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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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---- Nous avons besoin d'un traduction français!
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2017 FIDE World Chess Palma de Mallorca Grand Prix
NOV 16 – 25 2017 Palma de Mallorca, Spain
The tournament, a nine round Swiss contest, is the last of four Grand Prix in 2017 and follow’s the Sharjah Grand Prix in February, the Moscow Grand Prix in May and the Geneva Grand Prix in July.
The Grand Prix series is sponsored by Kaspersky Lab and EG Capital Advisors.
Each round starts at 2PM local time. The live broadcast of every game at the Palma de Mallorca Grand Prix is available exclusively at www.worldchess.com.
Prize Fund
€ 130000
Players
Alexander Riazantsev
Anish Giri
Boris Gelfand
Ding Liren
Dmitry Jakovenko
Ernesto Inarkiev
Evgeny Tomashevsky
Francisco Vallejo Pons
Hikaru Nakamura
Jon Ludvig Hammer
Levon Aronian
Li Chao
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
Pavel Eljanov
Pentala Harikrishna
Peter Svidler
Richard Rapport
Teimour Radjabov
The tournaments run by Agon have very poor marketing. Usually, in most international tourneys, there are weekly stories, interviews with players and a build-up of anticipation. But with Agon, there was virtually nothing in the press before.
The official site is rather sterile with little or nor information. When the pairings were made, there was finally something to report.
World Chess exclusively broadcasts by pay-per-view. ChessBase carried the game scores live by agreement. Chessbomb and chess24 had no mention of the event this morning.
Agon alienated other services with their lawsuits and they threaten them to be blacklisted via FIDE
Chess24 – Having lost every legal case Agon’s lawyer drafts a shameful “FIDE LIVE MOVES BROADCASTING POLICY” trying to impose an illegal ban on reporting chess moves using FIDE “ethics as its basis.
Alejandro Ortiz – And what about chess media and chess fans? What would happen if for example nobody follows nor covers the next Grand Prix?
Susan Polgar – Many already stopped watching. Many sites do not even cover them.
ChessHot – World Chess wanting to monetize their investment is normal. What isn’t normal is making the factual report of LIVE chess moves illegal.
Jupiqqer – What is the “FIDE family” supposed to mean? Sounds like the mob.
Opening Ceremony
The Opening Ceremony was held at the landmark hilltop Bellver Castle, former residence for the Kings of Mallorca built in the 14th century in a Gothic style. At the castle’s unique circular yard guests had a good opportunity to mingle with each other and enjoy modern Spanish guitar music.
Javier Ochoa, Honorary FIDE Vice President and President of the Spanish Chess Federation, thanked FIDE for the opportunity to host the tournament and welcomed the participants. “Spain is a country with a great Chess tradition and a thousand-year long history of playing chess,” he added.
Sebastia Nadal, President of the Winter Chess: “It is very rewarding to know that one of the best Spanish chess players of our time, Francisco Vallejo Pons, who was born and who resides here in our islands, could take part in this cycle of the World Chess.”
The first round took place at the Hotel Iberostar Bahia de Palma.
Radjabov-Riazantsev was only 12 moves to the draw. Ding Liren – Vallejo Pons was 20. Perhaps the latter is excusable in that Ding had to fly from St. Louis through seven time-zones to make it for the game today.
Palma de Mallorca Grand Prix 2017
Round 1, Nov. 16, 2017
MVL – Gelfand, Boris
B35 Sicilian, Accelerated Fianchetto, Uogele variation
Evgeny Miroshnichenko is commentating on the official broadcast from a studio in Moscow. Peter Doggers says that it is one of the ways Agon is cutting costs. Furthermore, the live shows image quality has decreased. Just like during the Geneva Grand Prix, a limited number of cameras of a lower quality is used compared to the first two Grand Prixs. All this is understandable if you take into account the financial trouble Agon is in, but what’s surprising is that, yet again, the company is publishing the live broadcast for free on Facebook while on the official site viewers need to pay $10 to watch.
