Thursday, May 27, 2010

Kamsky US Champ and late May Chess

Bravo to Gata Kamsky for his 2nd US title and he got it with a draw. The event play several round before pick up top four guys and called it quad final. Shulman defeated Nakamura and Kamsky take Onischuk. Then Shulman and Kamsky play a draw game and go to armageddon mode. Somehow you can bid for your time and Kamsky win the bid with 25 minutes against a default white side of 60 minutes, for this Kamsky got black and draw odd. Very blurry but believe me this is the shortest sentence I can put in and hope everyone understand. So that is why with a draw he can kiss the 2010 US cup. See more here.

Meanwhile the other competitor country (in business, a bit in chess) China also started the party and play their championship. Yesterday Hou Yifan give the most entertainment in live chess (happening afternoon in Singapore, best time) defeating Zhou Weiqi in a miniature of anti 1.d4. I steal the PGN from Mig's Chessninja, hope he doesn't angry, but this is really nice game. The LIVE page for China CC here and TWIC.



Then there are also enough LIVE chess for this week's loooong weekend, it is Vesak (Waisak) Day tomorrow so Happy Vesak day for my fellow Buddhist friends.

4th ACP Rapid, last year winner was Boris Gelfand remember? LIVE
18th Sigeman, Anish Giri try to tricks other chess player with his magic. LIVE.
83rd St Petersburg Championship, all Russian vodka party.
STG Matches Warsaw, featuring duels : LIVE
-Malakhov vs Bartel
-Rajlich, Iweta vs Sznapik, Aleksander
-Socko, Monika vs Macieja, Bartlomiej
III Copa Roggio A Asuncion, somewhere in Paraguay, LIVE
2nd Open Bhubaneswar, Dreev and Turov enjoy some Indian foods, LIVE
and... Battle of Grandmaster in Phillipine, Wesley So shows some talents

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Astrakhan Final and WC2011 Preview

Too early for 2011 World Championship Candidate match but finally we got more detail into it. There are eight players and so far 7 already confirmed. After last night Astrakhan Grand Prix, Teimour Radjabov confirmed his participation by drawing the last game with Wang Yue. Radja come to this Grand Prix with 99% clear swept, he was supported by the other two blood brothers, Gashimov and Mamedyarov. Now the conspiracy theory will sounds like this, Radja need to play solidly, drew to everybody then the two brothers take care of the rest. In a correct moment they beat each other to make sure one of them go in the WCC. Things not so easy as until last couple of moves between Wang 'Panda' Yue and Radjabov thing still not ok for Radja, because if Wang won he will be go in instead. But in the end the game is draw and Radja go in as shared 2nd and overall 2nd spot in FIDE Grandprix. Enough with the paranoia now and congratulation for Radja for his ticket.

Wait.. are we suppose to talk about the winner of Astrakhan? oh yeah, the name is Pavel Eljanov of Ukraine. This is maybe his greatest resume,the last feature was winning the 2009 Bosna. Ivanchuck started wrongly here, he even resign to Akopian in round 12 where the computer analysis only show 0.456565656565.

Back to Candidate match for WCC, the pairing is something like this :

Veselin Topalov vs Gata Kamsky
Magnus Carlsen vs Teimour Radjabov
Vladimir Kramnik vs NOMINEE
Levon Aronian vs Boris Gelfand

The Nominee should be between Mamedyarov or Gashimov, but I like it to be Mamedyarov just for the sake to see the complete Top 5 FIDE rating present there. This should be really fun somewhere next year.

See Chessvibes

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Sicilian Games of week - May 2010

Still a busy week to keep up and watch what happened in chess. Apart from the (many draws) Astrakhan (now about four players at 4.5/8) there are 2010 Commonwealth CC in Parsvnath and two junior theme event, VIII World's Youth Stars 2001 and Max Euwe Match 2010. And we still need to count the US Championship which produced great games so far. So here some games to be preview this week, as usually I only interested in Sicilian wins, and miniature... that's enough for chess. No comments on each games (as I am actually never good in commenting games :) ).

