By Hikaru on 1/5/2009 12:21 AM

In the 5th game of the tournament I got black against GM Lie and chose to play a modern/pirc. The position was fine for me, but choosing to play Bg4 in conjunction with Nd7,Rc8 and c5 was probably inaccurate. Afterwards he found the very strong idea of 16.b4 followed by 17.Na2!. After a long variation of moves, he ended up a pawn, but the position is probably equal still due to the everlasting weakness on c2. A justified result probably would have been a draw here, but Lie went badly astray with 25.Bg5 Re8 26.exf5 gxf5 27.f4?? which allowed the very strong 27...Ng6 after which he is just losing. With Peter losing to Magnus, this made the whole situation complicated. Many people have wondered why I took a draw with Magnus in the last round.

My general strategy was to avoid much risk and head for blitz if necessary. As it turned out, Peter would go on to beat Kjetil which left the latter with the score of 0/6 and led to a three way tiebreak. In the first game I was simply not ready for b ... Read More »

By Hikaru on 1/4/2009 3:07 AM

Once again, just like in Cap D'Agde, I got off the snide by playing a solid game against Magnus with Black in the third round. Overall, I felt that the whole Nh4 idea with g4, Qe3 and f4 was slightly too optimistic. After the more natural 18.Nd4 Qe5 19. Qe3 Rae8 the position might be slightly better for White. However, the ensuing endgame was still roughly equal until Magnus went for the risky 40.Nd1. After 40.f5 g5 41. f6!? the position remains very complicated. However after 40.Nd1 Bd5 41.Nc3 Rd4 Magnus made the final blunder with 42.Kg3? After 42.Re3 Rxf4 43. Kg3 Rcf8 44.Nxd5 cxd5 45. Rxd5 the game should end in a draw. The position is already very bad for Magnus, but 43. Nxd5 loses on the spot. Later on, Svidler suggested 44. Re3 Re8! 45.Kf2 Rxf4 46. Ke2, but after 46...Rxe3 47.Kxe3 Rxg4 48. Nxd5 cxd5 49.Rxd5 c3 and White is probably losing in the endgame. Overall, it wasn't my best game ever, but I played very solidly and avoided ever getting into any trouble with Black.

In round ... Read More »

By Hikaru on 1/3/2009 4:48 AM

Hello to everyone. As I have just finished my preparation for today's second round games, I will take this opportunity to make a few brief remarks about my two games yesterday. In the first game I was black against GM Peter Svidler. Surprisingly, we have only played once despite crossing paths at several different paths. In that game back in 2002 i(wow have 6 1/2 years really gone by that quickly?) n the Dominican Republic. In that game I was black and made the ill-advised choice of the Najdorf and got crushed by a very strong novelty. This time around, I made a much better opening choice by playing the Caro Kann. Peter surprised me with the interesting 8.Na3!? After a couple of moves I obtained a very nice position and was equal until I blundered badly with 14...a6? If I had simply played Bc5, I probably would have been able to draw with relative ease. Alas, after the very strong 15.c4 I went astray quickly and lost horribly.

In the second game I had white against Kjetil Lie who is co ... Read More »

By Hikaru on 1/2/2009 3:13 AM

Happy New Year to everyone out there in the wide world from Gjovik, Norway. I do apologize for not blogging over the past few weeks, but I have been busy with quite a few non-chess related personal matters. As most people know, I am getting ready to play in the rapid supertournament here with Carlsen, Svidler and Lie, but there will be plenty of time to discuss this event over the coming days and weeks. For now though, I would like to take an opportunity to look back on my 2008 and what a year it was both for chess and other stuff.

2008 Recap

January: Coming off of a great fall/winter run in 2007 including wins in the Magistral Casino tournament and the Corsica Rapids, I started 2008 in a less than inspiring fashion as I started the Gibraltar Open with a miserable 3/5. However, as luck would have it, I turned everything around and won my final five games in a magical finale with wins against Hebden, Petrosian and Efimenko in the last three rounds. I would then go ... Read More »

By Hikaru on 12/1/2008 11:11 AM

Hello everyone! I just took two hours writing a blog and for some reason it didn't post correctly and vanished into thin air. As such, I'd just like to say thanks to everyone for their great wishes as well as my great teammates from the olympiad. Last but not least, I'd also like to express my gratitude to our team captain John Donaldson for doing such a great job and leading us to a second bronze medal in a row.

I would also like to comment on another topic which seems to be coming up frequently these days. I have no plans of currently changing federation and will definitely be playing the World Team Championship in Turkey this coming September.