Coincidentally, the featured grandmaster on the backpage interview of New in Chess this month (2017#7) is Miro.
A couple of his answers:
What is your favourite city?
Brussels is surely on the list
What book is currently on your bedside table?
Books by Terry Pratchett, Alexander Gents and (surprise!) Boris Gelfand.
What is your all-time favourite movie?
Dead Man by Jim Jarmusch
And your favourite TV series?
Black Books; close second, House MD
Given the last answer, it is not surprising that one of the three famous people he would invite to dinner is Hugh Laurie. I would love to hear them talking at that meal!
_______
Round Two games:
Round 2, Nov. 17
Aronian, Levon – Inarkiev, Ernesto
D37 QGD, Hastings variation, main line
World Cup 2017 #1 Levon Aronian
World Cup 2017 #2 Ding Liren
Rating #1 Fabiano Caruana
Rating #2 Wesley So
Grand Prix 2017 #1 Teimour Radjabov
Grand Prix 2017 #2 Shakhriyar Mamedyarov
Organizer’s Nominee Vladimir Kramnik
The only two of the above that are in reasonable doubt are Radjabov and Mamedyarov. Alexander Grischuk cannot getting any more points in the Grand Prix but MVL can and Radjabov may falter. It is best to follow Martin Bennedik’s spreadsheet round-by-round.
Round Three games
When I started watching the live feed from the tournament, I thought for a moment that I was seeing Magnus Carlsen at the board. It turned out that it was Jon Ludvig Hammer, so much do they look alike with the mop of hair and the glasses!
I see that chessbomb is giving a live feed of the games but chess24 is not.
Round 3, Nov. 18
Hammer, Jon Ludvig – Svidler, Peter
B51 Sicilian, Canal-Sokolsky Attack
There were three draws of 21 moves or less – Radjabov-Giri (21), Inarkiev-Harikrishna (20) and Jakovenko-Riazantsev (18). These short draws have been plaguing the Grand Prix series.
In today's round four of the final leg of the FIDE Grand Prix in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, six of the nine players of the white pieces played h4, many with aggressive intentions.
It was on the square d6 that the round hinged. We will know in one week for sure, but one square from one round could easily decide one quarter of the Candidates' qualification!
Today GM Levon Aronian finished off a gem of an attack with pawn to d6 as the finishing move, while a little while later GM Hikaru Nakamura sacrificed a queen on this square, eventually leading to a win over one of the men trying to qualify, GM Teimour Radjabov.
Those were just two of the six wins this round, which nearly doubled the total number of wins from the first three rounds combined (seven).
On this Bloody Sunday Aronian's win could have even bigger implications, since that pushed him into the lead with 3.0/4. Since GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave drew, the Frenchman (2.5/4) is now splitting second place points with the other five players on a +1 score. Taking out the calculus of the big reward 170 points for 1st place, and adding even more players to split with, will not help Vachier-Lagrave.
That failure to convert the full point against Aronian yesterday now looms even larger for France's strongest-ever player.
Today though, a dilemma: Both Aronian's and Nakamura's wins mattered greatly to the live Candidates' standings, and both had moments of greatness. From a pure chess viewpoint, Aronian easily gets top honors. Marriage has clearly not dampened his creativity.
Aronian claimed afterward that his opening resembled a setup that is usually chosen as Black (which he has played once, so why not as White!?). He said it was made popular by the late GM Vugar Gashimov. While that's true, he could have gone even further back in time than that.
While his opening also resembled the style of GM Duncan Suttles (who also played in Mallorca once, at the 1970 Interzonal), Aronian's middlegame resembled, well, himself! Recall that it was only just a few months ago that Aronian blessed with chess world with another h4, h5, and eventual Rh4 brilliancy. Sure, GM Anish Giri did miss one saving chance today (that our analyzer still thinks doesn't hold), but overall the Armenian was just as irrepressible as at the Sinquefield Cup.
