blonde poker forum

As my username is named after the man himself, it would seem only fair for the first thread I create to be about the tournament set up in his honour.

The seventh Tal Memorial started today with a blitz competition to decide colours for the rest of the tournament. Novel idea. Morozevich edged Carlsen on tiebreak, while Kramnik struggled against better - dare I say younger - blitz opposition.

Inevitably, the first round sees the World Number 1 take on the former World Champ,  as it is Carlsen-Kramnik. Aronian takes on Nakamura in what promises to be a flair-filled first match.

Also in the comp is Luke McShane, British number 3, who won a poll on a Russian Website. Luke has impressed against the elite in the past, particularly in the London Chess Classic. His rating is much lower than his talent, as he works in the City, whereas the majority of the top 100 are professionals. Luke starts as black against Grischuk.

Morozevich opens against young pretender Caruana, while third seed Radjabov faces Tomaschevsky.

Last year, the title was shared between Carlsen and Aronian. Hard to see past those two on current form.

Round one brought 4 White wins out of five. Kramnik held Carlsen to a draw.

Round 1: Friday, June 8, 2012 Alex. Morozevich 1-0 Fabiano Caruana Magnus Carlsen ½-½ Vladimir Kramnik Alexander Grischuk 1-0 Luke McShane Teimour Radjabov 1-0 Ev. Tomashevsky Levon Aronian 1-0 Hikaru Nakamura.

Anyone interested in the games can play through them here: http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8225

Some very neat play that is worth a look, if this takes your interest.

Can we bet on it ?      If so tips pls.

I've bet on chess in the past so you should be able to. Had a quick look on my phone but can't seem to find a market anywhere.

Pretty hard to assess value without prices!

Round 2: Saturday, June 9, 2012
Fabiano Caruana ½-½ Hikaru Nakamura
Ev. Tomashevsky ½-½ Levon Aronian
Luke McShane 0-1 Teimour Radjabov
Vladimir Kramnik 1-0 Alexander Grischuk
Alex. Morozevich ½-½ Magnus Carlsen

If anyone is interested in the games, I'll happily go into more detail. Otherwise, I'll leave it as it is.

McShane has had a tough time of it, having been on the wrong end of two difficult games. There's no respite, either, as next up he is black against World Number 2, Lev Aronian.

The great players are able not just to win level games but also draw ones that seemed lost. Carlsen seems to gain half points for fun and his save against Morozevich was impressive.

Kramnik played a line against the King's Indian Defence that was popular about 15 years ago, but has since fallen out of fashion (believe it or not, that does happen quite a lot in chess: an opening gets studied and played to death, so the top players subconsciously seem to pick something else and move on for a bit). The fun of this is that all the keen amateurs start to play those fashionable lines, so it sort of trickles down. The Berlin Defence became popular as soon as Kramnik was able to beat the great Garry Kasparov with it.

The only problem is you have to understand the game like the top players do, if you want to play the openings that have such subtle finesses in them as the Berlin does.

Anyway, on to the next game...

Knew I recognised the name when I saw you post on PHA. Unfortunately I've been out of chess so long I have nothing I could contribute to this thread. Would hate to see it die a death though. What was the most interesting move in Round 2 IYO?

Round 3: Sunday, June 10, 2012 Magnus Carlsen ½-½ Fabiano Caruana Alexander Grischuk 0-1 Alex. Morozevich Teimour Radjabov ½-½ Vladimir Kramnik Levon Aronian 0-1 Luke McShane Hikaru Nakamura ½-½ Ev. Tomashevsky

Some really interesting games but no doubt about the headline, as England's Luke McShane beat Aronian with Black.

The game turned on a very deep move by McShane, where he sacrificed a rook for a knight, in order to get a more active position. Having a material advantage is only good if the pieces you have are in better positions than those of your opponent. Sacrifices are generally more obvious than Luke's because there will be an immediate threat. In this case it was much more subtle; a "feel" that it was the right move.

Luke built a big centre and got his two bishops working quickly as a pair. Aronian never really got going.

http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8231 takes you through the game.

When I was younger (like 9) I liked CHESS - kept getting beat by my 7 year old Sister
Chess Live
Rigged

Tal.

Keep this going, please, would be fascinating to many of us.

Would love to see you answer the question by skolsuper too, please.

What is your one chess background? How long, what, where, why?

I used to play at an ok standard in my teens and looked to join a club again last year but was appalled to see the one nearest me actually played the games online which kind of spoilt the club idea for me. Haven't played for a long time tho but will be following the thread out of interest.

Many years ago I was actually given the job of betting live at a decent chess event in London ( it went along the lines of'does anyone like chess?, yes me, ok you are off to London in two weeks to bet some chess event if you fancy it)

I think after doing the work that black was about a 12/1 chance at that level in a match between two players of equal ability, does that sound about right at the top level?

It fell thru in the end and I never went which was a pity.

Loving this thread more please.

The advent of youtube has brought right back into chess in the last few years.

I actually have been watching various youtube stuff about chess recently after coming across a Bobby Fischer documentary by accident. I played quite a bit as a kid attending county comps etc but have only played the odd game since.

I enjoyed reading/watching the analysis of the McShane game, that was linked earlier in the thread.

There we go, let's rev this thread up, loads of interest.

Over to you, Tal.

Yes please Tal

I played in a school team (and Bridge) but stopped playing competitively once I went to University


Used to love the William Hartson presented BBC programmes, going back 25 years or so!

I loved chess as a kid! At Primary school before I turned into a dick I used to play my Chinese mate when it was raining outside and we weren't allowed in the playground.

We kept score, It ended up like 114-109 to me after a few yrs, added him on fb the other year, it turns out he went to Oxford and is now raking it in as a Doctor. Sighs, I threw it all away.

