I had not realized this was a double round robin! 42 games, this is terrific. With such a large number of games there is no dobut the best blitz player is going to win as there is very little chance of an outlier wininig the tournament by luck. Anand is confirming his fame as an outstanding blitz player so far. We will see. Any information about money prizes?

"I was very disappointed to see that Carlsen is not only taking on Kasparov´s good chess skills, but also on his terrible manners."..Chessgirl, please tell us when and where Kasparov behaved in such that way..or excuses with all Gary fan´s..
Thx

@ChessGirl
I have to agree with your point about the way we should react to the defeat, even though I really like Carlsen (as much as Alexandra. I think she is terrific). I hope he will go back and apologize to Alexandra. In blitz, sometimes players get so exited that they lose control of themselves, but that doesn't justify rude behaviors.

On the positive note: this has been a great feat for chess and thank you for ChessVibes for your great work! Main tournament itself was a great event, many of us really loved it. And on top of that, they gathered all the great players for blitz! I am very happy that such a great event is dedicated to the memory of great Tal.

Bring the girl flowers...everyone will talk about this incident forever anyways - may as well make it a happy ending. Of course it maybe a kids way of asking a girl for a date! (Or a idiot /genius!?! looking for someone to mind games with- nudge nudge wink wink)

Great the crosstables&reports. Anand shows his natural skills...when he was a junior he never used more then one hour for a game...i remember a very stupid quote from Timman in those days: "I would have prefered to play the next round (of the WC-cycle) against Anand" Were Portisch just made the very subtle remark...ofcourse i would have preferred to play against the loser! Anand is a great pro and i'm convinced he will beat Topalov (just look at his silly remarks in the last New in Chess issue) Topalov is only good in chess all the other top players are greater human beings...my favourite being the erudite wel English speaker Peter Svidler who also knows his music and literature...Just a great guy. Carlsen i thought a bit autistic but his hand banging afther losing to Alexandria en his realy nice smile when Chucky attended with the protecexion mast makes him more vived and humane more natural.
TOP that we can watch this tournement on Chess Vibes a 10..though me t o would have liked Smallville (nakamura) to play with the paticipants! anyway a 10+ covery Peter Dogger

Great spectacle ...Vagianinan would have screamed Zircus Zircus!

ChessGirl, you dont know the whole story.. Kosteniuk reported to the judge that Carlsen had touched a piece and moved another.. so he had to move the one he had touched instead.. so he stood up and left.. cant blame the guy

Carlsen played like a fool against Kosteniuk. On the video, he appeared to be bored, looked around at the other tables, made his moves in milliseconds once she had moved, and got beat.

After the interval, he came back a lot sharper. Let's hope he learned a lesson.

Fantastic report Chessvibes thanks!! I am so disappointed to see other people not covering this seriously.

And why do people keep thinking Dominguez won last year? Ivanchuk won both 2007 & 2008. Ivanchuk is defending champion. Dominguez didn't even freaking play either year!

I really wish they had invited Nakamura.

@chessgirl

Are you sure? did he really blow up like that? i bet Kosteniuk will post that on her youtube video series.

I bet Carlsen hormones kicked in when he played alexnandra. Wow also you should take not that the blitz is only 3 minutes+2 second and all of a sudden your tournament is about to end and you play the beautiful FIDE 2517 Alexnadra and i guess you get overconfident and lose your initiative and idea.

I was very disappointed to see that Carlsen is not only taking on Kasparov´s good chess skills, but also on his terrible manners. When he lost to Kosteniuk, he slammed his hands on the table, stood up and left, leaving shocked Kosteniuk offering her hand to no one.

Sports are not only about winning, they are also about accepting defeat, and such behavior should not be accepted.

Just like Carlsen in Nanjing, Anand is heading for a 3000+ ;-)

@adam Good idea, cross table added.

Alexandra is the greatest, she beats the number one in the world Carlsen with black!!
what else?
Is it difficult for Anand to not show his preparings for WCh? so many blitzgames then he plays the openings that he will or will not play at WCh? both usefull informations for others. wait up.

