R4: Leko beats Anand (update)
19 March 2008 12:24 AM | Last modified: 22:33
In a slightly chaotic fourth round of the Amber tournament, the most notable result was Anand-Leko ½-1½. Van Wely won again, this time against Gelfand, after irregularities in both their blindfold and rapid games.
In their blindfold game, Gelfand lost on time, but afterwards he claimed he had played 39.Rxd5 with seven seconds left on the clock, and his laptop screen had said “illegal move” and he lost on time. Arbiter Geurt Gijssen decided that after this first blindfold session, the game had to be entered in the computer again, to check if it was a software error. And so he and John Nunn sat down behind the two laptops, and played the same game. Nunn’s 39.Rxd5 was accepted this time, and then it was decided Loek did win the game.
In their rapid encounter, Gelfand played 14…Qa5 and then nocked over a few pieces. Not really that terrible, except when the DGT board gets confused. And when the players then end up in a RB-R ending, which they play for about sixty moves, it takes a while before the game can be reconstructed completely.
And we didn’t even mention Carlsen-Aronian yet. After Magnus had played his rook to a3, he saw it was a blunder and quickly played a different move. But Aronian knew he had let go, and the tournament’s video footage confirmed this, and so Magnus had to resign. Not something to be proud of for a future world champion but hey, he’s in good company (Kasparov once did the same against Judit Polgar).
Update March 19th: No reason to be too harsh on Magnus - he apologized to Levon, and today he came to me and stressed that he didn’t have the intention to cheat. Instead, he was “mainly being clumsy” he said. His father Henrik gave a similar description on his blog:
“Magnus moved his rook to a3 and discovered immediately the blunder (due to Rg3+). He mind was so occupied by registering the blunder and instinctively correcting it that he did not really notice whether he had released his rook at a3 or not. Aronian immediately took exception to the corrected move and the arbiter was involved. Magnus was somewhat surprised when the arbiter said that the video footage clearly showed that Magnus had released the rook on a3 before moving it to c1. He has not seen the video but of course he accepted the ruling of the arbiter, and duly resigned. 0-1. After the game Magnus has emphasised that he did not intentionally try to cheat and he has apologised to Aronian for any disagreement he may have felt during the episode.”
So was there any normal chess today? There certainly was. Leko beat Anand, in the rapid. He was surprised by Vishy’s 6…e6 and although he didn’t really remember theory, he decided to go for the wild Perenyi Attack anyway, “to have some fun”. He had his fun, since his well-played attack was totally crushing.
Topalov beat Mamedyarov; Shakh blundered with White in the blindfold and drew his Black easily. Kramnik outplayed Morozevich with White (also the blindfold one) and then held the draw in an amazing ending.
Ivanchuk is probably the only player who delivers a brilliant novelty such as 14.Qxe6 in a rapid game, where any other player would have saved it for a more important game. But with it he could give himself a nice birthday present (today Chucky turned 39).
Tomorrow is the first rest day. After four rounds we can safely say that it’s about time for the critics to stop calling this tournament inferior. We’ve seen fantastic chess here.
| Blindfold games: | Rapid games: | |
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It sounds like Magnus got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Great games on round 4. Esp Ivanchuk novelty on round 4 against Karjakin. Brilliant stuff!
did they play on for a while or did aronian complaint immidiately?
oh and btw Kramnik did play a very good novelty against carlsen last year in this tournament, if Im not mistaken. but for him it was a question about winning the tournament so its not quite the same anyway. still fun to see good chess from ivanchuk.
I’ve long waited for a nice win for Lékó… At last, i’ve seen one after a long time.
@xtra
Aronian complaint right away and they played back the video and Carlsen resigned. Carlsen kind of disappointed me on this one. You would think he would have known he took his hand off with out they playing back the video.
He’s still a kid and this is still just a game to him. Who hasn’t reached to take back a move right after laying it down even if you did catch yourself.
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4518
In this article, chessbase makes the following amazing conclusion:
“After three rounds of this annual tournament in Nice, France Ivanchuk, Karjakin and Morozevich lead in the blindfold scores (1.5/3), Anand and Aronian in the rapid section (2.0/3), and Anand, Ivanchuk and Aronian in the combined scoring (3.0/6). ”
Now, you tell me how is it possible, for someone leading the tournament with 50% (and not ALL players with 50%)…
Obviously they show the standings after two rounds (where Anand etc were leading with 3/4), and “normalize” it to 3 rounds to make it 3/6
(and similarly, it was 2/2 for Anand in rapid and 1.5/2 in the Blindford for Ivanchuck et al)
A mistake is normal. But the striking thing, is that few days have passed, and still they haven’t corrected it. It appears at the line next from the title! (and I am pretty sure, that some people will have pointed out this problem)
I wonder, if Magnus becomes world champion, will aspiring chess world champions start taking back moves to show their intention at gaining the title. Maybe this will become sort of a signature?
Come on guys, don’t crucify Magnus. better talk about the amazing queen sac of Ivanchuk in a well know position!
