This tournament shows why Shirov doesn't belong to super elite.

Geez man, Shirov's jerst been a tad unlucki, ye no? Trussed me, he oughta boounce bak a wee bit and brake dat top tne list won more timee!!!!

Woot, teach those 2600's and 2700's a lesson you Blonde Latvian machine!

I don't understand anon's problem: in the past, he has almost certainly downloaded Flash and other plugins. What's the difference?

:-) What to say about Ivanchuk?!

http://www.europe-echecs.com/actualites/actualites-shirov-a-0-sur-4-au-p...

(Click on the tiny chessboard to open a Java board for replaying all the games)

@ Dominik

You are right, this is another topic, and besides I do consider your point about "exclusion" valid. I was just annoyed by people who keep on writing M$crosoft (or even "Peter, how much did they pay you?") about ANYthing coming from this company while going on to use Apple (which is not more moral as a company, just has better image marketing), google, Siemens, Nokia and cheap supermarkets...there is a lot of "scapegoat"-hipness and hypocrisy in it, although I am aware Microsoft is a problematic company to say the least.
I was just being ironic about all that...but you did get my point and as said I do understand yours fully.

But let's stop that here. Poor Shirov...I want fire on board, dammit!

Great tournament. There should be many more tournaments like this, where the semi-top players can battle it out against a few top players.
I find this sort of tournament every bit as interesting as the grand slam tournaments.

I don't see any games. But I know I'll be able to see the games later on chessgames.com. Here's some free advice, Mr. Proprietor: don't ask your audience to download new software.

I fully agree with Anonymous on June 6th, 2009 4.07 ,remarks.

@ Davey

Compatibility and space problems aside (those two I can understand as bothersome), for most people the difference is that while everybody owns Nokia phones, Apple computers, Sony music, Siemens microwaves, Nike shoes and Nestle cereals, it IS very hip to be Anti-Microsoft and write it everywhere that you are.

Back to topic:
Poor Shirov...I don't know what guncha means with his/her comment. A Shirov in top-form DOES belong to the super-elite, unfortunately he is far too inconsistent....if guncha meant that's what this tournament shows, then I agree.
Nevertheless even with the bad results Shirov is still Number 11 of the Live Top List, so I feel like saying something like "Gimme a break".

Interesting results from Gashimov and Naiditsch by the way. Especially Naiditsch seems to have gotten quite a boost recently.

Remember what I said about Shirovs rating being false, point proved.
he got lucky for one tournament last time but is being shown up as a tourist now. His heyday was over 10 years ago. An elite player he is NOT unlike the great Chucky or Kasparov.

@ Michel83:

Don't make the mistake to blame hipness and Anti-Microsoftism for all ( no doubt that it is there, it even has some strong justifications to be there, but that is another topic...)

But... there is a major difference to other propietary solutions like flash: Silverlight excludes a whole group of users (it was build to work for MS and Mac OS only). Even if there is the moonlight project which tries to fill this gap (and which certainly will manage to do so once), the gap is not filled yet, and no Linux user can use the game viewer here, which is a clear affront.

@ F3MDR: LOL, are you on the right website?

After finish of Poikovsky starts Bazna-2009(13-25th June), double round robin

http://www.turneulregilor.com/Modules/PageTournamentsList.aspx

@ceann

"How to write a maximum of nonsense in few words"
That's your post. No offense, of course.

"Shirov's rating false"?? What?? Lol. It's simply as false as anybody's. No more, no less (except maybe for some "arranged tournaments" to promote some "masters").

"Lucky"?? A statement as vain as saying the opposite, namely that lost of Shirov's opponents have been "lucky" to survive him.

"Point proved"?? The joke never ends!! Hilarious indeed. It's a wonderful world, this one of ours!

"Tourist"?? Yes, Kasparov also had some things in common with chess greats, namely egocentrics and smile-worthing bold statements like that.
In that field I largely prefer the best, Bogoljubov (but could just mention, for mere examples, real language genious like Tahl, real dogma-possessed like Tarrash, or real almost-as-good-as-claim like Fischer --- something Garri could just dream)

As for "the great Chucky", sorry. I love him and his chess as much as anyone, but now is one of those moments he is NOT from the chess top (at least ,compared with Shirov). The ELO rating is not perfect, but fair enough for that (simple and unpassioned) appreciation. They both played games. They won, drew and lost them. ELO fairly reflects that, and THAT is what matters, when trying to see who's on top and who's not.
My "passion" could say (imagine!) that Spassky was a greater chess player than Carlsen, and that, therefore, their ratings would be "false".
Good comments on that would be "What?", or "OK, enjoy yourself with that"!

Shirov already at 0/4!! (Trying to catch Ivanchuck's level :-) )

But what a beating the two tournament leaders (Gashimov and Motylev, both with black) gave to Shirov and Sutovsky!
And (I'm rolling laughing) both with the Petrof Defense. LOL

That defense also originaly presented by Damiano.
That defense that I like a lot, but I don't like to play myself (I don't even play 1. ...e5)
That defense lots of people love to hate!
That defense M. Pein (from TWIC) says it's "anti-chess" and rejoice when white wins, as a punishment for that "anti-chess-ism". (He is also one of the "genious" that believe Smeets should be awarded a win on that famous "Ja!" game with Radjabov!)
Great day! (I also won today, and my team came 1st too)

Emmanuel Lasker once said (something like)

"On the chessboard, lies and hypocrisie don't last long".

@Peter
Will there be an update on the Karpov tournament?
I can't read Russian and Chessbase doesn't even mention the tournament.
How is Shirov doing?