Chessvibes, could you please update us with a crosstable? It would be great. Thanks.

Thx, corrected.

@jmd85146 Karpov did draw eight times; see the PGN.

Correction to text in headlines -- Anand has 12 (not 10) out of 14 in the text that reads "The Indian started with a fine score of 10 out of 14"

Yes, it takes something to be a (veritable) World Champion! The best are also the best in Blitz.

In the standings it says that Karpov has 9points with 5wins. Is this correct?? How on earth do you get 8draws in 3min blitz??? Looks virtually impossible...

What is happening with Leinier Dominguez? Isn't he last year's World Blitz champion? Even Polgar and Naiditsch have better scores! He must be very very ill . . .

Blitz is awesome!! Here we can really see who`s got the sharpest, instinctive chess capasity. A nice, maybe less serious, way to play for the top players I think.... Will be interesting to see wether Anand can keep up with the same impressive play tomorrow. 12 out of 14 is really remarcable against this lineup..... I reckon Carlsen and Grischuk will fight him hard for the title though.

Imagine this tourney with ordinary chess. That would be pretty sick. How would the standings look then???? Hmm......

It's interesting that even in blitz the 3 World Champions and possible future champ are the top 4 players.

While I'm rambling...5 center counters today from Kramnik who'd have thunk

Could Anand have looked more relaxed at the board today? He made it look easy...

Anyone have a link to post match videos?

http://video.russiachess.org/browse/16/

@ChessGirl, I agree Carlsen's behaviour shows bad manners, but I don't think he got this from Kasparov. Kasparov has been known to show his disgust and anger, yes, but always in cases where he himself was to blame rather than the opponent, and to my knowledge he has never refused anyone a hand. This seems to stem from a younger generation (Topalov/Kramnik/Cheparinov). Blame them rather than Kasparov.

On Karpov playing so well: I can only think of the 2 seconds increments per move that prevent him from losing on time. So, ironically, 'Fischer' saving Karpov!!

cal Danial: people think Dominguez is the defending champ, because he is.

HAVANA, Cuba, Nov 8, (acn).- Cuban GM Leinier Dominguez added another incredible notch to his already prolific career by winning the Almaty Blitz Chess World Championships in Kazakhstan.

Dominguez won the tournament undefeated with 11.5 points, accumulated from his 8 victories and 7 draws against most of the major players in the world ranking.

Leinier beat Russians Alexander Grischuk and Alexander Morozevich (second in the world ranking), Hungarian Judith Polgar, Azerbaijan’s Shakhriar Mamedyarov, French Vlad Tkachev, Israeli Boris Gelfand, Egyptian Amin Bassem and host Murtas Kazhgaleev.

Also, he drew against now former champion Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuk, Sergey Rublevsky, Teimour Radjabov, Gata Kamsky, Krihrian Sasikiran, and Peter Svidler, another of the elite players.

Leinier, born on September 23rd 1983, was compared by specialists that attended this tournament, with late Jose Raul Capablanca (World Champion 1921-1927).

This is the forth world title a Cuban obtains, after the Junior World Campionships titles won by Walter Arencibia (1986) and Lázaro Bruzón (2000).

Great comment Ardjan. :-)

Carlsens loss to Kosteniuk must have been on time. The end position, as it stands on chessgames.com is quite equal...

Ps. Carlsens behavior reminds me of Korchnoi, not Kasparov...

@ArneMoll @Victor Didn't Kasparov have a quarrel with Judith Polgar about a similar issue back in 1994? Maybe that is what Chessgirl is referring to.

See http://anecdotes.chessdom.com/kasparov-polgar: "The norms of chess say that if a piece is touched during a game, it should be moved (except for the cases where the player applies the jadoube rule). It is impossible to imagine a take back on a GM level. However, it has happened on several ocasions, as the interesting Milan Matulovic Jadoubovic case.