En we zwaaien met zijn allen naar Anand, en we zwaaien met zijn allen
naar Anand
I really dont judge magnus at all, I havent been in any similar situations so I dont know what its like, but its interesting to know what other players think. It cant be considered that a serious offense by anyones standards, and especially since aronian did get the point, and if you compare it to things that are just bad (e.g. kicking someone under the table to make him/her lose concentration, and cheating accusations without any evidence at all just aiming to disrupt a players focus).
and btw, a lot of people seems to automaticly think it obvious that magnus cheated intentionally, but I wonder about that…in time trouble and especially when you are in the flow of the game, I think one could simply do something like that and not realize it/remember it. just to point out that you cant simply claim that magnus thought process was “oh no, blunder. quick, pick up the rook again!”.
Besides the astonishing game by Ivanchuk, thumbs up for the spectacular play of Morozevich too !
No reason to be too harsh on Magnus - he apologized to Levon, and today he stressed that he didn’t have the intention to cheat. Instead, he was “mainly being clumsy” he said.
Carlsen simply demonstrated he is at par with Kasparov!
Hehe, tough day for Gelfand. “Bloody computers!”
Wow, Kramnik really kicked Topalov around today!
Karjakin’s demolition of Van Wely’s Najdorf was really impressing.
GM Hans Ree: “als je als verslaggever vindt dat er fantastisch schaak werd gespeeld, dan ben je wel zwaar beneveld door de gezelligheid en de luxe van het vijfsterrenhotel Le Palais de Mediterranée aan de mooie Promenade des Anglais in Nice.”
Tja, dat er veel fouten gemaakt worden, da’s al zeventien jaar het geval, dus dat weten we nu wel. Gelukkig weet de meerderheid van de schaakliefhebbers ook dat er daarnaast veel moois is gebeurd in slechts vier ronden schaak: Anands 42…Df3, Morozevichs 30.Pc6, Ivanchuks 14.Dxe6+ en de complete partij Aronian-Gelfand… Voor de volledigheid: de laatste drie waren blindpartijen. Dit geeft mijns inziens nog een meerwaarde aan partijen die op zich al zeer de moeite waard zijn. Weet je zeker dat je deze potjes geen bal aan vond, Hans?
Overigens, de kern is volgens mij dat je twee groepen mensen hebt: 1) degenen die alleen klassiek schaak leuk vinden, en 2) mensen die het ook leuk vinden om naar blind-, rapid en zelfs 960-schaak te kijken. De eerste groep is doorgaans niet te vermurwen, en placht de andere vormen van schaak als verloedering te beschouwen, terwijl de tweede groep, wel, zichzelf meer kansen biedt om lol te hebben aan het spelletje.
Tja Peter, je had er voor kunnen zorgen dat je uitspraak geen aanstoot had gegeven door zorgvuldigheidshalve te stellen dat er sóms geweldig schaak is te zien (net als bij klassiek schaak…) zoals je uit je nadere commentaar klaarblijkelijk ook bedoelde…
Eens.
Ik begrijp Ree’s ergernis wel, en ik deel ook zijn kritiek.
Peter, je schrijft: “dat er fouten gemaakt worden, dat weten we nu wel.” Je lijkt daarmee te impliceren dat wat jou betreft daarmee de kous af is. Maar is dat wel zo? Je zou ook kunnen zeggen: “ja, er worden fouten gemaakt: weg dus met die onzinnige formule, of er anders geen aandacht meer aan besteden”. Is de 100m sprint interessant als Powell gewichten in zijn schoenen draagt? Misschien een keertje, voor een goed doel - maar jaar in jaar uit, en voor heel veel geld?
Want dat is het denk ik vooral: we weten het nu echt wel, na al die jaren. Wie kan zich één gedenkwaardige partij herinneren uit het Amber toernooi? (Ter vergelijking: hoeveel gedenkwaardige partijen worden er niet dagelijks in Corus gespeeld!)
Natuurlijk hebben de spelers er lol in - je kunt in zoveel dingen lol hebben. Ik vind het ook wel aardig om die potjes na te spelen. Maar beklijven doet het allemaal niet.
Zelf vind ik het die zure, kritische toon van Ree heel goed, vooral omdat het heel verleidelijk is om te denken dat het allemaal heel groots en meeslepend is wat er daar in Nice gebeurt. Maar zowel de toeschouwers, de spelers, als - hoop ik - de journalisten weten wel beter. De enige bij wie ik daaraan twijfel zijn de organisatoren
Ik durf wel te stellen dat als Powell gewichten in zijn schoenen zou dragen, dat dat jaar in jaar uit voor veel aandacht zou zorgen ja. Er zullen nog altijd veel, heel veel mensen zijn die dat toch willen zien, ook al weten ze diep in hun hart ook wel dat het niets met atletiek te maken heeft.
En dat is nu juist de crux: veel schaakfans beseffen wel dat het niet het ‘echte schaak’ is, en vinden het desondanks leuk om naar te kijken. De poll rechts op deze site bevestigt dat, en de tienduizenden schaakfans die de toernooisite bezoeken bevestigen dat.
Ree volgt al jaren het schaken en heeft dit nu wel gezien. Kan ik me voorstellen. Maar het grote publiek smult ervan.
Overigens is er tijdens dit toernooi in elk geval één memorabele partij gespeeld: Ivantsjoek-Karjakin. Laten we die parel in elk geval koesteren!