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R.I.P

Levon is BOSS!!!

Happy birthday, buddy. I miss you.

Hey stranger. Came across a comment on an old thread where you commented that you regret reading the thread because you ended up wanting to read NANA but was spoiled and that maybe you'd read it in half a year (at that time) and would have hopefully forgotten the spoilers by then. Just a reminder, sure you've forgotten it by now. Such a great series!

I'm not so sure if you may end up reading this message or not whitew123 but this may be the last comment I posted on your profile.

I'm planning to leave MAL fairly soon since I have other tasks in life that I need to focus upon. I just wanted to say that I have enjoyed our past discussions here at MAL. Hope you enjoy your times at life as much as I have. Farewell.

My apologies for a late reply. Was busy celebrating my birthday and a few other things.

"Yeah, they were pretty poetic, but had the music not been powerful, good lyrics would not have made me look at that song twice."

Ah, I should have realized that your command of Spanish is probably quite good, having lived in Peru!

"Well, I'm not necessarily joking, because I'm not even saying anything outrageous or that Ushenina will win. In fact, if I were to pick the winner of the match right now, I would definitely pick Hou Yifan. All I'm saying that when I see a recent game between them, there is a small chance things might not be so easy for Hou.

I also wanted to give you another example of somebody having a better record against the opponent rated 100 points higher. The players in question are Chanda Sandipan and Le Quang Liem. Link."

Heh, I hope you didn't have to dig too long and hard for that example! Although even there, Liem would be a huge favorite in a longer match against Sandipan, and would, in all likelihood, would still crush him.

And it's okay; there's nothing wrong with being in love with Ushenina! She's an attractive girl. :)

"In Goryachkina's case, she basically proved she belonged to the general population of women who do not fare well against men.

I do not see any inconsistencies with what I was saying before."

You dismissed Goryachkina's disastrous performance at Wiijk An Zee by claiming it was because she was a junior player (implying she was overrated)...when with Dubov, you used his junior status as proof he was underrated!


"Yeah, that queen endgame is far from trivial,"

I was talking about the king and pawn endgame before that.

"and I personally would easily lose this with black, but my thought was... was it possible for Sipke not to let Naiditsch go into the queen endgame? Like for example 44... Kc6 instead of 44... Ke5. Or would Naiditsch have found a way to get to the queen endgame anyway?"

Well, queen and h-pawn versus queen is still a draw, and still something I would expect a 2300+ FIDE guy to reliably draw, let alone one who is 2500+, but it is a more difficult task than the original king and pawn ending.

For the record, I once had a tournament game against a 2300 where I was defending with my queen against a queen and TWO doubled h-pawns.

I was also in enormous time pressure, having a 5 second time delay to go along with 75 seconds left on my clock. While my opponent could certainly have played much better, I ended up drawing very easily.

Obviously, I would probably lose such a position with such limited time against someone 400+ points stronger like Naiditsch, but the point is, it's not such a bad ending to defend, either.

"That's some bold praise! What about Zhao Xue?"

I don't feel it's bold praise at all. Let's take a look at the top female players in the world;

http://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=women

Sipke's rating of 2559 before Wiijk An Zee would put him 6th on that list. However, recall that women who play exclusively/mostly in women's events are usually overrated by about 50 points. (A statement we both seem to agree with)

With that in mind, I would put Sipke ahead of Zhao Xue and slightly ahead of Humpy Koneru. (Anna Muzychuk has played in many male events, and acquitted herself well)

Ergo, he is fourth behind only Judit Polgar, Yifan Hou, and Anna Muzychuk. Nothing bold about my statement at all.

"Indeed, but doesn't preparation make everybody's life harder? It's one thing to prepare in opens and it's another thing in closed tournaments."

Well, I also expect a ~2600 player to have much better preparation than his 2290-2450 rated foes. :)

"Well, it was just amazing watching history unfold before your eyes. One of the things that made this game amazing to me is that Carlsen did not have anything in the opening and middlegame. Of course there was still a lot of play left, and it's impressive that Carlsen managed to pose problems for Karjakin and that Sergey defended so resiliently. Then they reached the opposite color bishop endgame, and I was thinking: "It's a draw. What can Carlsen do?" The position looked balanced, and the most obvious moves weren't difficult to defend against. But then Carlsen played g4!, and I got really excited because it meant that the game was far from over. Then I remembered his game against Tomashevsky where he executed a similar maneuver, but that game still ended in a draw and had a lot less pieces on the board, unlike this one."

Indeed, watching one of the greatest players in history pull a rabbit out of a hat against a chess genius is always inspiring, whether it's Carlsen against Karjakin, Kasparov against Topalov back in the day, or Alekhine versus Nimzovich.

Awesome you got to experience that, and I should remember to watch the live video feed more often for these tournaments.

"While there were no obvious "easy" opponents last year, some good contenders (Sam Shankland, Timur Gareev [he probably wasn't a US player then, but I'm not sure]) were missing. Your statement about the strongest players deciding the title makes sense, but the problem is, how to pick 10 best players?"

What does any of this matter? Whether you picked the 9 best players and then someone who is actually 11th or 12th strongest (while leaving out the 10th strongest), it's still a system that rewards strong, deserving contenders, and not weaker players with no chance of winning that got in there because of age or winning some event that lost its prestige a long time ago. (The US Open)

"By the way, Nakamura is not playing in the U.S. championship this year, because he will be in Stavanger. Look at this impressive line-up: http://norwaychess.com/en/players/

I'm just as disappointed as you are by the inclusion of Hammer, but having the current Top 8 from the rating list and Wang Hao certainly makes up for that. In addition to that, this tournament will have the first classical encounter between Kramnik and Topalov game in 5 years (since Corus 2008)!"

I'm not nearly as disappointed as you think! Having one weaker local player among 10 total players is not going to harm or weaken the tournament in any appreciable way.

It's a huge improvement over Wiijk An Zee, by the way, which had a whopping 4 such players among 14 total participants! That's over 3 times worse, percentage-wise.

"This will probably be the last chance for Wei Yi to get his final GM norm before he turns 14. Not sure if he can get the GM title itself before he turns 14, though."

He did! And it led to another idiotic article on Chess.com by SonofPearl, who claimed that Wei Yi broke a "record" while simultaneously admitting that four players have gotten a GM title sooner.

Honestly, I wasn't really impressed by Yi's play in the open. He played solidly and conservatively but in no way specially, and benefited from some extraordinary luck.

The jury is still very much out on him.

"Not to defend Kirsan, because I agree that 2600+ players are being discriminated, and I would personally rather see them than some African players in the World Cup, but could this possibly have legal repercussions? I know there have been cases where certain firms were sued for not having enough "diversity", but I don't know if this could be applied here."

Not a chance! Yes, there are ambulance chasers, but in what world can someone get sued for inviting 2600+ FIDE-rated European players over 2300-rated Africans?

That would be like suing the NBA for having too many black Americans! When there are objective metrics for performance, this isn't an issue.

Not that FIDE is particularly afraid of lawsuits to begin with. :)

"Anand's victory over Naiditsch in the last round was quite impressive. It's true that Arkadidzh wasn't in his best shape, but the rook endgame was beautiful and very tricky. I've never seen such a long and massive zugzwang before. Normally zugswangs occur in a certain area of the board, but in that game it was almost on the whole board."

Indeed, fine endgame technique on Anand's part. Overall, a nice tournament victory by Anand over a decent field.

"Considering how rarely you watched the first several episodes of the series, I'm surprised that now you're breezing through it so quickly!"

Well, by this point, I have also seen all of Season 3, and half of Season 4!

The reason I'm breezing through it so quickly is that I'm watching it with my (new) girlfriend through her Netflix account.

"It's true that they focused on Betty a lot, but I personally never had a problem with it, and to me it seemed to me they found a good balance for the screentime between characters."

Speaking of Betty, I can't decide whether her new husband Henry is a disastrously awful, incompetent actor, or a damn good one.

Like, if his character is supposed to be utterly bland, annoying, and thoroughly unlikable, then mission accomplished, and he is a wonderful thespian. Otherwise, he is easily the worst actor on the show (children included) by a country mile.

As much as I am enjoying the show, I definitely have some nitpicks;

1. The whole subplot with Pete suggesting Admiral television appeal more to the black market and being rebuffed was beyond idiocy.

Really? We're supposed to believe that a major American business would refuse FREE MONEY? For fuck's sake, even if they're secret members of the KKK, but if there is money to be made in selling to blacks, you had better believe a business will fucking do it. They would sell it to fucking purple people if they could profit from it.

Then, the whole affair reaches new levels of stupidity when Roger actually CHEWS OUT Pete for this. Look guys, I know you're pushing the whole racism theme, but this is one situation where its presentation just becomes absurdly stupid.