In Junior theme Max Euwe memorial, the juniors are to be teached a lesson by senior GM. Most notably is Yasser Seirawan, according to some source staying in Holland now, is playing. The juniors are all Holland's latest product, including Giri, van Kempen, Benjamin Bok etc. The game selected is senior Lubomir Ftacnik teach lesson to Robin van Kempen, twice in Sicilian defence :


In another junior event, the Somov Memorial also called World's Youth Youngstar , Armenian Samvel Ter-Sahakyan give some show in 23 moves against 1.d4 . The tournament won by Ukrainian Yaroslav Zherebukh.


In US Championship, senior Shabalov also give thrilling game in Sicilian and defeated Melikset Khachiyan.


And last is the 2010 Commonwealth Chess Championship, won by Pavel Maletin of Russian, but Commonwealth member RR Laxman (India) saves some face by tied up first place. Last year winner (but in different format) is Singaporean IM Enrique Paciencia, unfortunately the Indian food maybe too much for this fellow Phillipino master and he finished quite in the middle.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Astrakhan R5 and US Championship 2010

Saturday morning and without a coffee (I hate coffee) I still got the latest entertainment. US Championship just begun hour ago and now I got the exciting last move section, very much like watching a blitz game. Three very exciting games to highlight are Irina Krush-G. Kaidanov (1-0), a black keep make a way to push his d pawn but white got very nice mate opportunity in kingside after a built up, my favorite typical d4 game.

Stripunsky-Nakamura (0-1) was a 1.e4 e6 2.f4 d5 3.e4 c5 game. Not sure the opening type but Stripunsky missed equalizing move and Nakamura sneak in attack at queenside with b4!

and must see Kamsky-Robson... I am waiting for result as the R+K+K vs R+B+pawns begin. The young man really put courage to defend a puzzle like mate from Kamsky. White problem also quite messy, he can't push the last remaining pawn without got snap by a bishop which will lead to drawish 2 Knights vs King. See final position to believe how Kamsky do it! (base on talks on Chessgames the games is finished several moves before and they just Live discussing it, need confirmation on this)

These games make the wonderful morning at Singapore! More live games.




In Astrakhan round 5, Ivanchuck score first victory versus Ponomariov and now 6 players stay 2/5, 5 players with 2.5/5, Gelfand and Gashimov 3/5, and Eljanov smiling at 3.5/5.

Also Wang Hao claim first place at Bosna 2010, Efimenko and Bologan claim 2nd. The tournament use 3 points per win see :
http://chess-results.com/tnr31622.aspx?art=4&lan=1&turdet=YES&flag=30&m=-1&wi=1000

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Anand Juara Dunia Catur 2010

The title mean "Anand World Chess Champion 2010". This article is dedicated for Indonesian reader.

Seperti diketahui Vishy Anand barusan mengalahkan Visy Topalov di 12 partai duel juara dunia. Dari 12 partai lima berakhir dengan kemenangan dan sisanya remis. Empat kemenangan oleh pihak putih dan satu oleh pihak hitam, ironisnya terjadi di partai terakhir dengan Anand memegang buah hitam.

Ronde ke-12 dibuka dengan 1.d4, selanjutnya Anand tidak mengandalkan Slav nya dan Gruenfeld tapi malah bermain Gambit Ratu Ditolak, yang katanya nggak pernah diterapkan Anand sebelumnya. Pembukaan berakhir dengan Topalov positional sedikit lebih baik tetapi hitam memiliki ruang gerak dan mobilisasi yang baik pula. Dan dengan mengandalkan mobilisasi ini hitam bermain gesit dan akhirnya putih melakukan dua kali kesalahan anti positional, 31.exf5, 32.fxe4, dua duanya dimainkan Topalov dengan hanya berpikir kurang dari tiga menit. Agak menyedihkan karena selama duel Topalov sangat agresif dan bermain untuk menang.

Partai bisa dilihat interaktif di banyak website, website Chessdom punya laporan akumulatif atas pertandingan ini bisa dilihat di sini. Sedangkan Chessvibes juga punya viewer yang lebih enak dilihat, ada di sini.

