English Chess Forum

"Hi. My name's David Howell. I'm one of the most talented chess players of my generation, and I knew since last night I would be black against Gawain Jones. I also have a penchant for time trouble. I just spent five minutes debating how to answer 1.e4."

Very sensible - the best punters are those who know when to keep the powder dry...

£10 lucky 15 returns £7590... Still five minutes before kick-off if I can tempt you... Only layed two Lucky 15s so far, and dodged four winners on both (no thanks to Jovanka, who keeps drawing when I'm determined she won't, and Adam Hunt, who can't defend rook and pawn endings).

That's just me shifting the odds for Conquest shorter manually - I didn't have a good handle for the game (don't really know Hawkins at all, and his rating is apparently not representative), and when Conquest came out at just over 2/1 I thought it looked a little big. I do have a few people placing ...

Happy to play via Yahoo! chess or equivalent, but I can't get the time off work to be there in person, I'm afraid...

It's certainly a debatable point; the model only does what I tell it, and I have a very distinct lean towards Adams over Short which is probably unfair. Still, someone made a point about the last English player to actually beat Adams...

Bit late in today, so only got boards 1-4:

Short 8/1 - Draw 4/9 - Adams 4/1
Jones 2/1 - Draw 2/1 - Howell 2/1
Houska 5/1 - Draw 5/4 - Pert 6/4
Hawkins 7/2 - Draw 6/5 - Conquest 7/4

Does Williams ever dream up something boring?

9.g4 certainly very interesting; guess he must think it's ok with the Bishop on f1. Does seem like red rag to a bull though...

If you feel like it's too short, there's an order for £445 queuing up that you could fill. At the start of the tournament I would certainly have agreed with you, but 1½/2 against Howell and Gawain, combined with the fact that Mickey is just so darn hard to beat, probably means that he really does ...

Short 5/4 - Draw 6/4 - Jones 5/1
Adams 4/7 - Draw 9/4 - Williams 12/1
Wells 5/1 - Draw 15/8 - Howell Evs
Conquest Evs - Draw 9/4 - Houska 4/1
Pert 6/4 - Draw Evs - Hunt 8/1
Hebden 6/4 - Draw 6/4 - Summerscale 7/2

Alex McFarlane wrote:Odds on a play-off? Our resident bookmaker is no longer resident.

Probably no bigger than 4/1; projected draws in Adams - Short and Short - Jones should bring some other protagonists into the mixer. Adams to win outright on 9/11 is by far the most likely result though.

Can't say I agree with the love being shown for either Hawkins' or Howell's positions. I'm not analysing with a computer, and maybe I put too much faith in the England 1 & 2, but Nigel looks to have an obvious plan of ...f5 and ...g5 followed by attacking the h-pawn, whilst the e5 pawn in the Adams ...

Maybe they've analysed out the King's Indian to a draw at home...

How do i go about getting hold of some of that 8/13 without arousing suspicion? :o Alternatively perhaps the model could reveal this playable black opening repertoire it seems to have furnished me with... Haha; as yet, opening repertoires are not part of the model - tried it once but it was far too...