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Ivanchuk on 4/4

11 May 2008 18:43 PM | Last modified: 16:17

And he did it again: Vassily Ivanchuk is now on 4/4 in Sofia after he beat Cheparinov today. This way he extended his lead since Radjabov-Topalov and Bu Xiangzhi-Aronian both ended in a draw.

Cheparinov seems to be developing himself into a second Topalov by showing similar fighting spirit in almost every game. Today he chose the King’s Indian and on his turn, Ivanchuk went for the old Nd3 and Bd2 line, very popular in the early eighties of the last century. Cheparinov was well prepared and so the players followed theory for 24 moves. It continued as a great King’s Indian battle (this is a fan writing) and only 33…Nxg2? (often the crucial move in Black’s attack) was wrong here. Quite surprisingly, 33…Nf3 is not good either because of 34.Nxf4 Nxe1 35.Qc8! but 33…Nhg6! 34.Bf2 Qb4 continues the fight. But we have to admit that one can easily miss Ivanchuk’s beautiful move 37.Bh4!!.

Unfortunately that was about it for today. Radjabov chose a not very dangerous Catalan line against Topalov, making the Bulgarian’s life easy, and Bu Xiangzhi’s quiet set-up wasn’t enough to scare Aronian either.

Mtel Masters 2008 Round 4 Standings

        1 2 3 4 5 6    
1 Ivanchuk,V 2740 +790 * 1 1   1 1 4.0/4  
2 Topalov,V 2767 +59 0 * ½ 1 1   2.5/4  
3 Radjabov,T 2751 -95 0 ½ * ½   ½ 1.5/4 2.50
4 Aronian,L 2763 -121   0 ½ * ½ ½ 1.5/4 2.00
5 Cheparinov,I 2696 -40 0 0   ½ * 1 1.5/4 1.75
6 Bu Xiangzhi 2708 -161 0   ½ ½ 0 * 1.0/4  

Pairings round 5:

Topalov, V - Xiangzhi, Bu
Aronian, L - Ivanchuk, V
Cheparinov, I - Radjabov, T
Videos by Europe-Echecs:







radjabov-topalov.jpg
Radjabov - Topalov in the aquarium

ivanchuk_r4g.jpg
Vassily Ivanchuk - on his way to finally another super tournament victory?

aronian_mtel.jpg
Levon Aronian - can he stop Ivanchuk tomorrow?

bu_mtel.jpg
Bu Xiangzhi - still thinking about his 7th move of yesterday?



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Comments

22 Responses to “Ivanchuk on 4/4”

  1. arkansaw on 11 May 2008 19:18 PM

    So 2740 +790 after 4/4? Is it going to hit +1000 with a 5/5?

  2. Manuel on 11 May 2008 19:42 PM

    My question is, are the reporters of ChessVibes Jewish like Kramnik, Reshevski and Polgar? My reason to ask this is because on Saturday, ( Sabbath) there is never a report from you of from what occasion in chessworld whatever. so are you maybe religious and if so, do you make it clear to the world?

    Greetings from Manuel :)

  3. Coco Loco on 11 May 2008 20:01 PM

    The chessvibes reporters are Dutch, therefore atheist :)

  4. sx on 11 May 2008 20:36 PM

    -> Arkansaw
    Not possible. Maximum according to Chessbase table is +800 compared to the opponents avarage rating. But of course it’s not possible to calculate performance rating with 100% or 0 %.

  5. matthew on 11 May 2008 20:36 PM

    “Manuel on 11 May 2008 7:42 PM
    My question is, are the reporters of ChessVibes Jewish like Kramnik, Reshevski and Polgar?” is Kramnik jewish? I’m a little surprised i’ve never heard that since he is my favorite player

  6. Manuel on 11 May 2008 20:42 PM

    Yes Kramnik is Jewish and many more, i have to say i am not Jewish but i am strongly influenced by the works of autors like Leon de Winter, Arnon Grunberg and Philip Roth, really i read all the literature of these autors. Had to say a newspaper like The New York Times is Jewish too.

