Norway Super Tournament

[Wayne Komer]

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

The tournament started with a blitz event – time control 4 minutes plus two-second increments. The final standings of the blitz tournament determined the pairing numbers of the players in the major tourney.

The players are the usual suspects – Carlsen, Aronian, Svidler (who replaces Kramnik), Anand, Radjabov and with them, Karjakin, Topalov, Nakamura, Wang Hao and Jon Ludvig Hammer.

Karjakin won the blitz tournament and picked pairing number 5 and so starts and finishes the major with the white pieces. Carlsen was second and Topalov sat in the basement. Carlsen faces Topalov tomorrow and Anand on Thursday in the regular tournament and has white in both games.

Nakamura plays Aronian in Round 2 and Carlsen in Round 3.

You can view the blitz games at:

http://www.aftenbladet.no/sjakk/

Hammer said that his game against Anand (in Round 7) was quite brilliant. I rather liked Hammer-Carlsen in the 4th Round, where Magnus sacrificed a queen and then raked the king’s position with knight and rook.
+++++++++++

The tournament takes place in the Stavanger region, which is the oil capital of Norway. There are nine rounds. In case of shared first place - blitz tiebreak match: 1) If 2 players share first - 2 blitz games 4+2; if this match ends in a tie - they will play Armageddon 5+2/4+2, black with draw odds.

I didn’t know what the Koja/Koya tie-break system was in Alekhine St. Petersburg and I have no idea what Armageddon is here! (As a guess, I would say, from the figures, that white gets 5 minutes with 2 second increments and black only 4 minutes + 2, but wins if the result is a draw. Could this possibly be?)

The games start tomorrow at 15:00 CET, which is 9 a.m. Toronto/Montreal EDT time, if my calculations are correct.

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Norway Super Tournament

Round One

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam and Simen Agdestein are the commentators on the official site.

GM Agdestein’s memory is not impressive. Geuzendam came to his rescue when a game or name was not there. Fairly bland commentary and because there is no playback facility, I am unable to verify any quotes and so shall just omit them.

Except for this quiz question posed to viewers:

Garry Kasparov described the recent tournament in London as Fischer’s worst nightmare – Anand against seven Soviets. Where and when did Anand play nine Soviets and win the tournament and what two players tied for runners-up?

NIC year’s subscription is the prize.

The site has a nice interface. There is a choice of camera angles, you can kibitz with Houdini 3 Pro and you can watch any of the games with moves and active times in a countdown mode. Less rigid than the Paris - St.Petersburg production. You also get to see the commentators.

Broadcast is by Livestream – I clicked the wrong button at the top and suddenly got the Osprey nest cams of the University of Montana. Looking for it again later, I saw a magnificent blue heron in its nest from the Cornell Lab.
+++++++++

In the games, Radjabov was defeated by Karjakin. The first player seems to be on the way down and the second on the way up.

http://www.2700chess.com/

Nakamura beat Wang from a Petroff. Anand – Aronian was a sensible draw. Carlsen tried hard to beat Topalov, but that game ended in a draw too.

Jon Ludvig Hammer seems to be a thoroughly likeable young man (22 years old). He played a Grunfeld against Svidler, a world expert in that opening, and held his own for some time, but finally went down to defeat. Some of the tweets are calling him MC Hammer or just MC. The rapper MC Hammer was popular from the mid-80s to mid-90s.

The Norwegian language seems very familiar – like Dutch. You might try your hand at translating this tweet:

Hammer gav opp, og dermed er alle partiene ferdigspilt. (Answer below).
+++++++

Carlsen with white, plays Anand tomorrow. Hammer plays Karjakin, Topalov-Radjabov, Wang Hao-Svidler and Aronian-Nakamura.

(Translation):
Hammer resigned, thus all games were completed.

[Andy Shaw]

Re: Norway Super Tournament

Hey Wayne. I enjoy your writing quite a bit. Keep it up!

[Laurentiu Grigorescu]

Re: Norway Super Tournament

Does the quiz reffers to Anand or to Carlsen? The recent London tourney had Carlsen and - sort to speak - seven Soviets.

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Norway Super Tournament

Thanks very much for asking me this question, Laurentiu. It got me to do a bit more searching.

