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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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It will be interesting to see what type of form Karjakin is in and how Caruana and Giri will do in a tournament in which Magnus Carlsen is not playing.
Safarli, born in 1992, was the under-10 Youth Champion in 2002. Twice in the World Cup, losing in early rounds. He just shared first place at the Nakhchivan 16 Open with Mamedyarov (7 points of 9).
He was asked about his rivalry with Nakamura and why he has difficulty beating Anish Giri:
What is it about Giri that makes it difficult for you to win consistently against him?
I don’t know why he’s asking about consistently because I’ve never won a game from him! No, he’s a good player – he’s very good tactically, so it’s hard to trick him. Just recently all our games seem to be heading for a draw pretty early on, but still, once he starts winning tournaments that will become more of an issue for me! For now I can sleep well at night even with my minus score against him.
Giri didn’t take long in responding:
Flying eastwards tomorrow! Looking forward to Shamkir and wishing goodnight to Magnus Carlsen, sleep well at night!
The games start at 15:00 local time, which is 7 a.m. Toronto/Montreal time (8 hrs difference)
The commentators in English are to be Ljubomir Ljubojevic and Sergei Tiviakov and in Azeri, Anar Allakhverdiyev.
Some ChessTalkers may remember the Paris Grand Prix of 2013, where Tiviakov was a commentator and argued about variations with the players, notably Hikaru Nakamura. This from Round Two of the Grand Prix:
"Please, please, please, take out Tiviakov from the commentary room.
He is a very good player indeed, no doubt about it, but has not a clue about what he's doing in front of a camera.
He dared to discuss a variation with Naka move by move, not the ideas, nor the moves, but actually challenging him to respond to his moves. Ridiculous!"
Perhaps Sergei has gained some finesse in the intervening three years. It will be fun watching!
Sergei Tiviakov and Ljubomir Ljubojević commentators
Round One
There were the usual snafus in the production of Round One. The sound was very low on Sergei’s microphone and Ljubomir, who was sharing it, sounded distant.
If you switched over to the Azeri channel for the press conferences, the sound was deafening.
Sergei commentating on the game Radjabov-Hou Yifan said at one point, “Hou Yifan plays typical women’s chess, no positional thinking, just move by move concretely.”
The gist of the subsequent analysis was that Radjabov spends a lot of time with his family and only plays competitive chess occasionally and somehow missed his way and did not win the game.
(Mark Crowther) - Radjabov had a catastrophe in the 2013 London Candidates. Maybe exposing problems he had and has never really recovered.
A couple of the online kibitzers are offended by Tiviakov’s remarks and point out that his top rating ever was 2699 and Hou Yifan’s is 2663. I am not sure what this argument is meant to prove, so I will leave it alone.
Sergei never looks at the camera and relentlessly analyzes on. He certainly is a character. I found this answer to an interview question posed to him, online:
Who is the most irritating opponent you have faced?
Once I played a person who after losing to me smashed his head with a piece and started bleeding. His blood was all over the table.
At the end of the games today, the camera transmitted Sergei’s vacant chair for quite a time.
Always an adventure watching Sergei!
The games all ended in draws today.
Gashimov Memorial 2016
Shamkir, Azerbaijan
Round 1, May 26, 2016
Safarli, Eltaj – Eljanov, Pavel
A13 English Opening, Agincourt Variation
Giri plays Karjakin today. Two of the hardest players to beat in the world. Magnus Carlsen tweeted Anish at the start wondering how he was going to treat Karjakin’s “dubious queen’s indian”.
It’s best to just give the score of that game with chessbomb kibitzer comments:
Gashimov Memorial 2016
Shamkir, Azerbaijan
Round 2, May 27, 2016
Giri, Anish – Karjakin, Sergey
A36 English, Ultra-Symmetrical Variation
- Karjakin got punished for wasting time early on. Was it really needed to spend more than 6 minutes on the first 2 moves? After Giri started 25.Nxd4 --> Karjakin had 12 min left. And on move 34 he blundered. No surprise to me
- someone needs to record tiviakov and get it on utube. it would get a million hits
- man. i just checked out game. hard to believe karjakin missed 35.f5
- The live commentary is as thrilling as the Soviet TV news in the old times
- Giri's queen is like a phoenix - you kill one and another appears and then another…
_______
Round 2, May 27, 2016
Eljanov, Pavel – Caruana, Fabiano
D91 Grunfeld
It is quite interesting to compare the different tournament transmissions that we see on the Internet. The best photography, hands down, was the Candidates 2016 from Moscow from the Agon.
