Back to the USA - Azerbaijan farce, I wonder when and how will the USA return the Azerbaijani "favor"?

I had a look at the final position of the Firat game without a computer and I thought it normal Firat simply considered his position lost on general grounds. It looks utterly lost, actually to me it is already surprising there is even the defence g3 in this position. Perhaps Firat did find 31.g3 but then spotted the 'logical' 31...Rxh2 and resigned immediately, forgetting that with the rook gone, f2 is free for his king. Such things happen all the time.

"Back to the USA – Azerbaijan farce, I wonder when and how will the USA return the Azerbaijani “favor”?"

Regardless of whether the match was fixed or not, Azerbaijan had in any case played with the weakest possible lineup - whatever the reasons were, this can be considered a favor already before the start of the games. On Dailydirt, Bill Brock-Chicago speculated that there was something wrong with Azeri team chemistry this time - not (only) because the results were deceiving, but because [now that Mamedyarov is Azeri #1 on the live rating list] three of their players compete for the wildcard into the candidates event.

So what if Kamsky surrenders his candidates spot to a second Azeri wildcard? Not saying that it will happen or that it would even be possible - but it would be a (too) obvious way for the USA to return the favor ... .

Two many Guseinovs!

lol vp , shame on me 2

Ukraine was not allowed to participate in the tournament because they didnt pay dues to FIDE. I read this in Karajakin's interview.

It would never be a "favor", because both had something to lose (or win).
Some people may be right that both teams could have tried harder, but that is FAR from a prearranged draw! (Which, BTW, could never be more than mere suspitions, without a proof).
I think it was a tacit (so, not even spoken) cohincidence of wills. The motivation must not have been great.

About Firat: Is it already known what happened, for sure? Time? Ghosts? :-)

(Yes, there are blunders in resigning, sometimes! I was once "the messenger" of such bad news. An IM resigned a game for the top national closed tournament, and he was sad, because he played very well for many moves. But then he got furious when I told him the final position was drawn! We had to go see it again, for him to believe it. Well, that one I didn't find it myself, it was the computer in which I was entering the games scores ;-)
Who told once "No one ever won a game by resigning"? Nimzowich?)

This conspiracy talk is hilarious! Now we even have Kamsky surrendering a Candidates' slot - for a silver medal in a team event he didn't participate in?

Some nefarious deal struck against the small chance of falling to bronze?

Really, that's pretty good. I bet it keeps the attendants at the asylum in stitches!

Shulman's position is not THAT favourable! BTW, the "obvious" plan someone gave (g4-f5) seems to me absolutely inconsequent. Instead, maybe the only "dreamable" plan is having e5 at some moment, but even that is probably not enough. One thing is for sure: That draw agreament is absolutely NORMAL.

Also, the azeri's line-up is NOT to be taken as "a favor" whatsoever! That's paranoia!
Nothing but perfectly normal it seems to me! There is a hunger for conspiracy here, indeed!

The Firat game: If it was not lost on time, of course we'd also understand he erred in evaluating. Happens many times. But I agree with Thomas when he says that even at that moment (and more in such an encounter --- Greece vs Turkey) the least abnormal would be to play at least that 31.g3.
So, I remain very curious, because unless it was a loss on the clock, it would be an exception inside another exception!

Two Mamedovs and not Guseinovs as in the article, please correct.

thx corrected

"But Guseinov, Mamedyarov and the two Mamedovs held the Americans to 2-2 thanks to excellent opening preparation."

Oh, I see. That's what really happened.

I thought they had fixed the result. Shame on me.

Despite the formula, I found this competition highly interesting. Especially when there are these young players, so creative, so dynamic. Now, I hope to see more of people like Vitiugov, Nepomniachtchi, or french-man Vachier-Lagrave etc... Such a shame there are never invited anywhere - there aren't only Carlsen, Karjakin, Caruana as young talents... I even had difficulties to find a picture of Vitiugov...

Let's move to Firat-Mastrovasilis (last game in the game viewer): Maybe Firat lost on time? The live viewer says he had about one minute left - but is this when the game ended or when he started thinking on his 31st move?

The game itself is also intriguing: According to Peter's comments:
- Black had a clear advantage after move 18 (-/+)
- Returning the exchange with 22.-Re3: was also strong (he gave an exclamation mark)

Then what went wrong, if he was only slightly better in the final position? Is there a fine line between =+ and -/+, and was the first assessment too optimistic? White lost the exchange, but had compensation - two pawns, and in the long run black couldn't prevent him from developing his queenside pieces?

We have an expected winner, despite of a strange tournament strategy of Russian coach (should Morozevich, who is clearly not in shape, play so many games?), but for USA and India the tournament should be considered as a huge success.

Or, actually the Ukraine did not qualify. And there were more politically suitable candidates for wildcard invitations.

Ukraine was never eligible for this tournament.

Ukraine would have been eligible if there had been more teams qualifying via the Olympiad - they were 4th, and at earlier editions up to the top6 was chosen. This was changed in favor of extra wildcards (three including the organizing country), and Ukraine would still be a logical pick for a wildcard - but Prashant/Karjakin may be right.

As far as Morozevich is concerned, his form may vary from day to day, and in team events he has been match winner roughly as often as match loser. At this event:
- He lost against Papaoiannou (could be considered an accident)
- He lost against Mamedyarov (he wasn't the only one ...)
- He lost against Akopian and wasn't selected again thereafter.

Where was Karjakin talking about Ukraine? And why would he talk about Ukraine when he is now representing Russia?

@Thomas

"Then what went wrong, if he was only slightly better in the final position? Is there a fine line between =+ and -/+, and was the first assessment too optimistic?"

