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The Ukraine is sitting Chucky for their key match with Azerbaijan today (15:00 GMT = 10:00 a.m. EST). Perhaps it has something to do with Ivanchuk's poor record against Mamedyarov: +1, -5, =9. But perhaps not. Shakh has an even better record against Eljanov: +5, -1, =4 (with another +3, -0, =1 at quicker time controls). 'Twould seem Shakh is kryptonite to both Ukraine's top 2 boards.
Simon says that the Game of the Day is between Carlsen and Aronian. The opening is a Berlin, which was first used in the World Championship in London in 2000 when Kramnik used it against Kasparov. Simon says he was there for that match but his job had nothing to do with chess, he was showing people to their seats!
Round 3, Nov. 15, 2015
Carlsen, Magnus – Aronian, Levon
C65 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defence
Levon was very down after his loss to MVL yesterday. He comes back and beats Magnus Carlsen. Their record up till August 2015 in Classical Games Head to Head is Carlsen against him 13 wins, 32 draws and 8 losses.
He is playing in the London Classic in December and would like to play in at least one more tournament before the Candidates. He said that he feels very lucky that a sponsor from Armenia, who now lives in Russia, trusts him with the wild card position.
"Fun" for everyone other than Fressinet, I would surmise. Kudos to Laurent for not resigning after 30.Rxf5! and letting Richard finish in style. Richard is clearly the hottest player in Reykjavik with a perfect 3/3! It's a bit of a shame the 2014 silver medal winning team from Hungary has ceded 2 draws given Richard's performance. Perhaps they would be better served by having Judit Polar playing rather than coaching (:
The main news of the day was of course the clash between the two highest rated players of the tournament, World Champion Magnus Carlsen (who made his tournament debut after resting during the first two rounds) and Levon Aronian. Linares 2009 was the last time Aronian beat Carlsen in a classical game, but Levon chose his moment perfectly, as today’s victory helped his team Armenia to a narrow 2.5 – 1.5 victory over Norway.
The top two encounters ended with the same score, with Ukraine beating Azerbaijan (thanks to a win by Eljanov against Mamedyarov) and Russia beating Spain (with Nepomniachtchi overcoming Salgado Lopez). The board 3 match between France and Hungary was a 2-2 draw. Rapport opened the Hungarian team’s account with a beautiful win against Fressinet, but Bacrot levelled the score as he outplayed Almasi in a Berlin endgame.
So after three rounds, the only two teams left with a perfect score are Russia and Ukraine and they will face each other on the top board tomorrow. There are also only two teams on 5 points, France and Serbia, and they will also meet in the 4th round. These four countries are followed by a big pack of ten teams on 4 points.
In the Women’s Section we had our first big clash today, as defending champions Ukraine faced the top seed Georgia. While World Champion Mariya Muzychuk defeated Nana Dzagnidze, the highest rated player of the tournament, Javakishvili and Batsiashvili won on the two bottom boards for Georgia and thus secured a 2.5-1.5 victory for their team.
In the top board encounter between Russia and Italy, the only surprise was Marina Brunello beating Valentina Gunina, but the Russian ladies still proceeded to a 3-1 victory. While Hungary overcame Serbia 2.5-1.5 and Germany beat Spain 3-1, France shocked the Netherlands with a perfect 4-0 victory.
Just like in the Open Section, there only two teams left with a perfect score, and those are the top two seeds, Georgia and Russia, who will face off on the top board tomorrow. Behind them are four teams on 5 points: France, Germany, Romania and Hungary. France is paired against Hungary, while Germany will take on Romania.
Tomorrow is only Round Four, but already we can look forward to what might very well be some decisive clashes! As usual, the games will start at 15:00 local time (10:00 a.m. Toronto/Montreal)
Fiona Steil-Antoni
Press Officer
Round Four Pairings Open Section
1. Ukraine-Russia
2. France-Serbia
3. Azerbaijan-Turkey
4. Switzerland-Spain
5. England-Armenia
6. Poland-Hungary
7. Georgia-Croatia
8. Greece-Netherlands
9. Czech Republic-Montenegro
10. Germany-Sweden
11. Moldova-Slovenia
12. Iceland-Italy
13. Romania-Kosovo
14. Denmark-Norway
15. Iceland Legends-Latvia
16. Austria-Finland
17. Lithuania-Belgium
18. Faroe Islands-Scotland
(WK- A tip of the hat to EZ)
Sergey Karjakin tweets: Can Russian team win the tournament without Grischuk?
I assumed that they were resting him for the first three rounds but perhaps he is not in Reykjavik. More on this story later.
Grischuk has evidently replaced Jakovenko for the match with Ukraine today, at least according to http://www.2700chess.com/ who have Grischuk playing Eljanov and Ivanchuk paired with Svidler.
And the betting odds now reflect this change. Yesterday, Ukraine was the slight betting favourite but now Russia is the solid favourite at 169/100 vs 72/25 on Ukraine (with 34/25 draw odds).
