July 10, 2009 • General
Greetings once again to the cyber world. As most people know, today is the rest day, so I will attempt to recap the first three rounds and their respective outcomes thus far.
Round 1: The Living Legend Named Karpov
At the opening ceremony, I drew the number 1 which I seem to pick fairly often. Despite the fact that it is supposed to be a huge advantage due to starting off a tournament with double whites, I have found that it is very much a double edged sword. For instance, if you fail to convert in the first two games, there will be huge pressure to win with Black. Also, I was not overly thrilled about this drawing due to a certain uncertainty involving my performance as I was coming straight from the World Open in Philadelphia. Nevertheless, it is supposed to be an advantage and you just have to deal with it.
Onto the round itself, I got White against the 12th World Champion, Anatoly Karpov who is, in my opinion, the second best player to have ever lived (Kasparov is first). The game turned into a Queens Gambit Declined and I chose the 5.Bf4 variation. I am not quite sure whether Karpov was expecting this or simply unsure which line to choose as he has played this with both colors more times than I ever will. Nevertheless, he went for the 7…Na6 variation and obtained a slightly worse position out of the opening phase. Due to the time control, I was able to get a big advantage as he neared time pressure. From here, I proceeded to completely blow it as I missed about 3-4 easy wins. However, I was still winning at the end when Karpov flagged on the 61st move. In all likelihood, I would have been forced to mate him with bishop and knight. I have been paying a bit of attention to Mig’s blog on ChessNinja, and I completely disagree with his assessment that none of the younger generation are aware or scared of Karpov. I am pretty sure that the reason I nearly blew the win is because the thought of beating such a legend made me nervous.
Round 2: More Familiar Faces
In round two, I got my second white in a row against French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. We are both quite familiar with each other having played in the rapids at Cap D’Agde last year and being teammates on Evry in the French League this year. Overall, our score has been pretty even as we drew all four games of rapid. However, I completely destroyed him in both blitz games and won a third one in Gibraltar earlier this year. In our game, I decided to play the English Attack against his patented Najdorf. Fortunately it all worked out for me, although Maxime had 21…Qb7 22.Ng3 Nd4 23.Bc4 with an unclear position. After 21..e5 I was able to get into a very comfortable ending in which I converted without any problems. I certainly was hoping to have a shot at being 2-0, but realistically, I did not expect it. Nevertheless, it was a pefect start.
Round 3: The Big Russian
In the third round, I got my first black against GM Peter Svidler. As most people are aware, I have played Peter quite a few times recently and seem to see him a bit too often for my liking. We last played in the Gjovik Rapids in Norway last December when he beat me 1.5-.5 in the rapids and 1-0 in the blitz. Coming off this dreadful performance and leading this event as well, this was definitely an uphill task. Fortunately, I seemed to be up to the task for at least one day. Repeating much like we did in our first rapid game back in Norway, the opening was an advance Caro Kann. I am not sure if Peter improvised with Nh4, f4, Ndf3 or if this was all part of his plan. Nevertheless, I obtained a comfortable position and was able to equalize relatively quickly. However, upon second glance, it now appears that 17…Qb3 would have yielded me an extra pawn. Albeit, I would have given him a strong kingside attack. Therefore, I cannot complain with the result of the game as a draw with Black against Peter is nothing to be disappointed with. Now it is onto the second half of the tournament.
July 07, 2009 • General
Due to the fact that the first round is in approximately 3 hours time, I am not going to blog right now. That being said, here are my pairings for the tournament.