"When I sacrificed the piece, I did it intuitively," Aronian said. "I had a feeling it should work somehow."
As Aronian's game concluded, Radjabov looked to be holding as Black against Nakamura, but then a wayward loosening move spoiled everything. The American had already begun marshaling his forces on the queenside, and punished 26...b5 summarily. Nakamura said Black was already in some danger anyway.
Just prior to the ending, Nakamura offered a pseudo-queen-sac.
"Psychologically it was very hard," Nakamura said after that, adding that he thought Black took back on c8 with the wrong rook.
Shortly after, Nakamura said he played "close to perfectly" while dominating the left half of the board. The queenside rout was so complete that Nakamura was willing to allow one black knight to capture all three of his kingside pawns. His rook then staircased up to b8 and in the final position Black's pieces are uniquely impotent to stopping White's pawns.
The Palma de Mallorca Interzonal took place from November 9 to December 12, 1970. It was a 24-player round robin.
Fischer won the Chess Oscar in 1970. He played Petrosian in the USSR vs The Rest of the World,
played in the Herceg Novi blitz, Rovinj/Zagreb, Buenos Aires, the Siegen Olympiad and at Palma.
On Board 2 against Petrosian his score was 3-1 in four games, was first at Herceg Novi Blitz 4.5 points ahead of Tal, won Rovinj/Zagreb with 13/17, 2 points ahead of a field that included Smyslov, Korchnoi and Petrosian, won Buenos Aires 3.5 points ahead of Tukmakov and led the USA to 4th place at Siegen.
Bobby was ineligible for the Interzonal because he did not take part in the last championship (Evans) but FIDE voted to allow the 27-year-old American to play in the Interzonal if one of his countrymen would step down to make room for him. Pal Benko agreed to step aside for Fischer, as did the designated first-alternate, Bill Lombardy, as well as all the other players in the U.SA. Zonal.
In the tourney, Bobby drew with Hubner, then defeated Smyslov, Addison, Filip, Hort and Reshevsky. A poor patch – and a touch of flu – in rounds 7-9 included draws with Matulovic and Naranja, and a defeat by Larsen.
Two further draws with Portisch and Polugayevsky came next, the Polugayevsky game featuring the curiosity of Fischer playing 1.c4 for the only time in his life to date.
“We are not afraid of Fischer”, declared Efim Geller in an interview after the Interzonal when he discussed prospects for the Candidates’ matches. The fearless Geller offered Bobby a draw on the seventh move; Bobby laughed at him, turned down the offer, and won 65 moves later from a drawn rook ending where the tired Geller analyzed an illegal move in pondering the critical position. It was the turning point of the tournament, though only in the sense that after the game the question because whether Fischer could surpass his own winning margin of Stockholm.
Two more convincing wins against Ivkov and Minic, preceded a little interlude where Bobby dropped half points to the tournament tail-enders Jimenez and Ujtumen. At this stage, with seven rounds left, he was half a point in front of Geller and one point ahead of Uhlmann.
The prospects were for a narrower lead over the second finisher than in Stockholm, but the remaining games set in motion an incredible record series of victories It started with two wins which demonstrated Bobby’s strength in opening theory: a textbook sacrifice at d5 destroyed Rubinetti’s Najdorf Sicilian, then Uhlmann fell into a known trap in the Modern Benoni which cost his key king’s pawn and the game. Fischer’s win from Taimanov was a classic bishop vs knight situation of a type where Fischer excels: Taimanov missed a chance to solidify a black square grip, whereupon Fischer opened up the position for the bishop and won a precisely calculated endgame.
