Champions Showdown - Kasparov playing Sept 2nd - 5th

[Martin Crichton]

coverage on chess 24

https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tourn ... 2019/1/1/1

another great opportunity to see one of the all time greats in action...starts at 7pm this evening!

Rapid and blitz games

I think Kasparov will be the man to beat

[NickFaulks]

I think Kasparov will be the man to beat

Not sure about that, but I commend him for his bravery in taking on a competition in which his his trump suit of opening preparation has no priority.

He retains the advantage that winning means more to him than it does to anyone else.

[Chris Rice]

The castling rules take a bit of getting used to.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"The castling rules take a bit of getting used to."

It gives scope for weirdness though. I had a game in an Amsterdam tournament, where we started with R on a and f files, K on b file. My opponent launched a violent queenside attack and looked shocked when I put the king on g1...

Kasparov is getting some interesting positions (with white anyway), but Caruana is rather more match-fit.

[NickFaulks]

Not sure that I like this format. I would prefer to see different pairings tomorrow.

[Alex Holowczak]

Not sure that I like this format. I would prefer to see different pairings tomorrow.

It does seem a bit strange to have 8 players playing 4 games per day, and then not playing different people the day after.

They could turn it into a tournament, and have two groups of 4 playing on the first three days using the current 4-game match format for each day; then a Final/3rd place/5th place/7th place playoff on the fourth day.

On the other hand, I've accused the GCT of being an exhibition masquerading as a competition. At least this event is honest about what it is.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"They could turn it into a tournament, and have two groups of 4 playing on the first three days using the current 4-game match format for each day; then a Final/3rd place/5th place/7th place playoff on the fourth day."

I agree. Still it's their tournament!

[Chris Rice]

Caruana has already trounced Kasparov without breaking sweat. It's 14.5 - 3.5 with just 8 blitz games left. Despite Kasparov reaching decent, even near winning positions, numerous times, he has blundered again and again at critical moments. Sad to see from the legend of the game although hardly surprising I suppose.
Nakamura has come right back against Aronian (9.5-8.5) after a terrible first day. Aronian and Svidler are the only players with experience of 960 but Naka is picking it up fast. In an interview last night he said that in 960 the initiative is even more important as the natural responses from the standard game are often not available. He also pointed out what he saw as a clear weakness in Aronian's game that Aronian often put a knight in front of the pawn in the early stages of the game. For example a knight at d3 in front of a pawn at d2. This often led to Aronian's development being an issue. Though given he'll no doubt have to play Aronian on many occasions from now on you wonder why he didn't keep that to himself.
Svidler is 11-7 up against Dominguez Perez but its Wesley So who is on the brink of victory (13-5) who has stolen the show so far with this exchange sac masterpiece .

[Kevin Thurlow]

Didn't Nakamura have a short match with Magnus at Chess960? I seem to recall they started one game 1.0-0 0-0, just because they could, although probably both moves were weak. Classical chess principles apply more to Chess960. Development is particularly important and it is rare that a quick violent attack will get anywhere (not that it would with these guys playing of course).

I was watching a couple of days ago, when Kasparov's clock seemed to be doing strange things, and on the live feed it seemed to freeze on 2 seconds whilst he thought about his moves.

[Chris Rice]

I was watching a couple of days ago, when Kasparov's clock seemed to be doing strange things, and on the live feed it seemed to freeze on 2 seconds whilst he thought about his moves.

It's the Bronstein Delay that makes it look like the clock has frozen. I played a tournament in Stamford, Connecticut a couple of years ago with this time control and it does feel a bit weird to start with. Once your opponent has played a move the Delay (often 10 seconds a move) kicks in and your clock won't start moving till the Delay period is over. If you play a move before the Delay period is over then your clock stays exactly the same ie it can appear to have frozen. Having not played this time control before I kept staring at the clock waiting for it to move every time my opponent moved rather than looking at the position.
The Delay has the effect that you can be on very little time but still be able to complete the game without much problem. For example earlier on in this tournament I watched Dominguez play for 20 minutes in a difficult position and comfortably get a draw while his clock showed he had 3 seconds for this entire period.

[Roger de Coverly]

Having not played this time control before I kept staring at the clock waiting for it to move rather than looking at the position.

Does it depend on the make of clock? I had an idea that DGTs add the delay. So if you have five seconds left with ten second delay, it jumps to fifteen to show the time allowed for the move and then resets to five if you move before that.

[Chris Rice]

Having not played this time control before I kept staring at the clock waiting for it to move rather than looking at the position.

Does it depend on the make of clock? I had an idea that DGTs add the delay. So if you have five seconds left with ten second delay, it jumps to fifteen to show the time allowed for the move and then resets to five if you move before that.

In the US you normally have to bring your own equipment so I brought my DGT 2010. Having no idea what I was doing I asked the organiser to set the clock for me which he did after a bit of a grumble. It didn't show the delay but it seems it is possible to choose different options. The manual for the clock states on p6 regarding Bronstein (Delay) (Options 22-25):
"The oldest proposal from the chess world for a solution to the problem of limited thinking time came from IGM David Bronstein. His method applies from the first move. Before this main thinking time starts counting down the player has a fixed amount of time to complete a move. It is not possible to increase the thinking time by playing more quickly as it is on the Bonus methods. The Delay time is initially added to the main time.
The clock will not wait counting down until the delay time has been passed, but will add the used delay time back to the total as soon as the player has pushed the lever.
For example the clock is set to 5 seconds delay and shows 57 seconds left. The player uses 4 seconds to complete his move (less than the delay time) and the clock shows 53, then the clock will jump back to 57 as soon as the lever is pressed. The player did not lose any time during this move. If he used 10 seconds however the clock will initially show 47 seconds but will add the 5 seconds delay time for the next move after pressing the lever, thus showing 52. The advantage of this method is that the players always see the exact time left for the game or time control."

[Kevin Thurlow]

I have played games with Bronstein timing, and you certainly saw the clock counting down, then reverting to the previous time when you moved quickly enough. Not knowing when the clock will start counting down seems a bit odd.

[Ian Thompson]

Does it depend on the make of clock? I had an idea that DGTs add the delay. So if you have five seconds left with ten second delay, it jumps to fifteen to show the time allowed for the move and then resets to five if you move before that.

The more recent DGTs (at least) do add the delay, but not quite as you say.

If you have five seconds left with ten second delay, it jumps to fifteen seconds when you press the clock to show the time allowed for your next move. When your clock is restarted, it will then count down from 15 seconds. If you move within the 10 seconds delay, it will then jump back to 15 seconds to show you still have 15 seconds for your next move. If you take, say, 12 seconds, it will jump from 3 seconds to 13 seconds to show that's how long you've got for your next move.

In other words, the clock, whether running or not, always shows how much time you have to complete your next move before losing on time, including any delay.

[Chris Rice]

Oh dear ran out of time again...