I really really loved the game and thought I was deece until I played someone who was actually good and got absolutely demolished. It was highly embarrassing as he had kept his skills under-wraps as I was spouting off as per..

Anyways not played in years but would certainly fancy a game some time.

Keep up the good work Tal.

If anyone is interested on a game on "chess with friends" on the iphone please PM me your username. I'm no pro, but half decent I guess. More an intrigued student than good player tbh.

Chess had its moment in the sun when Nigel Short played Garry Kasparov back about 20 years ago. Games were shown live on Channel 4, presented by Carol Vorderman, expert comments from The Penguin (Raymond Keene). Things ran aground once games reached the 'new move' stage and players spent ages thinking. If you've waited 5 minutes for a player dwelling up on a poker decision it was nothing on these guys. Once it became apparant Short was getting dicked on interest soon waned.

A chess game with, say, an hour clock on each side would work really well as a live TV event. It would cost little to stage and would surely be attractive to advertisers lookiing to target clever people with money.

Blimey! You leave a thread alone for five minutes..!

I shall do my best to answer the questions posed...

There is definitely a close link between chess and poker. The fact that they are both strategy games is too obvious; they both promote calculated aggression and an understanding of what the other chap is up to. In fact, quite a few of the grandmasters in the UK (and abroad) are competent poker players.

Hikaru Nakamura, the American number 1, actually plays poker at a pretty decent level, I understand (allegedly falling out with his then trainer last year - a Mr G Kasparov - because he backed out of a study camp with him to play poker in Vegas!).

The chess on TV thing has struggled because it's so difficult for people - even the best grandmasters - to commentate live. You have someone who has a mind-boggling ability to calculate very complicated variations, who is zoned in on a position. It is nigh-on impossible for someone else to be sure what they are thinking about, let alone commentate and do the calculations necessary. Golf for example is easy to commentate on because even the dullardiest of dullards understands ball in hole is good; ball near hole is quite good; ball in wet stuff is bad.

If you delay a broadcast by an hour or so, there is a market for it, and the Youtube generation is able to see grandmasters around the world analyse new variations and new games.

As for me, I have played chess since I was 10 (18 years). I happened to be on holiday in Tunisia and - as is customary being British - I found the other British children. Two of them were playing chess. I spent the holiday watching them (as I had never seen the game before) and, when, by the end of the holiday Dad saw that I was beating them both, he decided to find a local club.

Nine months later, I was at the England Under 11 trials and played at a decent level throughout my junior years. I was equal second in the British Under 15s and have a few trophies from various competitions over the years. Chess took a back seat when I was concentrating more on my studies, although I did carry on playing for club and county. I was able to captain the (victorious) Varsity team in 2005 - interestingly, Luke McShane was top board for the opposition that day.

Since then, I have carried on playing in the Birmingham and District League and for Warwickshire. I'm a stronger player now than I was as a junior but my progression has flattened a bit. It's hard to commit to playing such long hours around the country in weekend tournaments, where the return on investment is so much worse than poker. Nevertheless, I don't see myself stopping playing; I enjoy the game far too much for that.

skolsuper I am sorry for not answering your question.

http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8228 should give you the games from round 2. The featured game was what was described as a "model game" by the commentators because Kramnik's play in it demonstrated just about perfect decision-making. Judgment is very, very difficult in the most complicated positions. It is one of the few things I would say accounts for some of the luck in chess. You get to a position where you aren't sure whether a particular move or a particular plan works. You have to decide whether to go with it and risk losing or to play something more sound and risk missing out on an opportunity to win. The greatest players are able to minimise the guesswork (because they can see further than us mere mortals and also because they have a greater understanding of the game), but even they get into positions where they have to rely on their instinct.

This game saw Kramnik play an unusual move at move 17. Now, if the link has worked, you should be able to play through to the position when white played 17.b5! The exclamation mark is a way for chess players to alert other chess players to a move being a particularly good one.

It doesn’t look like much, but the idea of it was to release his dark-squared bishop on a particular diagonal (from a3 – that’s two in front of the rook in the bottom left – to f8 – where the black rook on the right then sat). This effectively cuts the black position in two.

Active bishops are very important in games where the pawns aren’t all tied up, because they can cover a lot of squares and can be a pain to anyone trying to make progress.

In this position, after 17.b5! Black could decide to stop that bishop from getting much joy out of that diagonal and play 17…c5 in response (moving the pawn that the move 17.b5! attacked up one). This would block the position, so it seems like a good idea.

But, that would then leave a big hole on d5, which is the white square surrounded by black pawns in the middle. That would become weak and the pawn on d6 would be a constant thorn in Black’s side. At the top level, that would be too much to bear.

So, Kramnik got his way, because the alternative was worse. This was a brilliant idea, so it gets my vote for Move of the Day.

What an interesting question!

There are a number of reasons why you don't see many Black wins at the top level. The most obvious is that White starts off with an advantage (he has the first move), so has an edge to start off with. Black's role in the early part of the game is to equalise (in other words, the fact that White got to move first no longer matters).

Quite often, players look to play solidly as Black and more assertively with White (just as football teams look to attack at home and counter-attack away). Sometimes, Black is happy with a draw – “park the bus” – and live to fight another day, so they might miss out on the opportunity to win a game, which could skew the stats a bit.

The third thing is that, at the top level, there are so many draws. Big money tournaments these days have rules to prevent the elite just agreeing quick draws and collecting a cheque, but it is nothing like as bad as it was in the fifties and sixties, where the Soviet players would draw with each other and then try to beat whoever else was in the tournament!

12-1 sounds a bit long to me, although I can’t back it up with much by way of stats. Last year’s Tal Memorial had 45 games and 9 of them were Black wins, but that’s a pretty tiny sample size to base an answer on.

The top players are so good, if there is one mistake by White, Black will pounce on it and there will be no way back. In that respect, it doesn’t matter which colour you are playing.

Morning Tal, loving this!