Selanjutnya beberapa event seru adalah Grand Prix di Astrakhan, setelah ronde dua pecatur Israel dan Juara Piala Dunia Boris Gelfand mengalahkan pecatur berbahaya Shak Mamedyarov, Gelfand bermain korban bidak dan untuk beberapa saat di analisa komputer terlihat angka minus (hitam menang) tetapi akhirnya korban bidak bisa dikompensasi dan putih pun menang. Lihat partainya di sini.

Grand Prix di Astrakhan adalah rangkaian terakhir Grand Prix FIDE dan meloloskan dua kandidat untuk turut bertempur di Kejuaraan Dunia kelak. Si Levon Aronian dari Armenia sudah memastikan diri lolos selanjutnya urutan kedua masih cukup terbuka dan musti ditentukan di even ini. Pecatur Teimour Radjabov sementara berada di posisi kedua dan kemungkinan terbesar untuk lolos. Lihat website utama, http://astrakhan2010.fide.com/

Anand-Topalov R12 and others teasers

Last two rounds of Anand-Topalov saw exciting 'draw' and tonight the very last round should begin... after the sooooo many rest days in this match. Somehow the rest day kills the momentum for spectator!

Other chess teasers to consolidate the rest day are the Azkaban Astrakhan, as inspired by Chess Ninja. It is the last FIDE Grandprix and everybody love to see who the last person qualified for the next Championship cycle. The first round see only Gashimov give us the lucky decisive result over Ivanchuck. Teimour Radjabov is said the highly candidate to pass through the Championship cycle. See http://astrakhan2010.fide.com/live-games.html for LIVE games.

Going into Asia, the 2010 Commonwealth championship also started. Play in Parsvnath from 9th to 19th May, this is the event suppose to be exclusively Commonwealth nations only, but something happened and we got Dreev and also somebody from Argentina, Venezuela, Ukraine coming in. Well, the British is the most welcoming people isn't it? See LIVE games here http://www.monroi.com/watch/?tnm_id=1378 and http://www.delhichess.com/

Last is the quite strong event in Sarajevo, the 40th Bosna International Chess. Today the event reach round 7. With many notable GMs in play like Timofeev, Gustafson, Wang Hao, Nisipeanu, Sokolov playing. Here I select one game that people should know and watch, it is highly entertaining, again from the brain of Nisipeanu.





See Bosna 2010 http://open2010.skbosna.ba/en,  LIVE games http://open2010.skbosna.ba/en/page/gamesa and RESULT.

Last I think Anand-Topalov match will also remembered by its many "one minute silence" because after Campomanes (1927-May 3, 2010) now it is turn for Andre Lilenthal (1911 - May 8, 2010), Feodor Skripchenko (May 8th 2010) and now latest news is William "Bill" Hook (1925-9th May 2010). RIP.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Anand-Topalov 4-4 Round 8

Very exciting match in Anand-Topalov Championship battle. Basically all games are of great quality except ,maybe, the first round where Anand blundered the opening phase. The last round yesterday, round 8 , was a landmark come back by Topalov after being at behind from round 4. Topalov actually managed very hard to achieve this in round 7 where via chessbomb I can see his 'Stockfish' point almost +1 in several moves and a surplus of almost 45 minutes to Anand.

In Game 8 after the Topalov's 23.Ne4 the game become very sharp although looks like a dull draw base on material assesment. And the game went into complicated endgame where White's King is actively join in the battle zone. According to some expert Anand's 54.Bc6 killed all the drawing chances and here we go, an exciting 4-4 score in 2010 championship match.

The whole Championship being covered intensively by major chess site. I will post link to chessvibes, where you got all the links over there.

Women GP Nalchik
Meanwhile in Nalchik, after round 8, Tatiana still leading albeit draw against Betul. GM Zhao Xue scored second win over Mongolian Munguntuul Batkhuyag. Battle of two GM, Dzagnidze Nana and GM Hou Yifan ended in Nana's favour. Armenian IM Lilith Mkrtchian also scored nice Sicilian win over WGM Baira Kovanova.


See http://nalchik2010.fide.com/

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