Probably the biggest precedent in history happened in the Linares tournament in 1994. Garry Kasparov took a move back in his game against Judit Polgar. Except Judit, no one else saw the takeback, but Spanish TV filmed the scene. Kasparov dropped the Knight on c5, lifted hand a bit, then saw he was losing a Rook, took the Knight back to d7 and few seconds later played Nf8. Judit was stunned, looked around for the arbiter but didn't complain at all. Here is the game, you can see that the mistake on move 37 would have been decisive. "

"Carlsens loss to Kosteniuk must have been on time. The end position, as it stands on chessgames.com is quite equal…"

Carlsen took up the other rook to play Re3-e2, put it back, and then played Re1-e2 but left the table when realising what he had done. So in the recorded position he is just clearly worse and not yet lost, but that's after making an illegal move.

"Here is the game, you can see that the mistake on move 37 would have been decisive"

That's not true, by the way, Polgar had a draw if Kasparov's mistake had stood but not more. It also shows how hard it is to see these things, they needed to go still by still later to see that Kasparov's finger actually had lost touch with the knight for a small fragment of a second. As could be seen yesterday Carlsen didn't notice his own takeback against Gashimov and that wasn't exactly a case where stills were needed, he had almost punched the clock already when he hesitated with the hand, returned it to the board, and changed his move. But of course almost anything can happen in blitz.

Actually Polgár Judit, in a book published last year on her, recalls this strange moment. As it was her first Linares, and as her opponent was Garry she did not want to complicate things any further. She expected the arbiter to act -but he did not.

Anyway, chess is not anymore the gentleman like sport it used to be. And that is natural, since norms are changing. Many of us can recall similar stories from the past few years.
Still I think shaking hand and congratulating the winner is the minimum one can expect from a player.
A bunch of flower is a good idea! It might help to settle the situation.

Pono didn't shake hands with Karjakin after losing against him but just left the table. Maybe doing it against a woman as Carlsen did is seen as "worse", I don't know, but I think there were a few examples of the same thing on the boards yesterday.

@Arne: Alright I stand corrected. I was indeed referring to Kasparov´s attitude rather than manners, he did not take defeat well, but yes it´s true that Carlsen´s case is different, and worse. I understand that he got angry about the situation, and I would understand an angry face, but his reaction was way beyond, IMO.

@gg
You are right, I saw that too. I thought it was a bit awkward, but since Ponomariov and Karjakin are good friends, and Karjakin, I believe, just pointed with his hand at Ponomariov´s situation, I thought it was just a silent consensus. Again I might be wrong, and of course it´s always better to offer one´s hand, but the previous example was not only about hand shaking, and if you saw it you´ll agree on the difference.

Carlsen was probably annoyed with himself that he made an illegal move and not angry at Kosteniuk.

Pono not shaking hands with Karjakin is understandable, a lot of Ukrainians probably see Karjakin as some kind of traitor, given both countries' history and more recent events.

It would be interesting to know if Soviet Chess players used to shake hands with players who fled to the West, does anybody know something about this?

I don´t think that a personal opinion should affect protocol, guitarspider. If Ponomariov considers Karjakin a traitor then maybe he shouldn´t invite him for dinner, but he certainly should shake hands with him, because the protocol is not made for friends, it is made for everybody to show respect to their opponents as sportsmen, not as husbands or neighbors or fellow countrymen.

It would be more than a little strange if Ponomariov considers Karjakin a traitor to the country; Pono has refused to play for the Ukraine at the last Olympiads because of money, so he's hardly an example of patriotism himself.

So, Lothar, in your opinion patriotism is accepting to work for free during your whole life because it´s for your country? That is not patriotism, that has another name.

Patriotism is bullshit anyways, gens una sumus. I can't imagine making a big deal of my opponent not shaking hands after heated battle. Not shaking before a game , however, is just childish.