Within 20 minutes of the start of play, there is a draw. H. Olafsson – A. Shirov, Iceland Legends-Latvia, in 29 moves.
Simon says that when he plays, he either wins or loses but rarely draws and he would like to know how. He says there is a book about it.
It is probably Draw! The Art of the Half-Point in Chess by Leonid Verkhovsky (2014). The Russian original appeared in 1972. There is also a book of great drawn games, Draw!, by Wolfgang Heidenfeld (1982).
I’ve never read it but I suppose if you have to get in the mood, Carl Haffner’s Love of the Draw (1999), might be just the ticket.
Simon and Fiona talk about reading a player’s body language to figure out what they are thinking. Simon then tells this story:
Tal had a game against Vasiukov in a USSR Championship and was intending to sacrifice a knight. The sacrifice was not obvious and he had a large number of variations to go through when he began to think of a classic problem about how one would drag a hippopotamus out of a swamp.
He thought about jacks and levers, helicopters and even a rope ladder.
“After a lengthy consideration, I admitted defeat as an engineer, and thought spitefully to myself: "Well, just let it drown!" And suddenly the hippopotamus disappeared. Went right off the chessboard just as he had come on... of his own accord! And straightaway the position did not appear to be so complicated. Now I somehow realized that it was not possible to calculate all the variations, and that the knight sacrifice was, by its very nature, purely intuitive. And since it promised an interesting game, I could not refrain from making it.
And the following day, it was with pleasure that I read in the paper how Mikhail Tal, after carefully thinking over the position for 40 minutes, made an accurately calculated piece sacrifice.”
They feature the Naiditsch game, which ends in a beautiful checkmate.
European Team
Round 4, Nov. 16, 2015
Naiditsch, Arkadij-Esen, Barls
B91 Sicilian, Najdorf, Zagreb (Fianchetto) Variation
The viewers are finding Simon’s commentary hard to take and would prefer Jan or Daniel. The hippo anecdote was the best he had.
He has trouble with languages. Fiona has five – Luxembourgish, German, French, English and Spanish. She says the latter gets better with each glass of wine that she has.
If you are at a cocktail party and run out of things to say, you might try this, “Luxembourgish is a Franconian language of the Moselle region similar to German and Dutch.” Of course, you have to hope that there are no follow-up questions! Maybe it would be better not to bring the subject of the language of Luxembourg up unless you are asked first.
________
Fiona and Simon look at some of the women’s’ games. Sandu is mentioned. WGM Mihaela Sandu, a 38-year-old player from Romania, caught all the attention when she started with 5.0/5 in the European Women’s’ Championship in May. She was accused of cheating. An ugly incident.
Anyway, Mihaela has started with 3/3 in this competition. Having beaten Heinemann of Germany today, she is now 4/4.
After trouncing the #2 seed, Ukraine, Russia is even a larger favourite tomorrow against the #3 seed, Azerbaijan, at 29/20, with 32/25 draw odds, and Azerbaijan at 77/20.
What a day for the Russian teams in Reykjavik! In both sections we had the clash between the top two seeds in the tournament today and the matches didn’t disappoint. In the Open Section the Russians cruised to a 3-1 victory against Ukraine, while in the Women’s Section they beat Georgia with a merciless 3.5-0.5 score. In the Ukraine-Russia encounter, it was Peter Svidler who drew first blood as he punished a dubious move choice by Vassily Ivanchuk. He was soon followed by Nepomniachtchi, who after being the match winner yesterday continues his good run here in Reykjavik. Grischuk finally made his debut and drew his game against Eljanov, as did Tomashevsky against Kryvoruchko.
Seeing as the board 2 match between France and Serbia ended in a 2-2 draw, Russia already has a 2-point lead after 4 rounds.
Elsewhere in the tournament Azerbaijan convincingly beat Turkey 3.5-0.5 (Naiditsch’s victory is well-worth replaying!), Spain overcame Switzerland with a 3-1 score and England drew Armenia 2-2, with all four boards ending in decisive results. So after four rounds, Russia is the sole leader on 8 points, and they are followed by as many as 7 teams on 6 points. Tomorrow we can look forward to another big clash as the Russians face title defenders Azerbaijan!
As already mentioned, the Russian ladies created the surprise of the day, as they scored a fantastic 3.5-0.5 victory against top seed Georgia! Only Nana Dzagnizdze could draw her game against Alexandra Kosteniuk on the first board, while Lagno, Gunina and Goryachkina all cruised to victory.
On board 2, France scored an important 3-1 victory against Romania, while on board 3 Romania beat Germany with the narrowest margin. So, just like their male colleagues, the Russian ladies are the sole leaders with 8 points, but France and Romania are hot on their heels with 7 points. And three of the strongest teams of this competition follow them on 6 points: Georgia, Ukraine and Poland.
Tomorrow Russia will face France on the top board, while Romania takes on Ukraine and Poland is paired against Ukraine.
