The Daily Update: Dortmund, Biel, Computer Matches

In theory, Kramnik had an excellent opportunity in Dortmund to fight for his tenth title there. In practice, nothing of the sort. While he had White against Ponomariov, and a win would put him in a tie for first with Ponomariov and Le Quang Liem, he never got even a whiff of an advantage - Ponomariov drew with ease. Likewise with Quang Liem, who succeeded with Black in neutralizing Naiditsch's chances.

In the third game, we had blood on the board - Leko's, once again. Mamedyarov broke his losing streak with a confident win, outplaying Leko with White in an English with surprising ease. What in the world has happened to Leko, anyway? Other than Adams for a couple of years after getting massacred by Hydra, I can't remember seeing a consistent top-level player disappear so fast from his elite status. (That's not to say that I enjoy watching Leko in super-tournaments - I don't. [Does anyone?] But that doesn't mean I want him to start playing badly.)

Standings After Round 7:

1. Ponomariov 4.5

2-3. Le Quang Liem, Mamedyarov 4

4. Kramnik 3.5

5. Naiditsch 3

6. Leko 2

Round 8 Pairings:

Leko - Kramnik (Can't wait for that one!)

Ponomariov - Naiditsch

Le Quang Liem - Mamedyarov

Tournament site here; games, with my comments, here.

Biel: Four draws today and one win. The draws were generally pretty short (well, they're young guys - it's not as if they have any energy...or maybe they're using it on other things?), and even the one win was pretty short. Andreikin rolled Howell in just 30 moves, and that was good enough to bring him to within half a point of first. So continues to lead with 3/4, half a point ahead of Andreikin, Tomashevsky and Caruana.

Computer matches: Rybka 4 finished off Stockfish 1.8 last night or early this morning, 29-19, and now Rybka's victims are starting a match. (Rybka beat Houdini 1.02 26.5-21.5 prior to the Stockfish match.) Stockfish 1.8 is playing a slightly newer release of Houdini - 1.03a - and so far it's 1-1 in this best of 32 (not 48) game match.

Note: This new match is very loosely based on Magnus Carlsen's repertoire, and while the choices were mostly and ultimately Martin Thoresen's, I did have some input on the selection as well. The aim was to have a diverse set of openings that would give rise to position-types typical of human chess; hopefully we succeeded!

Comments

[Pyada]

Dennis, you were discussing about 2700+ people making short draws. If we compare Dortmund and Biel strong players are fighting it out while emerging players who should try out hard are chickening out. They have such a low percentage of results, its a shame!!

[Nick Funnell]

Dennis, On the subject of quick draws....

I'm not very 'up' on the latest developments in computer chess- what were the Rybka- Stockfish match rules for offering/considering/accepting draw offers?

[Thomas]

It may be too early to write off Leko completely. Kramnik had shown a much more sustained decline from January 2003 until April 2006 (ELO-wise from 2809 to 2729), though he stilll remained an elite (top10) player. Then it became clear that
1) this was at least partly due to serious health problems
2) he managed to recover

Whatever Leko's problem is - possibly more a matter of motivation - maybe he needs to talk to his Russian friend?

BTW Adams seems to come back, he is again at 2722 on the live rating list, probably now ahead of Leko (yesterday's game isn't rated yet). But will he again receive non-London elite invitations?