suit and shirt, he looked like an executioner. He got a good game, GM Arnaudov saying on chessbomb after Black’s move 24, Bd8: We definitely can make a conclusion that White is better here. The bishop at h7 is out of play. The Knight on a6 is very passive. Now white can play f3 and e4 and start, activate the king and start pushing pawns.
And later: Black's position will become critical. Eljanov is well known with his great technique and I expect that he will pose a lot of problems here, Nakamura should do his best to save the game, but I would bet on white's win.
And the kibitzers started announcing Nakamura’s demise:
- it’s not over till the fat lady sings
- the fat lady is on her way up the stairs
Yogi Berra died yesterday at the age of 90. The great NYY catcher was famous for a lot of fractured quotations. I think he said, “It ain’t over till it’s over”. Someone else must be credited for the fat lady sings thing.
Nakamura’s position got worse and finally Eljanov had white rooks on the 7th and 8th ranks yet Hikaru played on. Miro says, “Hikaru continues the fight but will not be able to change the result”.
So, Eljanov wins again. Ramirez concludes his article, “Eljanov is half a point away from knocking out Nakamura. He has so far won 33.1 rating points in the World Cup, catapults himself to 15th in the World and is having the two chess weeks of his life so far.”
Indeed Eljanov and Wei Yi are the two big stories of this World Cup.
Round 5, Game 1, Sept. 23, 2015
Classical
Eljanov, Pavel – Nakamura, Hikaru
E05 Catalan, Open, Classical Line
(Peter Doggers) - This means that tomorrow there is one player who needs a win to stay in the World Cup: Hikaru Nakamura. The starting move that scores best against Eljanov according to the database is 1.Nf3. Who knows what the American will be cooking in his laboratory as we speak.
Last edited by Wayne Komer; Wednesday, 23rd September, 2015, 02:12 PM.
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