Enjoyed very much your reply to skolsuper, "active Knights", "cutting the black position in two" etc.

I used to play the game, but only as a total & hopeless beginner.

I still read (but barely understand) Ray Keene's Chess articles & analysis in "The Times" every day (he has been their Chess Corry for as long as I can remember), & oddly, his piece today commemorates "the brilliant tactician Mikhail Tal as the Tal Memorial in Moscow gets underway". It discusses & analysys a game between Tal & Michael Stean. 

Can you tell us more about this, which you wrote, please?......

"....It's hard to commit to playing such long hours around the country in weekend tournaments, where the return on investment is so much worse than poker....."

Chess Tourneys? How many, how often, how many turn up, is there an entry fee, what sort of prizes are on offer? Do they have a Database of players & results, (as in poker),  are there many/any pros? Are the players generally civil to each other, or do you get some of the bitchiness we see in poker now & then?

Is Chess played a lot more online these days, & if so, has it blunted the players social & interpersonal skills?

Sorry for all the questions, but I think you'll find a lot of blondes might just be very interested in all this.

There are chess tournaments somewhere in the UK most weekends. They come generally in two forms: standard play (long play) are two or three days in length. You play either five or six games, which will last up to 4 hours each. Everyone will play every round. If you win your first game, you play someone who won their first game and so on.

These cost around £30 to enter but a lot of it is swallowed up by admin expenses and the prizes are generally set in advance. There will be different sections - separate tournaments - you can enter so that you are playing people of roughly your own level. Otherwise recreational players would stop going rather than donating money to the top players!

A good tournament would get 200 players or more, with there being sixty plus in most sections.

The prizes in those comps will be something in the region of £300 for first, £200 for second and £100 for third. Prizes higher in higher sections.

The other type of tournament is rapid play. These are one day comps, with six one-hour games with the same ability-related sections. £15-£20 entry and maybe £150-200 first prize.

Most players have either a national or international rating and that sets which section you are allowed to enter, although you can enter a harder one if you want.

The choice is whether you spend £30 on poker or chess. One gets you £1000 for an evening's work; the other £300 if you do very well for a weekend's work (knock off travel and accommodation)

Interesting stuff Tal, a lot of people only think about poker for tournaments etc(esp as we are poker players), I know quite a few friends who play in Bridge & Backgammon tournaments on a regular basis and there is some big money in those comps.

As for pros, in the UK, you could count them on one hand. It is very hard to make hood money just playing chess, even if you are a grandmaster. The top 100 in the world will be mostly pros, with the odd Luke McShane here and there. The very top - so called Super GMs - will be sponsored. At that level, the prize money can reach seven figures.

There isn't a hendonmob database for chess players as such, but the English chess federation does publish results every six months now on an individual basis as part of the new grades (ratings)
it issues. This is as much so you can see how the rating has been calculated as anything else.

The rest of the Grandmasters and international masters in this country will have 9-5 jobs or have coaching schools - generally for junior players. There is also the odd journalist, like Ray Keane.

Hope that answers most of your questions, tikay.

From what I remember of my time playing club and tournament chess, many chess players are not exactly blessed with high levels of social and interpersonal skills ;)

Not sure how to take that!

I don't think it has changed all that much. People still play in clubs and in tournaments. There are some pretty good chess internet sites: playchess is where a number of the top players go and the software is very good. There is a basic package for free and further content (coaching, commentary on big games) for a fee. The free internet chess server is a more basic but perfectly adequate alternative. Plenty of people online on both so you wouldn't be waiting for a game long.

Not many money games online. Computers are too easily misused, let alone a million chess books on every imaginable opening, theory and analysis.

Not many iPod+beats+hoodie+aviators+scarf ensembles in chess.

Lol wasn't meant especially seriously. Most chess players are cool. I do remember having to socialise with some very weird, socially inept people though. Guys with full on raging egos and their entire feelings of self-worth wrapped up in how good they are at chess. Bit like poker in many ways lol! It used to become really evident during the post-mortems at the end of games when so often I had opponents trying to establish their superiority by showing fancy lines and quoting the latest fashionable opening variations. Again... bit like poker ;)

I used to love the game though, although I seemed to hit a wall beyond which I could never advance. I was BCF 148 at my peak, which for those of you who don't know means I was a semi-decent club level player, but nothing special at all. Considering how much work I used to put into chess when I was young I should really have been much better than this and I used to find it frustrating that I couldn't seem to improve further.

Is there the equivalent of bumhunting in chess?

Are two players with similar ratings always going to be of similar skill level or is one guy with a rating of, say, 200 going to be easier to beat than another 200 guy, so you've want to play the first one and swerve the second?

If both players have a grade of 200 they are going to be roughly equivalent in strength of play.

That said, sometimes different styles match up well or badly against each other. So you might find yourself with good results against one player, yet with bad results against another player - even though both players are of roughly the same strength. It is quite possible for A to consistently beat B, B to consistently beat C, yet C to consistently beat A.

A very good example of this is related to the guy who this tournament is named after, Mikhail Tal. He was a stunning attacking player, thriving on the initiative and always at his best when embarking on a sacrificial attack. He blew many top Grandmasters out of the water; they simply could not cope with his imaginative genius. However one Grandmaster, Victor Korchnoi, had terrific results against Tal. Korchnoi was a top player himself and challenged for the world title, but his overall results were not as good as Tal's and he was probably not quite in Tal's league. Yet he consistently pwned Tal when they played against each other. The reason for this was that Korchnoi's game was based on counter attack. He was a master at defending against an opponent's attack whilst injecting a hint of poison into his defensive moves; luring his opponent into over-extending, and eventually turning the tables. His style simply matched up very well against Tal's and he had a big overall plus score against Tal. Yet Tal's results against many of the other top Grandmasters were better than Korchnoi's.