Who was the retard writer that concocted this, and how did this get by the eagle eye of Matthew Weiner?

2. Another gripe was the whole situation between Lee Sr. (heir of Lucky Strike) and Salvatore.

Great, you have already portrayed Lee Sr. as an entitled, Southern asshole. Now he is a closet homosexual AND an unnecessarily vindictive asshole? How much more cartoonish and self-serving can you get? Virtually all characters in the show have balance, possessing both negative and positive character traits.

With Lee Sr, I'm shocked they don't also have him wearing a monocle and black whiskers while drowning puppies.

Again, these few nitpicks aside (which are all the more visible because of how awesome the show consistently is), I'm loving Mad Men, and am impressed by how top-notch it is, episode after episode.

Season 3 was tremendous (didn't like the JFK episode for certain reasons), and I'm loving Season 4 thus far.

The character of Lane Pryce is excellent. That night he spent out on the town with Don was wonderful, and a nice demonstration of both his humor and savvy . There's something about the guy's manner and face that is just very comical.

Speaking of which, I'm loving the inclusion of humor throughout the series. Peggy looking over her office into Don's in the aftermath of Allison's explosion was a hysterically funny sight gag. Also, Don's new, crabby old secretary is pure comic relief, and her struggling to hold onto a package that Pete was trying to open was high comedy.

Really fantastic stuff, although there are the occasional errors to remind me the show is not perfect...

I'm not entirely sure why (perhaps it was the chess board you inserted), but your last comment had the text on the right margins cut off. Luckily, I was able to restore it by copying and pasting into Notepad.

"Pretty good song! Even though it had those power metal vocals I generally dislike, I liked the way they were applied here. The second part of the song seemed even better than the first, but I don't know if I would've been that impressed by it had I not heard the first part."

While I normally don't care about such things, the lyrics are good if you understand Spanish.

"At first I didn't know what to tell you here, but now Carlsen's game against Giri gave me an idea. Wouldn't you agree that based on the games they've played so far, Giri doesn't seem like a comfortable opponent for Carlsen?"

Heh, you're grasping at straws, my friend! If Carlsen were to play a match against Giri, he would still be a heavy, heavy favorite.

Also, 2600 versus 2460 is just slightly different than 2860 versus 2720...

"Giri-Carlsen example shows that huge rating difference doesn't automatically mean huge edge for the higher-rated side, and my point is that we will not be able to predict what will happen accurately until we at least see a recent Hou vs. Ushenina game."

I'm surprised by how passionately you're arguing in favor of your countrywoman! If you like, we can make a fun bet on who will win the match, but really, this is an outcome that is like 95% certain.

"That won't be required of him! Like you said, match play is mostly about preparation nowadays, so this is what Korobov and the Ukrainian Chess Federation will have to do!"

Heh, your confidence in the Ushinina is impressive and endearing! If only she knew she had such a die-hard fan, I believe Ushinina would play that much better against Hou. :)

By the way, I can't tell whether you're partially joking or not here. Yes, certain players can cause bad match-ups for others, but I have never heard of a player beating someone 140 points rated higher when both players are 2400+ and neither is substantially improving.

"Exactly! This was the first surprising I had in mind. Obviously, she was "experimenting", but even experiments have to have a certain limit, right? Giving up a good developed bishop for an undeveloped knight and helping the opponent move a rook to a better square closer to your king (keeping in mind she was planning queenside castling) can't be a good thing."

Agreed, except the part about "move a rook to a better square" is irrelevant. b8 isn't particularly better than a8 for the Black rook; it just depends on what is played next. And even if White wants to castle long, having a Black rook on a8 or b8 usually doesn't make a difference either way.

"Man, you never waste an opportunity to poke fun at Ushenina's rating! :)"

She's simply not a particularly good player. I looked through Ushinina's games, and the only conclusion I drew was "solid, slightly above average IM who had a good tournament". Also, IM was her title before winning the "World Championship". (sic)

"Well, Goryachkina is still a young inexperienced player who most likely has a future ahead of her, so I wouldn't be too quick about making assumptions (although factually you're correct), and you're definitely right about the other three (not about Paehtz though)."

Wait a second, a few comments ago, you were telling me how "young inexperienced players" like Dubov were UNDERRATED since they were constantly improving and their rating isn't catching up.

Now all of a sudden, they are OVERRATED, and Goryachkina playing as horridly as a 2250-2300 is perfectly normal for a 2400+?

Your defense of and love for Ushinina admits no logic or consistency. :)

"Before his loss to Turov he had a high chance to fight for the first place, but unfortunately things did not go his way. On that note, congratulations to Naiditsch and Rapport!

It's incredible that Naiditsch recovered from the horrible blunder in the van Kampen game and even finished shared 1st!"

Yes, Naiditsch played some awesome chess during the second half of the tournament.

"Can you imagine the disappointment in Rapport's face realizing that he might not see the A-group because Sipke blew this the pawn ending to Naiditsch?"

Yeah, it's quite an endgame to blow! It's not completely trivial (you have to count the pawn moves and make sure there is no straightforward opposition for White), but definitely something one would imagine any 2200+ drawing!

As for Rappaport, just you wait...his spot will instead be taken by Jan Smeets!

"In other words, he plays like a woman."

Heh, I actually don't believe so! His style is very different than what I have seen from the leading female players. However, if Sipke were a woman, he would probably be the fourth strongest one behind Polgar, Hou, and Muzychuk, and ahead of Koneru!

"I might not like his playing style that much compared to other players, but his game opinions are always interesting to hear in every tournament he plays."

I like Leko's nuanced style a lot (even if it's hard to follow at times), and he is easily the most personable and interesting (beyond just his chess ability) of all the GMs playing in A section this year. (Aronian might be second)

"11/13 and 10.5/13... Those results are unbelievable. One result like this is understandable, but two?! Honestly, I did not expect Brunello to do that well. I don't really follow him as a chess player, but from the tournaments I've seen him play in, he never showed any special results. And as for Peralta, I've never even heard of him before, to be honest. Or maybe just once or twice."

Well, guys rated roughly 2600 can have some very impressive performances against some of the weaklings they scraped together in the C section!

Equally astounding is that while Sokolov was last in group A with 3/13 and everyone else had 4+, and Sipke was last in group B with 3.5/13 and everyone else had 4+, the C group had an amazing THREE different players (that's over a fifth of the field) who scored either 3 or 3.5;

Lisa Schut and Mark Van Der Werf (holy hell did this guy play poorly) both had 3/13, and Goryachkina scored 3.5/13.

"Definitely one of the most emotional games I've seen live."

Oh? What happened during the Carlsen-Karjakin game live?

"Me too. The next day he also lost to his customer and another rival (Carlsen). The last time I've seen Magnus win that quickly was in Bilbao against Anand and in London against Jones. These days his wins mostly consist of endgame grinding, and while I love watching it, it must really make him more tired than other players."

Endgame grinding has been the bane of an elite chessplayer's existence for the last 60 years! Everyone from Botvinnik and Smylov to Fischer to Karpov and Kasparov to Carlsen wins in any way they can, and that includes endgame grinding!

"I actually like the format! The main reason I think swisses are not exactly fair is because they have a huge number of players, and the pairings are often a lottery. However, when the number of players is only 22 and the number of rounds is 11, it's pretty much guaranteed that all the players who will do well in the event will play against each other. The difference is that in this case more American players will have a chance to prove they are worth something. Last year, for example, we were missing Sam Shankland who would have probably done fairly well in the event, but this year he'll definitely participate."

Where are you reading that it will be 11 rounds? I believe it's only a 9 round Swiss.

Anyways, this simply introduces a large element of luck and variance into the equation; who will draw the easier, lower-rated opponents? Which 2600+ Elo FIDE player will draw 2453-rated John Bryant, a 2538-rated Marc Arnold, or a 2544-rated, 56 year-old Alexander Ivanov?

There were no obvious "easy" opponents last year, but it's different this year.

It's a good decision for people who like drama and uncertainty. It's a dumb decision for anyone who wants to see the strongest players decide which of them is playing the best during the event.

I belong to the latter group.

"I completely forgot about that! I didn't know he was a close personal friend of Topalov though. I thought they only had a player-second relationship."

I can't think of a single instance where a long-time second wasn't also a close personal friend/confidant of the player they were helping.

"To be fair, I think it has more to do with diversity, anti-discrimination, and giving a chance to every continent to be able to be a part of the World Championship cycle. So in a sense, I view this as a necessary evil."

Ironic that you call it "anti-discrimination", since this decision is nothing more than discrimination against players living in Europe and to a lesser extent, Asia!