By Hikaru on 11/18/2008 3:56 PM

Good day to everyone out there. In typical fashion, I do not blog directly on days when I am playing anymore as it distracts me from the massive amounts of work which everyone is starting to put into their preparation. Repeating my standard form from the last olympiad, I chose to sit out the first round when we played Iceland. The team scraped by with a 2.5-1.5 victory as Yury Shulman got himself into time pressure and blundered badly against GM Danielsen. However, due to the change in format from game points to match points, this does not particularly matter. It is worth noting that if the format was match points last olympiad we would have won silver not bronze. In round two, we played a very solid Greek team which had Papaioannou,Kotronias,Halkias,Mastrovasilios. This match was definitely a huge disappoint for us as Gata missed a win on board 1 while I blew a huge advantage on board 2. Alex solidly won on board 3, but Var was unable to hold with Black on board 4 so the match resulted in a 2-2 tie instead o ... Read More »

By Hikaru on 11/3/2008 2:04 AM

Since I was in a rush to finish the prior blog as I had to rush off to the airport, I will attempt to add a little bit more about the event. Looking back on the event now that I've had a day of rest&relaxation, I'd like to point out to everyone (primarily Mig) that Ivanchuk did in fact offer me a draw before I went Rc2 in the second rapid game. What I have noticed is that most people have failed to recognize is that once we reached that endgame, I was not playing for a draw and blitz tiebreaks. That was obviously my original gameplan, however the situation was very much of a low risk high reward case where I would have had to make a disastrous blunder in order to lose. So the comments I have which suggest that somehow Ivanchuk was only drifting towards blitz are quite erroneous. Another story which I must comment on are the appauling remarks which Anatoly Karpov made in an interview on the last day in Cap D'Agde. Although I have a great deal of respect for Karpov and his chess abilities, I think that perh ... Read More »

By Hikaru on 11/2/2008 1:30 AM

Hello to everyone! Although I had many opportunities to blog throughout the event here in Cap D'Agde, for the most part I was focused on playing my best chess which is why I did not blog. So without further ado, I will try and recap all the great moments throughout the tournament for me this year.

Qualfiiers:
In the qualifiers, I was put in the group with Carlsen, Radjabov, Karpov, Kosteniuk, Hou, Feller and Skripchenko. Originally I thought that being in this group was rather unfavourable as I had to face both Carlsen and Radjabov as opposed to simply Ivanchuk had I been in the other group. In the first round I was paired against GM Radjabov. In the past he has made some rather disparaging remarks about Armenians, as well as other grandmasters. It is rather interesting to note that when I acted in this manner on ICC in years past, people would get really upset whereas it seems when Radjabov just does it publicly, it is ok? Is there a double standard here...anyone? In our g ... Read More »

By Hikaru on 10/15/2008 12:47 PM

Greetings from Seattle! Tonight I will be playing in the US Chess League for the last time during the regular season. So far it has been a great run and I've enjoyed it immensely. Since I have not commented on last week, I will make some brief comments. Unlike last year when I lost to Bhat, (largely because I wasn't paying attention) this year was simply that I made a very stupid blunder in a much better position. However, despite my misfortune, our board 3 Readey also missed plenty of wins in his game so it wasn't solely my fault. Another note which I'd like to comment on is that I recently noticed GM Wolff annotated the game Esserman-Lian and said the Smith-Morra is a bad opening. I do not believe someone like Wolff who has been retired from chess for so many years and would rather make money at a hedge fund than play chess has any right to comment on the current state of chess theory. I would also straight up say that in a 10 game match in the Smith-Morra, Wolff would lose to Esserman if he played black. & ... Read More »

By Hikaru on 10/3/2008 11:42 AM

Hello again. Sorry if I have not been blogging much lately, but between the US Chess League and some rather unfortunate computer issues I have been quite busy. I will start off with the US Chess League. So far, so good as I am now 3/3 having beaten GMs Benjamin, Mitkov and Fedorowicz. Although I was not particularly crazy about the first 2 wins against Benjamin and Mitkov, my performance was good enough. However against GM Fedorowicz I played a double edged variation of the Kan and got a reasonable position out of the opening. In the middlegame, I think he missed some chances when he decided to play 24.Bxh7 instead of the sharp 24.Nd4 which would have led to a complicated tactical melee. In the ensuing endgame, Fed just got a bad position and lost without putting up much of a fight. Fortunately, Andy May won a very nice game on board 4 while Vancouverite Marcel Milat had a miracle save on board 3 which was enough for us to win the match. As of right now, pretty much everyone (Greg,Arun,etc) seems to have abso ... Read More »