Tal Memorial starts tomorrow started – LIVE IM/GM COMMENTARY at ChessVibes
4 November 2009, 16.03 CET | Last modified: 13:50 | By Peter Doggers | Filed under: Reports | Tags: Live games
We received lots of positive feedback on our coverage of the Pearl Spring tournament (Nanjing), and this encouraged us to do even better during the Tal Memorial. With Anand, Aronian, Carlsen, Kramnik, Leko, Gelfand, Ivanchuk, Morozevich, Svidler and Ponomariov it’s the strongest tournament of 2009, and it starts tomorrow. For the first time we’ll be providing live IM/GM commentary throughout the tournament.
Update: pairings added
The Tal Memorial takes place November 4-18 in Moscow, Russia. The Memorial will consist of two events: a category 21 round-robin and the World Blitz Championship. In the round-robin Viswanathan Anand (India, 2788), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2786), Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2801), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2772), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2752), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2758), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2739) Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2754) and Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2739) compete.
The World Blitz Championship will be held 16, 17 and 18 November. This event tournament will be attended by 22 GMs, including the round-robin participants and invited players A. Karpov, A. Kosteniuk, L. Dominguez, A. Grischuk, D. Jakovenko, J.Polgar and six winners of the qualifying blitz “Aeroflot Open” – S. Karjakin, V.Gashimov, S. Mamedyarov, E. Bareev, V. Tkachiev and Zhou Jianchao.
The first four rounds of the round-robin will take place in hotel “National” on November 5, 6, 7 and 8. Rounds 5-9 take place in the Main Department Store GUM on Red Square. The time control is the classic 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour and then 15 minutes plus 30 seconds increment to finish the game. The rounds begin daily at 15:00 Moscow time which is 13:00 CET.
Live commentary
As one of the strongest tournaments ever held in chess history, the Tal Memorial is an excellent moment to introduce live commentary, we figured, and so this is what you can enjoy as of tomorrow. At our special live page www.chessvibes.com/live (how easy to remember is that?) the games and, more importantly, analysis by IMs and GMs will be provided. You will be able to follow the comments and analysis in the game viewer you’re used to, and besides, you’ll also find a chat window below the board. This way you can talk about the games with other visitors, and besides, this way the IM/GM will be able to answer questions from the audience every now and then.
Our team

Our schedule for the Tal Memorial:
| Thursday, November 5th, 2009 | Round 1 | IM Merijn van Delft | ||
| Friday, November 6th, 2009 | Round 2 | GM Sipke Ernst | ||
| Saturday, November 7th, 2009 | Round 3 | IM Robert Ris | ||
| Sunday, November 8th, 2009 | Round 4 | IM Robert Ris | ||
| Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 | Round 5 | IM Merijn van Delft | ||
| Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | Round 6 | GM Dimitri Reinderman | ||
| Thursday, November 12th, 2009 | Round 7 | GM Wouter Spoelman | ||
| Friday, November 13th, 2009 | Round 8 | GM Dimitri Reinderman | ||
| Saturday, November 14th, 2009 | Round 9 | IM Merijn van Delft |
As you know by now, at ChessVibes we like to experiment. Hopefully you will enjoy our live coverage – we’re pretty excited about it ourselves and we’ll do our very best to make the Tal Memorial a great experience for our visitors.
Update: full schedule (now confirmed):
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Great stuff. Thanks muchly. Chess lovers are now veritably spoiled for quality coverage of top events!
Thats great news. Its tough to improve upon perfection. But chessvibes is at it.
Will there be any video reports from the event? or from the blitz event?
It will be great to have videos of the blitz games as the live transmission of the blitz games may not be possible due to DGT issues.
Thanks
Great stuff!
Congratulations!
Thankyou guys – this truly is wonderful!
Very nice, this is great news for chess fans everywhere. BTW, apart from being the strongest in 2009, isn’t Tal amongst the stronger tournaments in the last 5 years or so? Almost the entire Top 10 is present.
If you build it they will come:! all power to you.
Thanks guys. Hope it will be English commentary.
Congrats guys, this move may effectively take Chessvibes to the indisputable 1st. place among chess sites, if it’s not already there.
When are going you to launch a chess server?
Thanks, congratulations!
No problems with copyrights, right?
Go Moro!
And… Long live Mihail !!!
Go ChessVibes!