Three more wins showed once again how Fischer plays at full power at the end of a tournament when most masters are flagging. He broke through with his rooks in a sharp game against Duncan Suttles, coasted to an easy point against the young Brazilian Mecking, who showed poor strategical judgement in defence against Fischer’s 1.g3, and took full advantage of a fatigue blunder by the veteran Gligoric. In the final round, Bobby had a little compensation for the events of Sousse when Panno resigned without play as a protest against special arrangements for the games of Fischer and Reshevsky to start after the other players.
The great spurt in the closing rounds had achieved the impossible. Bobby’s winning margin was wider than in Stockholm. The table for the top half of the tournament read Fischer 18.5 out of 23. Larsen, Geller, and Hubner 15, Taimanov and Uhlmann 14, Portisch and Smyslov 13.5. Polugayevsky and Gligoric 13, Panno and Mecking 12.5. Journalists were already making forecasts for the Spassky-Fischer match.
_______
The round-by-round description above comes from the chapter entitled “From Portoroz to Petrosian” in the book “The Games of Robert J. Fischer” (1972), edited by Robert Wade and Kevin O’Connell.
After today’s play in Palma 2017, I wanted to show the exciting play there in 1970.
All the games today were drawn, seven in less than 30 moves.
Levon Aronian made a draw with Peter Svidler, yet remained the sole leader of the tournament after six rounds.
Richard Rapport and Evgeny Tomashevsky defeated Alexander Riazantsev and Teimour Rajabov accordingly to join the group of six players with plus one, including Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Hikaru Nakamura, Ding Liren, Peter Svidler, Dmitry Jakovenko and Pentala Harikishna. Boris Gelfand suffered another loss in the tournament, this time at the hands of Ernesto Inarkiev. Other games finished in a draw.
Peter Svidler was in trouble right from the very opening: “I have a suspicion that Levon Aronian looked at the line, which happened in the game, in more detail, because I think it’s more difficult to look at it in less detail than I did.” Levon Aronian was happy about his position after the opening, but was disappointed with his decision of 20.Ng5: “When I was playing fast, I was doing the right moves, then I thought for 25 minutes, got carried away and blundered 21…Rae8.” The White’s advantage slipped away and the game finished in a draw after a few moves.
According to Richard Rapport, he was satisfied with his position after the opening, but believed that things got out of control afterwards. Alexander Riazantsev declined a draw offer after 25…Qg5 but most probably missed a strong idea 27…c5. It was White’s turn to be careful, but the Russian Grandmaster didn’t manage to hold the position playing under time pressure.
Ernesto Inarkiev and Boris Gelfand played two matches against each other in Ingushetia (Russia) and continued their theoretical discussion in the English opening. Inarkiev had difficult times with Black after 1.c4 and it was his first victory in classical game over Gelfand with Black pieces. The Russian Grandmaster managed to equalize comfortably and the moment Gelfand decided to complicate the position he felt it should not work for White. Ernesto was happy to find 20…Na2 and thought his position was better after.
Teimour Rajabov dropped back to minus one with a loss against Evgeny Tomashevsky. The game could have finished in a draw around move 20, but Teimour decided to play on. “At least I tried! #chess”, wrote Azerbaijani Grandmaster in his twitter.
Evgeniy Tomashvesky had a similar experience as his opponent at the last stage of the previous Grand Prix Series in Khanty-Mansiysk. He also had a chance to qualify for the Candidates back then and knew how difficult it was to play under such pressure. The two opponents had different motivation. The Russian Grandmaster was slowly increasing his advantage and won a pawn on move 40. He was sure that Black could have defended better, but at the same time believed White’s position had to be winning.
- 57….b6 is a poor move
- will ET find the killer 58.b5?
- He found it, Radjabov can say goodbye to the Candidates tournament
- Mamedyarov can start packing. It’s all between MVL and Grischuk now
Round 6, Nov. 22
Riazantsev, Alexander – Rapport, Richard
A91 Dutch Defence
MVL needs to go all out for the last 3 rounds draws probably aren't enough anymore to qualify for the candidates.
I think he needs at least 2 wins min.
