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ARONIAN LEADS BY 1 1/2 POINTS IN WORLD BLITZ
Chessbase News
Nov 17 2010
Germany
Levon Aronian started the second day with a loss and a draw. After
that came seven wins, two draws and a loss, to put him way ahead on
the scoresheet. But two losses in the final rounds, one against his
closest rival Magnus Carlsen, brought the Armenian uberflieger crashing
down to earth - still a point and a half ahead of the field! You can
watch the action in five hours of streaming video.
Advertisement
Andrew Martin: Enter 1.f4, Bird`s Opening!
There seems very little room to create new opening ideas in 2010
and the creative competitor must work hard to find new approaches
which help to win games. Enter 1.f4, Bird's Opening! 1.f4 has hardly
been given comprehensive coverage in the textbooks and on this new
ChessBase DVD, International Master and Senior FIDE Trainer Andrew
Martin examines this 'last frontier' of sound and original opening
play. Available from 29. October 2010 More information...
The World Blitz Championship is being held from 16 to 18 November
at the GUM Department Store on Red Square in Moscow. It is a double
round robin with twenty players, eight of whom are participants of
the Tal Memorial, with others who qualified from the 2010 Aeroflot
tournament and seeded players. Starting time is 15:00h local (=
13:00h CET; 07:00 a.m. NY), the rate of play three minutes for all
the moves plus a two second increment per move. There is live game
coverage and video on the official site.
Second day: Aronian takes the lead Levon Aronian, Armenian uberflieger
[from the German "Uberflieger", high-flyer, as in zugzwang, zeitnot and
schadenfreude], started the second day with a loss to Vladimir Kramnik,
and then a draw to Maxim Vachier-Lagrave. After that came seven wins,
two draws and a loss, to put him way ahead on the scoresheet. But two
losses in the final rounds, against his closest rival Magnus Carlsen
and against Rauf Mamedov brought Levon crashing down to earth -
still a point and a half ahead of the field!
Magnus Carlsen started with a win (against Mamedyarov) and then two
losses (to Savchenko and Eljanov) and had just 3½ points from the
first nine games of the day. After that he picked up three wins -
against Aronian and the two rival "kids" Vachier and Caruana - to
finish in second place with 17/28 points. That's a full point ahead
of the rest of the field. In his chess blog Magnus wrote: "My head
more or less went on strike today. A head functioning at half speed
doesn't work too well in a blitz tournament. Oddly several of the other
players with plus scores from day one seemed to play below par as well,
and I managed to stay in contention for tournament victory despite
a poor 7/14 and 50% score. Looking forward to an exiting finish."
Teimour Radjabov started with two wins, against Eljanov and Grischuk,
and scored a total of eight points from 14 games, which included
a 20th round black win against Aronian and a 27th round win over
Kramnik. He shared equal 3-5 with 16.0/28 points.
Ian Nepomniachtchi, just twenty years old, started with two wins,
beat amongst others Kramnik, Svidler, Mamedyarov and scored 8½/14
ton land on the 3-5th berth.
Vladimir Kramnik started with two wins, against Aronian and Mamedov
and had 4½ out of the first five games. Then came two losses (to
Nepomniachtchi and Nakamura) and later on three more to Karjakin,
Svidler and Radjabov. But a final round win against Mamedyarov kept
him within striking distance of the leaders.
Hikaru Nakamura, the secret favourite with a disappointing start
yesterday, scored one point in the first three games, but then found
his pace and took full points from Magnus Carlsen (sweet revenge
for the round one game), Kramnik, Mamedyarov and Eljanov to climb to
place six on the table.
Boris Gelfand started with an incredible 1.0 points from the first
seven games on day two, but then won an even more incredible 6½ from
the next seven. Did anyone spot what he took or did after the first
half of play?
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov was doing okay, keeping an eye on the leaders
with 4½ points in the first eight games, but then suffered a premium
train wreck with six consecutive losses to descend from place three
to place eight. Wonder what he did after round 22...
