London Chess Classic 2013

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Not loading for me at all. Is the site having problems?

[MartinCarpenter]

Looks that way. Not sure what has happened because I remember it being very good in previous years.

I've been presuming that the delay in a starting is a purposeful built in anti cheating measure. Quite normal. Less normal to put up junior games or whatever it was in the meantime

[benedgell]

This was my first opportunity to watch the games online. I'm very appreciative of having a great tournament here in London, but the coverage online is truly abysmal. The live games crashed, meaning I could only follow the games as the commentators looked at it. If it wasn't for the Twitter feed I would only have known half the results. They cut away from the games in progress as they got short of time so that they could analyse with players who had already finished. I don't want to go on a rant, but really, really, disappointed with the coverage.

[Peter Shaw]

I agree with this, it would be far more logical to wait until all games have finished before they start analysing with the players.

[Greg Breed]

I agree with this, it would be far more logical to wait until all games have finished before they start analysing with the players.

Unless, of course, the commentators have exactly the same issue, in which case, a very good use of available time and resources in a bad situation.

[benedgell]

The coverage of the second set of games was much better, with the live games all working relatively well, pleased to say.

[IM Jack Rudd]

Sutovsky out, Jones out.

[Carl Hibbard]

Not loading for me at all. Is the site having problems?

Nothing to do with me this server wise one although Dave Clayton will still be doing the relay.

[Mike Gunn]

There seem to be a lot fewer spectators (in the commentary room and the auditorium) than previous years (well, certainly in the evening session). The commentary doesn't work as well because you can't keep up with 4 rapid games when the players only have 5-10 mins on the clocks. I'm hoping for a return to "proper" chess next year.

[Colin Patterson]

Yes, the coverage has still been quite watchable, but a little frustrating at times, with pointless post-match interviews replacing some of the best of the action.

Just tried to go and watch round 4, but sadly couldn't find a link that provided a video for scrolling back.

[Simon Louchart]

It is funny how the commentators have to rush jumping from one game to another, without having the time to explore a full variation. Sometimes they even look frustrated about that ("you know what, let's jump directly to the current position, else we won't have time for the other games...")

[Jonathan Rogers]

I have been looking at some of the games via chessbomb; they are of course qute entertaining and Sadler v Rowson in particular a comedy show towards the end. Had Rowson elected to win Matthew's queen rather than his rook, he would have had plausible chances of qualifying, that is, to the extent that one could plausibly have seen him beating Kramink or Svidler. (Actually winning the rook was good too, but it was inviting the sort of trouble which then happened).

Frustrating though the technical problems have been, there must be many of us who were unavailable to watch a number of them live anyway. This is another problem of rapidplay v classical chess - one is much more likely to have an opportunity to check a classical game while it is still in progress.

The results have all gone to seeding it seems: bar a loss by Short against Sutovsky in round 5 (which might give Howell a chance) or a rather unexpected collapse by Naka today, the top two seeds in each group should qualify. So those of us (myself included) who tried to predict "surprise" qualifiers look likely to be proven wrong. It is rather hard to miss that the two qualifiers (each of whom was predicted to qualify as a surprise) each has 0/4!

[John Cox]

It's not really surprising when they've had to play four days in a row already and in any event are substantially the weaker player in two-thirds of their games.

As a player I'm finding it more frustrating that some disgusting twerp on the board next to me was chewing gum loudly for the whole game yesterday. HTF does anyone get the idea that this sort of thing is remotely acceptable behaviour? I just can't imagine the sort of upbringing you must have had to end up with that degree of lack of consideration for others. Having said that, the fellow did look like a West Ham fan to me, so that might explain it.

[Angus French]

Is live video coverage available for round 5? The LIVE page I get to from the homepage is displaying just the moves.

[MartinCarpenter]

Not obviously, so maybe they were running out of bandwith/server power with showing everyone the video as well as the games.