The player was Anand. The problem with no video playback of Round One is that I cannot check the question. With no playback, I might miss the answer tomorrow by just leaving the computer room for a moment! I also found that I have no book with Anand’s tournament tables in it. So, I started through a copy of his My Best Games of Chess (with John Nunn), Gambit – reprinted 2008 and, to my delight, found this:

Game 13

G. Kasparov - V. Anand

Reggio Emilia 1991/2

French Defence

This game was played in the New Year tournament at Reggio Emilia, which at the time was the strongest tournament ever held and was the first to reach category 18.

Nowadays this has become par for the course, but at that time it was something special.

What was also special about this event was that I was the only player in the tournament who didn't speak Russian, the other nine participants all being from the Soviet Union (after the fifth round, they were from the former Soviet Union!) - the event was effectively the last Soviet Championship.

The game ends with this statement:

(Result 0 - 1)

I started Reggio Emilia with my traditional two wins. In the next round I drew with Khalifman but lost in round 4, which allowed everybody to catch up with me. The rest of the tournament was a race between Kasparov, Gelfand and myself and in the end I finished half a point ahead of them - my greatest success up to that point, and even today I would consider it one of my best results.


http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess...on?cid=1008081

[Laurentiu Grigorescu]

Re: Norway Super Tournament

Thank you for the piece of history Mr. Komer. I was not aware of Anand's win at RE. His humour is one of a kind. Looking at the Crosstable we see Belijavski at 1.5 :9 , Salov - a former no.1 who left chess world, and Lev Polugaevski who left too soon.

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Norway Super Tournament

Round Two

Thursday, May 9, 2013

The commentators are again Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam and Simen Agdestein. Dirk says that someone has called him Dirk Jan ten Unpronounceable. He has trouble with his co-anchor’s name, making it rhyme with Frankenstein.

The big clash today is between Carlsen-Anand.

They talk about how externals can affect your chess, like being married.

(Dirk Jan) The rule of Kasparov was “get married and lose 100 rating points”. That doesn’t go for everyone.

They discuss whether knights or bishops are stronger. Simen says that it is believed that the bishop pair is stronger in open positions and quotes Nimzowitsch’s My System (1925). What he wrote there were considered the basic rules of chess for the next 60 years. (Wiki - It is said that 99 out of 100 chess masters have read Mein System).
Simen says that John Watson’s book, based on My System is fantastic. But the failing memory of a 45-year old strikes once more..

(Simen) What was that book called again?

(Dirk Jan) When you mentioned it I thought, “I hope he remembers because I don’t”. It can be recommended to everyone, but only if we have the title.

(Someone in the audience) - Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy: (Advances since Nimzowitsch, by John Watson, Gambit Press 1998)

(Simen) – Watson’s book tests all of Nimzo’s theses. It is simply not the truth that the bishop pair is far superior to the knight pair in open positions. Watson and the Russian school say that there are no strict rules - you have to analyze every game and every position, they are all different.
+++++++

(Dirk Jan) After doing poorly in the opening in a Grunfeld, Svidler said that he had more or less shown that he was not the number one authority in the world in that line. But he is too modest. People forget how incredibly strong he is.

(Simen) It is no accident that he has won the Russian Championship six times. He is very relaxed.

(Dirk Jan) He is not relaxed. He’s restless. He has to get up and run around at tournaments.

(Simen) He has lost 22 kg..

(Dirk Jan) Now he can move around more quickly. It was just a general decision to lose weight. A pity for him that he had to buy new suits but he accepts that.

(Simen) It was a good investment. I don’t know if it is because he lost weight or what, but he has been playing just great lately.
+++++++++

Some questions from our listeners.

Can you tell us how players at this level train and practice?

(Dirk Jan) Kasparov got up late but worked 7 hours a day until 3 a.m. He was one of the hard workers in chess.

In the old days there were stories that Lajos Portisch worked hard every day at his studies. When Bobby Fischer met him, he asked, “Is it true that you work at chess eight hours a day? And Lajos said, “Sometimes I do, but you work eight hours a day!” And Bobby replied, “Yes, but people say I’m crazy!”

Portisch was the best player in Hungary for many years. Karpov didn’t look like a hard worker. Karpov had people working for him.

Korchnoi was tough on himself. He would lose a game when he was older and play an endgame not up to his standard and he would punish himself by not going to dinner, he would work on that endgame.