1st round pairings:
Carlsen – Kramnik
Morozevich – Leko
Ivanchuk – Anand
Gelfand – Ponomariov
Aronian – Svidler .
Round 1:
Carlsen – Kramnik
Morozevich – Leko
Ivanchuk – Anand
Aronian – Svidler
Gelfand – Ponomariov.
damn, I have to stay at the laboratory for the whole day tomorrow and friday
Looking forward to saturday
I’ve dropped Chessbase for you.
If there was a tourney between these 5, who would win: IM Merijn van Delft, GM Sipke Ernst, IM Robert Ris, GM Dimitri Reinderman, and GM Wouter Spoelman
Thank you Chessvibes!
This tournament will be awesome!
@Castro: “No problems with copyright …”
Don’t think so, to my knowledge this was only an issue in events organized by Danailov
Chessvibes simply rules.
Very happy.
Commentary will be in english of course
We’re looking forward to it as well, it will be a very exciting tournament!
with all those great players this will become a tournament to remember…
How do you think you will compare and contrast with GM Christian Bauer who will be at Chessdom? Where do yourecommend watching?
Its impossible to predict who’ll win this Tal Memorial, but I’ll say Aronian anyway. Along with Carlsen, he’s arguably held the best form of 2009 amongst all the elite players.
So far as I’m concerned, the inclusion of Leko, yet again, to such a top level tournament is the only negative. The man’s undoubtedly one of the world’s strongest, yes, but so often he shows no real fighting spirit. Of course I believe he deserves invitations once in a while, but surely not so many. Others like Jakovenko, Gashimov, Mamedyarov and Dominguez are more worthy in my opinion.
Still, I agree that this should be a very exciting tournament!
Excellent!!! Thank you all and can’t wait for the start.
Here’s a little challenge for the IM’s and GM’s at Chessvibes. Whilst the Tal Memorial is being played. How about a small daily column on the great Michail Tal?
After all he was one of the greatest players the game has ever seen – there are reasons why they name such a strong tournament after him.
All that’s requested is either one of his great games or the Tal combination of the day. You would only need to find nine of them and as everyone knows there is plenty to choose from – I don’t think that’s too hard of an ask. This is the Tal Memorial, so give the readers of Chessvibes some idea what kind of a player Tal was!
@Crouchyboy: I remember reading that the Tal Memorial organizers were warning Leko that a series of (short) draws – as in Dortmund – would not be acceptable. To Leko’s credit, it is not always like that, for example not in the FIDE GP tournaments.
“The rounds begin daily at 15:00 Moscow time which is 13:00 CET”
Just to be sure, 13:00 CET is about 5AM Chicago time correct?
Thanks – Z
Kramnik has a nice start: Carlsen with black, and Anand with white. See where he stands.
@Zee:
See http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/ for info. on the time zones.
I keep surprising about the way chessvibes handles the whole approach of providing chesslovers information about their passion.
1000 bravos for http://www.chessvibes.com.
Is there anyway i can support this site? Possible to donate?? please let us know
gr
Notice the luck Carlsen had in drawing of lots: he’ll play White against all three of his main rivals, Kramnik, Aronian and Anand.
Carlsen starts with two whites, just like in Nanjing! (two impressive wins) I hope he can continue on the same way……But then…., I’m a fan of Moro too……aiaiaiaia!
Thanks for the live commentaries! I am looking forward the event, and the comments. I think Kramnik will rock on home soil.
Thank you chessvibes , i will look forward to it
Carlsen and Aronian have 5 Whites on 9 rounds whereas Anand and Kramnik have only 4 Whites.
This tournament very intresting! More Intresting if Topalov is are invited!!!!
I’m missing VT in this event. Had he been a participant, it would have been the strongest tournament of all times!….Thanks Chessvibes for bringing live telecast…hope it shall withstand the no of hits and does not get clogged!
@Alexander: See Kasparov’s reaction (quoted/disclosed by Mig Greengard on Dailydirt). He was happy that Carlsen got five whites, but not that happy that three of them are against the strongest players who are difficult to beat. He would prefer Carlsen having black in those games “because then those favorites would have to press for a win”!?
But in the comments section, others considered such statements psychological warfare.
Another step to perfection! We are eagerly anticipating.