The best commentators who were funny, had insight and got along with the colleagues they were interviewing, were Jan Gustafsson and Peter Svidler at Norway Chess 2016.
The best setting was the railway museum from which part of the Tata Steel tournament was broadcast.
One of the worst was the European Individual Championship from Kosovo. They had no commentary and the images were from three fairly distant cameras. It was the first time for Kosovo and, Lord knows that they have had their troubles there, so I will not criticize.
Now we come to the Gashimov Memorial. Tiviakov never looks at the camera, he is wholely absorbed in the game. If he has the mouse in his hand, he is the most powerful person on the set. The analysis boards on-screen are unlabeled. The press conferences are entertaining because of Ljubojevic, but the lighting is flat, the sound bad and the cameramen are walking all around the set distracting the viewer. Azerbaijan has a lot to fix before the Olympiad.
Ljubo asked Giri what chess school he would classify himself as being in.
He said that he read the Russian Black Series of books with his trainers when he was a young player, so he started off with the Russian Chess School.
He played a huge amount of chess on-line, which at the time was un-Russian. But he never went as far as Hikaru along this line.
He was involved in a lot of opening research. This was started by Euwe and so that is part of his legacy to the Dutch players.
_______
What is the Black Series? This is a series of books in Russian, about the outstanding chess players of the world, published in Moscow by Fizikultura i Sport, 1969 – 1987. The usual book has games, photos, cross-tables and about 250-280 pages. They are very collectible and a complete set went on sale at the Lund site recently for $377 CAN.
Some of the players covered are: Alekhine, Boleslavsky, Botvinnik, Bronstein, Capablanca, Chigorin, Euwe, Fischer (My 60 Memorable Games - trans.), Flohr, Geller, Gligorich (I Play Against Pieces – trans.), David Janowski, Karpov, Kotov, Larsen (My 50 Best Games of Chess - trans.), Lasker, Morphy, Nimzowitsch, Petrosian, Philidor, Polugaevsky, Portisch, Rubinstein, Schlechter, Smyslov, Steinitz, Stein, Tal and Tarrasch.
A veritable University Course in the recent history of the game. The last Black Series volume I bought was Akiba Rubinstein by Razuvaev and Murakhveri (1980), which is supposed to be the best book about that player written.
______
Ljubo sets up Eljanov and Karjakin for his questions by talking about the “beautiful friendship” between players even if they be Russian and Ukrainian. Then he says that Ukrainians have the reputation of being very superstitious and does either player have his chess superstitions? He gives the example of a player wanting to use one particular pen to record his moves. He says that Botvinnik always wore the same suit and did not want to wash his hair or shower before games for fear that he would wash out his chess inspiration. Karpov had the same superstition. No, neither Eljanov or Karjakin have a chess superstition.
______
Caruana and Mamedov come in to the press conference. Fabiano is leading the tournament. Ljubo says that Fabiano looks fresh and confident and his analyses at the press conferences are appreciated by the chess world. Does he have any superstitions, any totem that protects him as he plays?
Fabiano says that he is not superstitious although, if he is on a winning streak, he likes to use the same pen.
Ljubo says that then the sun is always shining on him – that he is always optimistic.
Fabiano says that is not always the case. Some days he has a bad feeling, a premonition of losing, which is self-defeating, but that doesn’t happen very often.
Because Mamedov lost today, he promises that he will not be playing in the shirt he played with today again.
Ljubo believes that superstition of players has always been present in chess history.
Caruana back to No.2 on the Live Chess Ratings, ahead of Kramnik.
______
The final press conference is with Hou Yifan and Mamedyarov. When Shakhriyar is asked about superstitions he brings out a folded green paper from his pocket. He says that it contains something about who he is and words of his life. It is the secret of secrets. There is another player involved in the interpretation. He explains it to the panel, briefly and reads out a couple of words. But, the still photographer steps in front of him for a minute during the height of the explanation and the sound is very poor and we never hear the secret. The interpreter gives an explanation in Azeri afterwards but who can understand that? Hopefully, an online comment will explain what happened because I cannot.
- I cant believe the camera guy appeared when Shakh was revealing the secret of secrets, Damn!
- They need a director for the show.
The games:
Gashimov Memorial 2016
Shamkir, Azerbaijan
Round 4, May 29, 2016
Giri, Anish – Harikrishna, Pentala
D41 QGD, Semi-Tarrasch
The four wins in this round came about all at the same time, so Tiviakov excused himself and Ljubojevic handled the interviews.
