Chess thread

[kinboshi]

Who took the snap of John Upham?

Apparently his camera is that good.

Bet he plays simultaneous chess against himself...

[Tal]

Who took the snap of John Upham?

Apparently his camera is that good.

Bet he plays simultaneous chess against himself...

He's the Chuck Norris of photography

[curnow]

dont know if this has been posted here before

[Tal]

Heard it here first: Kasparov doesn't wash his hands.

[Tal]

From the famous Footlights Revue (where the other three people in it are Fry&Laurie and Emma Thompson). You'll likely recognise these two as well:

[Tal]

It's reasonably fair to say this is one of the big events in the chess calendar: Wijk aan Zee. What is now called the Tata Steel tournament has been a fixture since the 1930s and boasts some of the strongest fields around. Here is a preview:

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8750

In the main tournament, there are more of the so-called "weaker" players than you see in a lot of comps because the field is slightly larger. This gives an advantage to those players who don't get many wins against the top few but consistently beat the also-rans.

Aronian is the classic example of this and that is why he does well here (last year's champ).

Magnus Carlsen will be looking to overturn his second place finish of 2012 and few would back against him being in contention going into the last game.

Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura's aggressive styles could sprung a few Ws and are again ones to keep an eye out for.

[Tal]

By way of an amuse bouche for the Wijk aan Zee tournament, here are my two favourite games from last year's comp.

Firstly, Carlsen beats the naturally aggressive and tactically astute Topalov by playing like the chess equivalent of Benny Spindler in a hurry. I think Topalov missed a lot of the chances to equalise purely because of having been caught off-guard. The report describes Carlsen as having played like Tal and it's hard to disagree:

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7874

Secondly - and even better - the winner was Aronian and he played this absolute gem of a game. He built a small edge as Black against young Dutch GM Anish Giri and took no risks in nursing it into a strong position.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7868

Aronian reached this position...



...and played an absolutely spell-binding combination to win the game.

Spring onions galore!

[The Baron]

Lol @ Aronian playing through that game on the board for the press.

[Tal]

Lol @ Aronian playing through that game on the board for the press.

He's a bit of a ledge

[pokerfan]

I read somewhere Carlsen is the highest ranked Chess player ever.
How does the system work ? Wouldn't have thought this was possible at his age.

[Tal]

FIDE ratings are part of the ELO system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

[The Baron]

Lol @ Aronian playing through that game on the board for the press.

He's a bit of a ledge

He's just so chilled. 'Oh yeah then I did this move. Any questions?' LOL!

[Tal]

A Bulgarian player has been accused of cheating after his most recent performances have led to a rapid spike in his improvement. His rating graph looks like this:



He has been at say top county player standard and is suddenly and inexplicably turning over grandmasters. This doesn't really happen often unless it's a ten year old.

Here's a more detailed explanation:

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8751

[Tal]

I read somewhere Carlsen is the highest ranked Chess player ever.
How does the system work ? Wouldn't have thought this was possible at his age.

Poker fan, I'm sorry I wasn't able to answer your question in more detail. Was at DTD on Saturday (not on Sunday tho...).

Carlsen has been a grandmaster since he was 13 so it's not all that short a time for him to rise to world number 1. By his age, Bobby Fischer was right up there, too.

The overall standard of an elite chess player improved over time because there is more assumed knowledge; opening theory now is incredibly detailed and there are vast resources available. None of this was possible fifty years ago, say.

That he has overtaken Kasparov's record rating is an enormous achievement nevertheless.

[smashedagain]

Amuse bouche, love em. Just spent  an hour reading about cheats. Reminded me very much about the guy who cheated at poker by getting signals from his mate who was blogging.