Thanks Peter, though it will undoubtedly come at the expense of work, for many people…
Expecting a close fight Kramnik – Carlsen for 1st place.
of course your report of nanjing was excellent and im looking forward to this real highlight and its reportation.
thanks,
michael, germany
(german chess-sites are not good enough)
This live coverage with commentary is exactly what will make chessvibes the best site for chess fans…
Ps. next experiment: Live Rybka analysis???
Games started, Carlsen is playing a 4. Qc2 Nimzo. When does the commentary start?
Can somebody put Rybka’s/Fritz’s evaluation of the current position from Carlsen – Kramnik here?
Hortensius is suggesting live Rybka analysis. I strongly feel computer analysis is really boring and uninteresting. GM/IM analysis are great and so much more fun. For eg. look at the comment “Kramnik employing Anand’s novelty …Ne4″ I am enjoying the chessvibes commentary already.
Thanks chessvibes
Thomas :
where did you read that the organizers warned Leko that short draws were not acceptable ?
Was it a warning in general or specifically for Leko ?
Thank you
A suggestion: Is it possible on refresh page (on the live commentary), it loads the same game that I was looking at rather than load the first game?
Thanks Chessvibes!!
@ Hortensius: What you are asking for already exists at http://www.chessok.com
But I agree with Harish Srinivasan “GM/IM analysis are great and so much more fun”. I learn much more from commented games then from “analyzing” games with a comp.
@steven: Found it back – it was a comment by mishanp on Dailydirt
http://www.chessninja.com/dailydirt/2009/07/san-sebastian-09-r6-leaders-take-a-pass.htm#comment-202415
“The Chesspro summary of Dortmund also had the organiser of the Tal Memorial saying that Leko “wouldn’t get away with that” (his quick draws) in Moscow.”
Sounds like it was specifically aimed at Leko, but doesn’t indicate if he was told so directly. And unlike mishanp, I cannot read the original Russian language source.
Wow this is great of chessvibes. Unfortunatly i missed it today, but defintly hope to be there with some of the live commentary this week. I think we ( averege club players) can really learn from it. And it is a great tournament, great players.
It would be nice to see how much time each player has left. Besides that really good transmission. Congratulations ChessVibes!!!!
Why is the English part of the website of the organizers not working?
Even better that we have Chessvibes!
I logged on to the live site. The game between Carlsen and Kramnik was there (or part of it , at least) and there was no gameboard. Was there a technical problem?
Tremendous job by chessvibes today. The analysis was really great.Excellent annotations by Merijn.Keep it this way..
Saw it coming -after Nanjing- and here it is: Live coverage… with expert analysis as a bonus! WOW. Thanks, CHESSVIBES. Go, go go. You’re beating Chessgames, Chessbase and ChessOk by a thousand miles.
I am blocked by my employer from looking at the live site. Is there an update?
It is possible to make the position after a reload the current position of the game rather than the initial position (this has been done on other websites). I don’t want to replay a game each time I reload to get the latest couple of moves.
Aside from that gripe, the coverage is terrific. Thanks & congratulations Peter.
BTW Peter, is Hans Runde on holiday ? His website is missing updates for Maxim Vachier Lagrave (& needs reinitialising to November ELO before updating for for any & all the games played at Novi Sad & not included in November list).
thank you for this excellent live coverage !
@ Thomas:
Found it. http://www.chesspro.ru/_events/2009/dortmund5.html
“… ?????? ????, ???????????? 17-??????? ????? ? 9-? ????, ? ??? ???????? ????????? ???? ??? ?????? ??????: “? ?????? ???? ????? ? ???? ?? ???????!”
It says literally:
“… sly Leko, who made a draw in 17 moves in the 9th round, about whom the director of the Tal Memorial, Mr. Bach, severely said: “In Moscow he will not get away with that!”
ok, cyrillic alphabet doesn´t show on this site
Maybe M. Bach meant Leko would be “punished” by losing his games if he’d play
for draws or in a passive manner against such strong competitors.
I don’t think it was a direct warning because it would be insulting; after all, Leko is a super GM and not a schoolboy.
I think Leko should follow the example of Svidler and Morozevich : playing in open tournaments, team championships or other tournaments where there are also less strong players to play against. It would give his self-confidence a boost and enhance the joy of playing chess.
Leko imo is a little bit a tragic figure ; he’s good but simply not good enough to play only in supertournaments.