Candidates Info
The matches start in a few hours - at 7 a.m. ET (= 13:00 CET), so here's a quick recap of the details:
Pairings:
- (1) Veselin Topalov (BUL, 2775)
- (8) Gata Kamsky (USA, 2732)
- (4) Boris Gelfand (ISR, 2733)
- (5) Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (AZE, 2772)
- (3) Levon Aronian (ARM, 2808)
- (6) Alexander Grischuk (RUS, 2747)
- (2) Vladimir Kramnik (RUS, 2785)
- (7) Teimour Radjabov (AZE, 2744)
Time Control: 40/2, 20/1, G/15 + 30". This applies to the non-tiebreak games. For tie-breaks, there will be four rapid games (25' + 10"). If it's still tied, then there will be two blitz games (5' + 3"), and they will have up to five pairs of two-game blitz matches.* If after all that - 18 total games - it's still tied they'll have an Armageddon game (White gets 5 minutes, Black 4 and draw odds, and the players get a 3 second increment starting on move 61).
Match Duration: Four games for the first two rounds of matches, six for the final.
Money: First round losers: 30,000 euros (minimum); second round losers: 60,000 euros (minimum); finalists: 90,000 euros each. (Presumably they don't feel the need to give the winner more, as he'll cash in with the subsequent championship match against Viswanathan Anand.)
Place: Kazan, Russia.
Event Website: Here.
* At least that's how I read rule 3.7.2 of the official rules. ChessVibes seems to think there will only be two blitz games, maximum, before the Armageddon game. I think they're misreading the parenthetical "10 total games" to mean the four classical games, four rapid games and two blitz games; in defense of my understanding is the preceding comment in the rules: "If there is no winner after 5 such matches". Clearly that doesn't refer to the 4, 4 and 2 - you could count those as 1, 3 or 10 matches, but not 5. (But with FIDE, who knows?)
Reader Comments (6)
Your interpretation of the tiebreak rules is even more clearly correct (no room for ambiguity, not even for FIDE) if one includes the previous sentence of rule 3.7.2: "In case of a level score, another 2-game match will be played to determine a winner. If still there is no winner after 5 such matches (total 10 games) ...". 2-game match obviously refers to blitz, which follows up on two 4-game matches (classical and rapid time controls).
These up to 15 fast games will be played on a single day, apparently also starting at 3:00PM local time hence lasting well into the evening. At least then there are two rest days for everyone - unlike the World Cup where a well-rested 'regular' winner faces an exhausted tiebreak winner the very next day.
I have to ask you, Dennis. Do you really give a [darn {sorry!}]? I don't. Great players and all that, for sure It's just too short for my tastes. It seems like pot luck -- one unhappy day at the office (0-1) and you can't come back because the other guy has the requisite technique to shut you out for for at least three games.
A longer match format, all the way through to the finals of the Candidates, must be better?
I think Aronian has a good shot here. He has advanced quietly, very free because of the hype around Carlsen. Nr.3 in the world, great player.
[DM: Sure, I wish the matches were longer, but it's a great event all the same. And if you think of all the times in, e.g. world championship matches where a player down a game with a game or two to go managed to win, I think you might be at least a little less pessimistic about the possibility of matches being decided by a win followed by three cynical draws.]
Are there any good free live (preferably audio/radio style) commentries on the candidates matches...
(I know of the chessdom one which has a couple of GMs, but i dont think thats audio)
would be cool if they had video links as well like the Russian tournament...
would be nice to get chess into the 21C
[DM: ICC does (Yermolinsky & Seirawan), and maybe Playchess does as well.]
It's not audio (only the excellent summary in the evening, but that one is in russian only), and it's not live but a bit delayed. Nevertheless it's still very good:
Shipov in english translation
There is video coverage at http://video.russiachess.org/view/265 (that's today, tomorrow may be 266 etc.) which also has live audio in Russian. And "mishanp" again translates Shipov's live commentary into English in almost real time at http://www.chessintranslation.com/live-game/ - one game, today it's Aronian-Grischuk.
Must be great to be a top GM, gets paid to lose.
[DM: Right - it's not as if it took all of them a tremendous effort to get to not only get to this level in the first place but also to qualify. Not to mention that they have the expense of getting there and are paying their seconds for work there and beforehand, plus their seconds' (plural!) expenses as well. And besides, it's not as if they won't get to play in another Candidates in 2-3 more years, as there aren't dozens of other 2700s all climbing over each other to fight for those spots the next time around.
Karpov, Kasparov, Anand and Kramnik have gotten pretty wealthy as top players, and Carlsen is on his way. But that's it - the rest aren't going to buy New York penthouses any time soon.]