Wijk aan Zee, Round 6: An Early Report: Boooooooooooooooooo
Friday, January 22, 2010 at 10:11AM So I logged on to ye olde chess server about two hours into the round, and opened the Anand-Carlsen game. Result? Drawn already. Disappointing, but it's what I expected, and had even mentioned that prediction in my post on round 5. On to the next game, which was Ivanchuk-Nakamura...which was also already drawn, by repetition in just 16 moves. (It's great to see such fighting spirit, isn't it?) At least Mr. Fire on Board, 5-0, would try with the white pieces to knock the (comparatively) lowly-rated Short off, wouldn't he? Try, yes, but without much success. The game was still going but the position was obviously and completely drawn, and the game lasted just three more moves. Karjakin-Smeets was already drawn as well (guess who's not going to repeat as Corus champ?), so for Group A excitement we're having to rely on Kramnik and Leko. (Fortunately, they're delivering! Incidentally, all 14 of the Group B and C games are still going at the 3 hour mark.)
Reader Comments (13)
Poor Van Wely - it was almost comical watching Kramnik stuff him in the ending. I thought the Dominguez win was a neat demo of bishop over knight in an otherwise almost symmetrical position. The Nisipeanu-So game though was knights over bishops and then some. I presume the Caruana sac was just unsound.
I'm interested to see any example games where Kramnik was outplayed strategically - there are some points where he was outplayed tactically, but in terms of strategy, he always seems so strong.
I agree, the round was pretty boring as compared to some previous ones.
A quote from the official Corus website struck me:
Well, excuse me, Mr. Nakamura, but:
1. Who played the Slav?
2. Who repeated the position?
One sure doesn't have to play for a win in every single game, human beings simply need to rest sometimes, but after such a game you don't complain about how your bad opponent spoiled all the fun and forced a draw when you were in such a fighting spirit, do you?
The Kramnik game was brilliant though, yet another show of his endgame mastery.
The three decisive games weren't that bad, though ... and (general recommendation for Corus) if the A group deceives, look at the B and C groups. As Dennis already pointed out, all games were well fought out - only three games out of 14 were drawn, and two draws took more than 70 moves (though the respective rook endgames could have been drawn earlier on).
In particular, check 21.-Kd6! in Nyback-Giri (but on the tournament website, Giri was rather critical of his earlier play).
BTW, a Dutch newspaper report today says that Giri will in any case be invited to the A group next year, whether he qualifies by winning the B group or not.
The lower groups have a higher % of wins and losses because they make more mistakes not because they're fighting more.
Wow, the Super-GMs have the day of excuses today. What did Magnus Carlsen say on his blog? Here's what:
And the funny thing is, no explanation is needed. No fan would hold that against them if they made a quick draw here and there, it's only tournaments in which 3/4 games are GM-draws that upset all of us. The Corus hasn't so far featured almost any.
Quite interesting that in chessvibes Anand is quoted as saying that Carlsen was the one who chose a tame line, and Carlsen quotes the same about Anand ... talk about excuses.
On the other hand, I think Dennis missed a nice win from Dominguez in this sixth round. And the interesting fact about it is that for the first time in his whole professional career, Leinier played 1.d4 !!
Sorry, I meant "Dennis forgot to mention that Dominguez won in this sixth round". (the way I wrote it above seemed to indicate that Dennis was playing and missed a win :) )
Sandorchess: How could I have missed it when I didn't address it?! I was giving a quickie report while the round was still going, addressing all the draws in the first place battle. There wasn't any win at the time the post was written.
Kajetan: While I agree with you that Magnus didn't need to explain, I wouldn't really call it an apology or excuse by Carlsen, though. It's Anand who needs an explanation if anyone does, and his answer is that he wasn't prepared for this the line Carlsen chose. I'm not sure what I think about the repetition at the end of the Nakamura game, though. It's pretty complicated, and there may have been for both players to deviate. I couldn't disagree with you more about the Slav comment, though. It's not an especially drawish opening, and the line of the Slav that arose in the game was especially sharp.
Thomas: Your news about Giri isn't the least bit surprising, but it's good to hear anyway. Thanks for passing it along.
I understand that the Slav isn't particularly drawish; my point is that for a guy who has in his repertoire openings as wonderfully sharp as the Leningrad Dutch (which he, BTW, is actually playing for the second time in this tourament right now and has just launched an early kingside attack) he could've chosen someting more fighting.
In an interview after the game he admitted not being prepared for this particular line and stated that after a5 he pretty much had to force the draw unless he wanted to be, quoting, "significantly worse".
Hmm, looks like Nakamura is being punished for his attack early in the opening... Anyway, win once, lose once and you have the same result as a guy who played two uneventful draws, but with a lot more fun :-)
Kajetan,
The particular line wasn't the Slav or the 6.Ne5....later ...f6 Slav but the sub-sub-sub line that arose. If you look in the databases at typical games in the ...f6 variation, you'll see they're as full of fight as the Leningrad or any opening you like. If he had played a Leningrad and Ivanchuk wanted a draw there, he could have found a way to dry that up too. Btw, it's not like Ivanchuk is some sort of idiot - the guy has been playing 2700 chess for 20 years now, Nakamura for 1.
Dennis: I'm sure you're right. I just like to watch both Nakamura's and Ivanchuk's imaginative play and had been looking forward to their game, which ended almost as soon as it started and left a lot of people a bit disappointed. And then when in his interview Nakamura said how he was disappointed too, I couldn't understand it. If Ivanchuk really tricked him into a draw and there was nothing he could do, well, my bad, I was wrong picking on him like that. And that's probably what it is -- after all, if I was able to fully understand their games, I'd be in Wijk an Zee playing the A-group instead of watching them at home.