European Championship in Liverpool

[John Moore]

Round 2 breaking news - those who think that the result of the live Game Short- Arakhamia is a misprint and that it was agreed drawn are wrong. Nigel's phone rang - default 0-1. Well there's a bit of excitement in the early rounds.

[JustinHorton]

Heh. Any idea who rang?

[John Moore]

Don't think be a good idea to ask Nigel just now.

[JustinHorton]

You're almost certainly right.

But I'd do it.

[Carl Hibbard]

A nice 21 boards today so well done to Dave and all...

Not looking forward to my hosting limits this month though

[David Robertson]

I like big numbers, Carl. Better still, so do the sponsors

By the way, take a look at giant-killing, GM-slaying Chris Doran's games so far. Having toppled Meijers in Rd 1, he took another shot at Danny Gormally in Rd 2. Do not be entirely influenced by the mere result of that game. Imagine instead how poor Chris must have felt at the end

http://www.liverpoolchessinternational.co.uk/index.htm

David

[Carl Hibbard]

Well half a gig of bandwidth went up in smoke on the live games yesterday

[JustinHorton]

God, what a nightmare. Still at least Doran already had a GM notched up already, that should ease the pain a bit.

Was he out of time?

[David Robertson]

Unlikely to have been time, I think. We're playing one minute increments, plenty for a fairly simple position like that. I'd say it was more likely fatigue or cumulative stress causing 'circuit failure' of some kind. We've all been there, but not perhaps with a GM 'trophy' at stake. I thought Doran played a blinder nevertheless

David

[JustinHorton]

Does it give the time controls anywhere on the website? I'd be grateful if it could - when events have different controls it's nice to be able to find out what actually applies in the event one is actually watching. (Ah yes, it'shere.)

Congratulations to everybody involved: this is a really strong tournament, presumably stronger than the Lloyds Bank affairs from the Nineties which to my great regret I never played in.

We still have some way to go to catch up with (for instance) Spain: I give for purposes of comparison the starting lists of two Spanish tournaments, one being my local Open, Benasque 2008, and another being last year's tournament in Ciudad Real (which I found almost at random when looking up the name Dan Cruz Alvarez de Ron from John Saunders' round one report. The last of these must have really had some money to put about: how often does Anand - not to mention several others - play in an open?

Anyway, if we look at the strongest, second strongest, tenth strongest, thirtieth strongest, fiftieth strongest and hundredth strongest competitors in each....

Liverpool (of 138) 1. Adams 2735 2. Bacrot 2691 10. Baramidze 2593 30. Haslinger 2511 50. Collins 2492 100. Majer 2091
Benasque (of 547) 1. Baklan 2630 2. Burmakin 2625 10. Mamedov* 2564 30. Magem 2500 50. Alfarez 2453 100. Vishnu 2341
Ciudad Real (of 286) 1. Anand 2787 2. Mamedyarov 2757 10. Milov 2767 30. Mamedov* 2584 50. Kovchan 2527 100. García 2317

....then if you plotted them on a curve (is anybody here sad enough to do this?) you'd get three different ones: Benasque is weakest through to number fifty but is strongest at one hundred, having a strength in depth that even Ciudad Real lacks, whereas Liverpool, almost as strong as Ciudad Real at the mid-point, is substanmitally the weakest of the three by the "end".

Hard to know precisely the reasons in each instance: conceivably the term "Spanish climate" may be of use here, although it's probable that the two Spanish tournaments had much greater finds available and were able to offer conditions to a larger number of titled players? Obviously, too, a European Championship can't by defintion invite players from outside that continent.

Anyway, it's a step from "here" to "there" and a welcome one.


[* not the same one, I think]

[Carl Hibbard]

I like big numbers, Carl. Better still, so do the sponsors

A new record for a single day yesterday eclipsing even the British and yes I know it is hard to quantify with the live games

[Sean Hewitt]

A new record for a single day yesterday eclipsing even the British and yes I know it is hard to quantify with the live games

Not surprising though. More players and, more importantly, more countries represented.

[JustinHorton]

No Swiss though, which is a real shame as I was hoping David of Luxembourg might find himself drawn against a Swiss subsequent to Wednesday's football match...

[Carl Hibbard]

A new record for a single day yesterday eclipsing even the British and yes I know it is hard to quantify with the live games

Not surprising though. More players and, more importantly, more countries represented.

It's struggling a bit under the load it appears at around 4.7 yesterday anyway

[IM Jack Rudd]

No Swiss though, which is a real shame as I was hoping David of Luxembourg might find himself drawn against a Swiss subsequent to Wednesday's football match...

That might be problematic, what with Switzerland's not actually being part of the EU.