Once I was to go to dinner with Jon Speelman. He was analyzing a pretty simple rook ending he had just played with Korchnoi. Jon wanted to get up but the analysis continued for two and a half hours.

Three grandmasters worked around the clock for Kramnik in London 2000 during the WCC with Kasparov, doing eight-hour shifts. They were Lautier, Bareev and Illescas – not seeing anything, just working.

Magnus has spent an average of five hours a day on chess since he was ten years old. He has spent 10,000 hours on his road to excellence.

Ivanchuk says, “I just lie on the sofa and stare at the ceiling.” He is very relaxed. He is extremely special but he does think about chess all the day.
++++++++++

A representative for the Stavanger region comes in and talks about the beauties there and the prosperity due to oil. She mentions Abu Dhabi, Calgary, Houston and Perth as being similar. More energy cities than oil cities. She hopes that hosting a major chess tournament each year will draw attention to the area.

The highlight of the region is its natural beauty. There is the Pulpit Rock - the most spectacular viewing point in the world. Magnus Carlsen posed for a picture on that rock.

For the view see

http://www.visitnorway.com/us/Where-...way/Stavanger/
+++++++

The quiz question from yesterday. Anand won against nine Soviets in the round-robin at Reggio Emilia in 1991/2. It was the first category 18 tourney and Anand won, with Gelfand and Kasparov as runners-up. Many people had the right answer.

(Dirk Jan) At Reggio a journalist from Gazetta dello Sport tried to connect Anand romantically with an Italian girl. He also asked him, “Anand, what is your favorite chess piece? He didn’t flinch. He said, “I have lost so many of them, that I have taught myself not to get attached to any one of them.”

New question – It is about Simen.

In his rich career, Simen Agdestein has faced many opponents of varying strength. How many world champions has he beaten?

Some might not have been the world champions when he beat them. Provide the names.

Note: I looked over some of his games and found that he has met Spassky, Kasparov, Karpov, Tal and Anand. I couldn’t see Kramnik there, but I could be wrong. Do you count Khalifman and Ponomariov? He also has been a professional footballer and so, conceivably, he has beaten world football champions if this has a trick part to the question. WK
++++++++++

Carlsen and Anand is a draw and both are dissatisfied with their play. Topalov-Radjabov is also a draw. Aronian beats Nakamura, Wang Hao beats Svidler and Karjakin wins over Hammer and leads the tournament with two wins.

In the next few months Anand is playing in three super tournaments instead of training matches.
++++++

For the next week, the players will be at different venues. Aronian says, "I would be lying if I were to say it's a good thing to do, but we understand it". There may be pictures of them on a boat in a fjord.
+++++++

Wang Hao loves Norwegian food (the fish).
Simen loves Chinese food.
Dirk Jan says, “It looks like two people have to move” to laughter from the audience.

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Norway Super Tournament

Round Three

Friday, May 10, 2013

Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam and Simen Agdestein are again the moderators. Dirk Jan has given up trying to pronounce Simen’s name and simply holds up a sheet of paper with the name on it when necessary.

Anand – Topalov is the feature game today. They met in the World Chess Championship Match of 2010, which took place in Sofia, Bulgaria in April/May. That match was infamous for Sofia Rules and Icelandic ash. World Champion Anand won 6.5 – 5.5.
(Dirk Jan) Topalov had pressure on himself by playing in his home country. He added to the pressure by insisting on playing according to Sofia Rules by which he could not offer a draw.

The match ended dramatically. In the last game Topalov kept pushing and pushing because he thought, “I don’t have any chance against Anand in a rapid play tiebreak”. So he went way too far and lost.

(Simen) That makes sense, because he only scored one point in the blitz matches on Tuesday and he admitted afterwards that he is not a very good blitz player.
+++++++++

There is a book entitled, Who Got Einstein’s Office? What happened to it after the great physicist died?

Simen and Dirk Jan talk about Garry Kasparov’s laptop – loaded with a database, analysis and innovations. What happened to it after Kasparov retired? Who got Kasparov’s Laptop?

They speculate that it was sold twice – to Carlsen and to Nakamura. Actually, Garry might be still using it himself because he still follows chess. Kasparov set a new standard for analyzing deep into the middle game.
+++++++++

Nakamura is wearing a suit and a blue baseball cap. The rules state that the dress code during the games is elegant casual: i.e. long trousers, shirt and jacket, with or without tie. No mention is made about wearing a hat.