By the way, bullshit PC terms like "diversity" are among the most common smoke-screens for rampant corruption. And if the decision doesn't stem from corruption and Kirsan doing a favor for some African chess federations, it's outright stupidity. And, as you so accurately put, it's also "discrimination".

Instead of inviting 2600+ Elo European GMs, we will see some crappy 2300-rated FM from Egypt (and possibly overrated even then!).

The stronger, deserving player (who might be a low income pro) suffers. The 2300-rated FM gets nothing, since he is probably not a chess pro, anyways.

The World Cup, the event, and ultimately, the fans suffer because of this discrimination. But FIDE could care less!

"And about McShane, unfortunately I doubt he'd even want to participate there voluntarily, although it would've been amazing."

Ah, did he mention this in some interview?

"In Gibraltar Ivanchuk did not show a very good form. While he won that game against Ehlvest (and other players), I doubt he'd win the same game against anyone in the Candidates after slipping his advantage in the middle of the game. I'm not optimistic about him showing great results in London. I hope I'm wrong, but he'll probably place last."

Ivanchuk is 43 years old. At that age, consistently great tournament results are out of the question. However, he can still concentrate and pull himself together for a really good run.

I actually doubt that he finishes last.

"He also said he doesn't consider that tournament in London important for him in this video (referring to "Master Class with Vasily Ivanchuk"): http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.com/video/"

Will definitely check it out soon...

"Speaking of Candidates, don't you think it's strange that Radjabov is not playing in any tournament before that event?"

Not really. It might even be smart, so he can work more on opening preparation and analyze his opponents' games more.

"At least Grischuk and Svidler are playing in Aeroflot. It might be blitz/rapid, but it's better than nothing."

It's the exact same as nothing. :) Blitz/rapid might as well be checkers when you compare it to serious, classical time control tournament.

The playstyle, approach, and type of calculations are completely different.

By the way, I already finished Season 2 of Mad Men!

While I am still absolutely loving the show, I wish they focused less on Betty. Her subplot strikes me as rather tedious and boring. Not only would her time be better spent on other characters (more Joanne, Peggy, Pete, Sterling, or even more minor characters like Harry Crane, Ken, and Salvatore), but it's just poorly paced and overdone. They spend 3-4 minutes on a scene conveying something where only 1-2 would suffice.

And after watching the first episode of Season 3, I can't wait to see what happened to Duck Phillips! (Who was a good character and very well-acted)

Speaking of good characters, I also really enjoyed Jimmy Barrett. I actually had to look him up to see if it was an actual celebrity from that decade, since they did such a perfect job of recreating what a popular 60's comedian would look and talk like.

"Insomnium acted like beggars a bit when they said: "Support us poor Finnish guys by buying our merchandise and CD's". Then some guy in the audience in the front row offered them cash (it looked like it was one bill), and the vocalist took it because it was practically being shoved to him. It was a little weird, but I didn't mind."

Yes, even if that was meant to be funny, it sounds quite pathetic. Even with knowing that these guys are not rich, one likes to think of badass rock stars, not "poor Finnish guys" groveling for money!

"Alestorm's interactions were a little funnier and more light-hearted. For example, after playing three songs the vocalist said: "Alright, we've played all our good songs, so now it's time to sit through all the shitty ones!""

Yeah, listening to their songs, I can really imagine that they would be a great live band. Their choruses are very catchy and are wonderful fun to sing along to!

"One of Wintersun's interactions I remember was when the vocalist said: "Alright, I think it's time to go for us". Then the audience sighed in disappointment. A moment later Jari asked: "Would you like us to do one more song?" The audience cheered up. Then he asked again: "How about two more?". The audience cheered even more, and the band did Beyond the Dark Sun and Starchild."

That's pretty cool!

"Glad you enjoyed the songs! I like that they are not taking themselves seriously at all, but are still making quality music where possible. I have to say that some of their songs are not up to par with the great ones I shared with you, but all of them sound amazing live."

Yeah, the two songs were both excellent, particularly "Keelhaul". It's funny; while metal and pirates seem like such a natural fit, I have only heard of one song combining the two before this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k-QLyo9Hoc

"Exactly, so we will find out how good Ushenina is in match play when she plays her match against Hou Yifan!"

Yeah, at 140 points lower rated, (and that's with Ushinina probably being 50 points overrated), being the greatest match player ever for her rating likely won't save her.

"But to be fair, the reason why Hou Yifan gave the beating to Humpy Koneru is because the latter is not a comfortable opponent for the former (just like Kramnik wasn't a comfortable opponent for Kasparov)."

Why do you say that? If anything, I would think Koneru would be the uncomfortable opponent for Yifan. After all, Koneru is a calm, patient, defensive player, whereas Hou is very aggressive and often loose with her play.

I just think Hou is significantly better, and Koneru is overrated by only playing in female events.

"And if theoretically Ushenina started improving only recently when she prepared for the championship with the help of our mutual friend Anton Korobov, she would not have had the chance to prove herself."

As much as I like Korobov, I doubt he is going to turn a ~2400-2450 Elo, largely average, 27 year-old average IM into a 2600 Elo GM in a matter of months.

I like the guy, but he is not a chess genie. :)

"The main reason The Snowdrops event was a failure for women (and why it seemed like women should have had the advantage) is mainly Gunina and her rating. "

I am not just talking about the most recent event. I am talking about all the past years, too.

Firstly, keep in mind that the Old Hands are themselves overrated. Most have largely stopped playing regularly, and virtually all of them are far behind modern-day, cutting-edge opening theory.

A 2500-rated, 55+ year old GM is often really only playing at a 2425-2450 strength himself.

Despite this, and despite the Snow Drops being very closely rated to the Old Hands, not only do the Old Hands typically win, but they usually do so by a far greater margin than their respective ratings would indicate.

Which leads us to one conclusion; while the Old Hands might be overrated, the Snow Drops are even MORE overrated!

"but she can also play horribly (in most recent FIDE World Championship event, she played the worst opening I've seen played by a 2500 player ever (in my opinion); take a look at http://chess2012.ugrasport.com/houdini.html Round 2 Game 2)."

Heh, I have had several games where I was White follow the same opening as that for the first 4 moves.

However, even as a kid, I wouldn't play something as dumb as 5. Bxb8?

And yeah, it was just a really horrible game by Valentina Guninna where she played a bunch of criminally stupid, anti-positional moves. Playing that way, I don't think she would even win against me in a tournament game, let alone her opponent.

Yes, her play in that game was well below 2200 Elo. Probably even below 2100 Elo; Lisa Schut would even blush at castling long, or 11. Ba4?? instead of just 11. Bd3.

On another note, it's amusing to see her losing that mini-match to Allisa Gallimova! Gallimova was a shock winner of a Women's Candidate Tournament in like 1997, after which she was crushed horribly in a match against Xie Jun. And since reigning world champion Susan Polgar refused to play a rematch against Jun (who she had beaten for the championship), Xie became champion yet again.

Of course, it's funny that the shock winner from 1997, while past her prime, is still rated higher than Ushinina was before the event. :)

"Note how good the event was for Tania Sachdev, by the way."

Glad you brought up Tania Sachdev! She plays in a ton of male events, and thus, her rating is accurate.

Her rating is only ~2400, but if you notice how she does in all-female tournaments, her performance is consistently that of a 2450-2475 player.

"I've heard women (I can't remember who, but I think it was Muzychuk; or maybe it was actually a male GM saying that, possibly Sutovsky) say the opposite as well. In the context, she/he was asked a question: "Do you think that women's ratings are inflated?" and she/he said: "I do not see a difference in play between a 2500-rated man and a 2500-rated woman. Maybe you do, but I don't.""

If it was a male player saying this, he was simply being polite.

If it was a female player, she was simply being dishonest.

Again, if you want further proof, look at how many rating points players like Danielian, Cmilyte, Harika, Paehtz, and Goryakchina lose at these events! (Haast and Schut are harder to tell, since their ratings were so low already)

It's also notable that the female players who did better and roughly retained/slightly increased their rating (Lahno, Sachdev, Hou) were all ones that play a ton of male tournaments.

"No worries. I just find Grischuk interviews (especially the ones he gives in English with his hardcore Russian accent) amusing. Regarding Giri, he just said: "and ze vay Giri is lozing to Topalov in zis endgame is just unbelievable...""

Haha!

"Yeah, looks like he definitely underestimated her. On the other hand, in Harikrishna's case, he probably was just tired and got out-calculated."

Yeah, it was just a bad game for Harikrishna, and Hou took advantage nicely.