Ljubomir was born in 1950 in what now is Serbia. He played for Yugoslavia in twelve Chess Olympiads. He won the Canadian Open in Montreal in 1974.
The report in Chess Chat said then: “L. Ljubojevic of Yugoslavia won with 10-1, just ahead of our own D. Suttles with 9.5-1.5. Then came B. Larsen and B. Amos with 9-2 each. The field also included V. Hort and M. Quinteros. Larsen lost to Suttles and Suttles fell to Ljubojevic”.
In his interviews he is very aggressive and often does not let others talk. He prepared a question today for the participants – Is there a country or a language that influences you when you play?
Caruana simply says that he likes to play in St. Louis because he has lots of friends there. Ljubo asks him if he could know another language, what would it be?
Fabiano says that he has several friends of Spanish extraction and he would like to be able to speak Spanish to them if he could.
One is reminded that Robert Hubner once took up the study of Finnish because it was a difficult language. His academic work was on the deciphering of ancient papyri. He is reputed to have mastered more than a dozen languages.
He recently published Elements of an Autobiography (2015) in German, which is supposed to be a fascinating view of the world through his eyes.
Harikrishna and Eljanov sit down at the conference table. Ljubo’s questions on language get nowhere. A member of the audience asks Pentala if he and Anand are close friends.
He says that they live 800 km apart, so it is difficult to see each other every day. They do meet at tournaments. It must be remembered that Vishy is older than Pentala (by 16 years) so that makes their relationship different.
______
Karjakin and Hou Yifan come on. Ljubo doesn’t exactly neglect Hou Yifan but he poses almost all of his questions to Sergey and refers to her in the third person instead of asking her opinion during the analysis.
He tries this question: Suppose your opponent suddenly collapses at the chessboard, what do you do? He and Sergei discuss the situation. Sergey drives a car and so, he must know first aid. The question is do you help out your opponent, or do you stop the clock and call the arbiter or do you let the clock run and call the arbiter? Sergei said that he would call for help. He didn’t seem to care if the clock was stopped or not.
I am imagining a situation where one would be giving mouth to mouth to an opponent on the floor while the clock is running and the tournament floor in chaos!
Sergey says that he is doing some work on the WCC preparation but he has tournaments to play in and he is doing prep for them.
Giri and Safarli have finished their game and are in. Anish takes the mouse and is in full control, not Ljubo. Giri mentions his performance last year when he tied for 7th through 10th at Shamkir and not winning a game and now here he has three wins.
Caruana has won four games and is clearly on a rampage. He has a slightly tougher schedule ahead of him but then the two leaders go head-to-head in Round 7.
A most entertaining tournament – two eccentric commentators and two young players heading the results table.
______
The tournament resumes on Wednesday, with Round 6.
______
- After a false start, this has turned into quite an event, reminding us that a bit of imbalance in strength in a round robin does tend to lead to more unbalanced games as well.
Particularly impressed with Caruana and Giri, since both could have been forgiven for feeling a bit depressed still quite soon after the candidates
- Agree with that, Giri has repaired the rating damage he suffered in Norway to go up to number 4 on the live ratings, and Caruana seems to be flowing too
Probably benefiting from the work they did for the Candidates though
As usual Sergei Tiviakov and Ljubomir Ljubojevic are in the commentators chairs. There is a lady interpreter at the left of the screen and she has her work cut out for her with Ljubomir talking non-stop and almost unaware of her presence.
The broadcast would benefit from having the names of the players on the demonstration boards and the speakers at the press conference table across the screen. As for the latter, a little card is put up with each’s name but they are virtually unreadable because the camera shot takes in the whole table.
As can be seen from the game scores below, there were five draws. Giri and Caruana kept their games going as long as they could but finally took the draws.
Tivi and Ljubo noted that both Rounds One and Six had all draws. They concluded that the players arrived fresh and rested at the start of the tournaments and made few errors and the result was a draw. After yesterday’s rest day, the players were again rested and fresh, hence the five draws today. Conversely, in Round Five, the players were tired and there were four decisive games because of errors.
With the economic conditions in Europe, there are some tournaments now with 9 rounds in 5 days. The organizers thus have to pay less for the accommodation. Ljubo said that not having a rest day didn’t matter to him when he was younger, nor did two rounds a day. He and Tivi both admire Nakamura, who likes to play every day and doesn’t particularly like free days. As he gets older, he will probably think differently about that.
