Chess - the world in black and white

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Caruana will have himself to blame, if he misses out. Ding was dead lost against him, and this 0.5 points can be crucial at the end of the day.

But really interesting tournament situation, there are 5 players left that can win it.

Caruana and Karjakin on 7 points (+2)

Shak, Ding and Grischuk on 6.5 points (+1 obviously).

On the sadder side of things, Aronian on -4 is exactly that.

Please anybody but Karjakin.

 

[Mme Erzulie]

I'm sure it's a dumb question, but what are the numbers in parentheses?

[Rorschach - 2]

22 minutes ago, Mme Erzulie said:

I'm sure it's a dumb question, but what are the numbers in parentheses?

They state how the participant is doing relative to what they would have if they drew every match. 

Right now, drawing every match would have yielded 6 points (12 games with half a point each). +1 means you’ve won one game more than you’ve lost, and thus you’re at 6,5 points. +2 means you’ve won two more games than you’ve lost etc.

Aronian, sadly, on -4, has lost four more than he’s won. That’s cause for grieveing.

[Slick Mongoose]

Nothing against Karjakin, but I really hope it's not him again.

[Altherion]

The decisive games of the 12th round were huge. If Caruana had won, he would be very nearly impossible to catch (8 points with the nearest competitors being the triplet at 6.5 with only 2 games to go). Even if he had at least drawn, he would still have a pretty solid lead -- but he lost and now he's not even in the lead anymore. Likewise, if Mamedyarov had won, he would be all alone in the lead (a draw would have him tied for it), but instead he is in a three way tie for second place and not only that, but among that group he is third on tiebreakers.

All of that said... does anyone think any of this crowd can seriously challenge Carlsen? He played poorly in the last championship, but he still won and I don't think he'll play that badly again.

[Rorschach - 2]

Of the current field, I think Karjakin is the best suited to face Carlsen. You have to be very precise to beat Karjakin, and Carlsen has not been at his most precise these past two years. 

Other than that, Aronian is a player Carlsen sometimes struggles with, as his flamboyant and creative style create problems for .. well, everyone, when Aronian is on song. Sadly, it won’t be him.

Caruana could also do well. He’s great when he’s in form, and if his prep is spot on, he’s a match for absolutely anyone - including Carlsen. 

I remain sceptical about the chances of the rest over a twelve-game match.

[Mme Erzulie]

On 3/24/2018 at 7:57 PM, Rorshach said:

They state how the participant is doing relative to what they would have if they drew every match. 

Right now, drawing every match would have yielded 6 points (12 games with half a point each). +1 means you’ve won one game more than you’ve lost, and thus you’re at 6,5 points. +2 means you’ve won two more games than you’ve lost etc.

Aronian, sadly, on -4, has lost four more than he’s won. That’s cause for grieveing.

Potentially dumb follow-up: so how is someone on 7 points +2 and someone on 6.5 +1? Does this rating not operate with halves/decimals?

[Rorschach - 2]

10 hours ago, Mme Erzulie said:

Potentially dumb follow-up: so how is someone on 7 points +2 and someone on 6.5 +1? Does this rating not operate with halves/decimals?

Not the easiest to get, this system (I think). It differs from most sports. We’ll leave the question about whether chess is a sport to some other venue for the moment...

I would think you’re familiar with the scoring system in chess: no points for a loss, 0,5 points for a draw and 1 point for a win. 

At this point we’re 12 rounds in. «Expected» score, then, if everyone plays perfectly, is 6 points (all draws). Someone on 6,5 points have then won one more game than he has lost, and has a score of +1. +1 then refers to the number of games extra won. However, in the points system, that +1 is only worth 0,5 points, as a win is 0,5 points more than a draw. 

In effect, the system then refers to two different things. The points tell how many points you have gained in the event (duh). The + or -, however, refer to the surplus or deficit of games won/lost.

Still confused. Probably because I’m bad at explaining.

[Mme Erzulie]

No, that was more or less what I had inferred. So sort of like over and under par in golf.

Thanks for the explanation.

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

21 hours ago, Mme Erzulie said:

Potentially dumb follow-up: so how is someone on 7 points +2 and someone on 6.5 +1? Does this rating not operate with halves/decimals?

I feel a wee bit responsible for the confusion, since I lazily combined two ways of writing. Which isn't a problem, since usually this thread is a bit of a special nerd thing, with a very narrow audience.

Yes, you or I can write the standing as follows.

1. Caruana 8 (13) [8 points 13 rounds]

2. Shak and Karjakin 7.5 (13)

3. Ding 7 (13)

I could also right

Caruana +3

Shak and Karjakin +2

Din +1.

Instead I lazily combined the two in the earlier post.

the + or - score simply speaking just the win-loss difference. No real information. The + - score thing, has just become more trendy way of refering to individual performances.

Historically speaking for the candidates +3 is usually the score required to win it.

And it's just Caruana, Karjakin and Shak in the running.

[Mme Erzulie]

No problem, and thanks for the explanation. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Ok, all games are drawn, except for Grischuk-Caruana.

Caruana's position looks close to winning (it's really playing for two results). Which is a bit weird. If Caruana offered a draw, Grischuk would take that in a heartbeat, it's the last round, and a draw is all Caruana needs. So I really don't get why he wants to win that game so desperately. Not to mention, that I think it's kinda etiquette to offer the draw in that sort of situation.

[Rorschach - 2]

1 hour ago, Notone said:

Ok, all games are drawn, except for Grischuk-Caruana.