"The interviewer did not waste the opportunity to show off his rudeness skills with his comments: "Congratulations! You defeated another high-rated GM today, so it's not longer a coincidence!" So if she didn't win another game, her win against their highest-rated Dutch player would have been a coincidence?."

Yeah, especially considering Hou has beaten numerous top 40 and 2700+ rated GMs in the past.

"I saw people diminishing the value of Anand's game saying that "since it was preparation, he didn't win on his own, so this doesn't count". Comments like this strike me as odd."

Well, stupid, really. Like it or not, preparation is a huge part of playing at the highest level.

"Which is always nice to see! Unfortunately he lost against Edouard, but won against the tailender. I don't know if I'm even authorized to make such a comment, but Sipke's play is bad even for his level. He's either psychologically beaten or is tired from the Groningen open which was held at the end of December."

Dubov also had a winning position (albeit very complicated and difficult to play) against Movsesian, only for it to end in a draw. Amusingly, Dubov still had an edge in the final position, but I well understand that it's much easier for a computer to face g2-g4 and oncoming kingside pawn storm than it is for a human!

In fact, with his victory today, Dubov is at a strong 7/11, only half a point behind Movsesian and Naiditsch.

As for Sipke, it seems that every time we write the guy off, he comes up with a victory! Amusingly, it was in another game where he actually had a lost position at one point.

He strikes me as someone that plays very over-aggressively and over-optimistically in general, but is particularly missing a lot of tactics both this year and a last, a deadly combination. On the flip side, he has incredibly gone the entire tournament so far without a single draw! 3 wins, 8 losses.

"He was, but he also underestimated the ending he went for. He assumed it was easily drawn when he took the Aronian's knight with his bishop, but it was more complicated than it seemed."

Speaking of Leko, I love the guy's interviews!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGRjs7e6B8w

The stupid interviewer clearly doesn't want to hear the actual chess side of the game, but it's a real treat for the viewers.

"Not sure if it was sarcasm, but I agree! Peralta's and Brunello's results seem equivalent to a result someone would get in an open, which is still impressive, but not as impressive as Rapport's nice run against a consistently strong field."

Peralta and Brunello are the Turov Bullies of this year's C section! They're presently both sitting at an astronomical 9/11!

"My bad. Despite the fact that I've been following chess for so long, once in a while I still confuse the board's letters and numbers."

No worries.

"I referred to the bishop on c8. And if it was on b7 (letting the a8 rook protect the 8th horizontal), then the brilliant Ng5 tactic wouldn't have worked."

I'm not sure what it directly has to do with the rook. The more pressing problem is that after 25. Qg6 (as in the game) Black could simply play 25...c5, pinning the White bishop with his own. The Black Rook could be on a7 and it would still work.

Speaking of which, Naiditsch had another gorgeous victory today against Rapport.

"As for the developments in the tournament, wow, Carlsen is an absolute monster. No matter how much I'm saying: "He can't win this", he does. 8/10 is a remarkable result. Of course, the field is weaker than it normally is for Wijk's standards, but no matter how outclassed the 2600-rated opponents are, it can't be an easy task for anyone to defeat them consistently, and the fact Carlsen did it is unbelievable."

Yes, indeed. His record against the weaker quartet of L'Ami, Hou, Sokolov, and Van Wely is a perfect 4/4. Against the stronger foes of the tournament, he is at a far more mortal 4.5/7. Both are really impressive results, but it required two absolute brilliancies on Magnus's part to notch the victories over Harikrishna and Karjakin. (And I agree with you; the latter was the win of the tournament)

"Now that he played Ponziani, everybody is going to add it to the list of their openings to explore, which will be extra work for everybody!"

It's not really a lot of extra work. The Ponziani is a very easy opening to counter. The reason players spend so much time on the Sicilian/King's Indian/QGD/Gruenfeld/Ruy Lopez is because they are exceptionally complicated openings with a ton of side variations, and it's either really hard to equalize as Black if it's an opening chosen by White or hard to gain an edge as White if it's an opening chosen by Black.

As for the Ponziani, Black has a number of simple paths leading to easy equality.

"I also noticed Carlsen has not played 1. d4 yet, so I have a feeling he has some surprises hidden there."

Ah, good eyes!

"Hou Yifan's choice to play the same opening Carlsen used to defeat Harikrishna with against Magnus was a surprising but ballsy decision."

I would call it a foolish decision myself.

"Nakamura's escape against van Wely was amazing. Maybe it's just my uneducated observation, but it seems to me he's playing a lot like Carlsen. Ever since he answered the question: "How do plan to improve your chess" with "By converting these endgames", that is exactly what he's been doing, and so far his approach is successful. His win against Caruana was pretty cool and had that Carlsen pawn maneuver (which probably shouldn't be named after Carlsen, haha)."

Yeah, his victory against Caruana was inspiring and brilliant. Unfortunately, he lost to his arch-rival Aronian today, but I am still very impressed with his play throughout the tournament. Particularly the endgames.


"Caruana and Wang Hao are having really bad tournaments for their standards. Caruana still has a chance to prove himself in the next two events (Baden-Baden and Zurich), and I'm not doubting him. Wang Hao, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have any events lined up aside from Stavanger."

Indeed they are. Both have had the occasional strong games, however.

"Speaking of Stavanger, it looks like Nakamura won't be able to participate there because there will be a US Championship during those dates (with a pretty interesting format, I think; check it out: http://www.uschesschamps.com/dates-format-set-2013-us-championships-saint-louis)"

Yeah, I dislike this format. What was wrong with last year's format, which made for an awesome and memorable US championship?! I guess it makes it much harder for Nakamura to repeat as champion and thus adds "drama" (note how this isn't used for the women's event), but I dislike it.

Should still be an interesting tournament, but far less so as a long Swiss than as a round-robin of elite players.

"2700chess.com lists Caruana as one of the participants, and even though he did say he would like to be there, he received a letter from some FIDE official he can't take part in the championship because it's a zonal tournament. I don't know if they resolved the issue, but hopefully they did."

Yeah, it would be wonderful if they did.

"Back to Wijk aan Zee, I'm loving the intrigue In the B group. 4 people have the highest chance of winning: Rapport, Movsesian, Naiditsch, and Smeets. No disrespect to the latter, but I'm really against any Dutch winning the B-group."

Well, there is also the fact that Smeets is the second and close personal friend of slimy chess villain Veselin Topalov!

"Let me make my predictions for each of the 4 players for the next three rounds!"

Well, you were wrong with both predictions today, but that puts Movsesian and Naiditsch in the lead, who are the two highest-rated and most internationally experienced players. Not bad at all!

"If everything went as you say it did, then I agree with you, but for some reason, I thought she took 3-4 months off work, unless I'm misremembering things?"

According to the first couple of episodes of season 2, Peggy takes 2 months off work AFTER her pregnancy. However, she was working the same day that she ended up delivering her baby.

So yes, she was 8/9 months pregnant, going to work every day, and no one noticed (herself included!), only assuming she had gotten a bit fatter. Again, that's ridiculous.

"How far along are you now? Have you started the second season?"

Finished the first two episodes of season 2.

"Gashimov and McShane do not qualify because they played less than 30 games in 2012. A shame for McShane because he was 2 games short from meeting the requirement.

The next major qualifier will be European Championship which will take place in Poland in the beginning of May. I hope Korobov and Navara will earn their spots in."

Yeah, there is all sorts of nonsense and corruption going on here. 6 spots for African players? Also, FIDE and the organizers being able to invite special players sounds good in theory, but in practice, I doubt they would all go to deserving players like McShane.

"Speaking of Le Quang Liem, he won a very LQL'esque game today."

Yes, an impressive victory! Joe Gallagher wrote one of my favorite tactical books, amusingly enough! However, he was beaten by solid defense in that round.

"Insomnium were fantastic. I was very happy to see them live, although it's unfortunate they only played 7 songs (Inertia, The One Who Waits, Down With The Sun, Where The Last Wave Broke, The Killjoy, Through The Shadows, Unsung, and One For Sorrow). Another minor flaw was that the clean singer did not sound that well, possibly due to his mic not functioning properly.

Alestorm were even better than Insomnium, and that should say something, because I do not really like the band that much. Before this concert I considered them a one-hit wonder, but I was wrong. Their music was made to be played live, because aside from the guitar they have catchy keytar melodies which add a lot to the energy in general."

What was the ambience like? Good acoustics? Decently large crowd? Did the bands interact with the crowd between songs?

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta-Z_psXODw"

That sounds really catchy even without being live!

It's an excellent song; loved the violin, and the pirate lyrics reminded me of the meter and rhythm of Billy Bones' blood-curdling poems from "Treasure Island".

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggyC0FOzqHM"

Another very good song! I'm really liking this band; thanks for telling me about them.

