So, Lothar, in your opinion patriotism is accepting to work for free during your whole life because it´s for your country

No. Where did I say anything remotely like that? The olympiad only takes two weeks or so, and the conditions were good enough for Ivanchuk, Karjakin, Eljanov and others to accept. That means it probably wasn't slavery.

I'm just pointing out that Pono clearly does not attach all that much value to he honor of representing the Ukraine (otherwise he would have played), so he's probably not too offended by Karjakin's defection.

What are the standings after today ?

You can read about financial conditions for chess players in Ukraine in an interview from October 2008 with Ponomariov, I think it was published on Chessbase. Did you know that once they had to catch a flight at 4 am (approx.) to cut on expenses? Man, if you have one of the strongest national teams in the world, the least you can do is let them sleep.

As for other players playing, Ivanchuk would play for food and a room, he just loves chess more than anything.
Eljanov probably played to have a chance of climbing up the ELO list, though I cannot speak for him.
Karjakin... well, I guess it wasn´t good enough for him after all, was it? :)

And let me just add that one thing is to ask for better work conditions (Ponomariov´s absence could be interpreted as a sort of strike), and another completely different thing is to leave your country, not only as a member of the federation, but as a citizen. However, I am not criticizing Karjakin, I´m not a patriot myself, but it IS different, and let me just finish by illustrating my opinion with a quote:

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.
(James Baldwin)

You know what Muadhib, partly you are right. I watched the video again, and now that I know that Carlsen´s reaction was partly because he felt frustrated at this whole illegal move thing, it´s not so shocking, and although he moves quite briskly he doesn´t slam the table as I thought. However I still think a quick handshake would have done no harm, but let´s leave the topic, anyway he´s probably not as angry now that he´s winning ;)

@Peter
Unfortunately the event you are citing is not the Tal Memorial blitz. The crosstables I posted are the Tal Memorial blitz. This means I was correct that Ivanchuk is the defending champion. People who continue to spout falsehoods are doing Ivanchuk a great disservice.

I agree with people who say manners were not better in the past; it's a bit the same with gruesome murders etc.- people go like "what happened, people weren't like this in the past!"...well, of course they were, but there wasn't globalized medias, video, TV, Internet etc...

Anyway, remember how:

- Staunton treated Morphy in 1858.

- Remember how Tarrasch wrote about Nimzowitsch and his ideas in 1911/12

- Then there is many anecdotes (which frankly I think are rather funny) about
Nimzowtisch too- one were he came 30 minutes late and then, instead of
sitting down at the table, started looking at the paintings at the walls just to
annoy his conservative opponent. End of the story is that his opponent of
course lost and, raging, send two people to Nimzowitsch the next day to ask
for a duel with guns. Nimzowitsch just laughed and said the only duel he would
do is with his fists, with what the case was made ridiculous & closed.
Another one from wikipedia: "Nimzowitsch once missed the first prize of a great
rapid transit tournament in Berlin by losing to Sämisch; immediately upon
learning this, Nimzowitsch got up on a table and shouted "That I should lose to
this idiot!"

- And of course Kortchnoi is legendary...we all know the video of his loss against
Susan Polgar; and I know an incredible story from a fellow chess player who
said he got a bit traumatized as a kid playing in a simultan event against
Kortchnoi; being a child (who love to play on) he went on playing instead of
giving up a totally lost position...reaction Korchnoi was to kick over the child's
king and tell him "You lost!"and leave to the next board. Imagine the poor kid.

...so...I'm not saying that makes all those people bad people, but the whole "in the past it was different" is not true. In the past, as said, there simply weren't globalized mass medias and videos capturing and spreading information (true or false one, no matter) all over the world in a few seconds.

To be honest what rather bothers me bothers me that I have the feeling with mass medias (especially TV (where light, make-up and the moment are the most important) and Internet) edged charismatic characters are kinda becoming more rare (in chess like in other areas, eg politics); Chuky is an exception, but guys like Kramnik or Leko (who seems to be a nice guy) are so slick and boring, like business men...and the new generation like Caruana or So seems a bit the same.

Although also that might only be a false subjective impression fed by mass medias and influenced the way we remember the past...it's very possible there were the same slick players in the past and that we simply happen to only remember the fascinating ones, thus changing the reality of the past in our memories.

Whatever. I love chess. :)

Too many typos in my post, sorry...of course the sentence at the beginning of the third paragraph from the end is "To be honest what rather bothers me is that (...)".

@CALDaniel + catfishcore - you are both right in a way, let me explain Peter Doggers' comment: last year there was the Tal Memorial blitz on Moscow AND (another event) the world blitz championship in Almaty. Ivanchuk won the first event, Dominguez the second one. This year the Tal Memorial blitz is also the world blitz championship (this was already the case in 2007), therefore Ivanchuk and Dominguez are both defending champions. It seems that the organizers recognized Dominguez' title by giving him a wildcard - if Dominguez wasn't world champion, others (e.g. Shirov?) might have been a more logical choice

BTW, if I have to choose I would value Chucky's title a bit higher: Tal Memorial blitz 2008 may have had a stronger field than Almaty (which didn't have Kramnik and Carlsen), and it was a double round robin (34 games) while Almaty was a single round robin (15 games). The Almaty crosstable is, for example, at
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5005

where is today`s coverage????

Indeed ChessGirl, I took the trouble of watching the fragment in the live stream and your initial account was just totally blown out of proportion.

It is true however that he took back a move (like in his game with Gasimov) and did not shake hands afterwards but just left.

On Ponomariov-Karjakin-Ukraine: I think Karjakin's primary reason to switch federations was that he wanted Dokhoian as his coach, who is only allowed to work with Russian players. Maybe this step was easier for him because he is from Simferopol and - so I assume - ethnic Russian.

As far as Pono is concerned - along the lines of what ChessGirl wrote: you can support your country, but still have problems with your federation (or government). There is probably something wrong with the Ukrainian federation, because other players also "defected" - both Beliavsky and Muzychuk playing for Slovenia instead. On the other hand, defecting to - of all places - Russia may well be problematic for part of the Ukrainian (chess) population ... .

Indeed - where is todays coverage of the Tal Blitz???

Had a birthday in the family tonight - but it's up now!

@chessgirl: I agree, all players should shake hands. But the reality is sometimes they don't. I was just trying to think of an explanation and who knows what Pono was told to do by his federation. Certainly there are a lot of people in the federation who dislike Karjakin because of his change to Russia.

Maybe blitz tournaments should use the NFL timeout+replay rules. Each player in each game can call a timeout. As in American football, a timeout stops the clock for (say) 1 minute. And as in American football, a timeout can be used as collateral for a "Challenge", here a claim of touch-move or repetition etc. If the challenge is upheld on video replay, the player does not lose a timeout, but otherwise he does.

One could either allot 1-or-2 timeouts to each player for each game, or give players an initial bank of (say) 6 timeouts per 12 games, just like NFL coaches have 6 timeouts per game (3 per half). In the latter case, allocating extra thinking time would become part of the strategy depending on the opponents. It wouldn't be the same as just adding 1 min. to your thinking time for the game---the timeout uses all of the 1-minute-or-so for one particular move.