Round 1: Nakamura-Karpov
Round 2: Nakamura-Vachier Lagrave
Round 3: Svidler-Nakamura
Round 4: Nakamura-Vallejo Pons
Round 5: San Segundo-Nakamura
Round 6: Nakamura-Ponomariov
Round 7: Granda-Nakamura
Round 8: Nakamura-Movsesian
Round 9:Kasimdzhanov-Nakamura
July 05, 2009 • General
Greetings to everyone out there. This will have to be a rather short blog as I am running quite behind schedule on getting ready for San Sebastian due to the epic 5 set match in Wimbledon which occupied my whole morning. Overall, it is safe to say that I made the right decision playing in the World Open as I chose to play the 3-day and had only one difficult game against GM Yudasin which eventually led to a draw. In the 2 slow games which I played, I had a routinely quick draw with Black against GM Smirin in 14 moves. My goal was to score 1.5/2 in the slow games, and I figured draw with Black, take chances with White. However, in the 7th round I got a rude awakening when instead of getting White, I got Black against GM Najer from Russia. The game was extremely complicated and although I felt that I must have been close to losing at a certain point, I was able to outmanouver him with my two knights against his rooks and bishop. Although the game was not clean at all, (I haven’t had a chance to analyze it in depth yet) I came out ahead at time control and was able to duly convert it without any issues. This put me on 6/7 and with my two byes in rounds 8 and 9, I figure I should get a tie of first, but who knows. I will definitely add more about the World Open from Spain when I get the chance.
On a complete sidenote, before the round yesterday, I heard the very sad news that former Titans quarterback Steve McNair was shot and killed. As some of you know, since early in 2000, I have been a diehard Titans fan, and I have always been a huge fan of McNair’s style of play. In many ways, I feel that my style of chess fits with the way he played football in that he always tried to play through injuries and kept fighting on. This style of toughness is something I have always strived for and I felt that the game last night fit very much in that style as I refused to give up and kept fighting against Najer. Therefore, in honor of McNair, I will certainly be wearing my McNair Titans jersey in San Sebastian.
June 23, 2009 • General
Hello once again to everyone out there. As a courtesy to one of my fellow friends, I have decided to blog about the comical events of another crazy summer day in New York. Early this afternoon, I chose to go into the city as several friends who were playing in the Marshall Invitational were interested in some singles/doubles. I must admit that anytime I go to the Marshall these days, it feels like I am in a foreign country. I guess this is what happens you show up at your old stomping ground years later. Shortly after this, a few of us went out for lunch and ate some burgers, while a certain unnamed player decided to show a great game from the morning round of the Marshall Invitational (Diagram below).
IM Esserman-Sorkin, Marshall Invitational (7) 22.6.2009
During our analysis with unnamed player we discussed how during the game there was a repitition involving Qd2, Nc6 Qh6 Nb4. Here though, the unnamed player explained that he had analyzed with Rybka and concluded that the fantastic Rc3! is winning. During our analysis this wins by force as Black loses to Nxd5 Nf5!! gxf5 Rg3 Bg6 exf5. Another possible line is Rc3 e6 Rg3 after which White has unstoppable threats. Unfortunately, this mysterious player did not see this tactic, but I still find the tactic quite instructive. After some fun analyzing this and a few other games from this tournament, the four of us headed off to play tennis. As we headed further up the Upper West Side, an older couple stopped nearby and said “Wait, is that Hikaru Nakamura?” Somehow this caught me by surprise and I ran into none other than ChessFM journalist Macauley Peterson’s parents. This was certainly a welcome surprise, and it is always nice to see that in certain circles and areas of America, chess is prominent.
After we reached the Central Park Tennis Courts, it turned out there were no available courts. After dawdling around and considering some options for about a half hour, two older gentleman who had been playing for three hours, started talking about chess within our earshot. Shortly thereafter, they started playing a game. We expected the players to be somewhat weak, but the opening started with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4! This was definitely a surprise considering the level of chess any serious player is used to seeing outside of actual tournaments. Although Black went on the err with 4…c5 ?! (Top choice according to Rybka!) it was clear the players weren’t too bad. Nevertheless, they had already played tennis, so we were unable to hustle them for a tennis court which sucked considerably.
Since our plan to play tennis was an epic fail (There’s my pretender 2000’s lingo) we decided to go and play basketball. A specific unnamed person was challenged to a game of one-on-one by a little 6th grader who wasn’t even 5 feet, while the anonymous basketball player stands over 6 feet tall. This turned into a funny game involving about 10 missed shots from the paint and then some putbacks. We then decided to play some three-on-three involving first to eleven. After my team confidently won the first game, we changed the teams around. This game was very close and involved quite a bit of trash talking involving the unnamed person. After the opposing team took a 10-9 lead, I drained a three pointer to supposedly win the game 11-10. However, Mr. X then said it should be first to win by two points! This led to the game ending up tied at 12-12 before I hit another game winning three pointer. One might ask what this has to do with anything. Originally, I had no intentions of blogging about today, however, Mr. X said “I know you are going to blog about this later,” so I felt compelled to write up the events of today just for Mr. X.
