Chess - the world in black and white

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Well, not giving away too much. Just remember it has to be one of the Bishop's corners and the W-pattern

[Plessiez]

Giri just beat Caruana with Black, which I think ends Caruana's hopes of qualifying for a rematch with Carlsen for at least a couple of years.  MVL won as well, and I think Nepo's game is (probably?) heading for a draw.  Could be a pretty close finish to the tournament.

[Rorshach]

Nepo actually pulled off a win. As it stands, it seems only Giri has a smallish chance of beating him to the overall victory, but he has to score a point better over the remaining two (?) games. That's a tall order.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Boy... Caruana really played horribly bad today. Tbh, I thought that Caruana might win today, because he basically had another rest day, while Giri had to play yesterday. But that was really one of the worst games Caruana has played in a while.

As for the Nepo game, that really didn't strike me as a game he really intended to win.

He picked the Petroff, which is not really the I am going all out for a win opening for black, and that's coming from a Petroff player. Fortunately for him, Wang Hao is just drifting through the tournament atm. He really doesn't look like he has a purpose there.

The side line he picked with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d3 is basically saying: nope, I am not even trying. Can we just shake hands and get this over with? It's really one of the dullest responses white has. The only thing less inspiring is really 5.Qe2 and so he drifted aimlessly until he found himself in a worse position.

 

[Plessiez]

19 hours ago, Rorshach said:

Nepo actually pulled off a win. As it stands, it seems only Giri has a smallish chance of beating him to the overall victory, but he has to score a point better over the remaining two (?) games. That's a tall order.

Yeah, probably that result is enough to decide things.  I suspect both Nepo and Giri will win their games in the last round (Ding has White against Nepo, but his form still seems pretty bad, and he and Alekseenko are currently in a battle to avoid last place).  Which means Giri probably needs to beat Grischuk tomorrow and hope MVL does him a huge favour by beating Nepo as Black.  Not impossible, but not anything like as close as it would have been if Wang had managed to draw yesterday.

I'm still slightly surprised that game ended as quickly as it did: when I posted originally Wang had just played 52. Ng3 and things looked pretty close to equal.  (At least, it was the sort of position I'd not really expect to win as Black, though I'm sure I'd manage to lose it as White).

18 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

He picked the Petroff, which is not really the I am going all out for a win opening for black, and that's coming from a Petroff player. Fortunately for him, Wang Hao is just drifting through the tournament atm. He really doesn't look like he has a purpose there.

The side line he picked with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d3 is basically saying: nope, I am not even trying. Can we just shake hands and get this over with? It's really one of the dullest responses white has.

I guess it's been clear since the tournament resumed (and he played that boring 10. Ba3 drawing line against Ding as White) that Wang Hao's written this one off.  Seems a bit premature to me: I think he was level on points with Giri coming into this half of the tournament, so he definitely still had some chances, even if he wasn't a favourite. But his opening choices and some of his comments at the press conferences (particularly about having spent the last year studying things other than chess) really don't suggest anything else.

And yes, I think you're definitely right about Nepo's opening choice suggesting he would have been happy with a draw.  Looking at some online databases I see that he played the Petroff against Grischuk in one of their rapid games in the 2019 FIDE Grand Prix, but it's not an opening that seems to be part of his usual repetoire. 

(I'd add something dismissive about the drawish nature of the Petroff, but as somebody who's played Alekhine's Defence in more than one rated game I'm not really in any position to cast aspersions about anybody else's choice of opening.) 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Well, I blame the folks playing anti-sicilians (namely the Alapin), that's caused me to shift.

Anyway back to yesterday's game and Wang Hao resigning.

White is worse in the final position. It's one of those playing for two results positions. Either white holds, or he doesn't. I can see how Wang Hao didn't want to spend the next three hours or so getting tortured by Nepo. It's simply a joyless task trying to defend a worse position without any real hope of winning, and he is out of the competition anyway. Having that said: the position is not lost by force, and Wang Hao's resignation was premature. And given the tournament situation, where half a point can be the difference between Giri and Nepo winning the candidates (and challenging Carlsen), I find it pretty unsporting from Wang Hao to resign at that moment. I am sure somebody in Giri's camp could come up with some stronger words for him.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just took a quick look at the candidates.

In the relevant games (Grischuk-Giri; Nepo-MVL) we have two QID set-ups.

Giri's is kinda healthy. Also interesting, that he picked the classical line with going directly for Bb7 without the insertion of Ba6. That line's rep has suffered a bit, and is now considered to be somewhat worse for black. Position should be roughly even (minimal edge for white maybe +/= or something like that)

MVL's Queen's Indian on the other hand, that just looks sad. Black's entombed Bishop on b7 usually means something didn't go according to plan. That position looks more like += or even +/- to me.

