There's a new sheriff in town...

Veselin Topalov, local hero and now the winner of the Mtel Masters, closed out the tournament with another win today, this time against Kramnik. Comments are already being made that this has been the most exciting and interesting tournament in 5 years perhaps, mostly due to the "no draw" rules. Let's hope this type of tournament is the beginning of a new trend.

Congratulations and thanks to all the players for making this tournament something special. My sentimental favorite Judit Polgar held her own against the men with 1 win, 1 loss, and 8 draws...finishing tied for 3rd. And thanks to www.mtelmasters.com for providing the "live board feeds"...I'm sure many chess lovers were glued to their computers for 5-6 hours every day, anticipating each move, even trying to refute some positions against Fritz.

The site www.chessbase.com has provided some great pictures if you haven't seen them yet, and the "Daily Dirt" message boards at www.chessninja.com are always lively with discussion.
Thanks Mig for keeping that going!

I don't know about the rest of you...but I am definitely fired up and ready to play in a tournament!

Chess anyone? ;)

The hotel in Sofia where the top "artists" are residing... 

M-Tel Masters Tournament takes center stage in Sofia

Wow! An average Elo rating of 2744...easily the strongest tournament of the year is taking place right now in Sofia, Bulgaria. Among the contestants are Viswanathan Anand, Veselin Topalov, Vladimir Kramnik, Michael Adams, Judit Polgar and Ruslan Ponomariov.

Of course my sentimental favorite to come out on top will be Judit Polgar, although I spent the better of this morning "trying" to refute her draw against Michael Adams yesterday, I was (past tense;) , convinced through a possible "Fischeresque" combination he may could have won.

As soon as Judit castled kingside, Michael pushed his pawn to f6, to which she replied g6. And suddenly a hopeless romantic like myself is thinking..."surely there is a way to get the queen to g7!!!" So at 4 am I woke Fritz up to prove my possible theory, but beware waking up a sleeping "cat", as he ripped me up and down and all around with every possible variation I could throw at him.

Three things dawned on me (no pun intended) as I played this Round 1 game out...
White (Adams) had a lone pawn on e4, which happened to share the diagonal with a pair of bishops AND his own king. Number two, the fianchetto had left white's king vulnerable to the entire black arsenal...and three...the black queen stayed put near the a3-f8 diagonal, which would thwart any checkmate ideas white may have on g7. A draw was reached in 74 moves in the actual game.

In the 2nd round today Anand held Kramnik off by playing the Petroff Defence. And although I've yet to analyze this game, it may be very beneficial to give it some attention, as very few players can outright defeat it.

This tournament is a double round robin which runs through Sunday, May 22. Two great websites to check out the results and much more are www.chessbase.com and www.mtelmasters.com .

The Nakamura game 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5

[Event "13th Sigeman & Co"]
[Site "Copenhagen/Malmoe DEN"]
[Date "2005.04.22"]
[Round "7"]
[White "Nakamura, H."]
[Black "Sasikiran, K."]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C20"]
[WhiteElo "2657"]
[BlackElo "2642"]
[PlyCount "174"]
[EventDate "2005.04.15"]

1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 Nc6 3. Bc4 g6 4. Qf3 Nf6 (4... f5 $5 {Yermo})
5. Ne2 Bg7 6. Nbc3 d6 7. d3 Bg4 8. Qg3 Qd7 9. f3 Be6 10. Bg5 Nh5
11. Qh4 h6 12. Be3 Na5 13. Bb3 Nxb3 14. axb3 a6 15. d4 Qe7
16. Qf2 exd4 17. Bxd4 Nf6 18. O-O-O O-O-O 19. Nf4 Rhg8
20. Rhe1 Kb8 21. Kb1 g5 22. Nfe2 Rge8
23. g4 (23. e5 $5 dxe5 (23... Nh5 $2 24. g4 dxe5 25. Ba7+ Ka8
26. Bc5 Qf6 27. Ne4)
(23... Ng8 24. exd6 cxd6 25. Bxg7) 24. Ba7+ Ka8
25. Bc5 Rd6 26. Bxd6 cxd6

{ Black has full compensation for the exchange.})

23... Qf8 24. Ng3 Nd7 25. Be3 Qh8 26. Nge2 Be5 27. h4 Qg7
28. Rh1 Nf6 29. Bd4 Nd7 30. Qe3 Qf6 31. hxg5 hxg5
32. Bxe5 Qxe5 33. Rh5 Rg8 34. Nd5 Rde8 35. Qc1 Qg7 36. Ne3 Nf6
37. Rh2 Rh8 38. Rg2 Nd7 39. Nd4 Rh3 40. c4 Qf6 41. Rf2 Reh8
42. b4 Qe5 43. c5 dxc5 44. bxc5 Nxc5 45. Qc3 f6 46. Rc2 Na4 47. Qb4 Bd7
48. Nb3 Rh1 49. Rxh1 Rxh1+ 50. Ka2 Nb6 51. Qf8+ Qe8 52. Qxe8+ Bxe8
53. Nc5 Nd7 54. Nxd7+ Bxd7 55. Kb3 Re1 56. Rc3 Be6+
57. Kc2 Re2+ 58. Kc1 a5 59. Nc2 Rf2 60. Nd4 Bd7 61. Rc5 b6
62. Rd5 Kc8 63. e5 fxe5 64. Rxe5 c5 65. Nb3 Rf1+ 66. Kd2 a4
67. Nxc5 bxc5 68. Rxc5+ Kb7 69. Rxg5 Rxf3 70. Rd5 Be6
71. Rd3 Rf1 72. Rg3 Rf2+ 73. Kc3 Kb6
74. Kb4 Rf4+ 75. Ka3 Kb5 76. Re3 Bd5 77. Rd3 Bc4 78. Re3 Rd4
79. g5 Rd1 80. b3 axb3 81. Re8 Ra1+ 82. Kb2 Ra2+ 83. Kc3 Rc2+
84. Kd4 b2 85. Rb8+ Ka4 86. g6 Bb5 87. g7 b1=Q

0-1

Nakamura's "refreshing" 2.Qh5!