The star game of this round was Rapport-Aronian that went 6.5 hours and is the longest game of the tournament so far at 79 moves. It finished with a study-like move by Rapport that drew the game.
Round 7, Nov. 23
Rapport, Richard – Aronian, Levon
E05 Catalan, open, Classical line
Boris said in the interview that the tournament has not gone as he would have liked but afterwards he will look at how the openings transformed into the middle game and see what he can learn from those.
The Fide Grand Prix has its final round in Palma de Mallorca on Saturday, with two of the eight candidates to challenge for Magnus Carlsen’s world crown still to be decided. France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and the Azeri Teimour Radjabov could qualify by a final spurt in Spain while his fellow Azeri Shak Mamedyarov and Russia’s Alex Grischuk have completed their schedules and must watch from the sidelines.
Palma was the site for a famous final-round game-throwing episode in 1970, when Milan Matulovic, after selling the point for $400 to Soviet officials who wanted Mark Taimanov to qualify, blitzed out his moves to a lost position. It did not help Taimanov, who a few months later even more famously lost his candidates quarter-final 6-0 to Bobby Fischer.
Here are all the final-round scenarios (that we could think of!):
If Aronian wins on top board tomorrow, he will take first with 6.0/9. Then:
If Radjabov wins (against GM Richard Rapport), he is in the Candidates, no matter what. This is because at most four players will tie for second. The points would be 140+110+90+80= 420 / 4 = 105 and Radjabov would finish first with 346 3/7. Both he and Mamedyarov would qualify.
Vachier-Lagrave would need to win (against GM Dmitry Jakovenko), and have no other 4.5 scorer win (regardless of who it is). If he is the only 4.5-scorer to win, then he and Mamedyarov would qualify.
If there is one other 4.5-winner that is not Radjabov, Vachier-Lagrave would merely tie Grischuk for the second Candidates' spot. The first tiebreak is actual games won in the three events, and they would tie there (16.0-16.0). The second tiebreak is number of games played with Black, and Grischuk played 14/27 games with Black while Vachier-Lagrave will have played only 13/27 games. So Vachier-Lagrave cannot afford to go to the tiebreak.
If Aronian draw or loses, then there will be one player on 5.5 from board one (either him or GM Hikaru Nakamura). In that scenario:
Radjabov is still in the Candidates' if he wins. There could be at most five total players tying for first, so his minimum points would be 170+140+110+90+80 = 590 / 5 = 118. Radjabov only needs 96 to qualify, so he and Mamedyarov would be in the Candidates'.
Vachier-Lagrave still needs to win, and have not more than one other player in the 4.5 score group win also (not counting the top board, where someone will be getting to 5.5/9). Vachier-Lagrave would not care if Radjabov was one of the other two people tying with him. That's because 170+140+110 = 420 / 3 = 140. In this case Vachier-Lagrave would qualify and so would Radjabov if he was one of the winners, or Mamedyarov if Radjabov failed to win.
Here's where it gets fun: Vachier-Lagrave can still qualify if he wins and there are two other winners in the 4.5 score group win (in addition to the top board player scoring 5.5/9). But in that case he cannot have Radjabov be one of the winners.
That's because the four-way split would be 170+140+110+90 = 510 / 4 = 127 1/2, which is more than the 126 that Vachier-Lagrave needs to overtake Grischuk. However, that's not enough to overtake Mamedyarov's total (it's about three points short). So if Radjabov is one of the four finishing on 5.5/9 for first, then he'd take first qualification overall, and Mamedyarov would barely hang on over Vachier-Lagrave.
There are no scenarios at all where Vachier-Lagrave or Radjabov can qualify with a draw. So, this is all academic for them. They both must win for any chances to exist.
Today Radjabov and Vachier-Lagrave will play their most important must-win games of the year in an environment, which has no anti-cheating measures. no metal detectors, bathroom next to spectators’ area and audience can use mobile devices in playing hall.
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