As regards bum-hunting in chess... well outside of the elite there is no money in chess. I guess there are chess hustlers around like the ones portrayed in the book Searching For Bobby Fischer (a great read if you are interested in chess), but they are never going to become rich. The reason games like backgammon or poker allow a hustler/bum-hunter to make serious money is because there is a large element of luck involved in the short-term - a complete beginner can beat a world class practitioner over one game/hand. Which means of course that a weak player will be prepared to play vs a much superior opponent for an extended period of time. There is luck in chess too (as the OP discussed with regard to making intuitive decisions in complicated positions) but it is of a different, more subtle and esoteric nature. If I were to play a beginner at chess I would win almost every single game. If I were to play the OP I would lose almost every single game. And if the OP played Vishy Anand he would lose (almost?) every single game.

Absolutely love this thread, thank you OP.

I was a half decent player back at school but I hit my level.  In my opinion there is an upper level for everyone at chess that you just can't break through, that's where the pure thinking talent comes into play and the chess geniuses shine.

Great stuff this thread.

A great little read.

Tal who is your favourite player of all time and why?

Do you think Magnus Carlsen is going to end up streets ahead of everyone else? I guess I'm asking if I should believe the hype?

Were you surprised by Anand/Gelfand in this year's world champs?

Do you think the top level standard now is better or worse than at points in the past?

What is your favourite game or match of all time?

How good was Bobby Fischer? Do you think Karpov would have beaten him? And do you agree with Karpov's claim that had he played Fischer at that age he could have been better than Kasparov?

Sounds like I'd best give you all an update on the tournament, then.

Round 4: Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Fabiano Caruana 1-0 Ev. Tomashevsky
Luke McShane ½-½ Hikaru Nakamura
Vladimir Kramnik ½-½ Levon Aronian
Alex. Morozevich ½-½ Teimour Radjabov
Magnus Carlsen ½-½ Alexander Grischuk

Details of the games are here: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8239 and you can also scroll down to the bottom for a crosstable, to show you how they are all getting on so far. Not much between them and still a long way to go.

I spoke the other day about the best players being able to win seemingly drawn games and draw games that looked to be dead. Carlsen threw the kitchen sink at Alexander Grischuk today (who made the final of the Candidates tournament; in effect, the Semifinals of the World Championship) but, try as he might, he couldn't get more than half a point.

The opening is one of the most common and best-regarded in the books, named after a Spanish monk, Ruy Lopez (it is recognised by the third move, where the white bishop goes to attack the knight). It is a very solid opening from the White side and naturally allows you to develop quickly and assertively. From the Black side, you have a few options but they mostly involve looking to counter with a pawn push in the centre, or making sure you are ready for when White starts his attack.

Good players will get their pieces (knights and bishops) out quickly, generally pointing at the central squares, as control of the centre can often give you control of the game.

Carlsen tried a number of different tactical ideas to get a win, risking that he might overstretch and - as Tal found himself doing against Korchnoi - lose the game.

The game ended when the two players repeated their moves three times. Carlsen decided that he had tried hard enough and that it was time to take the draw. In a game between two club players, a position like this would be incredibly dangerous, because there are pieces in aggressive positions all around the board and one small inaccuracy (which can be the difference between good players of equal ability; one little move missed in the calculations that the other chap has seen) could prove fatal. The double-edged positions are where the very top players excel. They have such confidence in their ability to calculate the variations, to understand the analysis and to pass judgment on the best move.

There must be a few people who have played both chess and poker at a high level.  I know Simon Anstell used to play regularly at $2.5/$5 and $5/$10 6 max on betfair before moving to stars and becoming supernova elite playing at slightly lower levels (think he was playing $1/$2).  He is an international master at chess.

He is one of the few that make my hendon mob look good.

Long answer follows...

Favourite player – perhaps unsurprisingly – is Mikhail Tal. I am naturally quite an aggressive player (maybe LAGGY is the right equivalent!). He was a Latvian (all part of the USSR back then) World Champion in 1960, interrupting a period of relative dominance by the great Soviet (and very much true “Comrade”) Mikhail Botvinnik.

Tal at his best was a swashbuckler; imaginative; not dissimilar in some ways to Alex Hurricane Higgins, who was able to bring new things to the game. Another comparison with Higgins, sadly, was Tal’s problems with alcohol, which proved to be his undoing at just 55. It is a surprisingly common feature of the very best chess players – and this is going back through history - that there are alcohol or mental health problems.

Every now and then, a young’un pops along and shakes things up: Fischer, Kasparov, Spassky, Capablanca, Alekhine for example. Carlsen was a Grandmaster at 13. He didn’t stop there and pushed on, winning big tournaments, climbing the rankings and, at 21, he has been at the very top for the last couple of years. He’s modelled for G-Star Raw (alongside Liv Tyler), he’s appeared on 60 Minutes and he’s Norwegian (not Russian, not American).

He’s the best player in the world right now and there’s every reason to believe he will win the World Championship at some point. It’s only every couple of years that the title is contested that has just happened. By all means believe the hype but no one will put him in the same bracket as the big names from history until he wins the World title.

The Indian player Vishy Anand has just retained his title against the Israeli, Boris Gelfand. The tournament which decided that it would be Gelfand who took on the Champ was a bit of a farce, with a strange series of results leading to Gelfand getting the nod. Not his fault, of course, and he is an excellent player. Just a bit like when Birmingham won the Carling Cup. They were good enough to beat everyone in front of them, but they weren’t the best team in the draw. The current champion gets a free pass to the final; everyone else competes to play him.

The players now are better than the players at any other point in history. This is easy to say because there is so much more assumed knowledge; so much more available theory; more technology. If Carlsen were put in a 1965 tournament (with Fischer and all the Soviet greats), he would win it, because he knows so much more from 50 years of data and understanding.