[Plessiez]

Well, so much for an exciting finish: I'm pretty sure today's results mean Nepo's won the Candidates with a round to spare.

(Question I've not seen an answer to: will the next World Championship cycle be delayed for a year, as seems sensible, or are FIDE still proposing to hold the next Candidates tournament in 2022?)

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Yes, Nepo won it. Head to head score is the tie breaker, and he has beaten Giri there. Everybody else is trailing by more than a full point before the final round.

I haven't seen anything either. But given that the match was supposed to happen last year, I assume that the entire cycle will be pushed back a year. So the next candidates would be in 2023.

They still have to organize the Grand Prix series, the World Cup, and that other lottery tournament, which brought us Wang Hao. So 2023 would look like the earliest date for the next candidates.

[Rorshach]

Bit disappointed that we get a meaningless last day. Nepo well worth his win, thought. Will be exciting to see how he does against Carlsen.

I think also that I agree with Horse in that it makes most sense to push the next cycle back a year. Will it happen? No idea - rational thought seems hard to come by in the organizations leading sports all around, so I don't neccesarily expect it here either.

[Plessiez]

Fairly meaningless, all things considered, but I was kind of amused to see how wrong my predictions about the last couple of rounds ended up being: both Giri and Nepo lost their last games, though as noted this didn't mean anything for the overall result (it cost Giri some prize money, I suppose).

Also, Wang Hao announced after the final round that he was retiring from competitive chess.  Which -- if he means it, and it's not just a spur of the moment decision he'll change his mind about later -- kind of throws new light on his earlier comments about not spending the past year looking at chess.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Yeah, that explains his lacklustre drifting through the second half of the tournament. I think Ding will be kicking himself a bit. Had he known how unmotivated Wang Hao would be, he would have played different in their encounter.

Well, at least Wang Hao wasn't doing an Ivanchuk in the tournament. Basically playing gash, just to play brilliantly in the one game against one of the tournament leaders.

[Plessiez]

Briefly resurrecting this thread to note that Jan-Krzysztof Duda just won the Chess World Cup, beating Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin in the last two rounds.

Looking towards the 2022 Candidates Tournament (which, apparently, is still scheduled for next year, though logistically I don't quite understand how that is going to work: presumably the Grand Prix will be played at some sort of hyper-accelerated rate?), that means that four places are already filled:

• Karjakin and Duda, as the top two finishers of the World Cup;
• Teimour Radjabov (who basically takes the place of the wildcard this year, as I understand it);
• and the loser of the Carlsen-Nepomniachtchi match to be played this year.

It's no longer possible to qualify for the Candidates by rating alone, so I have no idea who will take the other four places.  According to Chessbase, there are two places up for grabs in this year's coming Grand Swiss Tournament and two more in the Grand Prix event. 

Not personally thrilled by the Grand Swiss side of things, which feels like a bit of a regressive step (and I don't think Wang Hao's presence in the Candidates made a great case for this method as a way of selecting candidates either).  But at least we're not back in the dark days of FIDE pretending the world championship could be decided by a single knockout tournament.

[TheLastWolf]

Title

Except it is not, all grey shades

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Yep, this year it's basically four lottery spots (2x World Cup and 2x the Grand Swiss Tournament).

Radja getting the Wildcard is only fair I think, after how he missed out on the last candidates.

As for the other two known qualifiers. I am not thrilled having Karjakin there. I had hoped for Artemiev to eliminate him. But once Karjakin triumphed there, him advancing to the final felt kinda inevitable. Altho Shankland put up a better fight than I had dared to hope. Duda I found kinda surprising. But if you k.o. Carlsen, you clearly earnt your spot at the candidates.

This year's World Cup felt even more random with the notable absentees e.g. the only Chinese player in the open section was Yu Yangyi (no Ding Liren and no Wei Yi), no Le Quang Liem, no Anand. Aronian forfeiting for health reasons, Caruana's opponent getting pulled out with COVID during Fabi's first game. And him then exiting in the very next round.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

On 8/5/2021 at 5:15 PM, Plessiez said:

Looking towards the 2022 Candidates Tournament (which, apparently, is still scheduled for next year, though logistically I don't quite understand how that is going to work: presumably the Grand Prix will be played at some sort of hyper-accelerated rate?), that means that four places are already filled:

Going back to this.

Next two spots get allocated through the Swiss Tournament lottery. Which also decides on quite a few participants (six) for the Grand Prix. That Swiss Tournament will supposedly take place from the end of October to early November.

Carlsen and Nepo will play their match in Dubai *sigh* from the 24th of November until the 16th of December.

The Three GP tournaments (so we have a reduced number of tournaments) are then supposed to take place between February and April '22. The GP series is gonna be hosted in one city instead of moving the series to various cities (corona travel restrictions, and the tight schedule).

