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Author Topic: Chess thread  (Read 340923 times)
Tal
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« Reply #810 on: January 19, 2013, 10:26:48 AM »

Please let Anand find form and Carlsen win the candidates tourney.

Well, Anand is playing better than he has for two years, so that is encouraging.

Odd as it sounds, there will be a lot of draws if they play a World Championship. They often cancel each other out. It might be a lot of hype followed by a lot more hard work for journalists to keep the interest levels high
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Tal
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« Reply #811 on: January 19, 2013, 11:00:25 AM »

Why does Magnus Carlsen keep winning?

English International Master Andrew Martin has a theory and then takes you through the action of the Norwegian's win against India's Harikrishna.



There are a number of schools of thought about how you should approach a game against a weaker player. Some would do nothing differently and expect their game to be good enough to win.

Some would play aggressively and look to blast the guy off the board.

Some would play more cautiously so as to avoid defeat and then to work from there.

Some will follow Euwe's principle of doing what your opponent least wants you to do, so you get into a game you might not be comfortable with but that you KNOW the villain is hating.

And then there's Magnus, who gets into deliberately unclear positions, knowing that he will cope better than the opponent and take them straight out of their preparation.
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Tal
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« Reply #812 on: January 20, 2013, 12:01:46 PM »



http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8787

Anand caught up with Carlsen yesterday by beating van Wely. Carlsen couldn't get past Peter Leko:





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Tal
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« Reply #813 on: January 20, 2013, 12:04:10 PM »

Latest table:

 Click to see full-size image.


Round 8 - Sunday 20th
van Wely, L. - Nakamura, H.    
Giri, A. - Wang, H.    
Caruana, F. - L'Ami, E.    
Aronian, L. - Hou, Y.    
Carlsen, M. - Karjakin, S.    
Harikrishna, P. - Leko, P.    
Anand, V. - Sokolov, I.    
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MintTrav
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« Reply #814 on: January 20, 2013, 04:25:32 PM »

Why are their performance ratings for the tournament so high? I thought Carlsen's ranking of 2861 is supposed to be ridiculously high. The World Champion is 'only' 2772. Yet there are 5 players hitting over 2800 for this tournament and one on 2917.

Anand has beaten 2802, 2735 & 2679 and has drawn with 2861, 2759, 2698 & 2720. How does that get him to 2917?
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Tal
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« Reply #815 on: January 20, 2013, 04:37:13 PM »

The system works - as I understand it - on the basis of what your mean, 'expected' score should be against the opposition. So you get the average rating of your opponent and, say here his average opponent has been the same rating as his, that would mean he should score 3.5/7. He's +1.5 on that, so that should be quite a marked improvement on his current rating.

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Tal
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« Reply #816 on: January 21, 2013, 11:59:40 AM »

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8789

Another Carlsen win yesterday. Another game in which 99% of players would have shaken hands for a draw. Even other Grandmasters are stunned. Games and videos in the link above. Well worth a gander.



Magnus is now sole leader by half a point and, with games against 4 of the bottom 5 left (only Nakamura is in the top 9), few would bet against him lifting the trophy.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2013, 12:02:40 PM by Tal » Logged

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« Reply #817 on: January 21, 2013, 01:04:47 PM »

Ah, the old 92-move seasnake. We haven't seen that for a while.
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The Baron
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« Reply #818 on: January 21, 2013, 09:50:20 PM »

Magnus' endgame vs anyone ever?
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Tal
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« Reply #819 on: January 21, 2013, 09:56:37 PM »

In 1980, a group of chess computers played against each others in the first world chess computer championships.

The 2013 Sundance film festival will feature a film about it, with brilliantly realistic 80s-ness:

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8792

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Tal
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« Reply #820 on: January 21, 2013, 10:09:43 PM »

Magnus' endgame vs anyone ever?

Always a tough one. Petrosian was a fighter like Carlsen, such that it was said you had to beat him three times in a game (opening, middlegame and endgame).

Capablanca, Lasker and Alekhine will appear on just about any chess list and they were all brilliant endgame players.

I'd plump for Rubinstein, although Carlsen would beat him if they played today more times than he would lose.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2013, 11:04:35 PM by Tal » Logged

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« Reply #821 on: January 21, 2013, 10:53:30 PM »

Here's a nice Rubinstein endgame:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1003323

So this is over 100 years old but an example - perhaps like the Carlsen game yesterday - of a level game being turned into a win.

Play through the first 20 moves at pace if you like. The key stuff comes later.

After 20 moves, the position is level but Black has that pawn on d5. This is called an Isolated Queen's Pawn because he can't be defended by one of his own pawns. The IQP can be really strong, particularly when there are lots of pieces on the board, as the knight has a good square on e4 to hop onto and the opponent can easily become cramped.

However, here, the master has swapped pieces off and that pawn is a little exposed. It generally wouldn't be a lost for most players, mind, but best play makes it at the very least uncomfortable.

Also in White's favour is that he has two bishops, which work well together in endgames, especially when there is space for them to roam. What he wants to do is keep the option of swapping a pawn or two off to crate some diagonals to operate in and also to avoid letting the black knight get in and cause mischief.

First thing Rubinstein does is put a bishop in front of the IQP to highlight the weak dark squares. He won't swap that off unless and until he's confident of winning the game and that will require creating another weakness or two.

By move 36, Rubinstein has worked his way through the dark squares and has a good, strong king. 37.a5 fixes the weakness of the dark squares completely (If you only have one bishop, you want to put your pawns on the other colour squares, so you have room for your bishop and you can attack the opposing pawns).

After 44.b4, Black is almost in what is called Zugzwang, where he is left without a move that doesn't lose. He can move the h-pawn forward but white can just move his bishop one square along and eventually Black has no option but to lose a pawn. This wasn't accidental, but a symptom of the pressure created by Rubinstein's picture perfect play.

After 46.h5, White can just take the pawn on d5, but this is a trap. If he takes, the bishops come off and then king takes back. Then, though, Black plays Kd7 (THE OPPOSITION) and White never gets through.

So, Rubinstein delays a move by playing 47.Ba2 and now black has to move his king, so when the bishops come off, it is white who gets the opposition.

And Rubinstein wins.
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The Baron
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« Reply #822 on: January 21, 2013, 11:20:44 PM »

That's awesome thanks Tal, love the commentary too.
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Tal
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« Reply #823 on: January 21, 2013, 11:25:03 PM »

Games from that era were/are much easier to follow, which is precisely why I encourage people to look at Alekhine games and those of his contemporaries.

In a modern game, a Grandmaster wouldn't allow the position Black gets into - they'd sooner sacrifice a pawn or a rook for a bishop for a bit of play than get into a slowly losing endgame.

But if you play online against a <1800 player, this sort of game is perfectly possible.
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« Reply #824 on: January 22, 2013, 12:02:56 AM »

After 44.b4, Black is almost in what is called Zugzwang, where he is left without a move that doesn't lose.

Similar to Numberwang?
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