The game is much more aggressive – like poker. One of the interesting things you see is in the games today, the player who is being attacked will look to counter any way they can, because the alternative of trying to defend a slightly worse position is so difficult to do against strong players. That wasn’t a prominent feature of the games in the past, which actually makes the games of yesteryear better for players studying the game, as you see the attack more clearly. How would you teach a novice poker player to play aggressively by showing him Isildur1 and Tom Dwan playing heads up? You’d scare him off! 

If I were to choose a favourite game, it would be Tal’s win against Oscar Panno from 1958. It was ferocious stuff. Tal had no fear and, with a lone Queen against a rook, bishop and several pawns, he played perfectly to win the game. It is a thing of real beauty, although it is so full of detail that it would be difficult for me to go through with you all here. It took me about 4 hours to go through it with my coach when I first saw it and damned if I’m doing that on this forum lol!

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139398&kpage=2 is the game, for those who want to play through it.

Fischer was a truly great player, but a very troubled person. He apparently could not grasp the concept of sarcasm; completely unable to recognise when someone was being ironic and took what they said at face value. He died a recluse, a half Jewish anti-semite and a conspiracy theorist, a warrant for his arrest out by the US Government. When you talk about Michael Jackson, you remember the boy singing ABC, the moonwalking young man, the man who re-defined dance and the allegations that will forever taint his legacy. What weight you give to that when asked about his influence on music is up to you.

Thanks for answering, sorry it was a long'un.

I am particularly interested in Karpov in my last question. Mainly because his moves are sometimes such a mystery to me. I swear sometimes I'm sat there for a good 20 minutes thinking "now why the fuck did he just do that?" - I don't find that with anyone else nearly as much.

Really enjoyed the answers too btw.

Simon is a strong player. The International Master title is just one below Grand Master.

http://www.coinflip.com/blog/suneberghansen Here's a Grand Master who's also made it as a poker pro. He isn't a huge name on either sphere, but there is no question that he is very much accomplished in both.

Alexander Grischuk (who really is one of the elite chess players) has played in the Main Event: http://www.pokerlistings.com/chess-players-ready-to-win-big-at-wsop-2012-54397

Sorry one more....

Anand. I've heard him compared to Kasparov (I think Kramnik said he was his equal in every department) but also called lazy. He's like a zillion years old in chess terms. Sometimes he comes across as a total genius but then seems like he didn't play much until pretty recently compared to other players. I know he had a pretty significant victory over Carlsen in 2011 to take the no 1 spot in the rankings and he seems to win in all formats. How do you rate him? If he played Carlsen tomorrow for the WC, how would you price it up?

Sorry I know this is probably another long answer.

Simon has definitely played the main event.  I think he has played the PCA too.  He was definitely one of the strongest uk poker players on betfair a few years back.

Hmmm... Karpov is a fun one. Here’s a theory:

There are two main styles of chess, to be crude: tactics and position. Tactics are the combinations: If I move there, he can move there and I can win his Bishop. It is much easier for most players to grasp this side of the game and you can follow what Tal, Spassky or Shirov (another famously tactical player) is up to because you can see what they are threatening if you look for long enough.

Positional play is a different beast; it is the general understanding of the game. You have to know why, if you only have one bishop left, it is a good idea to put your pawns on the opposite colour squares (more room for your bishop to manouvre), why having two or more of your pawns in a vertical line (along the file) is generally bad (they are hard to defend and harder to get to the other side to become queens) and why a knight is better than a bishop in closed positions (the knight can hop over pawns and cause more trouble than blocked-in bishops).

That stuff is harder to point to in a game, but it can explain the less obvious moves. Fischer was a positional player and Carlsen is very much one, too. Any Grand Master will have both strings to their bow, which is why this stuff is artificial, but Karpov’s games will seem less straightforward at face value. Get to a point where you don’t understand why he chose a specific move, then suggest some alternatives. See whether you find your pieces in better positions as a result. Do you find that Karpov has a habit of managing to get everything in the right place when it counts?

It’s like watching a boa constrictor. There’s no way back.

That's a mental middle/end game. I'll have to look at it when less tired.

In the interests of not ending interest in this thread in one foul evening (lol), I'll try to be brief.

He’s the World Champion but he has been struggling for form in the last year. I would say that Carlsen is today a better player, but Carlsen has never played a 12-game match like you get in the World Champs and no one knows how he will react to that situation if and when it comes.

Carlsen starts as favourite for sure, but it would be marginal.
 

What's the gambling action like within the chess world, both online and live?

Have you ever played someone called Dan Diamond?

Dan Diamond is a great name. Do you play Cos?

Tal that game is incred. Most of it above my head - to be so flawless in the endgame... incred.

I agree, I watched it twice and still couldn't believe he won.

I used to play a little when I was like 10-12 but have probably played a handful of times the last 13 years.

There was a Kasparov rook sac that amazed me back when I studied it a lot but I cannot remember who it was against. Possibly Anand.

Again the positional side was just incred.

If you're going to pick a favourite game, it might as well be a good one!

Diamond rings a faint bell. Maybe a few years younger than me?

This thread is the greatest, loving it, hope it continues.

Honeybadger manages to write as beautifully on chess, as PHA.

Tal is re-awakening my long lost interest in Chess, too.

Am going to try and get that book " Searching for Bobby Fischer" too, hopefully before I head to Vegas.

My original interest in Chess stemmed from the Fischer - Boris Spaasky thing in Iceland which made the front pages every day.

Off to remind myself of the details now. The Internet is a thing of wonder.

Against Topalov?
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPm9k6ul9EI

Thank you, tikay.

Not sure of the Kasparov game off the top of my head tbh. He had incredible understanding of a position; he was able to  sacrifice a piece to open the game up to his advantage.