  7. MvE on 11 May 2008 21:50 PM

    @arkansaw & sx:

    Actually, Ivanchuk’s performance rating has been dropping(!) at least since the second round:
    2/2: +819
    3/3: +802
    4/4: +790
    This is because the ‘humble’ ratings of Chuky’s opponents in rounds 3 and 4 decreased the avarage rating of his opponents.

  8. steven on 11 May 2008 22:41 PM

    Kramnik is not jewish.
    It’s just an internet rumour, nothing more.
    Tell me where to find a trustworthy confirmation of Kramnik being jewish ?!

  9. Manuel on 11 May 2008 23:10 PM

    A Jew told me. And he said Akiba Rubinstein was also a Jew and Emmanuel Lasker too.

  10. peter on 11 May 2008 23:23 PM

    Your question surprises me, Manuel, since it’s very easy to establish that many ChessVibes reports have been published on a Saturday.

  11. Ron on 11 May 2008 23:30 PM

    Kramnik is not jewish but Kasparov is. But does it matter??

  12. Manuel on 11 May 2008 23:31 PM

    oh well than i was mistaken. Than i have missed some articles on that day. :(

    Thanks for the explanation.

  13. Partidas de ajedrez comentadas on 12 May 2008 0:01 AM

    Pues a mi me da igual la religión de los webmaster de Chessvibes, el caso es que tienen una de las mejores webs del mundo, con una cobertura excepcional de los principales torneos del mundo.
    Y supongo que hay días que no publican porque se merecen un descanso y si tienes otras razones pues me parece bien.
    Un saludo Peter.

  14. arkansaw on 12 May 2008 1:50 AM

    @MvE

    now that’s a surprise, I don’t know how the calculation works, but from the way pple keep talking about performance ratings in conjunction with the plus/minus scores, one would intuitive expect a better TPR as the winning streak extends

    but at any rate this is truly astounding, normally even a TPR of 3000-ish would be of worthy mention, but this is 3500 @ Cat XX…..simply amazing

  15. doesit matter? on 12 May 2008 7:36 AM

    kasparov is half jewish and half armenian!!!

  16. MvE on 12 May 2008 10:58 AM

    @arkansaw:

    In case of a 100% score,

    performance rating = average rating opponents + 800.

    as indicated by sx above,
    This is a quite arbitrary formula of course, for want of a better method to estimate the strength of a 100% performance. If Ivanchuk would have made a draw in the first round, only then a sensible TPR can be calculated, which should indeed increase with a longer winning streak.

  17. arne on 12 May 2008 12:48 PM

    Many things are confused here: first, people who call themselves Jewish vs. people whose parents (or mother) call(ed) themselves Jewish (a big difference). Also, the connection between not working on saturday and being Jewish is a strange and unfair one: as far as I know, this is only valid for Orthodox Jews with rather extreme views. Also, a newspaper can’t be Jewish, it can only run by Jewish editors, and even this is a dubious connection: we don’t call a newspaper ‘male’either just because the editors happen to be male, do we? Anyway, I guess this is not the proper place to discuss these issues, so I’ll leave it at that.

  18. pete on 12 May 2008 16:11 PM

    I ain’t no expert, but looks like Ivanchuk is going to his 5th win in a row! … Aronian is left with a single queen against 2 rooks and a bishop for Chucky

  19. Tom on 12 May 2008 18:01 PM

    Expert enough to spot that one pete! Amazing run from Ivanchuk, beating the whole of the field consecutively.

  20. breaking news.. on 12 May 2008 18:02 PM

    … I ain’t no expert either - but Ivanchuk is on 5/5 as of today! Seems to be on a run - and his opponents seem hypnotized in advance….

  21. peter on 12 May 2008 18:03 PM

    Wow. *rushing to the superlatives store ’cause I’ve run out*

  22. pete on 12 May 2008 18:25 PM

    Thank God Toppa won too, just to keep the tension alive :)


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