As a general sidenote, involving chess, I would like to congratulate IM Lev Milman who made his first (I think) GM norm today in the New York International with a very nice victory over GM Leonid Yudasin. Lev was always very talented when he was younger, and although he put aside his chess ambitions in favour of college and a more traditional lifestyle, it is great to see that he is still capable of playing great chess at times. Congrats, Lev, you deserve it! As for the other player who was in the running for a norm, IM, Sam Shankland of California, he got completely destroyed by GM Giorgi Kacheishvili and missed a norm. This really did not surprise me as I do not feel he is of GM strength yet. It is now going on 3 AM, so I will try to get some sleep or else it’s going to be time for endless double shots at Starbucks tomorrow morning.
June 22, 2009 • General
Good afternoon to everyone on another completely overcast and miserable day here in New York. It has been some time since I last blogged and this has been due to a variety of reasons. I have also started my preparation for both the World Open and San Sebastian beginning this week, so that is occupying a lot of my time at the present moment. Before I get into all the chess topics which I am sure everyone is anxious to read about, I’d like to start by talking about sports.
First, I was highly impressed with the Pittsburgh Penguins when they came back at 3 different points in the series to beat the Detroit Red Wings. Normally, come June, I have little interest in the playoffs as the teams I root for tend to be long gone. However, along with much of the hockey world, I was glad to see the Wings lose, and for Sid The Kid to get his first ring despite the fact that the true star on the Penguins was Malkin. Overall, kudos to the Pens on a title well deserved. Sadly, despite a great start to the NBA Playoffs involving probably the best opening round series between the Bulls and Celtics, fizzled out considerably towards the end. The Cavaliers who were the clear favourites from the start of the season were completely overmatched against the Magic. Despite Lebron’s great individual performance it was simply not enough to overcome the play from the trio of Turkoglu, Lewis and Howard. In the west, the Lakers had a much tougher road than the Magic, but they were able to turn it on when they got into trouble against both the Rockets and the Nuggets. Although the Lakers beat the Magic 4-1 in the final, the Magic had excellent opportunities to win in games 3 (Love missed the layup at the buzzer) and game 4 (Howard should have hit his free throws). However, I’m sure the young and inexperienced Magic team will learn from the experience and come back as a better team next year. Nevertheless, nothing can be taken away from the Lakers or Phil Jackson who proved that he is the greatest coach of all time and can find ways to win championships even when he doesn’t have a certain player called Michael Jordan on his team. As far as other sporting events go, I was highly disappointed in the final round of the US Open today when Mickelson and Duval came up just short against a couple of random players. Also, I randomly noticed that the US was able to qualify for the semifinals in Soccer, but as I do not follow this sport, I really have nothing to say other than that I am quite convinced they’ll lose once again.
Now onto the more important stuff! I believe that tomorrow, my interview which was conducted on Saturday with John Watson for ChessFM should be appearing on ICC tomorrow. I hope that everyone enjoys the interview as I thoroughly enjoyed it. Much more importantly, I got an invite the other day for Corus-A in January of 2010. Hopefully, I can keep up my good results and make a push at the super elite level of players. As it currently stands, my goal is still to reach 2730 by the end of the year and if I can continue to play well and remain in form, I should have good chances. Anyway, it should be an interesting next half year for me and probably the most important. Stay tuned for my results as I will be playing the World Open 3-day schedule starting July 3rd.
The other big piece of news which I have not mentioned much about is the chess book which I worked on for much of last fall and winter on bullet chess. The title of the book is Bullet Chess: One Minute To Mate, and it is co-authored by myself and Vancouver FM Bruce Harper. I hope that everyone likes it and it is already available for pre-order on Amazon. The current release date is set for September 3rd, 2009 and I hope that it interests people. Here is the actual link itself. http://www.amazon.com/Bullet-Chess-One-Minute-Mate/dp/1888690674/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245712290&sr=8-1
That is all for now. If anyone reading this blog is at the World Open, don’t mind saying hello!
