5th King's Tournament (Bazna) Starts Saturday
("Officially", it starts on Friday, but play starts on Saturday.) The 5th King's Tournament, which takes place in Medias, Romania, is a double round-robin with the following very strong lineup:
- Magnus Carlsen (2815)
- Vassily Ivanchuk (2780)
- Hikaru Nakamura (2777)
- Sergey Karjakin (2776)
- Teimour Radjabov (2746)
- Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (2656)
Will Carlsen confirm his place at #1? Will the streaky Ivanchuk offer more confirmation of the "genius" label sometimes applied to him? Will Nakamura be able to build on his success in Wijk aan Zee? Will Karjakin's steady progress under the tutelage of Kasparov's former trainer Dokhoian continue in this big venue? Radjabov may have his chances too, based on the work he did and practice he got at the Candidates. Nisipeanu is clearly an outsider, but he has been over 2700 and has the potential advantage of playing on his home turf.
Your predictions?
Reader Comments (14)
I'm gonna guest Nakamura takes first. He has the hunger.
Great to see Carlsen back in action. It's still puzzling that he's doing a Fischer on the world championship cycle - he could have other distractions in a few years time and regret it.
Carlsen, Ivanchuk = 1-2
Karjakin 3
Nakamura 4
Radjabov 5
Nisipeanu 6
Magnus Carlsen.......No one else, despite their mighty 27xx rating, even comes close. Ok, maybe I'm overdoing it a little bit, but seriously, assuming Carlsen sticks to chess I think all the tournament and rating records set by Kasparov and Karpov etc are under threat. Can you tell I'm a fan?
[DM: What Karpov rating records? Anyway, no problem being a Carlsen fan, but please (a) stay on topic in your comments and (b) avoid Carlsenolatry.]
Really interesting lineup. Should be some fun games. I think Carlsen takes it, though.
Carlsen & Naka share top spot (swapping wins), the rest a fairly random fight for second... Ivanchuk's far too streaky for this crowd.
I'm going to go out on a limb and predict Radjabov although I will be rooting for Nakamura.
Nakamura 1 in a close contest with Carlsen
Carlsen 2
Karjakin 3
Ivanchuck 4 (on the other hand he could be first, he is the oldest!)
Radjabov 5
Nisipeanu 6
Dennis, was there some problem with the predictions I made yesterday or did they not make it to you?
[DM: If you just made predictions and they're not there, I guess something went wrong with the software somewhere.]
Quite a strong line up. Has a potential where almost all will be tied up at +1. I predict very narrow margin for winner. I guess +2 is sufficient for win here.
1. Carlsen 2. Nakamura. 3. Karjakin, 4. Radjabov, 5 Ivanchuk, 6. Nisipeanu. Carlsen 1.5-0.5 or 2-0 over Nakamura in the individual games, but Nakamura will generate more wins over the others, plus a loss to Ivanchuk. Carlsen +3 =7, Nakamura +4 =4 -2.
Perhaps a better question is, what score is it going to take to win this? Nisipeanu and Ivanchuk are the big wild cards. I say +3 gets you shared first but only +4 is good for clear first.
[DM: I'm not sure why, when someone is interested in a different question, they sometimes feel the need to call it a "better" one. Someone who wanted to turn it into a one-upsmanship contest could mockingly say things like "Sure, no one remembers or even cares who won the great events of yesteryear like Hastings 1895, New York 1924, Nottingham 1936 and so on, but everyone remembers that the winning score was +N." One could do that, but not your humble blogger.]
I should have been clearer in my previous post. I meant Karpov's Tournament record (ie total number of wins) and Kasparov's rating record would be under threat assuming Carlsen sticks to chess. I was just giving an explanation as to why I thought Carlsen would win, which I thought was the topic.
Regardless, my apologies for causing you any annoyance, certainly wasn't intentional.
All the best.
[DM: Ah. Actually, upon further reflection I thought you might have been referring to Karpov's amazing TPR from Linares 1994, which was a record for many years. Carlsen has in fact already broken that, at the Pearl Spring tournament at the end of 2009, though if you think there has been rating inflation* in the intervening period you might give is a sort of mental asterisk.
(About rating inflation: I'm inclined to think that there has been, but a very smart acquaintance of mine thinks otherwise, at least provisionally. I'm trying to help him either change his mind or give me the data I need to change mine.)
P.S. I wasn't annoyed, but I prefer to avoid rooting extremes in the comments. There are people who think, for example, that Nakamura is either a deity or a devil, but comments to either effect are unwelcome here. Your remarks came nowhere close to that - apologies if my reply suggested otherwise.]
@Nick Funnell: At MTel 2008, Ivanchuk scored 8/10 against Topalov, Aronian, Radjabov, Bu Xiangzhi and Cheparinov - granted, that's three years ago and the field was a little bit weaker than Bazna 2011. He does not have such results in every supertournament (else his rating would be 2900+), he may not do (as) well in Bazna, but it isn't all impossible either.
I won't bet on him - but I could bet some money that Chucky will finish in first, second, fifth or sixth place rather than in midfield with a 50% score.