"Wintersun were on par with Alestorm. They played all songs from their newest album and Beyond The Dark Sun, Starchild, and Winter Madness from their first record. People went crazy during the first 24 seconds of Beyond The Dark Sun - every single person was moving (whether nodding their head or getting involved in a mosh pit) at the same time. My favorite song they performed was Sons Of Winter And Stars.

Eluveitie were really awesome too, but somehow I expected more. Maybe I was just too tired by then. They decided to play their new album from front to back, and they did not play my favorite song of theirs, Song Of Life or some incredible gems from the third album, so I was a bit let down in that regard. Plus I did not stay for the whole concert, so I missed my favorite song from the album (the second to last). But still, Havoc and the second song sounded incredible."

You talk about exhaustion; how long were the sets from each band? I'm guessing the standard 30-40 minutes, or longer?

Regardless, it's great to hear that these were all such awesome, memorable experiences.

"And speaking of C group, at least this year there aren't that many sub-2400 players compared to last year!"

That's because there were fewer Dutch players and women. :)

"My comparison of Ushenina to Gelfand did not intend to imply that their chess achievements are equal. I simply wanted to underline the fact that match play ability has nothing to do with rating, and the event she won only indicates she has good nerves (which will be psychologically useful for her in a match)."

Yes, but even there, Gelfand is well-proven in matches, having played in many and garnering fine results.

Ushinina is still completely unproven in that regard, as the Knockout Tournament didn't feature matches at all.

Meanwhile, we know that Hou is at least a decent match player, considering the beating she gave Humpy Koneru. (Who was actually rated slightly higher at the time!)

Futhermore, with Ushinina being a whopping 140 points weaker than Hou, it doesn't even matter anymore. She is not overcoming that even if she is a good match player.

"One of the reasons for Ushenina's low rating is because she does not participate in many events. She mostly plays in leagues according to her. The last major tournament she participated in was the Ukrainian Championship where she did quite well (shared first place undefeated): http://www.ukrchess.org.ua/turnir/Ukr2012wom_Kharkiv/result.html

She also did well in the Olympiad on her board (can't remember the score)."

That's strong evidence that Ushinina is even weaker than her published rating, not stronger! She plays few events, and those that she does are solely for women.

Women who compete exclusively in female events are usually overrated by a good 50-75 points, which is evident from the results of Humpy Koneru, the Snowdrops versus Old Hands event, etc.

In fact, various women players have even mentioned as much in interviews.

"Just based on the fact that recently she hasn't had any failures, I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt against strong opposition."

I believe there are more convincing arguments for Tiviakov beating Carlsen in a match than there are for Ushinina beating Hou in one. :)

"Yes, pretty impressive win, but this is not the first time Giri stumbles in seemingly equal endgames. His games against Topalov in London and against Nakamura in Hoogeeven in the last six months were lost in a similar fashion."

Yes, it's not the first time I have noticed his subpar endgame play, either.

"http://new.livestream.com/accounts/1504418/Round11-Board2 - check this Grischuk video where he complains about Giri losing to Topalov."

Unfortunately, I can't log in without adding an app to Facebook, which I am slightly leery of. Is it alright?

"Giri's loss to Hou Yifan was also a slight surprise to me. Perhaps Giri underestimated her far too much."

He definitely played way too loosely, thinking that if he just complicated the position enough, he would out-calculate her. Instead, Hou won a nice game. It's actually very similar to the way that the Van Wely- Wang Hao went as well.

"I'm not sure if you've seen the livestream, but after he shook hands with her (by admitting the resignation), he was saying something to her, and visually it looked like Giri was being disrespectful. Of course, he could be saying something like: "I'm stupid, and this this and this were horrible mistakes by me", but his behavior was strange when he made those gestures, and I'm not sure what to make of it."

I hate baseless speculation like this. If one doesn't know what Giri said, then one shouldn't assume. Maybe it was something rude, maybe it wasn't. Unless one knows, however, it's not even worth bring up.

I had some rather unkind words to write on the Yifan Hou post-match interview, aimed at a certain idiot that claimed Giri was being "disrespectful" by not resigning earlier;

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=O34tbYCTpOM

(I'm GracieKiller)

I also really liked WurzelAusZwei's comments, particularly the suggestion that FIDE should implement a rule requiring players to resign if the Houdini assessment is 5 points or more in their opponent's favor, haha.

"What a win by Anand against Aronian! He hasn't won a game this convincingly in a long time! This will be great material for history books."

Yeah, a really awesome victory! I was probably equally impressed by Carlsen's win over Harikrishna, though.

"Unless he began to improve and take advantage regularly only in the last year or so. You can't just get a 2700 rating in a couple of events, especially since everyone is so competitive and strong nowadays."

Well, since you wrote that, Dubov has went ahead and won two games in a row!

"However, I think Dubov's endgame technique is very good, especially since his two recent wins were won because of good endgame play (and possibly poor endgame technique by the veterans)."

Perhaps the victory against Timman can be ascribed to endgame, but the triumph over Nikolic (two legends beat on consecutive days!) was pure tactics, and occurred in a late middlegame position, not an ending.

"I'm surprised that Harikrishna is doing that well in the A-group. Not because Navara did horribly there last year, but mostly because besides winning Capelle-La-Grande, Harikrishna's results haven't been that amazing in any other event he participated in. He did great in the beginning of the Olympiad, but later started losing a lot of games and eventually underperformed.

So yes, I'm glad he's doing so well, but I'm a little surprised. On a side note, that mate in van Wely's game position looked very cool optically."

Harikrishna was rated 2680 as long ago as April 2006! Hopefully, he has finally elevated his play, if only for a prime of a few years.

As for the win against Van Wely, it was a gorgeous combination to cap the victory.

"I was surprised that Aronian managed to win that ending against Leko. We all saw that it was drawn and assumed that soon they will reach some repetition, but Leko made a couple of inaccurate moves and it was over."

Indeed; was Leko short of time or something?

"5/6 for Rapport is amazing."

And 5/6 for Peralta and Brunello is far less so!

"I'm surprised Edouard is doing so poorly in this tournament. Before this event began I had high hopes for him, but his blunder in Sipke's game was devastating."

It's lucky for Sipke too, as he would be at 0/6 otherwise!

Also, Sipke's most recent defeat at the hands of Movsesian made me think he is tired and desperate already.

"Still, good to see him win against Tiviakov. Maybe he'll bounce back."

Indeed, a really nice victory. Especially liked his handling of the ending.

"In the Naiditsch-Grandelius game it's crazy that ...h5 is a blunder."

Don't you mean ...h6 ?

"If only the bishop was on g2 instead of h3 (letting the rook protect the queen once it went to h6 to "challenge" white's queen),"

Uh, White's bishop was on g2 in the game, and not on h3. Not sure what you're referring to here.

That being said, 23. Ng5!! was indeed a shocking and amazing brilliancy. Loved it.

"As for Pete getting the package meant for Don... Like you said, this happens a lot in movies and TV shows, and in real life it doesn't happen often (usually the packages just get left to a secretary or front door), I've never actually thought about criticizing it for being highly improbable. Still, from what I remember this action resulted in a slightly dramatic scene between Don and Pete, so this flaw can be forgiven."

Well, it did lead to one of my favorite moments of Season 1. After hearing Pete's accusations Bert Cooper walks from his desk, briefly looks at Don, then walks over to the smug, self-satisfied Pete, and says;

"Mr. Campbell...who cares?!"

"As for Betty's storyline, I can't really remember what it was about."

It's about her various neurosis regarding her perfectionist mother, his father's new girlfriend, Don's distance, her lack of anything meaningful to do, etc. Not very fun stuff, in other words.

Anyways, I finished watching Season 1.

In the grand tradition of season finales, it featured a bunch of cliffhangers meant to pull in audiences for next season.

Don gives the presentation of his life for Eastman Kodak with the "Carousel", prompting the chubby, glasses-wearing guy who pines for his wife to leave the room sobbing. (Hilarious, by the way)

Pete brings in his father-in-law's Clearasil account, only to be crushed when Don tells him to work with Peggy on it. In the process, he promotes her to junior copywriter, and she moves into her own office.

However, she suddenly feels poorly, and when she goes to the hospital, discovers that she is pregnant.

While my girlfriend called this development several episodes back, it's still fucking ridiculous. A non-fat woman having a baby is very easily noticeable.

The show covered it up by having the men make fun of Peggy's ballooning weight, but give me a fucking break. I have seen women of Peggy's proportions, and even 6 months in (not even the final stages), the thing is enormous and impossible to conceal. It doesn't look like the woman has simply gained weight, either.

