London Chess Classic Super Rapidplay

[Barry Sandercock]

Hawkins-Kramnik game getting very interesting.

[Roger de Coverly]

Also, not knowing any Caro-Kann theory whatsoever, was Johnny Hector's Nxe6 theory or (to put it kindly) an extremely dubious punt?

The normal move is Nh3. Nxe6 is just a punt although chessbomb's Stockfish also suggests Nxf7 and doesn't think either sacrifice much worse than the retreat. 7. Qe2 is the main line after which 7. .. h6 just loses.

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. Bc4 Ngf6 6. Ng5 e6 7. N1f3 h6 8. Nxe6

[Jonathan Rogers]

Hawkins-Kramnik game getting very interesting.

It was, though I think it is going downhill now. I don't understand why Hawkins didn't play 25 Rd8 - I don't know what the assessment would then be but surely it was natural and better?

[Jonathan Rogers]

JP looking good v Van Wely, even though VW did see the threat at move 23!

[Jonathan Rogers]

loss on time, I assume. Oh well ...

[Jonathan Rogers]

10/10 decisive games at the top then!

[Jonathan Rogers]

Giri's third game today with 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 h3 Bb4 5 Bd3 !

[Christopher Kreuzer]

So presumably Anand plays Nakamura for first place. Sadler may finish as top ENG player.

[Martin Benjamin]

After 15 Bd3 (just played) in Williams- Van Wely (Round 10), does Black have a defence? I can't see one. 15...g6 16 Qh4 Kg7 just walks into what must be a deadly pin

[Sean Hewitt]

Nakamura has beaten Anand to win the event with a phenomenal 9.5/10.

By my reckoning, he'll have an ECF rapid grade of 302 in the January list!!

[Jonathan Rogers]

Nakamura has beaten Anand to win the event with a phenomenal 9.5/10.

By my reckoning, he'll have an ECF rapid grade of 302 in the January list!!

All very well. But could he do that at Daventry in the 4NCL rapidplay on a dark Saturday night?

[Mike Truran]

Surely Sunday?

But whichever day he plays on, based on what he's just done I wouldn't mind placing a wager. It's slightly scary that he can drop a piece in the opening for zero compensation and still come through.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Can anyone confirm whether Nakamura and Short were the only players (apart from fillers) to go undefeated throughout this event? Also, can anyone clarify how many players played in all rounds (or with only a minimum number of byes), and excluding withdrawals? The current figure on the live site says "419 players. Average rating: 2006". This is different from the figures for yesterday. Are they including fillers, or were you able to play on only one of the two days if you wanted to do that?

[Alan Walton]

Can anyone confirm whether Nakamura and Short were the only players (apart from fillers) to go undefeated throughout this event? Also, can anyone clarify how many players played in all rounds (or with only a minimum number of byes), and excluding withdrawals? The current figure on the live site says "419 players. Average rating: 2006". This is different from the figures for yesterday. Are they including fillers, or were you able to play on only one of the two days if you wanted to do that?

Why do we have to confirm it, can't you look youself

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Can anyone confirm whether Nakamura and Short were the only players (apart from fillers) to go undefeated throughout this event? Also, can anyone clarify how many players played in all rounds (or with only a minimum number of byes), and excluding withdrawals? The current figure on the live site says "419 players. Average rating: 2006". This is different from the figures for yesterday. Are they including fillers, or were you able to play on only one of the two days if you wanted to do that?

Why do we have to confirm it, can't you look youself

I stopped looking after the first 100 players. Maybe there is a quicker way involving searching a spreadsheet or something. I wont lose any sleep over it if someone way down the field scored 10 draws or something (or draws plus a couple of wins), but that's unlikely at this time limit. I thought it might be of interest that Nigel finished the event undefeated.

(EDIT: Realising I only needed to check those who scored 50% or more, which takes you down to the 206th player, yes, it was only Nigel and Hikaru who finished undefeated - that can be carefully filed under useless statistics... )

I'm more interested in the number of players that took part. Quite a big difference between the 419 figure given today and the 363 figure quoted yesterday (both displayed on the live games link). Which is what made me wonder if extra people entered today? Actually, thinking on it, I suppose what the live games link was showing was the number of people playing in that particular round? And the discrepancy is people taking byes, or something.

This page has some interesting stats:

http://chess-results.com/tnr154459.aspx ... =YES&css=1

34 GMs
40 IMs
104 titled players

1847 games, of which 35 were forfeits (17 in the first round, confirming the prediction of a number of no-shows in the first round). So a total of 1812 games played over the board, which is quite a staggering number when you think about it. Also: players from 48 different federations took part - if you exclude the Olympiad, is that some sort of record as well?