Today's results:

Round 5: Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Alexander Grischuk ½-½ Fabiano Caruana
Teimour Radjabov 0-1 Magnus Carlsen
 Levon Aronian 0-1 Alex. Morozevich
Hikaru Nakamura ½-½ Vladimir Kramnik
Ev. Tomashevsky ½-½ Luke McShane

http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8242

So Morozevich beats Aronian to take a 1point lead. Carlsen heads the chasing pack. The Morozevich game was interesting, as Aronian sacrificed a bishop in order to get a commanding pawn centre. As the pawns came forward, though, they became targets and Morozevich was able to exploit this by having active pieces. Aronian has taken a few too many risks in this tournament, but, as with poker, the great ones live on the edge.

Me too, much respect and thanks to Tal for starting this. I think it would be great if we had regular chess threads in this forum. Probably not 'high level' stuff cos there is plenty of other resources out there for players who want to take it seriously. But tournament reports, stories, cool games, beautiful studies (not super complex ones) would all be good subject matter for threads..


Another lovely compliment from Tikay. Thanks m8.

You'll love Searching for Bobby Fischer. It is a great story.

Hoping that book is available at the airport, so went googling to check, and it appears it was turned into a film, too.

Yep, but film not anywhere near as good.

Oh THAT Kasparov game! Yes it's a work of art.

The book was made into a film starring Joe Montagna, Sir Ben Kingsley and Lawrence Fish burn.

http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0108065/

I seem to recall it being called Innocent Moves here.

In terms of studying games, my advice would be to look more at older games, where the positions were less double-edged. Alekhine is the man who IMO started the modern style of play. He was a fascinating character and I'll happily find some interesting games when this comp finishes.

Half hoped you would say that, it is rarely the case in my limited experience, films, by necessity much shorter, tends to dumb down the detail and nuances. Papillon was the nut example.

I really need to type more quickly on my phone...

Thanks Longy - that game is obviously awesome but this was the one that made me go wow. I think ridic sacs are always the most astonishing to watch.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018625

Evening all

Round 6 has come to a close and this was not a day for top quality chess. Early indications suggest a few missed opportunities by most of the field today. As with any game where concentration is so intense, there are off-days. This is, of course, only by the standards of the top players in the world, of course, but you get used to seeing them play so accurately all the time that it is a bit of a shock when you see the odd slip.

In Grandmaster terms, a slip/error/blunder needn't be leaving your queen to be taken or getting checkmated straight away; it's more subtle. The game between Kramnik and the bottom player Tomaschevsky saw the former World Champion take the lead in the game, but he let it slip, only for Tomaschevsky to make a mistake and give the game back to a - presumably - grateful Kramnik. It was a long game and not necessarily one I'd recommend as particularly instructive.

It reminds me a bit of a snooker match where the two players take it in turns to get in the balls, miss a black off the spot and retire to their chair shaking their head. Eventually, one of them happens to pot the last black and thanks his lucky stars.

Round 6: Thursday, June 14, 2012
Fabiano Caruana 1-0 Luke McShane
Vladimir Kramnik 1-0 Ev. Tomashevsky
Alex. Morozevich 0-1 Hikaru Nakamura
Magnus Carlsen ½-½ Levon Aronian
Alexander Grischuk ½-½ Teimour Radjabov

The rules of the tournament are that each player has 100 minutes to make their first 40 moves. After that, they each get a further 50 minutes (added on top of whatever they have left) to make the next 20 moves each. If they are still going after 60 moves each, there is an extra 15 minutes added to each player’s clock for the rest of the game. On top of all of that, every time a player moves, 30 seconds is added to their clock. This last bit is a relatively new thing, since the advent of digital clocks, and tends to be reserved for the higher level tournaments.

The leader of the tournament, Morozevich, managed to lose a game he was winning for most of it, after getting into trouble at the time control. Morozevich got into the thirties and just let the pressure slip, with US player Nakamura – a brilliant player of bullet chess, in which you get just one minute each to make all your moves (check it out on Youtube) – finding some cheeky tactical wriggles to get out of trouble. He wriggled so well that he got into a winning position and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.

With Kramik’s win, he joins Morozevich in the lead, with the chasing pack closing in.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8244

At the bottom is the crosstable for the results so far. The four digit numbers on the left are the players’ international ratings and the results on the right track how they are performing against their ratings. The final bit (+ and -) records how their rating will be affected after this tournament.
     

Great thread.

What's going on with the world championship cycle? I know it's been a bit of a farce for decades now. There's a big Vishy Anand vs Magnus Carlsen shaped hole in the universe wot needs to be filled.

If chess wants to make a mark of the public's consciousness I think the way forward is more high profile player vs player matches rather than tournaments. If a single game of chess is like a round of boxing, you want to see the two heavyweights go at it for 12 rounds and see who is left standing. Feels like a question has been answered at the end of it.

The super tournaments never seem to answer anything, they just create more questions.

<3 tank

Anand has just retained the world title, having defeated Gelfand. That was a series of matches, like you've described. In a couple of years, we will hopefully have a world champion who is genuinely in the top two in the world.

Carlsen has only last year agreed to be involved in the competition to win the right to take on anand. He had previously argued that it should be a big tournament (as is the case with most sports, after all) that decides the world champion. After some wrangling, carlsen has decided things are more agreeable and he is back in the game.

The farce of the world championship is nothing new in chess. Kasparov and Short played for one world title while Karpov held another. It became more like boxing then I suppose!

I like the idea of matches but I think it should be at least 12 matches, as you end up with people being frightened to lose, which inevitably leads to bore draws like we saw this spring.

I want the players to knock lumps out of each other till one is left standing. With an aim to making matchplay as similar to boxing as possible, my idea for a format is this...


8 week long matches. First to 3 wins.

Twist is you can only score as black. (blitz game or games to decide who starts as black)

Draws count for nothing. You play again with the same colour pieces.

The white player can start the next game as black in these 3 scenarios.