Caruana's position looks close to winning (it's really playing for two results). Which is a bit weird. If Caruana offered a draw, Grischuk would take that in a heartbeat, it's the last round, and a draw is all Caruana needs. So I really don't get why he wants to win that game so desperately. Not to mention, that I think it's kinda etiquette to offer the draw in that sort of situation.

Maybe he was channeling his inner Carlsen?

Honestly very happy that Fabi pulled it off. I think the WC match in november (?) will be very interesting now, and hopefully produce more attacking chess than the Carlsen-Karjakin battle. 

Other points of interest: will Shak manage to keep his level? Several players have reached the  rating he has now, but none have been stable there for long (except Lev).

Which brings us to point two: what on earth is wrong with Aronian? Sure, he tends not to perform in the Candidates, but this year was just horrible. And he has been in form for quite some time - I never saw this result coming. Wonder how he’ll react.

Also interesting is the analysis of Kramnik. Will he continue seeing ghosts? Peter and Jan had a lot of fun with him anyway.

And finally a special mention to Ding. Should have lost to Caruana, but went undefeated and +1 in his first Candidates. That’s a great result, really.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

17 minutes ago, Rorshach said:

Which brings us to point two: what on earth is wrong with Aronian? Sure, he tends not to perform in the Candidates, but this year was just horrible. And he has been in form for quite some time - I never saw this result coming. Wonder how he’ll react.

He hit a bad tournament. After the back-to-back defeats against Karjakin and Caruana the candidates was over for him. And you could see that he just wanted to get it over with. Svidler's analysis of his second encounter with Caruana speaks to that. Peter basically concluded, that it looks like Levon was too disengaged to prepare properly for that game. Caruana played the same rather unambitous stuff Grischuk played against Lev a few rounds earlier, and you could see Lev didn't spend the time and work to look into it. If he were still in the running, he would've prepared for that. The difference between So and Aronian is then also playing style, while So plays dull and boring, his style is also way more solid than Aronian. Loose style paired with being disengaged is a bad combination.

As for Kramnik, I gave my 2 cents on him earlier. He played uncharacteristically over aggressive. And just over pushed his positions.

As for Ding, I said it when he qualified, don't underestimate him. He isn't some chess tourist that went there by accident. And he delivered, although he was a bit lucky on 1-2 occasions (most notably against Caruana).

[Yukle]

Oliver Roeder of 538 and 14 other people faced off against Magnus Carlsen simultaneously. Carlsen's clock was set at 30 minutes and was never allowed to stop.

Predictably, he completely cleaned up.  The article has a great diagram of the precise moment where it all went wrong for Roeder, the article's author.

You can read the full recap here.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I never fully understood the appeal of entering the kind of positions as black after 4...Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3.

I've played that a few times as white in online blitz (yes, I know). I find those structures very easy to play. White has a relatively solid grip on the center and after a king side castle there is always the Bxh7 sacrifice in the air, if black isn't very careful.

Of course things got worse for Roeder with 6...g6. (playing for the c5 break looks more logical to me)

Anyway, on a higher level the Womens' World Championship match is being played right now. I didn't really pay much attention to it, as I thought Ju Wenjun would win this rather comfortably. She is leading (+1) after 8 games of that 10 game match, but I really thought it would all be done and dusted by now.

[Rorschach - 2]

You’re a better player than me, but I agree - I see absolutely no appeal in that line.

I never enter into the Queen’s gambit anyway, as I dislike the structure. 1. ..Nf6 is my standard response to 1.d4 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Don't get me wrong, with 6...c5 we have a semi-Tarrasch on the board (old main line would go something like that), 7.Nf3  7...cxd4 8.cxd4 Bb4+ 9.Bd2 Bxd2+ 10.Qxd2 0-0 11.Bc4 (or Be2 or Rc1)

That is playable, but not something I'd ever aim for as black.

[Maithanet]

A bit of cross promotion from the Lit forum.  There we have a thread skewering / enjoying the fantastically awful Doomsday Warrior series, books written in the 1980s about a post-apocalyptic America fighting to free itself from Soviet rule.  The threads are great fun, if that's your sort of thing.

Anyways, the "American hero"* challenges a Soviet officer at chess, who claims to be a grandmaster.  The laughably bad game is included in it's entirety:

Rockson         Streltsy

1.  P-K4          P-QB4

2.  N-KB3       N-QB3

3.  P-Q4         PXP

4.  NXP          P-K4

5.  N-B5         KN-K2

6.  N-Q6  Mate! 

Now, I'm a mediocre (at best) chess player, but even I can see how preposterous this sequence is.  Anyways, if anyone is interested, check it out.   

 

*he's actually awful in almost every way.

[Yukle]

14 hours ago, Notone said:

I never fully understood the appeal of entering the kind of positions as black after 4...Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3.

...

Of course things got worse for Roeder with 6...g6. (playing for the c5 break looks more logical to me)

 

I'm not supremely good, but I thought it was really 12 that was the death knell. Roeder was determined to get a check but didn't seem to have thought much further ahead than that.

13 hours ago, Rorshach said:

You’re a better player than me, but I agree - I see absolutely no appeal in that line.

I never enter into the Queen’s gambit anyway, as I dislike the structure. 1. ..Nf6 is my standard response to 1.d4 

I don't mind it, but I'm a bit bored with it. The app on my phone looooooooves using it.

23 was my favourite sequence here: en passant to force check. That's elegant.