Hansen - Wu brilliancy

[Vlad Dobrich]

A very nice and clever win by Calgary's Hansen. But why are his games
showing him with a US flag? Have we traded him for Nakamura? :D I'd be ok with that.

[Mark S. Dutton]

Re: Hansen - Wu brilliancy

A very nice and clever win by Calgary's Hansen. But why are his games
showing him with a US flag? Have we traded him for Nakamura? :D I'd be ok with that.

So you are OK with a trade of the Canadian Champion for the US Champion?

Sounds fair enough! I know that Eric Hansen lives in Texas now, however, he should be shown from CANADA (of course) and we will get on the MONROI staff (read Zeljka) to get that corrected.

Good eye Vlad!

For those who didn't see the game here it is...


[Event "2012 Canadian Open Chess Championship"]
[Site "Victoria"]
[Date "2012.07.09"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Hansen, Eric"]
[Black "Wu, Howard"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteELO "2447"]
[WhiteTitle "IM"]
[BlackELO "2136"]
[BlackTitle "NM"]
[Source "MonRoi"]

1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 c5 3.g3 g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.a3 O-O 6.b4 cxb4 7.axb4 d6 8.Rb1 Qc7 9.d3 Be6 10.e4 Nc6 11.Nge2 Ng4 12.O-O Nd4 13.Nxd4 Bxd4 14.Nb5 Qb6 15.Nxd4 Qxd4 16.Bb2 Qb6 17.Qd2 Ne5 18.Kh1 f6 19.f4 Nc6 20.b5 Nb8 21.f5 Bf7 22.fxg6 hxg6 23.Qh6 Nd7 24.Bh3 Ne5 25.Rf4 Qe3 26.Rbf1 Nxd3 27.Bc1 Nxc1 28.Be6 g5 29.Rh4 1-0

[Vlad Dobrich]

Re: Hansen - Wu brilliancy

What was most impressive was that Eric spent the most time after his opponent played 25....Qe3 which may have caught him by surprise with the difficult problem it set him.
Finally he played 26 Rb -f1! and 27 Bc1! after some thought.
The rest he played quickly.
Very nice impressive play!

ps: I was nominated to choose the best played and brilliancy prize games at the last two Canadian Opens - the above game would by my choice for this year's prize - barring some as yet unplayed candidate games.

[Aman Hambleton]

Re: Hansen - Wu brilliancy

A very nice and clever win by Calgary's Hansen. But why are his games
showing him with a US flag? Have we traded him for Nakamura? :D I'd be ok with that.

I wouldn't. Aesthetics have to be kept within the walls of Canada to bolster our Chess:Aesthetics ratio. IM Hansen is a valuable component.

That being said, Rbf1 with the entire line calculated was very impressive. A shocking combination that is hard to see coming. Qe3 seems a good try; an uncomfortable pin immobilizing the White pieces, but Eric found a nice continuation after some thought.

#brilliancyprize

[Hal Bond]

Re: Hansen - Wu brilliancy

Great fun to play through. That pin-counterpin was cool!

I look forward to catching up with Eric and the rest of our delegation in Istanbul.

[Vlad Dobrich]

Re: Hansen - Wu brilliancy

Still Hansen's best game, though he had to work the hardest against Piasetski in round 8. Seems like he'll be Canadian Open Champion for 2012!
Is this a grandmaster norm? - should be.

[Hal Bond]

Re: Hansen - Wu brilliancy

Maybe it should be, but a second unrated player killed the average rating and he needed to be fed the Fed in the last round for his third GM. Still, if can win rd 9 he stands to gain about 15 points.

[Aman Hambleton]

Re: Hansen - Wu brilliancy

Seems like he'll be Canadian Open Champion for 2012!
Is this a grandmaster norm? - should be.

The pairings this tournament generated weren't kind to norm-seekers from the start, but you'd think 7/8 having beat the two highest rated GMs in the tournament would even out to a GM norm somehow

Stellar performance nonetheless - should be an exciting final round!

[Vlad Dobrich]

Re: Hansen - Wu brilliancy

I also recall reading the rule (some 5 - 10 years ago) that norm tournaments must not have two 2 games/day rounds in a row. Don't know if that still applies.
BTW, how do others assess the quality of Hansen's games? Are they GM level?

[Christopher Mallon]

Re: Hansen - Wu brilliancy

The pairings this tournament generated weren't kind to norm-seekers from the start, but you'd think 7/8 having beat the two highest rated GMs in the tournament would even out to a GM norm somehow

Guess we miss the old 10-round Canadian Opens now? :(

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Hansen - Wu brilliancy

Guess we miss the old 10-round Canadian Opens now? :(

The format is the format.

You have to play them one game at a time.

The idea is to do your best and hope Caissa will smile at you.

Some days you win, some days you draw and some days it's not worth getting out of bed.

There's nothing worse than playing on a team and knowing no matter how well you play it won't likely make any difference to the team placing.

Don't believe your press clippings. (This one is very important.)

Now you can add any other cliche you want.

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Hansen - Wu brilliancy

Maybe it should be, but a second unrated player killed the average rating and he needed to be fed the Fed in the last round for his third GM. Still, if can win rd 9 he stands to gain about 15 points.

Or the first unrated opponent, Robert Bond (USA), in the first round, killed the norm, if you accept that before the first round was the last acceptable time to medicate the pairings. Yup, Accelerated Pairings, Phil Haley's (and Canada's) classic gift to the world of chess pairings, underappreciated in its own land. Combined with sectionalization, Haley Accelerated Pairings go a long way towards making norms possible, with no downside (ducks). With a single section, even Haley pairings usually don't suffice (though they had that one freak year in Alberta (Edmonton) where they had two norms in an unaccelerated Canadian Open. It did not happen again.). Decades of this. However, change is coming. FIDE ratings will become more widespread. Har.

I'd like to think that with the same great position, achieved through the simplest of means, I would have found the same combination. But in fact my score against Howard Wu is poor. Anyway, although this is close to a perfect game by Hansen, I'd say that his win over Mikhalevski is more indicative of contemporary GM-ness.

[Vlad Rekhson]

Re: Hansen - Wu brilliancy

With a single section, even Haley pairings usually don't suffice (though they had that one freak year in Alberta (Edmonton) where they had two norms in an unaccelerated Canadian Open. It did not happen again.). Decades of this. However, change is coming. FIDE ratings will become more widespread. Har.

I think that you are referring to the 2005 Canadian Open? Back then we did have one section but it was 10 rounds and it was under the old FIDE norm rules. Under those rules it was very possible to make a norm in that Canadian Open even with one section. I believe that pretty much everyone who had a high enough performance rating had a norm event (that includes GMs and IMs who obviously didn't need those norms). In 2009 it was different, FIDE just changed the norm rules making it virtually impossible to obtain a norm in a 9 round event where you play 2 unrated opponents. Because of that, norms became almost impossible to achieve in our 9 round Canadian Open with an open field. IM Porper did somehow manage to achieve and overachieve a GM norm result, but even that norm is still in dispute because he only played 4 titled opponents (all rated 2630+!). But that is another story.

[Hikaru Nakamura]

Re: Hansen - Wu brilliancy

Cool game? Brilliancy? What are you guys smoking. It is just a clean and easy win after Howard blunders on move 5-6.

[Aman Hambleton]

Re: Hansen - Wu brilliancy

Cool game? Brilliancy? What are you guys smoking. It is just a clean and easy win after Howard blunders on move 5-6.

You mad bro?