WGIFM,
"chess is not anymore the gentleman like sport it used to be"
I've read reports on Steinitz being involved in fist fights with coleagues; neither were the relations between Alekhine and Bogoljubow or Capablanca an example for young chess players. Karpov and Petrosjan have refused to shake hands with Korchnoi, and not just because they were ordered to do so. The latter two were reported to kick each other under the table.
I don't want to shatter your illusions of the harmonious past, but you (and others) view the present under the magnifying glass of the video cams and judge it on the people's court ('volksgericht') of the internet. Both weren't available back then.

hahaha yeah I´ve heard about the leg-kicking. In fact, it´s a pitty that most of you don´t speak Spanish, but this is a hilarious video of a Spanish comedian imitating Karpov in a very absurd humor show, and speaking about how "You don´t remember me, because you all like Kasparov. Because he was so nice to you all, but he was different with me, he did the "f*** you" sign with his finger, he kicked me under the table,...":

http://es-es.facebook.com/video/video.php?comments&v=1087626119786&ref=mf

@Hortensius: As you mention Korchnoi, he was playing blitz in the Netherlands last Saturday. This is what happened to IM Afek after he beat him (his own words): "He didn't shake hands, he never does when he loses. But he told me 'you are fifteen seconds ahead on the clock, you must have played with both hands'."
http://www.schakers.info/subcontent/kortchnoi-bunschoten2.php [in Dutch]
It probably goes without saying that Korchnoi was more than welcome as a guest of honor, and that most people didn't care or merely smiled about such incidents. I played in the same tournament, but not in the A final ... .

Kosteniuk. kicked some ass. - I was wrong she don't need the boys stinking flowers - she beat the men today!! Bravo

@catfishcore
Incorrect. Dominguez is not defending champion and did not even participate in either 2008 or 2007. Ivanchuk is defending champion. He finished a half point ahead of Kramnik last year.

2008 crosstable: http://www.chessbase.com/news/2008/events/talmem50.gif

2007 crosstable: http://www.chessbase.com/news/2007/worldblitz11.gif

The only difference between this game and a game of wheres waldo is you won't even find Domginuez on the participant list.

Concearning the Carlsen-Kosteniuk 4th round game:

[Event "Blitz World Championship"]
[Site "Moscow, Russia"]
[Date "2009.11.16"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Carlsen, Magnus"]
[Black "Kosteniuk, Alexandra"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C43"]
[WhiteElo "2801"]
[BlackElo "2517"]
[PlyCount "85"]
[EventDate "2009.11.16"]
[EventType "tourn (blitz)"]
[EventRounds "42"]
[EventCountry "RUS"]
[EventCategory "19"]
[TimeControl "180+2"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d4 Nxe4 4. Bd3 d5 5. dxe5 Nc5 6. Be2 Be7 7. O-O O-O 8.
Be3 Nc6 9. Nc3 Be6 10. Bb5 Nd7 11. Bf4 a6 12. Bxc6 bxc6 13. Nd4 Nb8 14. Qd3 Qd7 15. Qg3 Re8 16. Bh6 Bf8 17. Na4 Kh8 18. Be3 Qe7 19. f4 Bc8 20. Nb3 Nd7 21. Nac5 a5 22. a4 Ba6 23. Rfe1 Bc4 24. Nxd7 Qxd7 25. Nc5 Qf5 26. b3 Ba6 27. Qf2 Bc8 28.Bd4 h6 29. h3 Qg6 30. Kh2 Bf5 31. g4 Bxc5 32. Bxc5 Be4 33. f5 Qg5 34. Be3 Qe7 35. Bf4 Qb4 36. Re3 Qc5 37. Rc1 Rab8 38. h4 Rb4 39. f6 g6 40. c4 Reb8 41. Bxh6 Rxb3 42. Rce1 Rb2 43. R1e2 0-1

After Kosteniuk's 42...Rb2 Carlsen first played 43.R3e2 which loses a rook.
This can be clearly seen on video
http://video.russiachess.org/browse/16/ at 14:42:45

Kostenuik imediatelly protested and Carlsen just left the table. There was no slaming the table.

@ Cal|Daniel Last year it was just the Tal Memorial Blitz, not the official World Ch which took place in Almaty and was won by Dominguez. Do a search for "Dominguez World Blitz" on this site and you'll find it.