Shirov loses to Nakamura, maintains slim lead in Wijk aan Zee
23 January 2010, 15.09 CET | Last modified: 23:11 | By Peter Doggers | Filed under: Reports | Tags:
Alexei Shirov lost his first game in Wijk aan Zee today. He was beaten by Hikaru Nakamura, who is now just half a point behind the tournament leader. So is Magnus Carlsen, who right after the opening won a piece against Vassily Ivanchuk.
The Corus Chess Tournament takes place January 16-31 in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands. Next to hundreds of amateurs, three Grandmaster Groups (A, B and C) with 14 players each play a closed round-robin. The rate of play is 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, and 30 seconds increment starting from move 1.
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Round 7
15:09 CET
Another very quick draw today in Van Wely-Karjakin. The explanation? The Russian is not feeling very well, and it’s not really the Dutchman’s tournament… The other games are relatively quiet, except for Smeets-Dominguez. Second Sipke Ernst expected a repetition of moves here, but Smeets just bravely continued playing.
17:31 CET
Smeets and Dominguez eventually drew anyway, but after some very interesting complications. The two analyzed their game with pleasure and after that got some comments from both players for the daily journal. At first sight they thought there was not win for White.
Ivanchuk completely missed Carlsen’s Rd1+Bb1 idea and could have resigned much earlier. Caruana-Anand and Tiviakov-Leko were uneventful draws and it seems to be Beating the Petroff in Short-Kramnik.
Tournament leader Giri is defending a rook ending a pawn down against compatriot l’Ami. Howell already won and will probably get to shared second place again because Ni Hua won’t win against Naiditsch.
And then… the blow of the round. Nakamura defeated Shirov in an irregular Sveshnikov. He’s explaining the game in the press conference which we’re taping right now. A first interesting comment was that the American thought the Sicilian wasn’t the best choice for his opponent, since now it was easier for him to play for a win than compared to e.g. 1…e5.
18:39 CET
Some upsets in group C, where leader Robson loses to Vocaturo – who played a very nice game – but keeps his lead since his closest rival Li Chao goes down too, against Grandelius. Short is completely winning in a queen ending against Kramnik.
21:49 CET
It seemed safe to call it “completely winning” as GM Sipke Ernst described it that way, but in the end Kramnik managed to safe the half point. Incredible. As forest pointed out, Kramnik could have even forced the stalemate one move earlier (do you see how?) Tomorrow is a big day with Shirov-Carlsen, Kramnik-Nakamura and Anand-Ivanchuk. We’ll have GM Mihail Marin doing live commentary from 13:30 CET.
Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A
Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B
Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C
Corus 2010 | Round 7 Standings Grandmaster Group A
Corus 2010 | Round 7 Standings Grandmaster Group B
Corus 2010 | Round 7 Standings Grandmaster Group C
Links
- Official website
- Games in PGN via TWIC: Group A | Group B | Group C
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Wow, what is this? Smeets avoids the draw 21. Qxe3 (!! or ?? or both!?), getting “romantic”, offering both his rooks.
Is this preparation or over the board inspiration (or simply theory I don’t know)? Does his second Sipke Ernst know more about this?
And now Ivanchuk leaving his queen for a rook! Carlsen must be winning…crazy round!
Well, yes, Smeets has a lot of compensation…
Extremely interesting pairing for tomorrow
well, well, well…. so shirov can`t handle the pressure!!! And tomorrow he has to face Carlsen….
Great way to draw from Smeets!
Well that’s what’s so dam good about winning so many games at the start – you can throw one so that you aren’t accused of computer cheating and still win the tournament.
Here’s hoping that Carlsen will make mince meat of Shirov
“He was beated by Hikaru Nakamura”. That should be “beaten”/
Anand houdt van ananas… leventje, hoor mensen.
#14 White Nakamura 2739 vs #17 Black Shirov 2735. The favorite had White and won. No reasonable person could have been surprised. So much for all the haters who predicted Nakamura would have a negative score here.
I’m not sure why people would predict Nakamura would be negative. They do not follow chess. Either they are merely saying that because they don’t like him as a person, but not because he is not a top 15 player in the world… probably playing like a top 10 right now.
@British fan:
If you really wanted to decide who was the favorite by looking at the live rating, regardless of how small the Elo difference, then you should have picked Shirov. He was #12 at 2741 against Nakamura’s #18 at 2734 before their encounter. That they pretty much traded places after a single game just shows how inadequate this way of picking a favorite is. Knowing the flamboyant style of both players, the only reasonable prediction to draw from their close ratings was a tense game.
Weet iemand of ik ergens de resultaten van de tienkampen kan zien? Ik kan het niet vinden op de website van Corus. Ik ben wel benieuwd.
Hier en dan klikken op de betreffende tienkamp.
So, picking 1… c5 against Nakamura was Shirov’s mistake, according to Nakamura.
Guess we can just get rid of all those books and studies about the Sicilian, then.
Either he says this because he wants players down the line to play the Sicilian against him, or else he suffers from insufferable hubris.
Don’t forget the advantage of having white. If we assume an average of a 53% score for white, it will make a difference of 24 points. Even with the ratings taken from before the tournament, Naka would have been the (ever so slight) favorite.
Yes, I know that discussion makes no sense. But hey, you started it.
Ive noticed that Jan Smeets looks at his opponent a lot during the game. Can anyone tell him to not do that anymore? It costs a lot of time, and it doesnt have any use either…
haha next time someone plays c5 against me and loses i gonna say move 1 was a mistake.
Nakamura does have a point though that shirov could go for something more solid, but I like it that he just plays his normal game and trying to win, without considering the standings.
All right, jan van der marel, next time I see Jan Smeets I’ll tell him, Amature to 2650 GM, ” Hey man, dont be looking at your oppponnt, dont u know its just a waste of time?!” All kidding aside, it does have some purpose, u can see in their what their focussing on.