Tromso World Cup 2013

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Andreikin (1-0 in 42)

How is it pronounced? One twitter poster suggested "and Ray Keene"

I would guess (probably wrongly): Ahn-dry-kin (with the stress on the second syllable).

[David Sedgwick]

One thought has occurred to me - when I was looking at the results from Dortmund, and working out which rating list they would go into (the September one, I presume), I had thought that the World Cup results would go into the October list because the tournament finishes in September. But I've now realised that it is only the games in the final that will take place in September. Will the other games in the World Cup (which all took place in August) be rated for the September grading list?

I don't think so.

From the information at http://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list ... ountry=NOR I infer that the entire event will go into the October list.

[Andrew Bak]

Andreikin (1-0 in 42)

How is it pronounced? One twitter poster suggested "and Ray Keene"

That's pretty accurate I would say, but the "ee" in Keene should be shorter, so it should be said like "kin" but with a "ee" sound instead of the "i" sound.

I speak a little Polish (it's broadly similar to Russian even though they use the Western alphabet and not Cyrillic)

[John McKenna]

Chessbase News now has a report that gives a comprehensive explanation of the FIDE Candidates qualification routes - Grand Prix, World Cup, etc. See -

http://www.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211 ... 90813.aspx

In the report Topalov's position (as GP leader) is called "intangible". Interesting use of the word, which by association could morph to untouchable and finally uncatchable.

[Dan O'Dowd]

Andreikin (1-0 in 42)

How is it pronounced? One twitter poster suggested "and Ray Keene"

That's pretty accurate I would say, but the "ee" in Keene should be shorter, so it should be said like "kin" but with a "ee" sound instead of the "i" sound.

I speak a little Polish (it's broadly similar to Russian even though they use the Western alphabet and not Cyrillic)

As a Russian speaker I would probably pronounce it Andr'yeiikin, since e is palatalised so it's more like "yay" but higher in the mouth and you try to get back to [i:] (ee) in one syllable, the r is slightly trilled and stress indeed on the second syllable, but I think the kin bit is probably just with the [ɪ] sound as opposed to ee.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Of course, the unpronouncable one now has a 2-0 score against Kramnik in classical chess. Will be fascinating to see how Vlad goes about trying to change that!

[Mick Norris]

So far the only firm bid for the Candidates Tournament 2014 is from Khanty-Mansiysk in Russia. There has been speculation that they might nominate Svidler, although it's not clear to me why he would be preferred to Grischuk.

I think a 4th Russian in an 8 person event would be problematic for the pairings

Bulgaria (Sofia presumably?) bidding as well I think

[Mick Norris]

Good win today from Kramnik and great analysis from him in the press conference

[Mick Norris]

Looks like Andreikin missed a chance today in game 2

http://www.viewchess.com/cbreader/2013/ ... 32875.html

Did anyone watch live and hear Kasparov's comments? I was at Gigg Lane

[Chris Rice]

He was on for about an hour and there was some fascinating stuff. From what I can remember he talked about:

- the plusses and minuses of age in chess;

- that the Elo system should be unified ie rapid, blitz and classical grades should be blended into one rating, though the rapid and blitz graded games should be weighted so they don't count as much as classical games. It seemed Nigel Short completely disagreed with him on that point;

- previous world champions & matches. He reckoned we would never know why the Karpov match was stopped as Campo has never said a word about it;

- there is no one single greatest player, you can't compare past champions (how do you compare Petrosian against anyone else?), you can perhaps compare players that competed against each other but even then that is difficult, Lasker played Steinitz when Steinitz was 58 for example;

- from what I gathered he thought Andreikin had done well to get this far but it was mainly due to his rapid/blitz prowess and I got the distinct impression that Kasparov didn't think he was in Kramnik's class;

- doubts Anish Giri is a serious contender for the World Championship at the moment as he is not emotionally mature enough, too rash and inconsistent;

- he thought Kramnik was unlucky not to qualify in London but has used the experience to strengthen his play;

- Dirk Jan asked him who he thought the best woman player was. He said for a brief time recently Hou Yifan looked like she might be another Judit Polgar but that never came to be, otherwise he didn't want to be drawn on that question saying he's had a hard enough time as it is keeping up with male chess.

- Carlsen has breathed new life back into chess much like Fischer;

- Anand-Carlsen match, its Carlsen's to lose, unknown how much of a factor Anand's home advantage will be, Carlsen has shown that he is affected by pressure as witnessed in the London Candidates and Anand has massive experience. Anand will like being the underdog.

http://en.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211/ ... 10913.aspx

[Mick Norris]

Thanks for that Chris

Draw today

[Jonathan Rogers]

Not an especially unusual day at Chessbomb but somehow it particularly irritated me today.

And so it should, and would. But why, for heaven's sake, are you following it on Chessbomb when you have everything Chessbomb can offer and much more HERE. And with no sexist, racist or anti-semitic comments either (enter a reservation on 'sexism' since Nigel starts tomorrow)

A good prediction ... apparently Nigel made some comment "on air" about one of Kramnik's ex-girlfriends: Susan Polgar took offence "as a woman" on Twitter, and Nigel has retaliated on Facebook, mentioning that SP has in the past tried unsuccessfully to get him dropped from writing in New in Chess.

I relate all this mainly in an attempt to liven up the thread

[Mick Norris]

OK, we'll have a go, though not in the same league as it were

Nigel's comments about arbiters were interesting too - thinks officially only 25% of them are any good and privately that it is much less than that, although he exempted the WC arbiters from criticism

[Chris Rice]

Yes forgot about that. He said most arbiters weren't up to the job and spent most of the time sleeping during play.

[John McKenna]

Don't wish to divert from the sledging of arbiters (rapidly approaching the popularity of traffic wardens, with whom they have things in common) but what that would really enliven this thread is a win by Adreikin today. Go on Dimitri!
(Did anyone catch Nigel playing word games with Dirk, yesterday, by asking him - What's the diff between a comma and a cat?)