Pictorial report of the Chess Classic, and Mainz
3 August 2009, 12.11 CET | Last modified: 16:45 | By Arne Moll | Filed under: Reports | Tags:
The Mainz Chess Classic is probably the most professional, well-organized and streamlined tournament in the world. On top of that, Mainz itself is an interesting city to visit, with a rich history and a more than fascinating architecture. Arne Moll paid a visit to the Chess Classic, and to Mainz itself.
By Arne Moll
Despite its fantastic lineup and highly attractive events, the Mainz Chess Classic tournament is still mainly visited by German chess players – non-titled players, that is. On the first day of the open rapid tournament, I couldn’t find a single Dutch compatriot among the almost 700 (!) players. This wasn’t a big deal for me, though, for there were plenty of other interesting players to follow.
The hall & bar next to the playing hall, with Viktorija Cmilyte on the video screen
The super-strong Ordix Open, with GMs like Bologan and Moiseenko on boards 13 and 16!
GM Alexander Grischuk with White against GM Leonid Gofshtein
Germany's top GM Naiditsch also on stage
Former top 5 player Vlastimil Hort still enjoying the game...
...as does Rafael Vaganian
Aronian's girlfriend and Australia's top player Arianne Caoili
Ian Nepomniachtchi doing well on Saturday in the preliminaries...
...here playing against the World Champion who was in bad shape
GM Daniel Fridman
Chess960 winner Hikaru Nakamura came close to winning the Ordix Open as well
Former FIDE World Champ Alexander Khalifman
Sergei Movsesian
Gata Kamsky
Mainz was so heavily bombed during the second World War that practically the whole city has been rebuilt after the war. Many of the ancient buildings have been renovated or redecorated entirely,often in very bright colours, while many new buildings have arisen in the city center as well. As a result, Mainz now offers a curious mixture of renovated and repainted baroque buildings next to either completely neglected, or very modern and futuristic stores and apartments – a rather deadly combination in some cases.
A view from the Weiszliliengasse
Around the Marktplatz, modern and old architecture don't always go together very well
Still, Mainz rightly prides itself, among other things, as the city where Johannes Gutenberg invented the book press around the year 1450 and printed his famous Gutenberger bibles, some of which can be seen together with even older medieval manuscripts in the Gutenberg Museum. In my opinion, this piece of world heritage alone is worth the trip to Mainz – even if you don’t particularly care for bibles.
The Gutenberg Museum has many ancient manuscripts on display
Interestingly, the city has a number of exceptionally striking (modern) statues.
A refreshingly sober and thought-provoking tribute to the Mainzer episcopate
Walking towards the Rheingoldhalle, where the tournament is held, from the riverside along the stately houses, it’s hard not to think of the famous ‘rheingold! reines gold!’ end tune from Wagner’s first Nibelungen opera, not in the least because this is indeed the ‘golden’ neighborhood of Mainz – something which can also be discovered by looking at the cars parked here.
A view from the tournament hall at the famous Dom
The boulevard along the river Rhine as seen from the playing hall
You’re probably wondering what this all has to do with chess, and perhaps the answer is that the interesting but strange mix of beautiful and ugly as seen in the city centre of Mainz, definitely isn’t applicable to the tournament itself. At the Mainz Chess Classic, everything is just perfect. The huge entry hall with its book stalls, chess computer exhibitions, gigantic movie screens (showing ChessVibes videos as it turns out) and monitors displaying the main boards together with the most actual evaluation of either Rybka or Fritz, and even grandmasters commenting on the games, are just the main eye catchers.
GM Sebastian Siebrecht commenting on the games from the Grenkeleasing Rapid World Championship
What struck me most while walking around the tournament area was something which in my opinion is rarely seen at chess tournaments: an extreme concern and care for visitors and chess lovers. The tournament organization looks extremely skilled and professional, and this shows in just about everything. On top of that, they’re friendly and helpful and easy going. It truly is chess players (and chess journalists!) heaven.
The Rapid World Championship beautifully set-up on stage, with big screens showing thepositions and smaller TV screens showing computer evaluations
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The full tournament table has six Dutch players rated 1800-2050, I agree this is not much … . Maybe even more surprising: not a single Dutch GM participated (Ivan Sokolov is now representing Bosnia again).
BTW Arne, (as you made the trip) why didn’t you play in the open? Just curious … .
If I had, Thomas, I wouldn’t have been able to show you these impressions of Mainz
“The super-strong Ordix Open, with GMs like Bologan and Malakhov on boards 13 and 14!”
You mean 13 and 16 !?
You’re right, Meppie, corrected. (Btw Is that Malakhov? I must admit I’m not sure!)
No, it’s Moiseenko.
Thx Michael. I guess they look somewhat alike from a distance.
