Comments on: Complete field super-tournament in London announced

By: Update on Bilbao, Nanjing and London : Chess news by ChessVibes

Update on Bilbao, Nanjing and London : Chess news by ChessVibes — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:12:05 +0000

[...] We already knew the complete field of the London super-tournament: Michael Adams, Magnus Carlsen, David Howell, [...]

By: Ramiro

Ramiro — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:21:50 +0000

Strange the same date that Word Cup in Khanty Mansisk

By: Lajos Arpad

Lajos Arpad — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:04:58 +0000

A super GM would play 3 grandmaster draws in 10 games (IMO this would be the average). He know why he plays that: the cause might be inferior amount of time, higher rated opponent, tournament strategy (”Today I draw with X, because he is dangerous and if I manage to make it quick, tomorrow I can play with more force against Y”). Like it or not, chess players are human beings. They get tired. If we make them play out all their games, we are making them tired. This means that the most fantastic games are played at the first rounds, and at the end of a tournament, any tournament, everybody plays blunders. Every chess player has the right to make a draw in any moment. If somebody plays too many short draws, he simply won’t be invited to close tournaments. If you want to watch tournaments or matches, where everybody plays out all of their games and never stop playing chess, you can watch computer chess. In human chess we always have the human element.

By: Wim M

Wim M — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:50:50 +0000

@Castro Re 1 : as said, I think the Sofia rules ‚Äòwork‚Äô. Maybe not yet proven ‚Äòscientifically‚Äô by Dr J Nunn et al , but all anecdotal evidence points in that direction. Re 2 : a moot point , but I have nothing against a plethora of fought-out draws (I never complain about a high number of draws per se, only about ‚Äòtruncated‚Äô short draws where an ‚Äòinteresting‚Äô opening/middlegame position is left alone, often caused by ‚Äòchickening out‚Äô (e.g. advantage ‚Äòsurrendered‚Äô vis-?†-vis a higher rated opponent or a clock advantage) or non-chess reasons (prizes, norms etc.). Re 5 : I assume Bilbao is equated by you with the 3-1-0 scoring system. As said, I don‚Äôt see the point in making a win more worthy than two draws, it goes against all chess logic and tradition and it wrongly (IMO) aims to promote a certain style of chess (i.e. to alter the risk-reward balance, comparable to pin-placing or bringing bunkers into play in pro golf).
Another possible avenue could be to ‚Äòcalibrate‚Äô draws as is done in draughts tournaments nowadays, where a 1-1 draw score is supplemented by a more fine-grained tiebreaker based on material advantage on the board in the final drawn position. That said, (straight of the bat) I don‚Äôt think it‚Äôs right for chess to do this. Your remark that Bilbao rules are ‚Äòlegal‚Äô by Fide is of lesser importance to me, but I agree that the discretionary decision-power of the referee is potentially some sort of weakness within the Sofia-rules. Re 6 : nothing against your proposals , but sometimes they work, sometimes they don‚Äôt. And exactly because of the lack of consistent succes of these, Sofia rules have ‚Äòemerged‚Äô Re 9 : I think Sofia-rules are only a minor infringement of chess players‚Äô ‚Äòrights‚Äô , which is outweighed IMO by their positive consequences, provided that honest and ‚Äòendgame-competent‚Äô referees are requested to adjudicate the ‚Äòdrawn‚Äô endgames

By: Thomas

Thomas — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:09:14 +0000

Going back to the start of the discussion: I agree with both jussu (”Still nothing compared to Wijk aan Zee and Linares”) and Peter Doggers (”It’s the first edition …”). But I wonder what this field means, or maybe should mean, for London’s ambitions to join the Grand Slam. There are two ‘peculiarities’:

1) Four players (half the field) are local ones. Two of them are clearly ‘wildcards’, i.e. based on rating they are unlikely to be invited for other supertournaments.

2) I would consider Carlsen and Kramnik clear favorites – Adams seems to be on a slow decline, Short still has to prove that his strong results in tournaments such as Corus B, Sigeman, Olympiad, … “hold” against the absolute world top. Consequently, at least on paper it would be disproportionately easy for the first-named players to qualify for the Bilbao final – in other Grand Slam tournaments, about half the field has a reasonable chance for first place!?

I wrote “should mean” because Danailov and colleagues may have other considerations in evaluating London’s candidature – notably getting Mark Crowther (who is well-known in the international chess scene) on their team of organizers … .

By: Castro

Castro — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:29:12 +0000

@Wim M

Other than not even aproaching all of my questions, hardly can any of them be assumed as answered!
Obviously respecting all opinions, the fundamentation of yours fail in some points:
Various of your statements are based on things like 1. The Sofia rules work 2. The draw tendency is lowered by them, and exactely by them 3. You know about chickening of others 4. It is necessary that the rules (Of what? Of chess? Of tournaments? Of other game?) to enforce less draws 5. If so, Sofia is the way to go (Btw, why not Bilbao? At least, Bilbao is LEGAL, by the FIDE rules!) 6. Things like (systematic) more money, prizes, titles, rating and/or invitations to those less drawish wouldn’t work the same (or a lot better!) 7. You can tell all “fake games” from real chess 8. At least, a GM can tell all “fake games” and implicit draw offers from real fights 9. It is ethical (let alone “chessy”!) for other than the two players to say if a game should or shouldn’t continue at some point, based on they being paid to play, and public or sponsor “reasons” 10. The fact that there are players indulging in those tournaments is enough for we taking it as normal, and as “chess”, because it is not completely deturpating the rules and the spirit of our game. And so, we don’t need to call this game other names…

And so, more than sometimes assuming as given “hypothesis” things that should belong to your “thesis”, these 10 assumptions I colected from your post (hoping I’m not being unfair) are either completely unproven or even simply refuted already.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:03:06 +0000

@fafe: Yes it does … (clash with the World Cup). In a telephone interview on chess.fm, Nakamura stated that the London tournament is more attractive to him, because in the World Cup he might lose as early as round 1!?
A bit odd that Kramnik and Carlsen may have similar priorities. Do they both hope or expect to qualify for the candidates matches in another way (ELO rating or organizer wildcard)?
Even more odd that the last Grand Prix tournament (a FIDE event!) is ‘tentatively’ scheduled for December in either Grozny or Oman, and would also collide with the World Cup.

By: Wim M

Wim M — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:07:18 +0000

@ Castro.
Sofia-rules are particularly effective against players who have a tendency to ‘chicken out’ (Svidler aired similar views in a recent interview). I remember a game of Leko’s in the first round of Linares a couple of years back (maybe even as far back as 2005, vs Kasparov?) where, +/- 25 moves into the game, light timetrouble and a with a complicated but slightly favourable middlegame on the board, Leko chickened out and proposed a draw (which was accepted). Most punters agreed at the time this type of situation cried out for battle continuation, irrespective of the egos involved, and if needed tournament rules should encourage this.
Although as amateur players we all know the feeling of chickening out, I cannot see many disadvantages in obliging invitees to marquee events to play on until the game reaches a ‘natural’ end (a win/loss, an endgame that is theoretically drawn, or three times repetition etc.). True, you still have the occasional non-game (think Nisipeanu-Kamsky in Bazna), but that’s not so bad as this doesn’t happen often, and there might be some ‘collateral damage’ (like pros having to draw out stale games) but overall the good outweighs the bad (to a large extent) IMO

By: fafe

fafe — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:20:27 +0000

doesn’t this clash with the World Cup?

By: Castro

Castro — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:47:33 +0000

Anyone indulging in playing (or making anyone play) other game, should
1st – If necessary, get conscience of it;
2nd – Be open and direct about it.