The Daily Update: Unive Finishes, Morozevich Beats Shirov in Blitz
Saturday, October 22, 2011 at 2:04PM 1. Unive: So now it's official. Vladimir Kramnik finished the tournament off with a quick and easy draw with Judit Polgar, winning with a fine 4.5-1.5 score that put him 1.5 points clear of the field. Anish Giri pushed Maxime Vachier-Lagrave for a long time in the other game before acquiescing in the day's second draw. Still, it was good enough to keep Giri in clear second place with a 50% score, half a point ahead of Vachier-Lagrave and a point ahead of Polgar. In rating news, Kramnik lost a point for the draw, but if he doesn't play again before the next official list comes out his 2799.6 will be rounded up to 2800.
Turning now to the open event. American Aleksandr Lenderman and Ukranian Ilya Nyzhnyk took turns leading all tournament long, and entered the last round tied for first with 6.5/8. Which player won the tournament? Neither. Lenderman was ground down by Sergei Tiviakov; Nyzhnyk was upended by Sipke Ernst; and a third winner was Robin Van Kampen, on the strength of his victory over Stewart Haslinger.
2. According to a TWIC [or?] tweet by Mark Crowther, Alexander Morozevich defeated Alexei Shirov 7-5 in a blitz match on Friday. (No games yet, but I hope they're forthcoming!)
Kramnik, Morozevich
Reader Comments (9)
With Kramnik finishing up this tournament, now the average rating for Tal Memorial is known - 2776.5! Certainly it's gonna be the strongest 10-player tournament in history, maybe it's a record for a smaller number of players too, I'm not sure if there were 6 or 8 player tournaments with higher rating.
I should add, before the crack editorial staff led by Thomas draws the explicit connection that's only implicit in Andrey's comment, that Kramnik is playing again before the next list comes out - in the Tal Memorial and (IIRC) in London. So there's lots of opportunity for his rating to move around before January rolls around.
Dennis, I thought that the next list comes out on November 1st, not in January?
[DM: What a week for me. I should just assume that everything I write is wrong - even the corrections!]
"Kramnik is playing again before the next list comes out"
Isn't there some confusion here? The next list comes out in November, not January... Btw, the upcoming Tal Memorial may be the strongest ever in terms of average rating, as far as tournaments with at least 10 players are concerned, but if one measures by ranking rather than rating (which might be a better way to compare tournaments across different periods), the Tal Memorial of 2009 was even a bit stronger. According to the rating list of November 2009, it included:
#2 (Carlsen), #3 (Anand), #4 (Aronian), #5 (Kramnik), #7 (Gelfand), #8 (Svidler), #9 (Leko), #10 (Morozevich), #12 (Ivanchuk), #13 (Ponomariov) – average: 7.3
Whereas according to the live rating, which shouldn't change much until November 1st, this year's tournament includes:
#1 (Carlsen), #2 (Anand), #3 (Aronian), #4 (Kramnik), #6 (Ivanchuk), #8 (Karjakin), #10 (Nakamura), #11 (Svidler), #14 (Gelfand), #19 (Nepomniachtchi) – average: 7.8
Clearly, one of the reasons it's so strong is that since it takes place in Russia, the organizers can invite several "locals" without lowering the level... At any rate, the Tal Memorial has certainly established itself as one of the strongest and most important tournaments in the circuit, and it's becoming more and more of a joke that its winner doesn't get an automatic invitation to the Grand Slam.
Dennis may have been thinking about the rating list that matters most - indeed the January 2012 list because it decides (together with the 'historic' July 2011 list) the rating spots for the next candidates event. [DM: No, I just made a mistake. For some reason I was thinking the lists were quarterly rather than bimonthly.] Karjakin will need to narrow down the gap with Kramnik from 37 points (2763 vs. 2800) to 7 points (it was 2788 vs. 2781 in the July list).
Did this give Kramnik extra motivation? If we compare his second halves of 2009 (qualification period for Kazan) and 2010:
- 2009 he scored +3 in Dortmund, +3 at Tal Memorial and +2 in London.
- 2010 he scored 50% at Dortmund and Tal Memorial, and +1 in London (plus a solid but not impressive Olympiad result and winning Bilbao).
@Eyal, apropos Tal Memorial, if only we could have left out the lowest ranked player for both the years for our computation, i.e., #13 (Ponomariov) for 2009 and #19 (Nepomniachtchi) for 2011, this year’s tournament would have been marginally stronger. If only Svidler or Grischuk would have replaced Nepomniachtchi!!
Which 14-player single round robin tournaments have been all-time strongest
(A) In terms of average rating , and
(B) In terms of average ranking?
Like-wise, what about tournaments with 13 players, 12 players, 10 players, 9 players and so on ... (all single round robin tournaments)?
Similarly, what about double round robin tournaments with 8 players, 7 players, 6 players, 5 players, 4 players and 3 players (if any)?
We can leave the quadruple round robin tournaments for later!
Can Thomas, Eyal or anyone else help??
@hansie: In order to answer such questions, one first has to determine how to measure a tournament’s “strength” – which isn’t a trivial matter at all. As I’ve mentioned, two basic options are by rating or ranking, and actually each has its own possible variations as well. Besides, in both cases there’s a fundamental problem regarding tournaments that took place before the 1970s, a period for which there are no FIDE rating lists (let alone the constantly updated “live” ratings of today) – only “chessmetrics” ratings, which, methodologically, are highly problematic. If you’re interested in these issues, a good place to start is Jeff Sonas’ article “What was the strongest tournament of all time?” at http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5956.
@Eyal, I agree, and, I've certainly read that particular CB article. But I'm looking for an updated and elaborate reply. I've even visited Sonas' site but the problem is that Sonas is not updating his site. In any case, I was more interested in the post-1970 FIDE ratings era. But, thanks, anyway!!