Zurich Chess Challenge 13-19 February 2015

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Chris Rice
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Zurich Chess Challenge 13-19 February 2015

Post by Chris Rice » Wed Jan 28, 2015 4:57 am

Another super tournament has been announced which will follow the Grenke Classic. Its only five rounds which is pretty short for one of these. Been a while since we've seen Kramnik and Karjackin so will be interesting to see how they go:

Fabiano Caruana (2820)
Levon Aronian (2797)
Viswanathan Anand (2797)
Vladimir Kramnik (2783)
Hikaru Nakamura (2776)
Sergey Karjakin (2760)

http://www.zurich-cc.com/home.html

Chris Rice
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Re: Zurich Chess Challenge 13-19 February 2015

Post by Chris Rice » Sun Feb 01, 2015 5:33 am

As part of this tournament its been announced that 84 year old Viktor Korchnoi will be playing 80 year old Wolfgang Uhlmann in a rapid match. Fantastic, never thought we'd see Korchnoi play again tbh and shows that age is no barrier in chess. http://en.chessbase.com/post/who-s-who- ... lenge-2015

Chris Rice
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Re: Zurich Chess Challenge 13-19 February 2015

Post by Chris Rice » Sun Feb 08, 2015 5:45 am

Neither Korchnoi or Uhlmann are in the top five oldest GMs though:

The oldest living GMs in the world -
1.Averbakh (1922);
2.Taimanov (1926);
3.Benko (1928);
4.Bisguier (1929);
5-6.Matanovic, Krogius (1930)

Chris Rice
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Re: Zurich Chess Challenge 13-19 February 2015

Post by Chris Rice » Fri Feb 13, 2015 8:12 am

Schedule

Fri, February 13: 6pm (GMT) Opening Ceremony & Blitz (for official guests only, but live transmission via the Internet) to decide colours etc

Sat, February 14: 2pm Round 1

Sun, February 15: 10am Rapid Games Kortchnoi - Uhlmann, round 1+2 followed by main tournament 2pm Round 2

Mon, February 16: 10am Rapid Games Kortchnoi - Uhlmann, round 3+4 followed by main tournament 2pm Round 3

Tue, February 17: 2pm Round 4

Wed, February 18: 2pm Round 5

Thu, February 19: 12pm Rapid Tournament followed by 6pm Closing Ceremony

Preview http://en.chessbase.com/post/zurich-che ... ge-preview

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David Shepherd
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Re: Zurich Chess Challenge 13-19 February 2015

Post by David Shepherd » Fri Feb 13, 2015 3:46 pm

Chris Rice wrote:As part of this tournament its been announced that 84 year old Viktor Korchnoi will be playing 80 year old Wolfgang Uhlmann in a rapid match. Fantastic, never thought we'd see Korchnoi play again tbh and shows that age is no barrier in chess. http://en.chessbase.com/post/who-s-who- ... lenge-2015
They played each other last year also http://chess-news.ru/en/node/15069

Chris Rice
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Re: Zurich Chess Challenge 13-19 February 2015

Post by Chris Rice » Sat Feb 14, 2015 5:28 am

A really great report on ChessBase on the blitz tournament at the opening ceremony to decide the colours in the 5-round classical tournament. It was won by Aronian with 4/5. Equal second were Anand who played some great stuff early on including beating Nakamura with some superb technique in a rook and pawn ending. Perhaps he's done some work on this?

Interesting incident in round 4 of the Caruana-Aronian game. A rook up in the final position, Aronian grabbed a piece and flung it across the room by accident. Seeing as this disturbed the peace of the game, a draw was agreed - which guaranteed that both Aronian and Caruana would start with more whites in the classical; it became mathematically impossible for Kramnik, Nakamura or Karjakin to catch Caruana or Aronian, much less Anand.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/zurich-bli ... an-crushes

Clive Blackburn

Re: Zurich Chess Challenge 13-19 February 2015

Post by Clive Blackburn » Sat Feb 14, 2015 9:48 am

Last night, Nakamura was playing 3-0 on chess.com - do these players never feel the need for a rest? :shock:

Chris Rice
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Re: Zurich Chess Challenge 13-19 February 2015

Post by Chris Rice » Sat Feb 14, 2015 2:49 pm

Round 1 has started

Anand - Kramnik
Aronian - Karjakin
Caruana - Nakamura

http://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2015-zur ... k_Vladimir

Chris Rice
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Re: Zurich Chess Challenge 13-19 February 2015

