This is the last post on the Gambit blog. Articles on chess will continue to appear in the Crosswords, Games & Cartoons section of The New York Times Web site.
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With a draw in Round 7 against Victor Mikhalevski of Israel, Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine held on to the lead of the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival.
Ivanchuk has 6 points, followed by Mikhalevski, Nigel Short of England, Daniel Fridman of Germany, Michael Roiz of Israel, Geetha Narayanan Gopal of India, and Salome Meila of the Republic of Georgia, who each have 5.5. points.
A group of 21 players are another half point back in a tie for eighth. Almost of them are grandmasters or international masters, and many of them — Michael Adams of England, Fabiano Caruana of Italy, Alexander Onischuk of the United States, Viktor Bologan of Moldova, to name just a few — are among the best in the world.
There is one anomaly in the group: Paul Szuper of the United States. Measured by his international rating of 2,174, he is not a master. According to his United States rating of 2,208, he is just above the level of a master.
(Ratings are used to measure the relative ability of players. The higher the rating, the better the player. Masters are above 2,200, International masters usually rank from about 2,400 to 2,500 and grandmasters from 2,500 on up. The highest rated players in the world are just over 2,800.) Read more…
Vassily Ivanchuk and Nigel Short at the start of their game in Round 6.After a surprising start in which several lower ranked players took the lead of the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival, the tournament’s top seed, Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, took the lead Sunday by beating Nigel Short of England.
Short, who had a perfect score until he lost, was probably not surprised by the result. He said in the tournament bulletin after Round 5 that he had ““a very long shot for winning this tournament, and I say that as someone who has, in my three years here, won it twice, and come second, once.” As he explained, “The tournament has improved and there are some really top class players, and there are a lot of them.”
Ivanchuk has 5.5 points, followed by Short, Victor Mikhalevski of Israel and Daniel Fridman of Germany, who each have 5 points.
Several of the women in the tournament (there are special prizes for them, giving them more incentive to play) have continued to perform extremely well. Sunday, Nana Dzagnidze of the Republic of Georgia beat Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain, who is ranked No. 40 in the world. Read more…
Hikaru Nakamura of the United States emerged as the winner of the elite section of the Tata Steel chess tournament in the Netherlands after a spate of draws in the final round on Sunday.
Nakamura finished with 9 points, a half point ahead of Viswanathan Anand of India, the world champion. Magnus Carlsen of Norway and Levon Aronian of Armenia tied for third, with 8 points each, while Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France were another half point back, tied for fifth.
In the final round, Nakamura had Black against Wang Hao of China. Rather than act like a wallflower and try not to lose, Nakamura played aggressively, even offering to sacrifice an exchange (a rook for a bishop). Wang refused to fully engage, however, and a draw was agreed to rather quickly.
Anand also had Black. His opponent, Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia, gained a bit of a space advantage out of the opening and then did sacrifice an exchange to win a pawn. The resulting position was fairly balanced, however, and the players agreed to a draw after Nepomniachtchi set up a fortress that Anand would not have been able to break. (Interestingly, a computer evaluation of the position showed a clear advantage for Anand, which shows the limitations of computers in some types of positions.) Read more…
With an easy draw against Vladimir Kramnik of Russia in the penultimate round, Hikaru Nakamura of the United States preserved his lead in the elite section of the Tata Steel chess tournament in the Netherlands. Nakamura has 8.5 points.
Wang Hao of China, Nakamura’s opponent in the final round on Sunday, is all that stands in his way of victory. Though obviously any opponent can be dangerous, Wang will probably not pose the kind of challenge that the top players would. As Nakamura said after his game on Satuday, “At least, he’s not Kramnik. So I’ll have some chances in the final round.”
Viswanathan Anand of India, the world champion, has the best chance to catch Nakamura as he only trails him by half a point, though Anand was a bit lucky that it was not more. He was White on Saturday against Anish Giri of the Netherlands and he was completely outplayed. Though there was never a moment when Giri clearly missed a win, Anand was on the defensive throughout the game. It was only on Giri’s last move, when he blundered and lost his advantage, that Anand felt comfortable and the players agreed to a draw.
Anand said after the game, “I just drifted, making a move according to one plan and then another in line with a different one. I had the feeling I was losing, although there was never anything concrete.”
It was another remarkable performance by Giri, who beat Magnus Carlsen of Norway, the No. 1 player in the world, earlier in the tournament, and also with the Black pieces. At only 16 years old, he is clearly moving up fast. Read more…
In an exceptional performance that combined spirited attack and defense, Hikaru Nakamura beat Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia on Friday in Round 11 of the Tata Steel chess tournament in the Netherlands.
Nakamura’s co-leader after Round 10 (and 8 and 6 and 4), Viswanathan Anand of India, the world champion, only drew against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France. That allowed Nakamura to once again take control of the elite section, with two rounds to play.