At the press conference at the end he says that he wanted to concentrate on the board only and used the hat’s visor to block everything else out. The hat has an N on it, which stands for Napoli.

Nakamura-Carlsen is a Vienna Game, Hamppe Opening; Dirk and Simen ask why it is called the Vienna. A chap watching on the Internet, named Bill Gates strangely enough, emails that it was called the Hammpe’s Game after Karl Hammpe. It took its current name in the 1890s due to its ongoing popularity in Vienna. So, Steinitz, Tartakower and Spielmann all hailed from Vienna and used the opening that bears its name.

(Dirk Jan) Steinitz was the first World Champion and a fantastic chess journalist. His International Chess Magazine is such great fun to read now. He was a character, picking fights with everyone. In a way, he is like Korchnoi, critical of everyone but critical of himself too. He worked for many years on the book of the 6th American Chess Congress, 1889 (that’s what they called a tournament in those days). It appeared in a limited edition of 500 copies and it’s really beautiful. And then you open the book and read the first sentence in the Preface, “As you will see, it’s not as good as I wished it to turn out and I fully agree with all the criticism you will have.” He said it should have been much better – that is William Steinitz.

(Simen) Have you seen those Steinitz magazines? Are they available for everyone?

(Dirk Jan) They have been published as reprints and may be available online.
+++++++++

(Dirk Jan) We got an email about the John Watson book we talked about yesterday. It is a great book. The rule-independence-theory of John Watson: there was a predecessor, the Russian School. Isaac Lipnitsky published a book in 1956, a ground-breaking book called Questions of Modern Chess Theory. This has been reprinted in English by Quality in 2008. We should not forget Lipnitsky. Watson wasn’t the first to go against Nimzowitsch. You should not religiously stick to any set of rules.
+++++++

Dr. Alexander Ferdkoff
, manager of Hikaru Nakamura, comes in to talk to the guys. You might remember that he sent an open letter about the Grand Prix series that upset FIDE and Agon.

(Dirk Jan) When did you become Nakamura’s manager?

(Alexander) Last fall but we were friends before. Now it is official.

(Dirk Jan) There are not too many players who have managers.

(Alexander) It is impossible on the highest level for players to manage themselves. They need a strong support and management team. The same is true of golf and tennis, dealing with contracts, sponsors etc so the player doesn’t have to worry about anything.

(Dirk Jan) Karjakin and Carlsen have their sponsors and we can see their logos on their jackets. Who sponsors Nakamura?

(Alexander) Hikaru is sponsored by the St. Louis Chess Club. It’s a scholastic centre, a beautiful club, two storeys, beautifully situated in a great area. The United States Chess Hall of Fame is there. One of the main aims is to develop and promote chess.

I am a dentist. I have two full-time jobs. I am based in Chicago and it is a five-hour drive to St. Louis.

Hikaru wanted to defend his title in the US Championship which is now taking place. But his global goal is to be number one in the world, so he is playing over here. He was once the best blitz chess player in the world and now he is devoting his time to classical chess. There is a team in place. He spent a year with Kasparov. He learned what to do and what not to do. For the former, you want to be open-minded, flexible and positive. These are also qualities for success in life. Kasparov is not an easy person to work with. Hikaru decided it was not the best thing for him and left but they remain in touch. He learned how to deal with pressure and how to live in the public eye. He is a public figure. Hikaru took a lot away from that experience.

He is a fantastic tennis player, he plays sports and walks a lot. You have to develop harmony in your life. He also has very strong family support.
++++++++++

(Simen) When Magnus was thirteen years old, a film crew followed him around for a year making a documentary. At one point they invited Kasparov to come and provided him with a limousine service, luxury apartments, catered food etc. He was always talking. At one point he went up to Magnus and said [gruffly], “Can you name your three favorite Alekhine games?” Magnus said nothing immediately, he was running them over in his mind.
++++++++++

The quiz from yesterday: The question was about the world champions Simen beat in his rich career. Many people replied. Some of the answers took into account female world champions (Maia Chiburdanidze and Susan Polgar), senior world champions, and Under-14s.. Nobody had my idea about football champions he had beaten!