So if things go according to plan, we will have the complete line up for the candidates in April.

As of now, there's not set date for the candidates. September/October 2022 would be my guess. With the subsequent title match taking place at some point in the first half of 2023.

Again this is guessing, and assuming that FIDE's schedule holds up. Corona could very well throw a spanner in the planning, esp. wrt to the Grand Prix series.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

RIP Evgeni Ellinovich Sveshnikov

I never played the Sveshnikov variation of the sicilian myself (I was more of a Dragon and later on Najdorf player). But it's still one of the most popular and important lines in the open sicilian.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I am doing something rare. I will share a bit from my game today. The game was an English (Dutch), went back and forth, eventually I managed to get a handle on my somewhat better opponent (Candidates Master, is usually a bit stronger than me, but that's a mere 100 points).

Then I overlooked something.

FEN: 4r1k1/7p/2p1r1p1/1p2P3/p1p1QPqP/P5P1/1P1R2K1/3R4

Classical notation

W: Kg2, Qe4, Rd1, d2, Pawns a3, b2, e5,f4,g3,h4

B: Kg8, Qg4, Re6, e8, Pawns a4, b5, c4,c6, g6, h7

 

I had just mindlessly played Red1? in order to trade off pieces so that the protected passed becomes more of a pain for black. Alas, here I missed something important.

1...Rxe5! that muddies the waters significantly, now I am forced to either play this with a pawn down or go for a total mess of an endgame with around 4 minutes + 30 secs increment, instead of the intended grind and torture approach I wanted to play. 2.Qxe5 Rxe5 3.fxe5 Qe4+ 4.Kf2 Qxe5. Yes, I very much wanted my position from six moves ago back. 5.Re1 Qf6+ (Qf5+ was somewhat better imho) 6.Kg2 Kg7 (black very much doesn't want his king trapped on the back rank) 7.Rd7+ Kh6 8. Ree7 Kh5 (intending Kg4). Right around here, we made move 40 (time control) and got those sweet extra 30 mins. Decission time. What's your next move? Can White play 9.Rxh7+ Kg4? Or should I try something else like 9.Kh3 or 9.Re4 to cut off the black king from the g4 square I'll leave the answer in the spoiler

Spoiler

I indeed went with 9.Rxh7 Kg4 10.Rdf7!! Qxb2+ 11.Rf2! (that's the point. Now both the queen and the rook are pinned. If the Queen leaves the second rank Rf4# ends things and the rook is also pinned). 11...c3! I must admit, I totally missed this move. But like I said, there was now plenty of time to work things. See if you can spot the winning move.

Spoiler

12.Re7!! kills the point is that white now actually threatens to take on b2 and then play Re4+ and Rb4 to stop that pesky little bugger, Re5 with Rg5#. if black plays c2 the pin gets broken and R2f4+ Rh7# ends things. I saw that motif. The game took a slightly differnt turn. 12.Rf7?? that is a serious error, and I realized it a few moments after I played it. The idea is again capture on b2 give a check on the fourth and play Rb4 instead of. Here however black could've saved the game with 12...g5!! and a perpetual would've been the best I could've hoped for. That annoying pawn just cuts out all the checks on f4, and that one tempo is all black needs to survive.

The game fortunately ended in another way. 12...Qxf2+?? 13.Rxf2 c5 14.Rf3 c2 15.Rc3 1-0

Note the line I calculated there looked somewhat different with 14.Rf3 b4 this line also wins for white. You can work it out yourself, I'll leave my line in the next spoiler

Spoiler

15.axb4 cxb4 16.Rf4+ Kh5 17.Rxb4 was my calculation there. Here black has one final trick with 17...a3! and white has to find 18.Rb1 in order to stop both pawns. 18.Rc4?? runs into a2 and 18.Ra4?? into c2. 17...c2 gets stopped with 18.Rc4 obviously.

Lesson of the day, one square can make all the difference.

If you enjoyed this, a small feedback would be appreciated.

[Rorshach]

I enjoyed it, even if it's far above my pay grade

Had I looked at it some other time than when I saw it (22.18 pm, and I'm tired) I may have spotted some moves. As it is, I saw that Rxh7 would be better, otherwise I couldn't see much.

[IheartIheartTesla]

Just got interested in chess again after a long hiatus. I was looking at AHNS game and got hung up on Red1 since it appears both your rooks are on the d file. Is it Rde1? Also struggled a bit to recreate the position until I got an online board editor on my phone.

I did enjoy the analysis, although was the Kf7 where everything went south for black (going from memory)? The online engine seemed to think that black was better after Rxe5, so to me the lesson is about how accurate you have to be in dynamic positions.