Nakamura’s victory was his sixth of the tournament. He now has 8 points, followed by Anand, with 7.5, Levon Aronian of Armenia, who also drew Friday, who has 7, and Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and Magnus Carlsen of Norway, each with 6.5.
Carlsen was the only player in the top section, aside from Nakamura, to win Friday. He beat Kramnik after a long endgame. It was a victory more typical of Kramnik’s style and it was made possible when Kramnik inexplicably blundered on Move 17 by taking a pawn that, after a forced sequence of moves, led to an endgame in which Carlsen was up a pawn. Carlsen then used impeccable technique to grind Kramnik down. Read more…
Fabiano Caruana and Viktor Korchnoi at the start of their second round game.It is not quite as prestigious as the Tata Steel tournament going on in the Netherlands, but the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival, which was renamed this year as Tradewise Insurance replaced Gibtelecom as the main sponsor, has become a major tournament in its own right and now attracts a world-class field.
Undoubtedly, the competitors are partly drawn by Gibraltar and its famous Barbary Macaques, which make the tournament locale a bit unusual.
This year’s event, which began Tuesday, includes Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, No. 9 in the world; Michael Adams of England, No. 23; Fabiano Caruana of Italy, No. 25; Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain, No. No. 40; Viktor Bologan of Moldova, No. 44; Krishnan Sasikiran of India, No. 45; and Alexander Onischuk of the United States, No. 46. In all, there are 53 grandmasters.
In addition to the regular prize fund (first place is 17,500 euros, or about $24,000 at the current exchange rate), there are special prizes for the top women (10,000 euros for first, or almost $14,000). That has attracted a stellar group of women players, including the Russian Kosintseva sisters, Tatiana and Nadezhda, who are ranked Nos. 4 and 5, respectively, among women; Nana Dzagnidze of the Republic of Georgia, No. 6; Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria, a former women’s world champion, No. 7; and Viktoria Cmilyte of Lithuania, No. 9. Read more…
Two weeks ago, 18 of the women who played in the Women’s World Championship tournament in Antakya, Turkey, wrote a letter to the World Chess Federation complaining about the quality of the organization of the event.
Among the issues that the women raised were that they felt that they had been overcharged for the hotel in which they stayed and played (they paid 130 euros a night, or about $176 at the current exchange rate) and that the quality of the facilities was substandard.
Thursday, the World Chess Federation, which is also known by the acronym FIDE (for Fédération Internationale des Échecs), issued its response to the complaint and offered its unconditional support for the organizers. Read more…
London oddsmakers allow wagering on everything else, so it is probably not surprising that they also take bets on chess.
In the Tata Steel tournament currently be played in the Netherlands, one bookmaker called BestBetting seems to have Viswanathan Anand of India, the world champion, who is currently tied for the lead, as the favorite (9 to 10, meaning if someone bets $10 and Anand wins, the bettor only wins $9). Levon Aronian of Armenia, who is tied for third, a half-point behind Anand and Hikaru Nakamura of the United States, is the next betting favorite (13 to 10; wager $10 and if he is first, win $13), while Nakamura has the next longest odds (5 to 2).
That Nakamura is behind Aronian may have more to do with the quality of the opponents he still has to face than his own ability. Nakamura will play Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, the former world champion, who is tied with Aronian for third; Ian Nepomniachtchi, another Russian, who beat Magnus Carlsen of Norway, the No. 1 player in the world, on Wednesday; and Wang Hao of China.
Aronian’s remaining opponents are Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine, and Erwin l’Ami and Jan Smeets of the Netherlands, who are the two lowest-ranked players in the field. Read more…
After a great day of fighting chess in Round 10 of the Tata Steel chess tournament in the Netherlands, Viswanathan Anand of India, the world champion, and Hikaru Nakamura of the United States are once again tied for the lead in the top section. Anand and Nakamura were also co-leaders after the fourth, sixth and eighth rounds.
Four players were tied for the lead after Round 9. But on Wednesday Nakamura beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France and Anand beat Alexei Shirov of Spain, while Levon Aronian of Armenia and Vladimir Kramnik of Russia respectively drew with Anish Giri and Jan Smeets, two Dutch grandmasters.
Anand and Nakamura each have 7 points and Aronian and Kramnik are tied for third with 6.5 each.
In the other important game of the day, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who was tied with Vachier-Lagrave a half point behind the leaders after Round 9, lost to Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia.
Carlsen, Vachier-Lagrave and Nepomniachtchi all have 5.5. points, which probably leaves them too far behind the leaders with three rounds to play to have a chance to still win the tournament. Read more…
Konstantin Chernichkin/Reuters Two men playing chess Tuesday in a park in Kiev, Ukraine.It is snowing again in New York City. Some people might think that means that it is not a good time to play chess outside. But some people in Eastern Europe, which is passionate about the game, would obviously disagree.
In the late 1990’s, someone using the name Mansour Bighamian posted more than 1,000 messages on Web bulletin boards about political and religious topics. Many of the postings were screeds attacking Jews and Israel, as well as gays. Among the most vitriolic suggested that the “time is ripe to build more ovens in EVERY country in the world for the D-DAY.”