-If White wins colours are switched.
-If Black wins (they score a point!) and colours are switched.
-After 3 consecutive draws colours are switched.

Matches could last as little as 5 games, could go the distance. Maximum number of games is 48. (8 weeks of 6 games/week)

If no winner by then, whoever has the lead wins. Otherwise, the one with the most white wins is the winner.
If both players have the same amount of points and white wins the match is a tie. (if applicable, title retained by whoever holds it)



I would expect matches of this format to often go into the final week one side knowing they will lose unless they get that knockout black win.
 
Eight weeks might seem like a long time, but I think it gives a chance for narratives to develop. Seems that the only people who understand what the grandmasters are doing is other grandmasters, the rest of us will need a bit of drama to stay interested. 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE_World_Chess_Championship_2006#section_2 check out the section called bathroom controversy

love the thread rediscovered chess this year after my daughter joined our local club. I actually quite like watching the games streamed live trying to guess what the next move will be normally wrong as im a chess fish! in breaking news mcshane looks like beating Kramnik today link> http://talmemorial2012.live.whychess.org/

After a rest day on Friday comes the final push, in the form of a game on three consecutive days. As if it wasn't close enough,Morozevich and Kramnik lost, meaning that there are now 5 (yes FIVE) players tied for first.

Round 7: Saturday, June 16, 2012
Teimour Radjabov ½-½ Fabiano Caruana
Levon Aronian ½-½ Alexander Grischuk
Hikaru Nakamura ½-½ Magnus Carlsen
Ev. Tomashevsky 1-0 Alex. Morozevich
Luke McShane 1-0 Vladimir Kramnik

So the bottom two beat the top two! Luke McShane defeated Vladimir Kramnik with an excellent game, including a nerveless finish under time pressure, with a queen each left, parading about the board at speed. Luke is an investment banker by trade, I believe, and used all his experience to good effect against the man who took Garry Kasparov's crown.

http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8253 gives you the latest games. If you see underneath the chessboard there is a Manhattan graph, this tells you who the computer reckons is winning (above and green is white; below and red is black) and the higher the Manhattan, the better the position.

As you will see from the cross table, nine of the players are within a point and all ten are able to win it. Ordinarily, the number of draws would be an indication of a boring tournament. It hasn't been sensational but there has been drama, good and bad play and players have gone for it. Few games have been under 30 moves.

Carlsen leads the tournament on a tiebreak and with the two lowest ranked players left, it is in the bag, right? I had the pleasure of being in London a couple of years ago to see Carlsen beaten by Luke. Magnus will take nothing for granted.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8258

The penultimate round has just finished and I bring these results to you like a freshly made pie on a Disney windowsill:

Round 8: Sunday, June 17, 2012
Fabiano Caruana 1-0 Vladimir Kramnik
Alex. Morozevich 0-1 Luke McShane
Magnus Carlsen ½-½ Ev. Tomashevsky
Alexander Grischuk 1-0 Hikaru Nakamura
Teimour Radjabov ½-½ Levon Aronian

This was moving day and the World number 8, Italian/American Fabiano Caruana won convincingly against Kramnik to take the sole lead. Morozevich - who had been leading a couple of days ago - lost for the second day in a row; this time, to Luke McShane, who continues to impress.

Fabiano is just 19 years old. If he wins tomorrow, this tournament will be regarded as being his top performance and, having come second equal in one of the big tournaments (in Wijk aan Zee) in January, it would be unfair to call it a complete shock.

McShane turned the attacking brilliance all the way up to eleven today, sacrificing a rook for a knight to expose the White centre. I would encourage you to look at the game, as it is a real advertisement for how, if your pieces are causing the opponent more trouble than his you, it often doesn’t matter whether you have more bits than him.

Have a look at the position after 27.Nc4. Black has two fantastic knights, imperious and practically immovable. When the dark-squared bishop got involved, Morozevich – to use a poker term – must have been hating life. On move 33, McShane then saw a neat combination and got his material back, blowing open the space around the White king in the process. After that, it was just an exercise in technique, in order to finish Morozevich off.

By Super-GM standards, very little happened in the game between Azerbaijan’s Radjabov and Armenia’s Aronian and they shook hands for a draw shortly after they were allowed (the rules of this particular tournament forbid draw offers before 40 moves have been made each).

Nakamura hasn’t had it easy this tournament and his risk taking became his undoing against Grischuk, who engineered a beautiful position, with two rooks pointing squarely at the opposition king. He carefully avoided giving Nakamura a sniff and took the point.

As for Magnus Carlsen, he had a level position against Tomaschevsky but he knew that half a point wouldn’t be enough. He threw the kitchen sink at his opponent, creating imbalances in the position (this is a very important idea: the temptation is always to make moves on the same side of the board as the other guy, be it to attack or defend. If you go the other way, though, the position becomes more unclear and it requires more careful treading if you are going to win the game – do I get there before him?). As Tomaschevsky defended to the bitter end, Carlsen was still finding ways to keep life in the position, despite being hideously short of time, forcing his opponent to find the best move on the board or lose. Unfortunately for the World Number 1, Tomaschevsky’s resolve was unwavering and he had to settle for a draw.

All this leaves the situation going into the last game tomorrow as:

Caruana 5
Carlsen and Radjabov 4.5
Morozevich, Grischuk, Kramnik and McShane 4
Nakamura and Aronian 3.5
Tomaschevsky 3

Aronian v Caruana
Nakamura v Radjabov
Tomaschevsky v Grischuk
McShane v Carlsen
Kramnik v Morozevich

Still time for more surprises, so roll on tomorrow!

You might want to know what the current chipleader looks like...

(http://www.chessvibes.com/sites/default/files/images/events/talmem12/r4/caruana2.jpg)

Here is young Mr Caruana.

Anyone else think he looks a little bit like Screech from Saved by the Bell?

