Chess.com Isle Of Man Tournament 23 Sep to 1 Oct 2017

[Mick Norris]

R+Ps ending experts; is Caruana going to beat Vlad? Looks to have chances at move 45/46

[Roger de Coverly]

R+Ps ending experts; is Caruana going to beat Vlad?

Engine lines suggest that Black is going to eventually have to give up his Rook for a passed pawn after a general liquidation. This would leave it as K+R v K+g pawn. That can be drawn if the pawn is far enough forward, but it doesn't get there in the suggested lines of play. The other possible defence is to reach K+R+P v K+R where the King physically holds squares in front of the pawn. That looks unlikely to be possible.

[LawrenceCooper]

R+Ps ending experts; is Caruana going to beat Vlad? Looks to have chances at move 45/46

Black's 48th may have been the decisive mistake.

[Thomas Rendle]

Zaki Hariri with a chance for a big win vs Rodshtein who has tried too hard to win a worse position...

[Thomas Rendle]

...and one can only imagine tiredness/nervousness meant he took the perpetual without checking for 72.Bd5!

Still a very good result of course.

[Leonard Barden]

Praggnanandhaa v Adams is the round 2 pairing highlight for English viewers.

Hou Yifan has a second female opponent, Elizabeth Paehtz.

[NickFaulks]

Why is Kramnik assigned to a fixed board?

[Alex Holowczak]

Why is Kramnik assigned to a fixed board?

They have 29 liveboards, so I guess they want him on one of them.

[NickFaulks]

Why is Kramnik assigned to a fixed board?

They have 29 liveboards, so I guess they want him on one of them.

He was on board 29 in the first round too.

[Alex Holowczak]

Why is Kramnik assigned to a fixed board?

They have 29 liveboards, so I guess they want him on one of them.

He was on board 29 in the first round too.

He was on board 2 according to the live broadcast. It's not impossible that Swiss-Manager has fixed him to board 29 for all rounds rather than just Round 2.

[Alex Holowczak]

I've just tested this theory by downloading the Swiss-Manager file for the tournament.

I set Magnus Carlsen to a fixed board, board 20. I then re-paired Round 2, and Carlsen appeared on board 20 in Round 2. I then looked back at the Round 1 pairings, and saw Carlsen appeared on board 20 in Round 1.

[NickFaulks]

I concede.

[Keith Arkell]

So, Hou Yifan didn't begin ...g5 then ...f5 today. Perhaps she's saving it for her first male opponent? ( which will come in round 3, at the earliest).

[Chris Rice]

Shame all the rounds are not paired like the first. For the first time in, I can't remember how long, a first round of an Open tournament was original and genuinely exciting.

[Geoff Chandler]

I thought Simon Williams and Fiona Steil-Antoni were quite brilliant on the live commentary.

The two obviously enjoy working together and the jokes (and innuendos) worked very well.
The analysis was instructive and instruction dotted with humour does work.

A refreshing and welcome change from the very serious approach adopted by other sites.

Looking forward to more.

And yes first round random parings. An excellent innovation.

Simon suggest all the rounds should be random. (all players with the same points dropped into
a hat and paired off) and the draw made 1 hour before play began.

Yes a player can have White all the way though the tournament. To get around
that you could have due White and due Black hats that will even it up.