It's easily the most absurd and laughably unrealistic development during the course of the show, especially as Peggy delivers the baby at the hospital that very day.

Don then comes back home, surprises Betty by telling her that he will spend Thanksgiving with her and the kids after all, and the children run over to embrace their father.

Only this turns out to be a dream, and Don comes back to a completely empty house. Presumably, Betty has left.

"Hopefully yes. Although after seeing Wintersun and Insomnium (along with Alestorm and Eluveitie) live, I'd rather have more metal bands coming here!"

Awesome! How were those experiences?

"No, I wasn't really being sarcastic. So you think that his wins against Safarli, Petrosian, Zherebukh, Motylev, and Wang Hao in the last 6 months could have been all prearranged?"

Didn't realize he had those victories to his credit, but yes, it's possible. Not saying he is definitely a fraud, only that he seems unproven.

Perhaps I'm wrong (those two tournaments you posted certainly seem legitimate), but I would still want to see this guy in a few more invitational European tournaments before he gets invited to Wiijk An Zee.

"In my opinion, as long as his rating keeps going up, his strength is actually lower than that rating (which is completely normal for young players). As soon as these high increases in rating stop, the approximate strength should be clear then."

Yeah, but young players are not necessarily becoming continuously stronger. However, I certainly agree with you that having a guy like that in the group C section would be a marked improvement over Lisa Schut!

"These aren't going to be like Aeroflot, but Emil Sutovsky is promising at least 4 more new super tournaments this year!"

Wonderful! I hold out hope that at least one of them will have a classic time control.

"It's probably wishful thinking though."

Yeah, I think that it is. Chess is already popular in Ukraine, and I don't think having a woman win some bullshit FIDE event will inspire anyone.

"I agree it's weird, but rating doesn't have much to do with match play ability. Of course she hasn't proven herself in that area either, so at this point we simply don't have enough information to judge her, and this is the main problem with World Cup winners. When Gelfand won World Cup and Candidates, people were not convinced he'd fare well against Anand, yet he proved everybody wrong and was a fearsome opponent for Anand."

Let's not compare her to Gelfand. Gelfand had been a top-10, elite player for 15-20 years before winning that event. He was also ranked 20th in the world among men even before his triumph, which is far more impressive than being ranked 30th in the world among women beforehand. (Keep in mind that men are far more closely matched at the top than women are in terms of ratings)

Also, while the event Gelfand won was dumb, it at least featured mini-matches between top players, not the knockout nonsense that Ushenina participated in.

If the women's tournament had featured 4 standard games instead of 2 and it had been won by Lahno or N. Kosintseva (their rating difference compared to Hou is the same as Gelfand compared to Anand), you would have a better comparison.

"So in my opinion, we should just wait for the match with Hou Yifan in November to see if she deserved/deserves the WC title. If she loses easily, then yes, she got lucky. If she wins, she deserves the title. We'll see."

I don't think you will be putting very many chess bucks on your countrywoman. :)

"Of course I was semi-joking, but I do think the win is impressive, especially for a blitz game. Maybe if I understood Petrov better, I'd have had a different opinion."

It was a really drawish variation of the Petrov, but he played a bunch of poor moves in a row, starting with c5?

"It was definitely a queen sacrifice, but I don't think it was on h7. It was on h2. Let me take a look.

It was actually on h3. Here is the diagram: http://i.imgur.com/lGml1.png"

Oh, Kotov's famous sacrifice at Zurich Candidates' Tournament 1953! I don't think my sacrifice was anything like that brilliancy.

"Okay, so Wijk aan Zee is really interesting as usual. A couple of games were slightly boring from a spectator point of view (like Harikrishna - Aronian), but overall things are very interesting."

Indeed, I have been following along pretty closely.

Awesome win by Harikrishna in a drawn ending against Giri in round 1. It's amusing that the far less-heralded player managed to completely bamboozle and outplay his opponent there. Then again, Giri's endgame play leaves a lot to be desired for that level.

He did well in round 2, getting a better position against Caruana as Black, although he missed an opportunity and Fabiano quickly obtained the draw.

Also, I liked both of Karjakin's victories; he is obviously looking great. Also, beating Wang Hao in a drawn rook ending is a very impressive achievement; his endings are solid.

Timman is doing pretty well thus far, and so is Tiviakov. Poor Ernst Sipke, 50 points lower than he was last year, can't seem to catch a break. His move 12. a3?! just seemed like the reaction of a player who is already beaten down mentally.

However, it's a bit sad to see Oleg Romanishin playing in freaking group C, and not doing well, either. (1/3 so far)

While never an elite GM (his highest world ranking was 11th), he was a remarkably consistent and dangerous one for a long time, being rated in the world's top 30 for an entire decade. (And in the top 20 for much of that time)

However, that decade of success ended the same year I was born;

http://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Romanishin,%20Oleg%20M..html

"I'm disappointed, but not surprised at Dubov's performance. It's true that he didn't have clearly winning positions but it looked like missed a chance in his game against Smeets somewhere."

Eh, it's still very early. He had several winning positions against Smeets, yes, but if the guy was regularly taking advantage of those, he would be a 2700 already.

The only thing I don't understand is the odd decision to play 37. Rxd5? instead of 37. exd5!

I mean, Smeets is definitely good enough to draw that standard 4 pawn versus 3 pawn Rook ending. Guess Dubov needs to work on his endgames!

"On the other hand, I'm surprised Rapport is doing better than Dubov, because I looked at their results this year and it appears that Rapport has much more trouble with higher-rated opposition that Dubov in general."

Dubov is probably much better at not giving higher-rated opposition any opportunities.

"Carlsen's win against van Wely was not "brilliant", but definitely in style. It's interesting that van Wely resigned this early."

Yeah, I would have played on. However, it's understandable against Carlsen; a position against him a clean pawn down in a standard ending with a bad bishop against the two bishops is dead to rights.

Speaking of dead to rights, I was amazed by Hikaru's escape in round 2. As he so accurately put it in the interview, he tried to get way too creative in the opening, playing bizarre, unsound moves that looked like they were something from a 2100 Elo player more than a 2750+ top 10 GM. (Nakamura experiments a lot with unorthodox opening ideas, including 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5, but it sometimes backfires)

However, after progressing so confidently, Ivan Sokolov made some unbelievable endgame blunders, and Nakamura (whose has vastly improved that area of his game in the past few years, and who I have praised for it) managed to draw!

"Congratulations to Anand for finally winning against elite player for the first time since Gelfand! It was not without the help of Caruana, but to Anand's credit he did press for most of the game."

He had a good position against Giri as well, although it wasn't enough to win.

"Hou Yifan is doing as expected so far. Drawing against van Wely and L'Ami was not a surprise to me, and drawing against Wang Hao tomorrow won't be a surprise to me either."

Yeah, the round 2 game between Hou and Van Wely is probably one that both players would like to forget!

I was especially surprised that with both players having plenty of time on their clocks, Hou blundered a pawn with 41...Qc7?? and Van Wely missed the simple 42. Nc4 to win it, threatening both the pawns at d6 and e5 simultaneously.

By the way, I have started watching Mad Men again, and am up to episode 11. There's a lot of great stuff, although occasionally, there are a a few plot points and ideas I consider weak.

For instance, the stuff with Joanne's lesbian roommate was contrived and silly (compare that to the far superior, interesting storyline of Salvatore being gay), and while not technically bad, Pete getting the package meant for Don seems "beneath" a show like Mad Men.

Not saying this is impossible, but people getting a package meant for someone else happens a hell of a lot more in shows and movies than it does in real life!

In general, I love the stuff with Don and Sterling (who is an interesting hybrid of a character; incredibly intelligent and charming at times, and at other times foolish, pathetic, and crass), while the Betty subplot is relatively dull.

"Yes, I definitely like the place, thanks. I've stayed there before (for 2-3 months or so) in 2008 as well, so it was not anything new. Yes, the lack of the necessity to drive is a major benefit of living close to New York City in general."

Wonderful! Does this also mean seeing more cool rap acts?

"Exactly. Not to mention, there is a theoretical possibility of prearranged games, especially if towards the end. For example, let's say that nearly at the end of the second half of the tournament Grischuk realizes that he's not fighting for the first place anymore, yet Svidler is. And since those two are known to be good (if not best) friends in real life, I wouldn't be surprised if Grischuk lost on purpose to Svidler and tried his best to draw or win against his other serious contenders for the first place.

Plus, even if we dismiss the prearranged games, there is a possibility that some player would start playing relatively poorly because of not fighting for the first place anymore. Probably not Carlsen, but I can see this happening to Ivanchuk, for instance."

All excellent points. I completely agree.