_______
Ljubo questions Hou Yifan and Harikrishna about his theory that Eastern chess is different from Western Chess, in that the players seem to be better at tactical complications and worse in opening theory and positional understanding. Hou Yifan has been criticized for this on a previous day. I find many of his opinions politically incorrect but he continues on with them any way no matter what is said. I am beginning to think that he does not regularly read Chess Talk!
Harikrishna says that the Indian players have recently benefited from chess coaches from the old USSR and now positional chess is being taught. He names Baskaran Adhiban as one of that new breed of Indian grandmasters.
On the latest FIDE list, India is credited with having 43 grandmasters and the top five are Anand, Harikrishna, Adhiban, Vidit and Negi. China has 39.
______
Yesterday was the rest day and most of the players played in a soccer match. From a photo, it appeared that Hou Yifan had not done this before. Pavel Eljanov defended the goal on his team and was named its best player, even though they went down 10 to 1. Evidently Giri gave a simul for school children.
______
Gashimov Memorial 2016
Shamkir, Azerbaijan
Round 6, June 1, 2016
Hou Yifan – Harikrishna, Pentala
C42 Petrov, Classical Attack
(ChessBase) - Giri might have tried a bit too hard to win today. He chose an offbeat opening and the sacrificed a pawn to create an interesting position in which White's pair of bishops and superior development definitely gave him compensation. However a very timely return of the pawn by Eljanov turned the tables around, as the black knights and rooks swarmed the position. Still, things were far from clear, and Eljanov preferred to simplify into a drawn endgame then to look for more complications in the queenless middlegame.
Round 6, June 1, 2016
Giri, Anish – Eljanov, Pavel
A07 Reti, King’s Indian Attack (Barcza System)
Caruana went into the game wanting to win his fifth in a row. His 14..h5 is a good shot, and he is a pawn up but he lets the possible win slip away. He was down in time near the end.
The time control is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then each player will be allotted 15 minutes after the second time control; an increment of 30 seconds will be allowed from move 61 onwards.
Caruana said at the press conference that he finds it difficult adjusting to different time controls. Against Harikrishna in Round One, he had one minute for three moves. FIDE should really standardize the time controls for all rated tournaments.
He said that he has played two games a day in the Las Vegas tournament (Millionaire 2?) and didn’t like it. A free day is nice but not necessary. At Wijk aan Zee in 2014, there were 11 rounds and 5 free days and it got to be a bit boring sitting around the hotel room on those days.
Fabiano said that he does play a lot and he has been getting complex positions where a win is possible lately.
_______
I have tried, but been unable, to find the number of FIDE-rated games played by Nakamura and Caruana in 2015 and so far this year. I should like to compare them with the playing frequencies of Grischuk, Morozevich and Radjabov if that is possible. Any help?
______
The big game is between the two leaders, Fabiano Caruana and Anish Giri. Fabiano plays for perpetual check at the end, even though he has a better position. The questions are: should he have played on, and was there always a draw there for Anish?
The guys come in to the press conference and analyze. It is a pleasure to see two young men at the top of their profession kibitzing the game with humour and vigour.
But then Ljubo asks a non-pc question.
You are the leading players among chess professionals. Should a grandmaster, either active or retired take a position as head of FIDE or a national chess organization? Good players are not always good organizers and they might be biased against former or present opponents.
He mentions Max Euwe as being a very nice man but a bad FIDE president. He also drags in Folke Rogard, Fridrik Olafsson and Florencio Campomanes. But it seems that what he wants is some statement disqualifying Garry Kasparov as a future FIDE president because he broke away from it several times.
He strongly presses both Anish and Fabiano for answers. Since their chess careers were under the FIDE administration of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and they weren’t involved with Kasparov in any way during his playing days, it would have seemed to be pointless to come out with a simple yes or no. But he asks the question giving more examples for fifteen minutes.
Giri tells Ljubo not to put words in his mouth and that he is being subjective. Both he and Caruana agree that the worthiness of a player in chess administration depends on the individual.
The room seems to be very hot. The interpreter is sitting in a black sundress and waving some papers to cool herself off. When she is asked to interpret what the guys have said, they go back to analyzing the game.
______
Radjabov and Karjakin have also drawn. As soon as he can Ljubo poses the question to them. It is a difficult thing to field actually because if a player criticizes the chess administration of his country, nobody is going to be happy. Both are diplomatic. Teimour says the qualities of the president depend on him personally and he has no problem with a grandmaster being head of FIDE. I am sorry we don’t see him as regularly on the circuit as we used to.
On-line comments:
- is Ljubo going to run for the FIDE presidency?
