Dortmund 27 June - 5 July 2015

[Mick Norris]

Round 1 pairings:
Nepomniachtchi-Caruana
Georg Meier-Hou Yifan
Kramnik-Naiditsch
Nisipeanu-Wesley So

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Kramnik interview

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Caruana playing again here. Does Caruana play too much? Carlsen's next event is in August, so he has the whole of July off.

Carlsen has played 38 rated games in 2015 so far. Caruana has played 59 so far (though this include the London Chess Classic from December 2014 - when I say "played in 2015", I mean included in the ratings lists from Jan 2015 onwards). Caruana's 59 games will include the 7 Dortmund ones, so boosting his total to 66.

[Chris Rice]

Caruana playing again here. Does Caruana play too much? Carlsen's next event is in August, so he has the whole of July off.

Carlsen has played 38 rated games in 2015 so far. Caruana has played 59 so far (though this include the London Chess Classic from December 2014 - when I say "played in 2015", I mean included in the ratings lists from Jan 2015 onwards). Caruana's 59 games will include the 7 Dortmund ones, so boosting his total to 66.

Perhaps Caruana hasn't played enough? Nakamura has already played 66 classical games in 2015 and he has lost only two (Gibraltar, Zurich, the U.S. Championship in St. Louis, the Italian Team Championship, the Khanty-Mansiysk GP and Norway Chess).

[Mick Norris]

I think probably Caruana has played too much, but that may be down to the Grand Prix, from which he has qualified for the Candidates - he plays St Louis in August after Dortmund, maybe he might give the World Cup a miss?

He might play the World rapid and blitz in Berlin in October, which finishes 3 days before the Euro Club Cup in Skopje where I guess he will be asked to play

Might give him November off before the London Chess Classic

[Mick Norris]

Giri has played 63, seems to be working for him and especially for Nakamura who is now at an all time rating high - seems to have changed his style too

[Chris Rice]

On Caruana, I was reading an article by Peter Doggers who said that the Open Spanish was a good choice by Giri yesterday, because Caruana is someone who doesn't shy away from main lines even when he doesn't remember the variations perfectly. Now if all the top players know that then Caruana has a known weakness doesn't he?

[David Robertson]

Seems like all the chess at this level is being played by the same ten people. Surely can't be that good for the game, can it? Though someone will doubtless point out that it's worse in tennis, and does no harm

[MartinCarpenter]

Well everyone does at least get a chance to compete in tennis, its just they (mostly) can't

Super tournaments in chess has been like this for ages now I think? Maybe not ideal but it seems to be what a lot of the organisers want.

[Mick Norris]

Dortmund has quite a range - based on the live ratings, you have numbers 5,7,8,37,53,64,92,93

The World Cup with 64 players and qualification events is the only top chess event like (grand slam) tennis I think, although there are the stronger Opens like Gibraltar and Qatar

[Christopher Kreuzer]

What was the situation before super tournaments? Would the top players play in open tournments? Was Linares the first example of a closed, invitation-only round-robin tournament, or were there just far fewer of such tournaments? Did the phenomenon arise gradually, and at what point would you have been able to point to a 'circuit' of tournaments that the top GMs played in regularly?

[Roger de Coverly]

What was the situation before super tournaments? Would the top players play in open tournments?

It would be a better question to ask what the situation was before open tournaments. One of the very first Opens that could offer Norms was the Lloyds Bank in London starting in the late 1970s (or was it early 1980s?). Before that, all tournaments at elite or near elite level would have been all play alls. You might have perhaps one or two top players in a Swiss as special guest invitees.

Really strong Opens didn't take off until the late 1980s when players in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union started to be allowed to travel freely.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Seems like all the chess at this level is being played by the same ten people. Surely can't be that good for the game, can it? Though someone will doubtless point out that it's worse in tennis, and does no harm

In tournaments where there is no expectation of playing 2 or more locals, this seems to be so and it seems to have been so for many years. I remember Kasparov trying to defend it some 16 or so years ago, when the "World Championship" had just been won by an outsider to top events (Khalifman). His answer was that that it was always possible for others to force their way in, and pointed to Morozevich who recently had won several opens and weaker closed events with huge scores. "Just play like Morozevich!" he said.

Every now and again, one sees events aimed at players in the top 50, typically up and coming youngsters (a famous Greek event back in 1992, sometimes Biel) but now that it seems more "normal" to reach the elite by 22, perhaps we are seeing fewer of these. As for players in their 30s /40s, to be number fifty in the world just leaves them on the open circuit, and the odd appearance in a top event as a local player if they live in the right country, so it seems. Or releasing DVDs for Chessbase.

[Chris Rice]

News from Chess 24 which sounds like a wind-up but seems to be true. Lawrence Trent is to manage Fabiano Caruana! https://chess24.com/en/read/news/lawren ... no-caruana

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Does anyone think if they swapped beards, glasses and hairstyles, they'd look quite alike?

More seriously, I hope this goes well. Kramnik said in that interview that he would have done better with more support. Having the right sort of cogs in the support team really can make a big difference. What are the essential roles? Coach/trainer/seconds, manager, and anyone else?

[LawrenceCooper]

News from Chess 24 which sounds like a wind-up but seems to be true. Lawrence Trent is to manage Fabiano Caruana! https://chess24.com/en/read/news/lawren ... no-caruana

"I believe he has all the attributes you need to become World Champion" Fabiano allegedly said about Lawrence