I already have called atention to the strange situation of this game, on the previous round report.
The final position (and, hence, the variations Peter is now giving) look to me as virtualy "impossible" to win. (Maybe even the passive 32. Rb1, after 32. ... Qf6, instead of 32.Re1 could sufice?)
Therefore, the plain "=" is, perheaps, the most acurate?
If Rybka says +0.20 or so, in such a simplified position, it almost always means "no more than a draw", right?
"Seeing ghosts" or lost on time? I'm really curious.

Firat obviously thought he was going to get mated after 31 g3 Rxh2+ 32 Qxh2 Qxh2# failing to notice that this last move would have been impossible due to pawn g3 now closing the diagonal, simply a matter of a "retained image".

31 g3 Rxh2+ 32 Qxh2 Qxh2 indeed loses to Qf3 - my guess is that Firat forgot that he can capture on h2 with tthe king

Bert didn't he resign cause ...Rxh2+ , Qxh2 Qf3+ winning the rook back.

I think white can just take with Kxh2. Qh6+ Kg2, Qh3+ but then?

Bert it is never obvious what someone is thinking. Your line to resign doesn't look obvious. Only way to really know why a player resigns is asking him. For all we know he might had to resign cause he had to catch a bus.

Well Sergio, being an expert in blundering myself, I think I can state what happened with some authority :-)

@Prashant
I don't think Karjakin had any clue about his remarks because wildcards were awarded to teams a long time ago and Ukraine was in rating list at that moment; Ukraine was of out from the list for a few days only. In recent years also Israel, Azerbaijan has been out of the list for a few days. It seems Karjakin is constantly bitching Ukraine in press for each possible reason.... One could only wonder about his next remark...

Back to topic- congrats to Russia. They don't need Karjakin because Grischuk, Tomashevsky, Vitiugov etc. is at least as good as Karjakin and they are native Russians. They all should play for national team.

I followed this last round at the ICC and I was puzzled by the USA-team, who did not try for anything at all, just securing the silver medal. Their match against Adzerbadjan was peacefully drawn in about some two hours, at a moment where the outcome of the match Russia-Israel was still rather unclear. USA still had a slight chance to catch the russians.
Especialy have a look at the final position of the game Shulman-Mamedov: White is clearly better and can make riskless winning tryes for hours. An obvious plan is g4 and f5.

I am glad that some of your readers have expressed surprise at the behaviour of Azerbaijan and the US in the last round.

To me, the most surprising thing was Azerbaijan resting its two best players Gashimov and Radjabov in such a crucial match. They could finish 2nd if they won this match. If Gashimov was rested because he had not been performing well, Guseinov wasn't doing well either and that was not the case with Radjabov who had been doing very well.

I can't blame your readers such as vp and gogomil for suspecting the worst. BTW, there is an excellent article on prearranged draws by Hans Ree here: http://www.chesscafe.com/hans/hans.htm

Thank you for correctly pointing out that the US would've needed a clean 4-0 sweep of Azerbaijan to win the tournament in case Russia drew Israel. Over at chessbase, in their "final report," they mistakenly stated:

"Russia were also leading on game points, but if they drew 2-2 and the USA won 3-1 the Americans would take the title."

Actually, that would've left Russia over the US by 1/2 board point, and even with equal match and board points Russia would win based on head-to-head. Thank you again for being more accurate than chessbase (maybe not too big of a challenge).

In Firat's game, I agree with Arne's impression - I guess most humans will, only engines aren't affected by the looks of the position. But it shouldn't take more than a few seconds to realize that 31.g3 is the only move and "just play it"!? Even if there is a mate or another forced win, the opponent then has the chance and obligation to find and show it .... .

Long ago in one of my first amateur games (I was about 15 years old) I had a similar though different experience: I resigned because I would lose my queen or get mated - fair enough and it turned out to be correct. However, 15 other players (my opponent, his and my teammates) were completely surprised because noone else had seen it!

@Estragon: I was joking, and merely trying to answer vp's question. It's very unlikely to happen, if only because it would be a far too obvious way to return the supposed favor. But pay me a beer if it actually happens ... :) .

Personally I don't believe in conspiracy theories, or at least consider the evidence very insufficient. But there was clearly something wrong that day with the Azeris - as I hinted mostly before rather than during the match. Jens Kristiansen may have a point that the USA should have tried to benefit more from the situation. On the other hand, odds that Russia would fail against Israel were rather small - though I thought they may have been in some trouble at the moment when USA-Azerbaijan was drawn. I was wrong, I underestimated Vitiugov's compensation for the rook - wasn't even sure if it was a sacrifice or a blunder. Maybe the USA just wanted to have an early start for their celebrations?

BTW, losing their match against Azerbaijan wouldn't have meant switching silver with bronze, but falling out of the medals altogether (if India beats Brazil - as they did and it cannot be considered surprising). A worst-case scenario would have ended in #5 for the USA, still behind Armenia.

No, neither do I believe in any conspiracy around these matches. I am just puzzled by the lack of fighting spirits from both USA and Adserbadjan.
The former did have a slight chance to catch the russians, when, as the last, Shulman agreed to a draw in a very favourable position, almost without risc of losing. And, after all, USA had not many months ago, at the OL in Dresden, a nice exprience with a last round miracle.
But the most mysterious in their approach was of course the Azeris (European Team Champs), who before the last round had every chance to clinch the silver medals. Ok, rumours said Gashimov was ill, but Radjabov? And, by the way, also a rather limp performance by Mamedyarov against USA, in the light of his otherwise great play in the event.

theory has lead our game down the drain

repeating of the same things has dropped the stardard of the game