The strength of the tournament is also underlined by the fact that in the final round GM Igor Glek could be found at board 153 (!).
Thanks for this piece. Next year I will definetely play in Mainz. It seems to be a lot of fun!
@Michael Schwerteck: This is slightly misleading, Glek apparently was in poor form – he didn’t even play any of the other GM’s, in the last round he beat a player with DWZ (national rating) 1719 to get back above 50% … .
More revealing: Grischuk and Kamsky (shared winner of the Amber rapid tournament!) played on the top boards most of the time, but ran out of steam in the final rounds. Grischuk finished 23rd, and Kamsky … 89th.
Thomas, surely the fact that someone like Glek suffered so badly in this tourney is an indication of the toughness of the tournament. I don’t see why Glek should be excused for having ‘poor form’ while Kamsky and Grischuk simply ‘ran out of steam’ – what about their form?
Arne, to elaborate on the various degrees of ‘failure’ – or rather ‘underperformance’:
1) Grischuk started with 7/8. He played 8 other GM’s and lost in the final rounds to Grachev (2669) and Riazantsev (2647). Take-home message: Such sub-top GM’s shouldn’t be underestimated.
2) Kamsky started with 6.5/8. Then he lost to GM Potkin, drew against IM Seel (2493) and lost against IM Gasthofer (2458). One plausible explanation is complete loss of motivation, once he was out of contention for the top prizes.
3) Glek’s highest-rated opponent (and the only IM he played, plus some FM’s) was Christian Maier (2347) to whom he lost. Take-home messages: a) even players rated 2200-2400 shouldn’t be underestimated [encouraging to you and Peter Doggers
]; b) maybe Glek is past his prime and presently overrated.
Take-home message: do not overinterpret rapid tourneys. Anything can happen. A chap called Heiko Frese (2070) scored more points than Gata Kamsky (2717). GMs Markus Stangl and Igor Glek finished 221st and 222nd. Hikaru Nakamaru was completely outplayed in the first round by the bulletin guy (who eventually blundered, unfortunately). And so on.
Michael, at least your first example rather means: Do not overinterpret Swiss tournament final standings far down the table. Of course Heiko Frese (7.5 points, “PktSum” [Buchholz?] 38.0) played far weaker opponents than Gata Kamsky (7.0/52.0). I am pretty sure one could find similar cases, for example, in the Aeroflot open.
Your next examples may be outliers rather than patterns. As I like (simple) statistics, I determined the correlation between rating and final standing – a rather reasonable r2=0.78.
And regarding Nakamura: It probably characterizes a strong (rapid) player that he can also win from worse or lost positions. Later in the tourney he did more or less the same against Sasikiran and Naiditsch, so he can’t really complain about his somewhat unfortunate loss against Mamedyarov.
But I agree that classical time controls are more prone to “correct games and correct results”. BTW, what about Chess960 in this context?? Some Nakamura fans take his Chess960 success as a sign that he has definitely arrived at the world top. Mig Greengard on Dailydirt even called Aronian’s win in the rapid a “nice consolation prize”after his 960 loss against Nakamura (well I guess he was ironic).
some people has a way of putting down nakamura win.
amazing troll.
what if aronian win the chess 960? will you hail it as a great win ?
a win by naka against the blunder of other is rubbed in his face but the blunder done by naka which eventually lost his chance in gaining the ordix is ignored.
put me in your paylist and ill kibitz for your wunderboy.
Some people are too touchy. Nakamura is certainly good at rapid or against second tier; he will have a chance to prove himself against the very top in the coming London tournament. Until then, I would not argue about his class, any discussion about that subject tends to get overheated for no obvious reason.
@chester: Your comment seems to primarily refer to my previous post, so here are some clarifications:
1) No, I do not take chess 960 all that seriously – not matter who is playing, no matter who is winning. To me Mig Greengard’s suggestion that Nakamura’s win in Chess960 is worth more than Aronian winning the rapid tourney is rather absurd (but, as I said, he was probably joking).
2) Blunders are part and parcel of rapid games. As I said, it characterizes strong players that they can keep their head cool, keep the game complicated, _provoke_ blunders by the opponent and eventually win from worse positions. Mamedyarov also did so against Sargissian and, probably, Nakamura.
3) I did NOT ‘ignore’ Naka’s blunder against Mamedyarov. As a matter of fact, I mentioned his four crazy games: three times winning from a worse or losing position, once losing from a better or winning position.
But, as jussu already said, some Nakamura fans react rather allergic if his recent successes are put in context. Rapid and especially Chess960 is not the same as games played at classical time controls. And Naka’s recent classical victories (Us Championship, San Sebastian) still have to be confirmed by ‘decent’ results at London and Corus 2010 – in both cases, a 50% score would indicate that he deserves his 2700+ rating, and a better result would imply that he has arrived at the absolute world top.