The traditional World Champions Agdestine beat were Mikhail Tal, Boris Spassky, Veselin Topalov and Anatoly Karpov. Four.

(Simen) My two careers ended quickly. I injured my knee and got quite sick and never fully recovered, so both football and chess went at the same time.

New quiz: From yesterday’s interviews. Players can be so immersed in their games that they don’t notice what happens around them.

Which player from this tourney said, “Sometimes you are so absorbed in your game that you order Nf6 in a restaurant instead of the steak you wanted”?
++++++++

Svidler-Aronian is over. The Arbiter said that it is 30 moves for a draw not 40.

Ivan from Serbia asks Svidler over the Internet why he is such an Anglophile?

(Peter) I think it has to do with Fry and Laurie’s Jeeves and Wooster – seeing them when I was a kid. That was the initial influence and now I cannot help it. I am obsessed with cricket now.

Note: P.G. Wodehouse was one of the great comic geniuses of the 20th Century and wrote of Bertie Wooster and his valet, Jeeves. Some of the stories were televised with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie as lead actors. Wodehouse also believed that fish, because it contains phosphorus, is a great brain food. A couple of players have praised Norway’s restaurant fish here. We shall see how well they do in the tourney.

Topalov resigns to Anand. Karjakin wins over Wang Hao and Radjabov defeats Hammer.

Tomorrow is a free day.

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Norway Super Tournament

Round Four

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Sergey Karjakin has just defeated Levon Aronian. This means that he has won the blitz tournament and then four games in a row in the major tournament.

Sergey was black. Levon repeated the opening of Round Two – Hammer - Karjakin – a Queen’s Indian Defence.

Dirk Jan and Simen think it is the good influence of his girlfriend’s presence there on his play.

At the press conference there about 9500 viewers on-line watching the game.

Sergey said that he hadn’t started a tournament with four wins since he was ten years old. He cannot remember whether he won the fifth game or not.

He admitted that having the Russian Chess Federation as his sponsor has helped him enormously (coaches, a flat in Moscow). (He went from the Ukraine to Russia). So, the two influences are his girlfriend and his sponsor.

He is white against Magnus tomorrow.

Nakamura, in another sensation, as black, defeats Anand.

(More to follow)

[Mark S. Dutton]

Re: Norway Super Tournament - Russian GM Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin

Congratulations to Russian GM Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin (2767) who has played a "perfect" tournament so far. I just saw this post on FB and had to share this remarkable result so far! :D

Round Four

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Sergey Karjakin has just defeated Levon Aronian. This means that he has won the blitz tournament and then four games in a row in the major tournament.

Sergey was black. Levon repeated the opening of Round Two – Hammer - Karjakin – a Queen’s Indian Defence.

Dirk Jan and Simen think it is the good influence of his girlfriend’s presence there on his play.

At the press conference there about 9500 viewers on-line watching the game.

Sergey said that he hadn’t started a tournament with four wins since he was ten years old. He cannot remember whether he won the fifth game or not.

He admitted that having the Russian Chess Federation as his sponsor has helped him enormously (coaches, a flat in Moscow). (He went from the Ukraine to Russia). So, the two influences are his girlfriend and his sponsor.

He is white against Magnus tomorrow.

Nakamura, in another sensation, as black, defeats Anand.

(More to follow)

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: Norway Super Tournament

http://players.chessdom.com/sergey-k...kin-dolzhikova

Did he get divorced already? Or does he have a wife AND a girlfriend?

Round Four

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Sergey Karjakin has just defeated Levon Aronian. This means that he has won the blitz tournament and then four games in a row in the major tournament.

Sergey was black. Levon repeated the opening of Round Two – Hammer - Karjakin – a Queen’s Indian Defence.

Dirk Jan and Simen think it is the good influence of his girlfriend’s presence there on his play.

At the press conference there about 9500 viewers on-line watching the game.

Sergey said that he hadn’t started a tournament with four wins since he was ten years old. He cannot remember whether he won the fifth game or not.

He admitted that having the Russian Chess Federation as his sponsor has helped him enormously (coaches, a flat in Moscow). (He went from the Ukraine to Russia). So, the two influences are his girlfriend and his sponsor.

He is white against Magnus tomorrow.

Nakamura, in another sensation, as black, defeats Anand.

