London Chess Classic 2013

[Richard Bates]

Well, on the theme of hard luck stories, I had agreed with my wife before starting to take a half-point bye in round four in order to wait in this afternoon for some tradesman who no doubt won’t appear, and having mislaid my mobile phone, didn’t receive her messages and Sean’s offering to cancel the request in time. Otherwise all I would have needed was to beat, say, Sutovsky with Black, plus a couple of miracle results on the other top boards, and I’d have been in for the pairing of a lifetime against Nigel.

Not sure if i'm detecting a trace of irony in there at the end - but i don't think you would have wanted to qualify. They might have insisted you change out of your pyjamas

[Andrew Stone]

I don't understand all of Andrew's reservations about a play-off. There couldn't be as many as ten players on 4/4, surely. If you wanted a round robin with the six players or so, it should be possible; and you could at least say that if they are more than two players still tied, then the top rated players go through. But at least the dreaming IM/lower rated GM still gets his chance that way. Or you could divide the players into two pools and get them to play smaller round robins, with the winner of each pool qualifying - basically all this could be decided when the arbiters know how many players there are and how much time there is, in order to make sure that it shouldn't have to continue to midnight.

As to some early finishing players having to hang around - it seems to me that those players on 3/3 would start the day very nervous. The prospect of winning quickly and then having more time to prepare for the likely play-off opponents would not draw too many complaints!

There can only be 5 in a play off now, but quite a few draws happened yesterday. I think 10 on 4/4 was a possibility before the event started. Granted the hanging around is not the worst thing ever. Chess players are very well practised at hanging around anyway. Group stages would certainly help reduce the games. I seem to recall the (last ever?) Lloyds Bank Masters had a blitz play off event to see who went through to the Intel Rapidplay. That was entertaining. Pre internet and all that jazz they showed the moves on a demo board, which was quite a challenge. I think a couple of well known players adopted the "Vodka Gambit" with mixed results!

[Richard Bates]

There can only be 5 in a play off now, ...

I think you'll find there can still be 21! (tied in first).

[Richard Bates]

I seem to recall the (last ever?) Lloyds Bank Masters had a blitz play off event to see who went through to the Intel Rapidplay. That was entertaining. Pre internet and all that jazz they showed the moves on a demo board, which was quite a challenge. I think a couple of well known players adopted the "Vodka Gambit" with mixed results!

That was the event when a certain well known arbiter set the clocks for an armageddon game at 5hrs vs 4hrs

[Jonathan Rogers]

There can only be 5 in a play off now, ...

I think you'll find there can still be 21! (tied in first).

Oh we're not worried about ties on 3.5/4 - let the top two rated players go forth, if that happens. The difficulty is with those who actually get 4/4, ie did all they could, including probably beating tougher opponents than did the top rated players, but not having a chance to go through anyway if just two of them also make 4/4.

[Mick Norris]

Hammer has drawn, Sutovsky has won

[Simon Brown]

Surely Itratescu will win too, so those are the qualifiers. Such a shame for Keith, and unlucky for John.

[Graham Borrowdale]

Surely Itratescu will win too, so those are the qualifiers. Such a shame for Keith, and unlucky for John.

Well, he is taking his time in the bishop ending. Not sure what the king was doing going up to b4. Presumably a timely f5 will do the trick

[Mick Norris]

Draw on board 4 and Balint loss on board 5 mean Istratescu now qualifies with a draw or a win

Of the players left, 3.5/4 will be in first place, led by Grachev and Hammer

[Michael Jones]

Istratescu's result will still matter for the grouping of the main tournament, though - if he wins he goes in the group with Anand, Adams and McShane; if he draws then he gets Caruana, Short and Howell. Although either set of opponents would be pretty tough for the qualifier, the latter looks marginally easier so it might actually be in his interest to take the draw.

I've just been watching the video of the pro-celeb games - looks like plenty of fun was had all round. The guy paired with Nakamura (so famous I've no idea who he is) opened with 1. a4, but Adams was with two kids (did they fail to find a fourth celebrity?) and they lost. Anand's and Svidler's partners appeared to know a bit more about chess, and most of the moves in that one - as far as I could see from the video - looked fairly sensible. Exchanging banter with his opponents, having a junior 'help' him and Lawrence Trent interviewing him during the game is a slightly different atmosphere from Vishy's last outing!

[Mick Norris]

Istratescu has won

[Michael Jones]

Thus he gets in the Anand group, and Sutovsky in the other. Istratescu's chances of getting past the group stage look slim, but Sutovsky is higher rated than Howell and not far off short, so it's quite plausible he might make the QFs.

[Mick Norris]

Istratescu has a rapid rating of 2709

Sutovsky's is 2663

[Jonathan Rogers]

three fun days ahead but will there be any big surprises, save in the odd game? I will stick my neck out and predict the following quarter-finalists:

A - Adams and Anand (in that order)
B - Kramnik and Svidler (in that order)
C - Naka and Polgar (in that order: small surprise there)
D - Caruana and Sutovsky (in that order; well, I wrote about this group earlier in the thread even before it was drawn...)

[Mark Howitt]

Would like to see all of the results of the round on the same day that it's played.