View standings at http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6815
From: A. Papazian
Chessbase News
Nov 17 2010
Germany
Levon Aronian started the second day with a loss and a draw. After
that came seven wins, two draws and a loss, to put him way ahead on
the scoresheet. But two losses in the final rounds, one against his
closest rival Magnus Carlsen, brought the Armenian uberflieger crashing
down to earth - still a point and a half ahead of the field! You can
watch the action in five hours of streaming video.
Advertisement
Andrew Martin: Enter 1.f4, Bird`s Opening!
There seems very little room to create new opening ideas in 2010
and the creative competitor must work hard to find new approaches
which help to win games. Enter 1.f4, Bird's Opening! 1.f4 has hardly
been given comprehensive coverage in the textbooks and on this new
ChessBase DVD, International Master and Senior FIDE Trainer Andrew
Martin examines this 'last frontier' of sound and original opening
play. Available from 29. October 2010 More information...
The World Blitz Championship is being held from 16 to 18 November
at the GUM Department Store on Red Square in Moscow. It is a double
round robin with twenty players, eight of whom are participants of
the Tal Memorial, with others who qualified from the 2010 Aeroflot
tournament and seeded players. Starting time is 15:00h local (=
13:00h CET; 07:00 a.m. NY), the rate of play three minutes for all
the moves plus a two second increment per move. There is live game
coverage and video on the official site.
Second day: Aronian takes the lead Levon Aronian, Armenian uberflieger
[from the German "Uberflieger", high-flyer, as in zugzwang, zeitnot and
schadenfreude], started the second day with a loss to Vladimir Kramnik,
and then a draw to Maxim Vachier-Lagrave. After that came seven wins,
two draws and a loss, to put him way ahead on the scoresheet. But two
losses in the final rounds, against his closest rival Magnus Carlsen
and against Rauf Mamedov brought Levon crashing down to earth -
still a point and a half ahead of the field!
Magnus Carlsen started with a win (against Mamedyarov) and then two
losses (to Savchenko and Eljanov) and had just 3½ points from the
first nine games of the day. After that he picked up three wins -
against Aronian and the two rival "kids" Vachier and Caruana - to
finish in second place with 17/28 points. That's a full point ahead
of the rest of the field. In his chess blog Magnus wrote: "My head
more or less went on strike today. A head functioning at half speed
doesn't work too well in a blitz tournament. Oddly several of the other
players with plus scores from day one seemed to play below par as well,
and I managed to stay in contention for tournament victory despite
a poor 7/14 and 50% score. Looking forward to an exiting finish."
Teimour Radjabov started with two wins, against Eljanov and Grischuk,
and scored a total of eight points from 14 games, which included
a 20th round black win against Aronian and a 27th round win over
Kramnik. He shared equal 3-5 with 16.0/28 points.
Ian Nepomniachtchi, just twenty years old, started with two wins,
beat amongst others Kramnik, Svidler, Mamedyarov and scored 8½/14
ton land on the 3-5th berth.
Vladimir Kramnik started with two wins, against Aronian and Mamedov
and had 4½ out of the first five games. Then came two losses (to
Nepomniachtchi and Nakamura) and later on three more to Karjakin,
Svidler and Radjabov. But a final round win against Mamedyarov kept
him within striking distance of the leaders.
Hikaru Nakamura, the secret favourite with a disappointing start
yesterday, scored one point in the first three games, but then found
his pace and took full points from Magnus Carlsen (sweet revenge
for the round one game), Kramnik, Mamedyarov and Eljanov to climb to
place six on the table.
Boris Gelfand started with an incredible 1.0 points from the first
seven games on day two, but then won an even more incredible 6½ from
the next seven. Did anyone spot what he took or did after the first
half of play?
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov was doing okay, keeping an eye on the leaders
with 4½ points in the first eight games, but then suffered a premium
train wreck with six consecutive losses to descend from place three
to place eight. Wonder what he did after round 22...
View standings at http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6815
From: A. Papazian