Nice coverage Chessvibes!

wow awesome video chessvibes! Shirov makes me laugh so much, he looks lost away from a board lol

That song during the first 30 seconds of the video is gorgeous!! What song is it??

Shirov's speech is full of substance. He intertwined chess with technology and foreign relations.

The intentions may be the best, and I'll always congratulate you guys in CV for the efford and hard work, but...

It is a huge shame that great part of the chess world and specialy media pay attention and, I'd say, "feed this fashion monster" of this kind of chess-variant tournaments, or "chess extravaganzas", maybe, instead of covering (when posible, of course) REAL CHESS events, like the current Russian Higher Ligue, where unfought draws are simply INSIGNIFICANT (in every sense!), and without having anti-chess rules.

Death to "Bilbao rule"! Death to "Sofia Rule"! (Death to pseudo-swisses too!)
Or, AT LEAST, have the minimal decency of STOPING trying to call these unreasonably ruled tournaments "chess".
This is NO chess, I'm sorry. This is marketing, money, and, even in those, it's ridiculous, because all of that stupid rules application is, above all... UNNECESSARY!
The discution was never really pursued, but some "big and clever minds" introduced these "modern" "anti-draw" rules anyway --- as PURE MARKETING, if you think ---, and the chess world is swalloing them like brainless ducks!

(I've been saying)

(I'd only accept the "chess" nomination for this kind of silly tournaments if, for instance, we all took the blitz (or other) championship as the "real" and most important chess title, and its holder "the best chess player in the world". Every year, of course :-) )

Narrow scape for Shirov, I hope this helps him to break his "Kramnik complex". Glad to see other chinese player than Wang Yue

Shirov's active endgame defense against Kramnik is a minor miracle IMO, he will feel great saving that half point.

Castro. You have to put down your fanstastic and perfect ideal world, and get back to "real" life. Chess is a sport. The players are humans. The organizers are also humans. You live in capitalism. The idea about the gentleman, the honor and all that crap that makes you think that the past was great and the present is destruction, is (sorry, but is true) nonsense.

The is no objective description about the essence of chess. There is a lot of ways to understand this sport. The way you can describe the chess game depends on the time and the place where you are taking this sport into consideration. You can not say that "chess is this" or "chess is that". You can dream about what you'd like, on an ideal world, what is chess about, and how chess games must be played. But those are not more than dreams, and you will crush into the "real" world's economic structure.

And the definition of chess is not that important after all. Not if you are realistic. But if you don't take the whole context into consideration, you will miss the biggest part of the cake and your words will get older and older and the sense will be completely lost. (Sorry if my english is not good enough, but I hope you can understand the concepts; i mean: the ideas.)

Conclution: If you make a serious analisis, chess is far more complex than that. But now, after all this words i tell you, i want to make you a question. In what way the game between this guys changed because of the rules (marketing, the "brainless ducks", etc)? What is the difference after all? Can you tell me what is the difference about a tournament with Sofia rules and without Sofia Rules; I mean, if no one tell which tournament has the Sofia rules, can you watch a game and tell me which tournament has those rules and which tournament does not (on the basis that one tournament is following those rules and the other is not following the rules)? I think, my friend, that is not that simple. And thatt chess is not getting worse with this rules, and, seriously I don't understand (I do, but it does not have sense to me) why you think (and I don't care so much) that this is "NO chess".

I repeat it: you have an idea of chess which doesn't have into consideration the whole economic structure that is the basis (complex basis) of the whole system in which we live. And chess is not getting away.

does the crew here post the videos also on youtube? i was looking at the videos today at http://chess-news.com/chess-videos/ and was not able to find it... it would be nice :)

thank you,
http://chess-news.com/

I love chessvibes videos!! :-)

@Castro,

Being one who shares your sentiment, I must say that I tend to support Pablo's point. Bilbao scoring makes so little difference that as long as they won't sneak it into WCh events, I don't see why we should even care, let alone boycotting an otherwise interesting tournament. Only four participants is the aspect that should be criticised, not some practically insignificant detail in scoring system (I say "practically" because there is theoretically a huge flaw in Bilbao system which no-one has evidently tried to exploit yet).

I think Sofia-rules are a good thing to have but I abhor the Bilbao scoring system. The main travesty is that the essence of the game is compromised by decreeing that a win and loss are somehow ‘worth’ more than two fought-out draws (or even draws full stop), and I don’t understand why not more punters (and players!)share this sentiment.
I think we will need a tournament table where the winner under Bilbao scoring is different from the ‘conventional ‘ winner (it hasn’t happened yet in a marquee ‘Bilbao’ tournament ) in order to stir the debate.

What does "hand-weaved" mean? Do you mean "hand woven?"

@Pablo

All your criticism about me being old-fashioned or nostalgic or not willing to acompain the new chess times fall appart, because it means you didn't take into acount one of the biggest stresses I made:

Even if those new rules were inocuous (not changing dramatically the essense of the game), they'd always be UNNECESSARY

(as we can see in real, well organized, chess tournaments, and --- I sustain --- in any fair and realy racional discution about the "unfought draws" and what should and what shouldn't be done about them).

We're being fed down the throat with these Bilbaos and Sofias, and it is a realy nasty thing.
I defend that we can fight the "unfought draws problem" with positive stimulae (money, other prizes, rating, titles, invitations), but could never ever impose prohibitions on offering/accepting draws.
Firstly, because a question of principle. Why --- if not absolutely necessary --- would we have the right to mess with a so "chessy" feature of our game as the draw by mutual agreement?? NO ONE EVER DEMONSTRATED THE NEED FOR THAT. And no one ever could! And they should! And they didn't! FACTS.
Secondly, because there is a second --- INSULTUOUS --- anti-chess level to it: Sofia rule is easy to fool, and the chess public along, if two players decide to draw anyway. So it's a pure lie, and of a purely irracional nature, which is the opposite of what we have about chess. An insult indeed!
And then, I say that when Sofia rule apears to work, in fact other acompaining but more acceptable factors are working, as in some good chess tournaments we see.
As for Bilbao: It just have the strengh of having been a "novelty", something with an audatious appearence. Because it is also unnecessary, and too much unbalancing the win/draw relation of chess.
I have proposed using the "football idea", yes, but with a less unbalancing relation. Say 5/2 or 7/3, instead of the insultuous 3/1.

You ask: "Can you tell me what is the difference about a tournament with Sofia rules and without Sofia Rules?"
I say:
1. Most of the persons wouldn't tell a blitz game from a "classical chess" one. So, don't go that way!
2. There is an obvious (but obviously also "foolable") question of principle. If they didn't demonstrate the need for some rule, don't mess with a central feature of our game! Or else have the courage and decency of calling things by their names! Not "chess" (let alone the London nerve of calling their tournament "classic chess"!)
The chess world is accepting that "onus invertion"! It's not us who have to demonstrate anything! They (those marketing and money barons) do! And they didn't until now. So, it has been "down the throat".
Personaly, I protest, and I'm NOT ACCEPTING.
STOP or STOP calling chess!

Another sugestion:
Let them call this kind of tournaments "Forcing Chess" (or other distinctive variation name). Let them organize huge international championships, if they want, and crown huge champions.
Put it on another ranking list!
Then it will be respectable, like rapid or blitz are.

FIDE is also to blame on this miserable state of things, but unfortunable people are forgetting to charge them on this subject.

*unfortunately

:-)