(More to follow)

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Norway Super Tournament - Russian GM Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin

Round Four

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Full Report

Dirk Jan and Simen are the commentators

Yesterday was a free day and the grandmasters visited a kid’s tournament, played football and did preparation for today. The first three rounds were played in the Quality Residence Hotel in Sandnes but today they are at the factory of Aarbakke AS in Bryne, 20 km from Sandnes. It makes parts for the oil industry and its owner is a big sports fan. As far as I know Robert Byrne never played in Bryne.

The players were presented with a small knight made out of stainless steel fabricated at the factory; it doubles as a bottle opener.
+++++++++

Anand-Nakamura is a Ruy Lopez. Nakamura has a plus score against the World Champion, something like one game won and 12 draws. Because of that, he doesn’t wear his blue cap to cancel out the look of his opponent.

There is a discussion about Ruy Lopez, the 16th Century priest who first described the opening eventually named after him. Most countries call it The Spanish.
(Simen) Where did the name Sicilian come from? We’ll ask the viewers to email the answer to us.

(Dirk Jan) (later) Jacob Henry Sarratt was an English chess player and writer on the game in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He called the opening in honour of Don Pietro Carrera, who was a priest from Sicily and one of the earlier writers on the game. If you find a nice two-volume set of Carrera, I congratulate you because they are very beautiful and scarce books. Thank you. We had answers from Argentina and the Netherlands.
+++++++++

Silvio Danilov is a guest on the program. He is the President of the European Chess Union. He is a Bulgarian international and manager of Veselin Topalov. (He is known for Bathroomgate, the Kramnik-Topalov WCC in 2006, accusations. Of course, these are not mentioned today.)

(Dirk Jan) You were present at the discussions of the match to be held in Chennai. How did that go?

(Silvio) – There were discussions but the decision was taken before we met. There are 24 members on the board and only two or three are from Europe. We are in the minority. I was the only member who was against this decision because I said we needed a clear, transparent and democratic bidding procedure. I can understand that the offer from India is good but the point is that we are missing other opportunities such as that from Paris. There was a big discussion. Everybody else wanted to give the match to India. They claimed that for Olympiads etc there is an obliged bidding procedure. But for the World Championship, if there is a good offer, they take it immediately. They said the Indian Parliament voted yes for this decision and the money is secure. But if we have to go into a bidding procedure, we will withdraw our offer.

(Dirk Jan) Summing up you would say that they did nothing against the rules but it is a pity that other parties did not get a chance to put in offers. Is it an advantage or disadvantage of playing on your opponent’s home ground?

(Silvio) Officially the challenger receives a bonus or compensation for playing on someone else’s ground. If Carsen refuses to play, then Kramnik becomes the challenger. FIDE has it all tied up. There is a terrible pressure playing in your homeland. If Anand loses it will be bad for Indian chess and the same is true if they played in Norway and Carlsen would lose.

(Dirk Jan) When Anand came to play in Bulgaria, he came with security people. They had a closed computer system on their floor and said to watch out so that people couldn’t see your monitors with telescopes from the outside.

(Silvio) That is complete paranoia. Only basic prophylactics are necessary.

We had a court case against FIDE. There were two bids for the Candidates from Azerbaijan and Bulgaria. The deadline passed but FIDE said we have an agreement with Agon and we will go with them. Bulgaria said, to prepare a bid is very difficult – you have to prepare a venue, speak with authorities and deposit 100,000 euros. We went to court in Switzerland. We had a chance but it was difficult because Bulgaria couldn’t spend as much on lawyers as FIDE. Our appeal was rejected. The court said the procedure was not right – everybody is right but you are less right!

We also protested the involvement of Agon. Zug was supposed to be organized by Agon but wasn’t. The next one in Madrid was taken over by someone else. There is no future for Agon. The reason it worked with the London Candidates was because of the sponsorship by the Azerbaijan Oil Company. They have no experience is chess organization. They still have to pay the deposit to FIDE. Agon announced six Grand Prix events – Lisbon, Berlin, Paris etc. I saw their presentations. It was obvious that Agon could not sell chess at this level. They thought it was easy but they were able to escape the contract and consequences if there was any trouble.

Veselin is leading the Grand Prix now. He is in fifth place in the world rankings. It is premature to say that he will be in the World Championship next time.