"Because unless he's hiding his real intentions in interviews, he says that he's treating Candidates as another tournament and that he won't start thinking about preparing for it until after Wijk is over (or until the other exhibition event in Parallels Summit in February is over, to be exact)."

I don't think you can fully know a person and predict how he will react in a new situation based on some throw-away comments he made to random idiot journalists.

That's my point.

"I was just going from what he said in the interviews, but yeah, he could be strategically lying."

I don't think he's strategically lying. I just don't think he gave the comments much thought, and even Carlsen can't know how he will he feel during the tournament. So again, pure speculation.

"As for Carlsen as a tactician, obviously I may be wrong, because sometimes when Carlsen misses some tactic, I give it more importance than if another top player misses one, but from my observations, I noticed that the less pieces there are on the board, the "easier" it becomes for Carlsen to create some brilliancies!"

Well, I consider that a form of "tactics" as well.

"Yes, it was the time pressure. And probably not so much the zeitnot itself, but the 10 second increment instead of 30 second one. I can't imagine how distracting it can be especially when you need to write the move on the blank as well."

Yeah, these shitty time controls are ruining a lot of high-level chess.

"Interesting. I did not know that Karpov was not a threat anymore when he defeated Anand at that time."

Well, Karpov was still an extremely strong player (just like Anand is in 2013), but he was no longer a serious threat to win the major tournaments, no. Karpov's last great hurrah was Linares 1994 and he was briefly ranked number 1 in the world that year, much how Anand was still doing great in 2008 and 2009, even being ranked number 1 on the rating list at times. (And also doing well in 2010!)

But here, check out Karpov's ratings in Jan 1998, July 1998, and Jan 1999: (They didn't update ratings as frequently back then)

Jan 1998: 6th in the world
July 1998: 5th in the world
January 1999: 10th in the world

Do those rankings remind you of anyone?

Nevertheless, Karpov still had enough left to defeat the 28 year-old, super-talented, number 2 player in the world at that time, Vishy Anand.

"I don't remember the source (or maybe I'm even mixing it up with somebody's opinion), but if I'm not mistaken, he hinted that he would consider working with Kasparov if he won the Candidates."

I get the feeling that Carlsen was leaving the possibility open, but that he will eventually choose against it.

"For example, I found the following guy (and I don't even know how he looks like): http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=8603154

Take a look at his rating graph: almost no games between 2003 and 2008, and then boom and he's 2559. As far as I see, he's never lost any rating points since 2010 either.

I think he'd do fine in B-group."

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. I would definitely not want to invite that guy to Wiijk An Zee from that information. A completely random Chinese player rated in the 2500s who has rarely competed outside of the country, and never outside of the continent?

There's a bunch of red flags going up there. Especially since the amount of rating and title corruption is at its worst in Asia.

I remember reading a story some years ago about three players from Myanmar who had all been rated in the 2200-2300 range and then magically rose to 2600+ and made the top 100 all without ever leaving the country.

Needless to say, their level of play did not correspond to their phony ratings.

"Same is true for this guy: http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=8603405"

This guy looks far more legit, and actually competed in at least one notable European tournament. Still, does his strength correspond to 2500 or more of a glorified 2400-2450?

Who the hell knows?

"Yeah, in that sense it's not bad, but it's unfortunate that such a massively strong swiss had to go because of it. It was an amazing opportunity for people rated 2600+ and above to practice their chess on somebody strong. There wasn't really an event like Aeroflot in the chess calendar before, so in my opinion it's a major loss for the chess world."

Indeed. Hopefully, there will be some new tournaments to replace it.

"Exactly! Speaking of Women's World Championship, the event was won by Anna Ushenina - a chess player from my hometown. Obviously, the format to determine the champion is a lottery, but even then, whoever wins this event deserves praise they managed to do it, in my opinion."

Indeed, props to her, although calling her a World Champion is ridiculous.

She's essentially a stronger than average IM by rating, and when you take into account the bump many women get from playing all-female events, is probably just a solid IM, nothing more.

So just look at it from that perspective. A solid IM who had a really good tournament and was lucky. Awesome for her, but a disgrace on the women's world championship all the same.

And I think that might be a record. A women called "World Champion" who is 24th in the rating list just AFTER winning it?! I don't even think Kosteniuk can lay claim to such an "honor".

It's a really sad state of affairs when a nearly 50 year-old Pia Cramling (who was a contender for the women's title for a long time, but never quite good enough to crack through, whether in the 80s during the reign of Chiburdanidze or in the 90s with champions like Susan Polgar or Xie Jun) is still ranked 10th among active women and 40 points higher rated than the supposed "champion".

Not that FIDE gives a shit.

"http://chessbomb.com/o/2012-worldwomenc/08-Anna_Ushenina-Nadezhda_Kosintseva/

What do you think of the game?"

It's okay? White played a classic structure with the c3, d4, e3, f3 pawn wedge supported by the two bishops, first popularized by Botvinnik back in the 1930s!

She played very natural moves, nothing really unexpected. Kosintseva did the same, playing some really thematic and attractive-looking moves (...Re6, ...Nd5) that ended up being blunders.

It looks like a pretty average game between two solid or even above average male IMs, or even like a game between top female players a good 15-20 years ago.

"Now that one should be called Lev's Immortal! It's funny how Petrov is so drawish at GM level, yet so sharp and dangerous at your level."

Thank you for the kind words, but not a chance! There was nothing impressive about my victory. My opponent played poorly and I made a very simple and thematic sacrifice. It's an amusing miniature, but certainly nothing worthwhile.

I've definitely played dozens of way more impressive tournament games, and probably even better blitz games.


"It's funny, just the other day I was reading that Winning Chess Tactics book, and I was at a chapter about destroying king's cover and a very similar combination was shown there. The book even cited it as "one of the most beautiful combinations ever"."

Are you thinking of the famous Lasker-Baeur sacrifice? Or maybe Edward Lasker's queen sacrifice on h7 against Sir George Thomas?

Both of those are a million times better and more interesting than mine, and they both occurred over 100 and 120 years ago, respectively!


"I'm curious, when you saw that bishop sacrifice, did you calculate the variation completely till mate or did you just see that the king would be forced to march to the center (which is considered dangerous when there are many pieces on the board) without calculating anything specific?"

I did actually stop and calculate for a while before making the bishop sacrifice. It's funny, because I had just read Silman's great articles on Chess.com on the classical bishop sacrifice.

On the plus side, I had the bishop on the c8-h3 diagonal and a pawn on e4. On the down side, my opponent not only had the dark-squared bishop, but I couldn't use the b8-h2 diagonal at all.

In terms of concrete variations, I saw that 16. Kxh2 Ng4+ 17. Kg3 was forced, and though I didn't have any really thematic follow-up, 17...h5 looked devastating.

Honestly, I didn't see a better defense for White than something stupid-looking like 18. Qd2, with 18...h4+ 19. Kh3, and I have a devastating discovered check at my disposal. (I didn't calculate further)

However, I didn't consider something like 19. Kf4, since it looked so crazy and suicidal. Sure enough, it was, as it didn't take me long to find 19...g5+

"And finally, first round of Wijk aan Zee tomorrow! And the interviewers are already outdoing themselves with rude questions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YJjtQ-8BHY (the question to Anand)."

Ha, I actually posted a comment on that video regarding that very point, which a few people apparently liked.

You're back to Brooklyn? Are you perhaps at least staying here for summer?

Brooklyn!

How are you liking it? One definite plus I can imagine is that you don't have to drive much, if at all.

"It's good news that you're still planning to reply to my last message. I hope you haven't forgotten what you were going to write about London Olympics."

No, on the contrary! Sports stories this crazy stick with you for years, not months afterwards!

"Now, his answer to this question is ridiculous, in my opinion. First off, I believe Carlsen will NOT win the Candidates tournament in London. If he does, I will be very surprised."

I partially agree; I believe that Carlsen has the best chances, but with so many strong, evenly matched players, and the natural role of luck, there is a greater than fifty percent chance that someone other than Magnus takes first.

"GM Sergey Shipov described my thought process best: "Вспоминается замечательное произведение Агаты Кристи «Убийство Роджера Экройда». Там все факты, все улики говорили за то, что виновен Ральф Пейтон. Но именно поэтому Эркюль Пуаро полагал, что Ральф – не убийца.""

Hmmm...I love Hercule Poirot as played by David Suchet in the TV series, but not so much the character in the original Agatha Christie stories. (Or really, Christie's mysteries in general)

I would have much rather he made a reference to Sherlock Holmes or Father Brown. Those are fictional detectives I can trust in. :)

"My other argument is Carlsen's motivation compared to other player's motivations. One of the reasons why Carlsen constantly wins all the tournaments he participates in is because he wants "to play as many tournaments as possible and win as many of them"."