Much to the dismay of many, I for one was excited to see the questionable move played by Hikaru Nakamura against Krishnan Sasikiran. White's position was still strong after a few moves, but unfortunately succumbed to defeat in 87 moves.

Too much emphasis has been put on the standard openings, requiring much study and memorization of all the variations. I totally agree with Susan Polgar on this point.
In her book, "A World Champion's Guide To Chess", she states...

"...too many players are not being taught properly. Too much emphasis is placed on the opening and not enough on other areas."

Of course she's referring to beginners and intermediates, but I want to go a step further and say this applies to even the highest level. My first goal against any opponent, whether it be a 9 year old beginner, Fritz, Fischer, or Kasparov, I want an even position AND them to see an unfamiliar board.

This whole "stigma" over the openings and their variations is precisely why Bobby Fischer will quickly tell you "chess is dead." He even went so far as to invent a new way of playing, "Fischerandom", in which the pieces on the first row are placed in a different order each time, making it impossible to play a standard opening.

Except for the stock market, never has the term "hindsight is 20/20" been more true than in chess. It's amazing how anyone can pick apart a game afterwards, stating what "should have" been played. It's totally different though if they had been sitting in that chair, under time pressure, locked in a psychological battle with their opponent.

Let's applaud a "non-traditional" move from time to time. Chess is an expressive, and creative art, and I say hats off to those players that march to the beat of a different drummer.

The Largest Chess Tournament Ever!

...a couple of sunday's ago i meandered up the road a bit to nashville, to check out the super bowl of scholastic chess, with over 5200 kids from every state competing...

in the days prior i had become quite agitated at the lack of press coverage, with barely any mention from the local newstation, and none whatsoever in the newspaper. the 4 day event was held at the gaylord opryland hotel, one of the largest hotels anywhere, an experience in itself not to be missed if you get a chance...

within a few minutes i found myself at the uscf bookstore, and about the time i realized the friendly gentleman sitting a few feet from was yasser seirawan, i met someone from the local scene who gave me a tour, and politely pointed out everything that was going on that afternoon...

the final round was starting in a few minutes, so i quickly picked out a book for yasser to sign and had a short conversation with him...pleasantly surprised at his upbeat personality...the main reason i had decided to go that particular day, was to listen to anatoly karpov discuss his chess school, so everything else was just a bonus!

the two huge rooms with over 5000 kids grew very quiet as the final round began, and i strolled along the outer edge to check out as many "openings" as i could...i must say, i was quite amazed not to have recognized any of them, excluding the bishop's opening! it quickly became apparent that 2 hours a piece was just way too much time for these kids...almost immediately, several were up walking around, waiting on their opponent's next move, some of them with mp3 players, some wearing sunglasses (poker influence?), ...and moves that i thought were obvious, taking 10 minutes before a decision was reached...you could really sense the pressure on these players...

what totally blew my mind were the championship games, up on a stage at the front of the room, seem to be drawing no attention at all...so i wandered up there to have a look, and was quickly turned away, being told i couldn't stand there...hmmmm...so i stepped back to have a look...no video, no projector, no screen, no one besides the players themselves were even aware of how these games were unfolding!!! i just couldn't believe it, and i still haven't a found a transcript of these games posted anywhere!!!

and i thought it was gonna be like in the movie "searching for bobby fischer", with closed circuit television nearby, so everyone could watch, ha! speaking of that movie, i had been told earlier that bruce pandolfini was there, so i was really hoping to run into him, and there he was! ...bruce? "no, i'm not bruce"...(and i thought it was just a mind game to him;) ...and he went on about how chess must be televised on saturday mornings on abc even for just 20 minutes, if chess was to ever become very popular...

only later did i remember, an actor played bruce in the movie, and i recalled a real picture of him in one of his books, so the teacher i had met from new jersey was not him!!! whew! how embarrassing!!! LOL!!!

another surprise was the rudeness showed by many who continually came in and out of the small room during karpov's lecture...to start with, it was delayed by 20 minutes as he posed for pictures and signed autographs, and then, as soon as he began to talk about his childhood and life leading up until now, people were constantly shuffling in and out, as if they couldn't focus for 2 minutes on what he had to say!
i was absolutely appalled, and couldn't blame him if he had walked out...but his demeanor was such that i'm willing to bet he wasn't even aware of the inconsideration.

and that brings me to my last surprise of that day...meeting susan polgar and having her autograph her book for my daughter...she was so polite and professional, as were anatoly and yasser...i expected to see arrogant grandmasters, full of their own ego, and rightfully so, but instead were three very humble and gracious champions, eager to share what they know with the youth of the world, i'm very appreciative.

...and on the way home, the thought crossed my mind...bobby fischer, how disappointing, ...you could have been such a positive influence these past 33 years.
and yet so many seem to still admire you...

well, i have some new idols now... :)