Though the posts were years ago, some people in the chess community have been digging them up in recent days because of an e-mail that was sent to an Israeli grandmaster earlier this month in the name of Mick Bighamian, the founder and director of the Los Angeles Chess Club. That e-mail said, “We don’t allow players from terrorist countries in our tournaments!”
Mr. Bighamian has denied sending the e-mail, saying that someone used his account at the club to do it.
In a telephone interview on Tuesday, Mr. Bighamian said that Mansour was his real name, but that the Web postings in the late 1990’s were also not his. Read more…
Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, the inventors of the Unix operating system and C programming language more than 40 years ago, have been awarded the Japan Prize, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The prize goes each year to people whose work “aims to promote the advancement of science and technology for the peace and prosperity of mankind.” The award is for $600,000. Ten previous recipients have also won Nobel Prizes.
Both Thompson and Ritchie were working at Bell Laboratories in the 1960’s when they invented Unix and C. They went on to have distinguished careers and are legends in the computer world.
Thompson, 67, is a “distinguished engineer” for Google, and Ritchie, 69, retired in 2007 from Lucent Technologies (now Alcatel Lucent), a successor to AT&T Technologies.
In the late 1970’s, while he was at Bell, Thompson became interested in chess computers and along with Joe Condon developed Belle, the first chess computer to achieve a master rating (above 2,200).
(Full disclosure, I played Belle twice, somewhere around 1982. I drew one game and lost one. If I had known then what I know now about the man sitting across from me running the computer — Thompson — I might have thought to kowtow to him.)
Chessbase has a wonderful retrospective of Thompson and Belle, along with a number of photographs of Thompson at the London Chess Classic last month.
No one can seem to wrest control of the top section of the Tata Steel tournament in the Netherlands.
For several rounds, the lead teetered back and forth between Viswanathan Anand of India, the world champion, and Hikaru Nakamura of the United States. Tuesday, they played and neither could make any real headway against the other, so the game ended in a draw. That allowed some of the players who were trailing them to catch up.
One of them was Levon Aronian of Armenia, who is No. 3 in the world and was one of the pre-tournament favorites. On Tuesday, he played Alexei Shirov of Spain, who has really been struggling in the tournament. Shirov seems to have suddenly lost his facility for tactical complications, which has always been his hallmark. In his game against Aronian, Shirov once again went astray.
Shirov was Black against Aronian and played the Cambridge Springs Variation of the Queen’s Gambit Declined. (The system is named for the tournament that took place in Cambridge Springs, Pa., in 1904. The opening was used several times during the tournament by some of the world’s top players.) Shirov exchanged his dark-squared bishop and then played a couple of inferior moves and Aronian soon had a small edge. Read more…
In late December, the Turkish Chess Federation, which had been awarded the right to organize the European Women’s Championship, withdrew as the host.
The reason given for Turkey’s withdrawal was a conflict between the federation and the European Chess Union, which has jurisdiction over the championship.
Last week, Ali Nihat Yazici, the president of the Turkish Chess Federation, wrote to Silvio Danailov, the president of the E.C.U., and said that Turkey was again ready to organize the event, but he said that he did not want to communicate with Sava Stoisavljevic, the general secretary of the E.C.U., who mostly dealt with Mr. Yazici in the earlier negotiations over the contract. Mr. Yazici also asked for an apology from Mr. Danailov.
(Some background, Mr. Yazici and Mr. Danailov were opponents last fall in the election for the presidency of the E.C.U. Obviously, Mr. Danailov won.)
In his letter, Mr. Yazici gave Mr. Danailov a deadline of Monday, January 24, to accept his offer to again host the tournament.
Mr. Danailov did respond in time, but did not accept because it would set a bad precedent. Read more…
In its 1,500-year history, chess has imbedded itself in the world’s culture and vocabulary. Ideas, terms and images from the game have long been used as proxies for intelligence and complexity. But chess is more than a diversion. Thousands worldwide play professionally or earn a living by teaching it to children. The Internet has transformed the game, making it easy for players anywhere to find an opponent day or night. Chess computers, originally developed to test the bounds of artificial intelligence, now play better than grandmasters. This blog will cover tournaments and events, trends and developments. Reader comments and questions will be more than welcome.
Ron Langeveld of the Netherlands won the World Correspondence Chess Championship in October, although computers have removed much of that title’s luster.
Magnus Carlsen, the world’s top-ranked player, reached a milestone at the London Chess Classic by achieving the highest ranking ever.
Mistakes led to entertaining games at both the Grand Prix event in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and the London Chess Classic.
Anna Ushenina of Ukraine, the No. 32 seed, won the women’s world championship on Saturday, renewing questions about a tournament format for determining a champion.
Kayden Troff and Samuel Sevian placed first in their divisions at the World Youth Chess Championship. Neither has reached his 15th birthday.