Post by Chris Rice » Sun Feb 15, 2015 2:30 am

Clive Blackburn wrote:Last night, Nakamura was playing 3-0 on chess.com - do these players never feel the need for a rest? :shock:
Emil Sutovsky the ACP President seems quite concerned as well Clive. On Facebook he sent an open communication:

" There is something wrong about today's chess. I mean a lot of things are great, but there is something wrong as well. Maybe it has something to do with the rating system. Maybe the players are also to be blamed, as the temptation to play and to get some hefty fees and prizes is too strong - I don't know. But I want to see Caruana playing like he did in Saint Louis and Dortmund, and not to see him playing almost every week, dropping points left and right, not being even close to his best. I want to see Aronian with the appetite for play, and not Aronian who lost his passion for chess, and there are more examples...Not sure it can be cured, and I am definitely for having more high-level events, but still sometimes it all feels pretty wrong. Once again, it depends a lot on the organizers - and in this regard Wijk's approach, where you have some fresh faces every year seems to be the most balanced. And yes, even greatest players become just a high-skilled craftsmen if playing without an inspiration. And yes, I want to see Caruana and Aronian playing their best chess. Yes, they can!"

This follows the round 1 results where Caruana collapsed in a good position and Aronian and Karjakin apparently playing rapid chess the moment their game finished:

Anand ½-½ Kramnik
Aronian ½-½ Karjakin
Caruana 0-1 Nakamura

http://en.chessbase.com/post/zurich-rd1 ... amura-wins
http://www.chess.com/news/nakamura-take ... urich-9546

Round 2 - pairings:

Kramnik - Nakamura
Karjakin - Caruana
Anand - Aronian

Clive Blackburn

Re: Zurich Chess Challenge 13-19 February 2015

Post by Clive Blackburn » Sun Feb 15, 2015 11:08 am

Yes Chris I agree, in the past there were not so many international tournaments and the prize money was not so tempting, so players used to spend months preparing for a big tournament.

Maybe they rely too much on computer analysis these days as well, rather than finding original ideas for themselves. If you prepare without using a computer then you are probably more likely to find novel ideas during a game.

Barry Sandercock
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Re: Zurich Chess Challenge 13-19 February 2015

Post by Barry Sandercock » Sun Feb 15, 2015 4:27 pm

Anand winning against Aronian ( move 22)

Chris Rice
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Re: Zurich Chess Challenge 13-19 February 2015

Post by Chris Rice » Mon Feb 16, 2015 4:45 am

The first two games of the Uhlmann-Korchnoi match were played. One win apiece. As you'll see from the photos in the links Korchnoi looks very frail indeed but even so can still do the business! Talking of playing too many games a very interesting ChessBase stat reveals that Korchnoi has played more recorded games of chess than anyone in history, born in 1931, he has played a staggering 5106 recorded games. Some other interesting players in that list too so well worth a look.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/zurich-leg ... ven-at-1-1

http://www.chessdom.com/zurich-chess-ch ... a-in-lead/

In the main tournament Anand showed some wicked Grunfeld prep to defeat Aronian:

Round 2

Kramnik ½-½ Nakamura
Karjakin ½-½ Caruana
Anand 1-0 Aronian

Standings (2 points for win, 1 for draw):

1= Anand, Nakamura 3
2= Kramnik, Karjakin 2
5= Aronian, Caruana 1

http://en.chessbase.com/post/zurich-rd2-discombobulated

Round 3 pairings:

Aronian - Kramnik
Caruana - Anand
Nakamura - Karjakin

Barry Sandercock
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Re: Zurich Chess Challenge 13-19 February 2015

Post by Barry Sandercock » Mon Feb 16, 2015 4:40 pm

Nakamura winning against Karjakin. Looks as though he may be on his Gibraltar form.

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Zurich Chess Challenge 13-19 February 2015

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Mon Feb 16, 2015 5:31 pm

Nakamura has won. Looks like Anand may beat Caruana and Aronian may beat Kramnik. That would be a rare set of all decisive results (admittedly only three games). It is indeed worrying for Caruana if his losses are because he is playing too much. Drastic drops in form are very possible at this level (e.g. what happened to Radjabov a few years ago).

Chris Rice
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Re: Zurich Chess Challenge 13-19 February 2015

Post by Chris Rice » Mon Feb 16, 2015 7:10 pm

Hikaru Nakamura becomes the tenth player in history to cross the 2800 mark. Now as four of them have achieved this within the last year and two within the last 48 hours do we assume that the top players of today are significantly better than the top players of the past? Or is it all just down to rating inflation?