Carlsen's loss today drops him to 2832.2, his lowest rating in 4 years (November 2011). He's now 57 points off his April 21, 2014 apex of 2889.2. His current live rating would also place him below 3 other peak ratings, namely, Kasparov (2856.7), Caruana (2851.3), and Aronian (2835.5).
There are technical difficulties at the first and one couldn’t get on the official site for fifteen minutes or so. Simon said that the Internet went down 30 seconds before they were to go on air.
To kill time while the connections are made again, Simon said that he has a good friend, Icelandic master Bjorn Thorfinnsson, who is now a journalist. His friend Elvar Gudmundsson knows the Armenian team quite well and before the tournament started, he picked them up and took him to one of those Icelandic super spas, which has sauna, hot pool, 50-metre pool and so forth.
While they were in the Jacuzzi, Aronian went on and on about how he had plus records against all the Icelandic players. Elvar then pointed out that the pool lifeguard, sitting up high on his chair, was also a strong master, who had a score of +2 against Aronian. The story made the front page of one of the Icelandic papers this morning.
Simon then told the story about the English GM Stuart Conquest. In the former Soviet Union a cleaning woman (with mop and bucket) once pointed out how he could have defended better in a rook ending.
As for unsuspected chess talent - myself, I have twice been in taxis, where the drivers said that they had beaten Bobby Fischer in a simul. It took just a few questions to get enough information to assure me that neither claim was true.
Fiona and Simon also talk about Viktor Korchnoi, who was famous for criticizing an opponent after they had beaten him. They say you can see it on YouTube where Sofia Polgar (younger sister of Judit and Susan) beats Korchnoi in a blitz game (I think he lost on time), and she apologizes but he says, "this is the first and last time you ever win against me".
In an interview later on in the afternoon, Yannick Pelletier says that Korchnoi still lives in Switzerland, has had two strokes and no longer plays competitive chess. He is 84 years old.
The first game to attract notice is that between the Norwegian prodigy Aryan Tari and Nico Georgiadis of Switzerland. It is said to be a 40-move miniature. Miniatures are generally 25 moves or less, so perhaps they meant that all the action was in the first 25 moves and the rest was just mop-up.
The big sensation of the round is Pelletier beating Carlsen, after a Carlsen blunder (45.Rg8?). Simon pointed out that last month, in the European Club Cup in Skopje, Yannick had beat Nakamura with an innovation he had saved for ten years and now he knocks off Carslen. Yannick says that the third event that makes him just as happy as the other two is the birth of his child.
Tonight there is a pub quiz and tomorrow is the rest day. There is a backgammon tournament and a football match on the 18th.
At the Reykjavik Open in March, the team Carlsen and Hammer answered 26 of the 30 questions in the pub quiz correctly.
The quiz tonight covers a broad spectrum of chess history, and there are some puzzles – everything is chess-related. It is a 90-minute quiz starting at 10 p.m. at the Olver Sports Bar.
Last edited by Wayne Komer; Tuesday, 17th November, 2015, 07:46 PM.
As the tournament crosses the halfway mark here in Reykjavik, the Russian men maintain their lead, while the ladies even further increase theirs!
While the top board clash between Russia and Azerbaijan in the open section ended 2-2 (with all four boards being drawn), the board 2 to 5 matches all ended in decisive results. On board 2, Ukraine beat Hungary 2.5-1.5 and it was once again Pavel Eljanov who decided the match, as he overcame Richard Rapport. The next two matches both ended 3-1, in favour of France against Spain and in favour of Georgia (who are having a great tournament so far!) against Serbia. On board 5, Germany created the upset of the day by overcoming England, with Fridman beating an off-form McShane. So, Russia is still in the sole lead with 9 points, but France, Ukraine and Georgia are now just 1 point behind them. In the 6th round, Georgia will challenge Russia on the top board while Ukraine and France face off on board 2.
As mentioned above, the Russian ladies further increased their lead as they beat France 3-1, while their pursuers, Romania, lost to Ukraine with the same score. Interestingly, in both matches the Russian and Ukrainian players with the black pieces drew their games, while those with the white pieces won theirs: Kosteniuk and Gunina for Russia, Anna Muzychuk and Ushenina for Ukraine.
Georgia decided the big board 3 encounter against Poland in their favour, by the narrowest of margins. While Dzagnidze and Javaishvili won for Georgia on the first two boards, Rajilich won for Poland and the last board game between Majdan-Gajewska and Arabidze was a draw. So Russia now leads with a perfect 10 points, while their closest rivals are already 2 points behind. Ukraine and Georgia both have 8 points, while five teams follow on 7 points: France, Germany, Romania, Hungary and Serbia. In round 6, Russia will face title defenders Ukraine in a big top board clash, while France takes on Georgia, Serbia plays against Romania and Hungary against Germany.
Tomorrow is a rest day here in Iceland and the organisers have put together a great selection of activities for the participants. The players should then be back on the board fully rested on Thursday and the last four rounds of the tournament promise to be extremely exciting!
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