Pretty sure the same motivation exists for all the other top 20 players fighting against him for first.

"On the other hand, there are players like Grischuk who only start playing really well when the WC title is on the line. As an example, do you remember his abysmal performance in Wijk 2011? Well, in one of his interviews he said he didn't even want to play there and that he had no motivation at all. Naturally, his 4.5/13 explains this. On the other hand, he did have motivation to win the Candidates tournament, so he chose the most annoying strategy possible and reached the finals to lose to Gelfand in an incredible game."

This is true. But how do we know the same won't be true for Carlson?

"In other words, I believe that all 8 players will be very motivated, and it will be very difficult for Carlsen to pull off what he has been pulling off all these years. So if in an average tournament Carlsen's motivation and fighting spirit are at a hypothetical number 34, most other players' motivations are not as strong as Carlsen's (at a hypothetical number 27), and this Candidates tournament will either equalize their motivations or will make other players' motivations greater than Carlsen's, and as a result, Carlsen will have harder time than usual."

This is all pure speculation. Carlsen hasn't played in a Candidates' Tournament (or even the knockout World Cup) in an incredibly long time. We have no clue whether he will be more or less motivated than for a typical big tournament.

"http://chessbomb.com/o/2012-lccc/05-Mickey_Adams-Magnus_Carlsen/"

I don't think there was much chance of Carlsen losing there (Adams never had more than the usual small plus as White), but yeah, it's astonishing and inspiring that he managed to win it!

"http://chessbomb.com/o/2012-lccc/03-Vladimir_Kramnik-Magnus_Carlsen/"

Carlsen is quite amazing at finding those hidden resources, even against one of the strongest players of all time when he has an advantage!

"In any case, Carlsen is an anomaly. Every time he plays, it appears as if he gets into a bad/equal position, and my first thought is: "There is no way he can win/draw this, only draw/lose". 3-4 hours later, Carlsen somehow gets a promising position and wins/draws. Why this happens, I don't know."

Indeed.

Then again, this ability was true of many of the legends of the game; Lasker, Alekhine, Fischer, etc.

"As for your comment that Carlsen has the worst opening repertoire out of any top 15 player, I agree, but at the same time, I think that his opening approach is different and works for his intentions, consciously or unconsciously."

I agree with this as well. However, I believe that further intense study in that area of the game would only benefit Carlsen, not harm him.

"(in fact, in my opinion, Carlsen is not as good a tactician as other top players;)"

Now here I disagree. Carlsen is the best tactician in the entire world; that's why he is the strongest chessplayer.

I still remember that dazzling tactical brilliancy he won on the White side of the Sicilian against Nakamura. As for him missing something, that happens to everyone.

"http://chessbomb.com/o/2012-gsb/01-F_Caruana-M_Carlsen/ - Carlsen was completely hopeless in the opening here. Then he somehow got a good/winning endgame, blundered and lost."

I wouldn't call him hopeless here. Caruana just missed a resource on a single move.

Anyways, steering Caruana into a closed position, where he can't take advantage of his phenomenal and perfect calculating ability, was a really smart ploy on Carlsen's part.

As for the rest of the game, it just seems like time pressure (no doubt incurred by the shorter, bullshit control) spoiled what should have been a fantastic game, whether that be win or draw for Carlsen.

"http://chessbomb.com/o/2012-gsb/06-M_Carlsen-F_Caruana/ - here, on the other hand, his opening was very impressive. He precisely chose the opening that fit his style, got exactly the endgame he wanted and won the game with a brilliancy. So in this sense I agree with Vulpes."

Well that, and Caruana doing a horrific job (relatively speaking, of course) at defending simple positions. :)

"I also don't share your uncertainty about Carlsen being able to beat Anand in a long match. If we were talking about 2010 Anand, then I would agree, but at this moment I'm confident that whoever wins the Candidates tournament (especially if it ends up being Svidler; for some reason I think he has the highest chances) will win the World Championship match against Anand. It will definitely be close, though."

Many world champions have held on to their title long past the point where they were major threats in top tournaments. This might be true nowadays more than ever. For instance, an old Karpov that was barely even top 10 anymore defeated Anand in a shorter match in 1998 when the Indian maestro was easily the second best player in the world behind Kasparov and ahead of Kramnik.

Again, don't confuse tournament with match play.

"In addition to that, if Carlsen wins the Candidates tournament (which is not likely; I believe that only Gelfand and Ivanchuk have lower odds), he will work with Kasparov (who has access to some of Anand's secrets), and get his opening level up-to-speed."

Why do you think he will work with Kasparov? Is there some news article I missed?

And why do you believe Carlsen's chances are so low?

"Also remember that Carlsen's opening play could partially be weak due to his lack of seconds (or strong seconds), but as of London Chess Classic 2012, Ian Nepomniachtchi has officially become Carlsen's second, so don't underestimate Magnus' ability to widen his opening repertoire. Of course, without preparation, it will be difficult for Carlsen to win against Anand, but Magnus will have all the resources in the world to prepare for the match."

Ah, interesting. I didn't know he had hired the man who threw his shoe at GM Bareev as a second!

"I think the answer to it is not as simple as one might think. Consider the following situation. The game reaches a certain position in move 22, and Aronlsen has a slight advantage. Suppose on move 23 Levnus is out of prep. Suppose, that the position is not the one Carlsen likes (a crazy double edged position which does not have a trivial simplification anywhere)."

I'm not saying that Carlsen would be choosing the same variations or even type of lines that Aronian would, but rather, he would have the same level of study and prep in that area.

"Oh, by the way, I can't wait for you to express your incredulousness at the fact that in one week Hou Yifan will be playing against the elite in Wijk aan Zee!"

Haha, I'm hardly incredulous! On the contrary, I have come to expect such rampant idiocy, especially when it comes to inviting Dutch/female players at Wiijk An Zee.

Speaking of Yifan Hou, it appears that my suspicions earlier last year were correct, and her performance at Cappelle La Grande were just an uncommonly good performance from a 2600 GM, not a sign that she had become better.

In fact, she has been at the same level for a long time.

Hou's rating, January 2013: 2603

Hou's rating, April 2009: 2590

That's almost 4 years...

"Various Chess News"

Thanks for keeping me up to date!

"http://russiachess.org/championship/detail/2013/aeroflot_open_2013/ - read this and get sad."

I'm actually not sad at all. I mean, obviously this isn't a serious tournament, but just some silly rapid games. However, better that GMs have some opportunity for money and exposure as opposed to nothing at all.

"As for Gashimov, he was getting treated in Switzerland at some point, and now he's getting treated in some other country (can't remember which one). My best wishes to him."

Glad to read this. I wish him the very best as well!

"On a different note, about a week ago I watched chess.com's live video with IM Rensch and IM Pruess, where they discussed year 2012 in chess, and not only were some of their opinions horrible (about World Championship Cycle and the World Championship Match), but they also got their facts wrong."

Not surprised by this. I remember watching some blitz games between them, and their banter was annoying and childish as hell.

I actually know IM Pruess on a somewhat personal level from Bay Area chess tournaments, and even corresponded with him about writing some articles for Chess.com, and he is a nice, cordial guy, but again, I'm not surprised.

"- Then they said that the Women's World Championship Cycle is "confusing" (with all these Women Grand Prix and world championship) and that only "4 people in the world know how it works"."

Yeah, even if they were exaggerating for comical effect, this is quite stupid. The Cycle is nonsensical and convoluted, but nevertheless simple to understand and explain. (As you did a fine job of)

The basic rules of chess themselves are a thousand times more complicated!

"To finish my post off on a high note, here is my favorite chess game in 2012: http://chessbomb.com/o/2012-ecc/01-Andrei_Volokitin-Shakhriyar_Mamedyarov/"

Indeed, an outstanding tactical game. I guess you can call it "Volotkin's Immortal", although I'm sure the guy has had many fantastic victories during his career. :)

Speaking of chess games, check out this silly little miniature that I won;

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=430422383

"So much for keeping my message short."

Haha, don't worry about it. My next message, responding to your comment back at the end of September, will also be incredibly long!

Thanks a bunch, man; I hope your holidays were awesome, too. Which state have you relocated to, now? And is it your goal to eventually live in all 50 of them? (Insert smilie face)

By the way, speaking of chess (I still hope to fully answer your last post, late as it is!), check out this random discussion I had about Carlsen's openings (I am "SlayerofBodom", discussing it with "Vulpes"...you can ignore the other posts);

http://shoryuken.com/forum/index.php?threads/the-chess-thread.151399/page-2

Since you have probably seen more of his games this year than I have, what do you think?