English Chess Forum

The first of the two Classical chess events in this year's Grand Chess Tour takes place in Zagreb, Croatia, from Wednesday 26th June until Monday 8th July.

Round 1 26th June; Round 11 7th July; Rest Day 2nd July; Tiebreaks if required 8th July.

Play starts each day (except 2nd July) at 1530 BST.

Time Limit: All moves in 130 minutes with 30 seconds delay throughout.

Players: Viswanathan Anand, Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren, Anish Giri, Sergey Karjakin, Shakriyar Mamedyarov, Hikaru Nakamura, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Wesley So, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

The draw will take place during the Opening Ceremony at 1600 today, Tuesday 25th June. I shall post a link to the pairings on here later, unless someone beats me to it.

David Sedgwick wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 25, 2019 11:50 am

Time Limit: All moves in 130 minutes with 30 seconds delay throughout.

Interesting to see how they handle this relatively unusual time control. It's two and half hours to move 40, which was the traditional "long" time control. Rather than adjourn, anyone playing at that pace nowadays would have to play the rest of the game out at 30 second increments.

The pairings are now available at http://chess-results.com/tnr448344.aspx?lan=1&art=2.

I see Carlsen has a 5/6 split between white and black again. He has been consistently unlucky ever since the fashion for a blitz tournament for starting numbers ended. Karma I suppose.

I'm not a betting man, but making him odds on to win in such a field strikes me as surprising.

Paul Cooksey wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 26, 2019 12:31 pm

I see Carlsen has a 5/6 split between white and black again. He has been consistently unlucky ever since the fashion for a blitz tournament for starting numbers ended. Karma I suppose.

That will even out. At the Sinquefield Cup, the second and final Classical event in this year's GCT, the pairings will be the same as in Zagreb but with the colours reversed.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 25, 2019 12:09 pm

David Sedgwick wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 25, 2019 11:50 am

Time Limit: All moves in 130 minutes with 30 seconds delay throughout.

Interesting to see how they handle this relatively unusual time control. It's two and half hours to move 40, which was the traditional "long" time control. Rather than adjourn, anyone playing at that pace nowadays would have to play the rest of the game out at 30 second increments.

Delay, not increments?

Richard Bates wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 26, 2019 2:41 pm

Delay, not increments?

That is correct.

Live coverage (from the official site).

This black/white looks fine for Magnus. h5/g5 and close to winning.

Giri - Carlsen a startling win for Carlsen. He's re-inventing the game, not just re-inventing his own play. Impact of AlphaZero, perhaps?

Wow. Only 23 moves. Maybe Giri missed 21...Qa8 which left White's king in the firing line of the queen and advancing pawns (while his own queen was stranded on a4). David is right, a very AlphaZero-esque game.

That moves Carlsen to 2876 in the live ratings, only 6 points behind the 2882 (published) record (the live rating record is 2889), which must surely be broken sooner rather than later with Carlsen on this sort of form. Though 2900 may be more difficult.

PS. Quality of some of the other games less impressive. Are some of the players struggling with this time control?

Three wins already and So should beat Ding in addition - no "draw death" here it seems

69 unbeaten games for Maggie

Chess Mind round 1 report and analysis

chess.com

Paul Cooksey wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 26, 2019 12:31 pm

I'm not a betting man, but making him odds on to win in such a field strikes me as surprising.

I am, and when Tiger Woods occupied a similar position I made money by consistently betting against him to win Majors, at daft odds. I considered a similar strategy with Carlsen but I'm not doing it.