- I stopped listening to him decades ago, annoying man
- at least the guy is trying to pose some interesting questions, instead of “what are you going to do on your free day?”
- too aggressive, loaded questions, thinks his views are the facts, calls Euwe the worst president
One feels sorry for Hou Yifan, she is getting badly bruised in this tournament. The commentators don’t give her any slack for playing poorly. There are no friends to pal around with after the games. One female kibitzer does post this comment however:
- The problem with Hou is that she does not care about chess so much she still thinks about things like finishing her studies and being happy
to which another kibitzer replies:
- Wonder what Carlsen would say if they offer him to be twice as happy, but have no chess career past and present and have to get a regular job...?
__________
The kibitzers on-line are critical of Ljubo and one likens him to Donner as being grumpy and judgmental. Another kibitzer says:
I took Donner to the train station the evening before his attack. He asked what I did. I said: Well, I play chess. He said: Get a job.
Mamedov and Eljanov are at the press conference. For some reason the chairs make noises like whoopee cushions. It is hard not to smile.
Ljubo’s question today is: Do you think in team competitions there should be a team rating for an individual different from his personal rating?
Sometimes in a team competition one player will get black several times, which handicaps him. Sometimes he will have to sacrifice himself in some way for the team…
Eljanov thinks that it is the player’s own decision as to what to do. Which is more important – the team result or the result of one member on the team? He thinks it is a non-issue but Ljubo argues the point some more, of course.
It looks like Karjakin is going to end up in the top half of the table.
Gashimov Memorial
Shamkir, Azerbaijan
Round 8, June 3, 2016
Safarli, Eltaj – Karjakin, Sergey
B13 Caro-Kann, Exchange
In the following game, Caruana goes wrong about move 29. Ree3. Then he gets behind in his time and has less than a minute for his remaining five moves. Shak tries to clock Fabi and lets him out. Finally, Shak gets the point.
The last game is Giri-Hou Yifan which is going towards seven hours. In view of the tournament situation, Giri should conserve his strength by offering a draw, but he plays on.
A tie-break match will be played in case of a tie for the first place in the tournament between the first two players in the final standing. The match will consist of two games with a time-control of 10 minutes per player + 3 seconds added for every move played. In case of a tie, another match of two blitz-games will be played with a time-control of 5 minutes per player + 3 seconds for every move played. In case of another tied result – there will be played a last “sudden death” decisive game with a time control 6 minutes for he whole game for the White player and 5 minutes for the whole game for the Black-player. The White player will only need a victory in this game to win the tournament; while the Black player will win the tournament by just not losing that final decisive game.
1 Place 15,000 euros
2 Place 12,000 euros
3 Place 10,000 euros
4 Place 8000 euros
etc
Rd 8 Fabulous Fabbie played with fire and got burned by the Shak! Yifan should draw Anish and congratulations if she does so (with black)!
Yifan Hou has never lost to Giri, Hans. In 8 career encounters she's +2, -0, =6. The 2 draws this year (Tata Steel and Gashimov Memorial) have gone a total of 198 moves (95 & 103).
Coming into the round both Giri and Caruana had 5.5 points and Mamedyarov had 5. Fabiano quickly drew with Sergey and let the game of Mamedyarov-Giri settle whom he would go into a playoff with.
(Peter Doggers in chess.com) – Mamedyarov got a nice advantage out of the opening despite starting with the modest 6.c3 — it's almost as if White is choosing the black pieces there. But with a push of the a-pawn and a surprising 13th move Mamedyarov did manage to get a better endgame which he eventually converted on move 53.
Rauf Mamedov beat Hou Yifan convincingly with the black pieces. Radjabov drew with Eljanov.
(Albert Silver in CB) - Safarli’s win came after a dramatic turnaround in his game against Harikrishna. The Indian had completely outplayed his opponent, but at a serious cost on his clock. He had a massive position, with a rook roaming the seventh at will, and all he needed to do was trade off the other pieces. Somehow he suffered a few moments of blindness and in a handful of moves was dead lost. This tale of chess myopia was symptomatic of the great Indian player's tournament, and in spite of never giving up, will power alone was not enough to overcome the self-inflicted handicaps.
The games:
Gashimov Memorial
Shamkir, Azerbaijan
Round 9, June 4, 2016
Eljanov, Pavel – Radjabov, Teimour
A45 Queen’s Pawn Game
For players tied for the first place the regulations stipulated that a playoff had to be played. And so Caruana and Mamedyarov returned to the stage for the first part: two games of ten minutes and three seconds increment per move.
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