If I had to bet, I would say because Carlsen is playing well, has a good rating and is young that he should win. Anand is a good match player, so it should be a very close result.
+++++++++++

(Dirk) Silvio is one of the first managers of a professional chess player. There are not a lot of them – Kasparov, Topalov, Nakamura and Carlsen. A manager can always carry your bags..

(Simen) And find you sponsors.. There are so many offers that for Carlsen, a manager is necessary.
++++++++

Mr Aarbakke, the manager of the factory, where they are playing, talks to the guys. He is using chess in his promotions. His new slogan is “Pride in Every Move”. The old slogan was “Cooperation and Happiness”.
+++++++++

They talk about Nakamura having nothing else to prove in America. He wants to play against the very best in Norway. Gata Kamsky is winning in U.S. Championship in St. Louis at this moment. It is not clear how good Kamsky was at his best. He retired after those years. History has not judged him yet.

Dirk Jan mentions that Kamsky did not go on to play Kasparov for the PCA World Title in 1995 – the winner was Anand. The title match was played on the Observation Deck on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center in New York. The opening was on 9/11/95! Kasparov won the match with four wins, one loss, and thirteen draws.
++++++++++

What progress Karjakin has made in the ratings in the past few days! His birthday is January 12, 1990. Magnus’ birthday is November 30, 1990, so he is the younger man. If you are sending out birthday presents, Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam’s birthday is on January 11 (1957) – so mail Dirk his before you send Sergey his.

Karjakin was 12 years and 7 months when he won the grandmaster title.
+++++++++++

(Dirk Jan) Maybe Karjakin will credit his girlfriend with the inspiration for his winning today. Speaking of press conferences, I recall Vassily Ivanchuk winning Tilburg many years back and Dutch television wanted to interview him but Vassily just didn’t want to talk. Finally, he said, “I will say something.” Then, he quoted a beautiful poem by Pushkin from memory: The Talisman (Where the sea forever dances, Over lonely cliff and dune…). He was dedicating the tournament to his girlfriend, his talisman, then and did it in a beautiful musical voice. And then that was it. That was his post-tournament interview. He is a very friendly guy and more normal than most people think.
++++++++

The quiz question from Round Three was about chess players becoming so immersed in their game and forgetting about everything around them. A player from this tournament said that sometimes he was so absorbed by the game that he ordered Nf6 instead of a steak at the restaurant. Who was that? There were lots of responses from viewers, the most surprising one was from an Indian who said it was Anand. That was surprising because Vishy is a vegetarian. The answer was Teimour Radjabov and the winner was from Binghampton, New York.

Today’s quiz –

In the third round of this tournament Hikaru Nakamura wore a cap to keep out external influences. There was an N on his cap. What does the N stand for?

Readers of this narrative will see the answer in yesterday’s writeup.
++++++++++++

Karjakin defeated Aronian with Black in 38 moves in a Queen's Indian, and is now 1.5 point ahead of Nakamura, who beat Anand with Black in an Archangelsk Ruy Lopez. The other games, Carlsen-Svidler, Wang Hao-Radjabov and Topalov-Hammer were drawn.

[Laurentiu Grigorescu]

Re: Norway Super Tournament - Russian GM Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin

The N on the cap should stand for Nakamura, what else? However, I find his sense of fashion very weird.
Karjakin got marrried few years ago - his wedding pictures being featured on Chessbase.
Having a girlfriend around for this tournament is news. Big news :-)

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Norway Super Tournament - Russian GM Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin

Four postings today on the ChessVibes Forum. Take your pick:

-He divorced, then re-married in December

-He was recently divorced. It has helped his chess

-Karjakin himself referred to the woman accompanying him as “his girl friend”. I don’t think anyone would refer to his wife as his girl friend.. years ago, a high school teacher introduced his wife to us as “this is Susan, my ex-girl friend”. And I remember Shirov correcting Peter Doggers here: “Olga isn’t my girl friend, she’s my wife”.

So either you are wrong, or Karjakin currently has an ex-wife, a wife and a girl friend (three different persons)

- OK, I need to divorce my wife and have a girl friend. It should increase my ELO by 200 points, I guess

[Hikaru Nakamura]

Re: Norway Super Tournament

My fashion sense is hardly odd since my girlfriend is Italian and I am spending a lot of time in Napoli these days. Look up the facts before making silly comments.