(http://geek-news.mtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/screech-saved-by-the-bell-354247_253_260.jpg)

Really enjoyed McShane's game. Especially with the black pieces. He always seems to have the initiative.

wow, hats of to McShane.

I promised that there was room for surprises and boy was I right!

Let’s start off with the two relatively inconsequential games. Tomaschevsky played solidly against Grischuk and the game was drawn shortly after the time control. Grischuk might have had the better game but a draw was probably, on balance, a fair result.

Kramnik and Morozevich both had an outside chance of finishing joint top if they won, so both played aggressively, with the position being unbalanced – as we discussed yesterday, this gives good chances for both sides to get more than a draw out of the position – Kramnik got a passed pawn (where there are no opposition pawns that can either block its progress or that are on adjacent files to take it if it gets too close) and Morozevich got a few threats on the slightly uncomfortable White king. In the end, as Kramnik pushed for a win, his opponent’s decision to counter-attack, rather than defend meant that Kramnik had to concede that half a point was better than none. As in poker, attack is so often the best form of defence in chess.   

Radjabov was half a point away from the leader Caruana and so needed a win against Hikaru Nakamura, who has struggled a bit in this tournament by his high standards. Radjabov played the Sicilian Defence, which tends to be one of the more dynamic replies to 1.e4. The downside is that it has been analysed to an almost exhaustive depth and these guys know just about every nook and cranny there is to know. Nakamura chose to reply by playing the Rossolimo Variation, which is solid, but can lead to slightly boring positions. I say this as a player of this variation myself (admittedly not as well as Nakamura!), but the pay-off for stopping Black getting strong counter-play is that it can sometimes be difficult for White to create the openings he might otherwise get in a more familiar Sicilian variation. Such was the case, here and the players were shaking hands by the time control.   

Luke McShane v Magnus Carlsen saw the only other person who could stop Caruana winning the title take on the ‘plucky Brit’ (it is nearly Wimbledon, after all!) These two have a bit of history, as McShane can be a bit of a giant killer and Carlsen has fallen to Luke’s sword in a major competition in London. Magnus was imperious today, though, and was in no mood to allow Luke to get an attack going. He picked holes in our boy’s position and forced exchanges, so that McShane had fewer pieces to attack with. This meant that he didn’t have what he needed to force checkmate and his pieces were left a little out of position. As he was forced to retreat, Carlsen strode forward with gusto and the game was over by the time that the fortieth move was made.

This gave Carlsen a total of 5.5 points. Only Caruana could catch – and overtake – him. He was up against the World number 2, Lev Aronian. Aronian hasn’t found top gear for the…well, he hasn’t found top gear! We are so used to seeing him play more like Luke McShane and barely draw a game, winning more than he loses. This time, he has drawn some pretty stodgy games and five draws from eight is pretty un-Aronian, especially where he only won one of the other three.

Aronian had a surprise for Caruana, who played one of the sharpest responses to Aronian’s 1.d4, the Gruenfeld Defence. The general idea is that Black allows White a big pawn centre, but then attacks it, using it as a target. In this game, Aronian had prepared well for the intricacies of the opening and left Caruana with a difficult decision: does he take the two pawns that Aronian had offered, knowing that the space that would be created would be better for White than Black (and, therefore, he would have a storm to weather), or does he decide not to take the pawns and keep the position more level? The commentators believe his choice to do the latter was the wrong one and he had better chances if he took the pawns.

Instead, Aronian crept forward, planting a defended bishop in the middle of the board that couldn’t be shifted by am opposing pawn (this is known as an “outpost”). This was a mighty prelate and, with no sign of an attack from Black, Aronian was able to push the pawns forward towards the leader’s king with the heavy artillery (the queen and the two rooks) lurking menacingly behind. Caruana had one moment where he was able to force a bit of counterplay, but Aronian did his calculations correctly and cruised to a well-deserved victory.

All this meant that the top seed and World number 1, Norway’s Magnus Carlsen snatched the tournament from Caruana’s grasp. A result that would have been considered predictable at the start of the tournament, but seemed only ‘possible’ this morning.

It’s been a fun tournament, full of twists and turns and it seemed only fitting that it should end with another.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8262 gives you all the final details and the last round’s games.

Round 9: Monday, June 18, 2012
Levon Aronian 1-0 Fabiano Caruana
Hikaru Nakamura ½-½ Teimour Radjabov
Ev. Tomashevsky ½-½ Alexander Grischuk
Luke McShane 0-1 Magnus Carlsen
Vladimir Kramnik ½-½ Alex. Morozevich


I hope you have enjoyed the coverage and, above all, the games.   

Story in the guardian today about someone who has bought the media rights to the world championship for the next few years and wants to make chess a big deal again.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/12/chess-impresario-fischer-spassky

Also, found links to a TV programme I'd never heard of before from the 70s/80s called The Master Game which went through games with the players thoughts as they go along in retrospective analysis. Really interesting to watch.

http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/bbcs-the-master-game-on-youtube/

I worry about anyone who can get close to the FIDE president (Google him) but Paulson seems to have been a genuinely positive influence on the chess scene for a little while so this could be a real step forward.

It won't be a Barry Hearn style flashing lights and fireworks spectacular, with Anand and Carlsen surrounded by busty, open-minded looking ladies. British TV prob won't even embrace it (not sure BBC4 even has a budget anymore!).

But anything that promotes chess positively gets a +1 from me.

Kasparov won't come back. He knows he can't win that tournament, although he would take one or two scalps on the way.

Just thought i'd post on here. I haven't played for years, after my chess playing mate passed away. Awesome game, total skill. As with the pokerz, there are different levels of ability, but you dont have to be a GM to enjoy a game.
 I was quite keen on the English opening, but my favourite was the Colle system.
 As black, i liked playing the Kings Indian and the Scicillian.
Brings back many happy memories for me.
Cheers for posting the reports.