Playoff: Lenderman 0-1 Akobian (Armageddon)
Kamsky 1.5-0.5 Akobian (Rapid)
Zatonskih 1/2 Abrahamyan (Armageddon – Draw odd for Black)
Krush 1.5-0.5 Abrahamyan (Rapid)
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Kamsky and Krush win US Championships again
Why did that choker chicken Nakamura not join the US open? Oh yeah kamsky and akobian scare him. He’d rather take on a Navarra rather than these guys.
The playoff system between Kamsky, Lenderman and Akobian who all tied for first, was totally unfair.
Kamsky had a 1/2 chance of winning, whereas Lenderman and Akobian each only had 1/4 chance of winning. To play a long tournament such as this, and to then have the champion decided in such an unfair way, is a disgrace to competitive chess!
Sunmaid
Kamsky was not seeded into the final because he was champion or because of his rating. He got it because his record with the players he was tied with was the best. He beat Lenderman in round 7 and that gave him the tiebreaker.
All three players finished with an equal result overall in the tournament. To give Kamsky such a huge advantage in a playoff because he beat Lendermen makes no sense. They could have just have easily picked a system that gives Lenderman the first round bye because he had the most wins. To me it is a no brainer that when three players finish EQUAL in a tournament and you want to fairly determine a champion through a playoff, there is no reason to give one of the players such a hugh advantage for any reason. This playoff system is a disgrace.
Sunmaid
Ok, Sunmaid, what’s your idea on a better tie-break system for three players? You think it’s unfair to give the player with a better math tie-breaker an over the board advantage, so you must be opposed to just giving away the title to that person without playing. So how do you resolve a 3-way tie over the board, and do it within one day, without resorting to blitz?
If Kamsky or Krush had played both playoff rounds, they probably would have won anyway, and no one would be complaining about how unfair the format was. The truth is, the 2 players who didn’t lose a game the entire way deserved to win the tournament. Lenderman and Zatonskih shouldn’t have lost in the classical matchups if they wanted to be champion, simple as that.
The tie break system was choosen before the tournament started, so no question of favour to any player.
The playoff scheme was a joke…Akobian and Abrahamyan were forced to play under that irrational “armageddon” scheme and after being drained of mental energy, had to immediately play a decisive game against a fresh opponent under a different time control.
Deciding fairly is the aim…not just getting it over with.
somebody is unhappy. Everyone else congratulates the winners for a job well done!
Anyone think Bobby Fischer would have even considered playing in any tournament with an “Armageddon” provision?
Who gives a crap what Fischer would do. The guy was a nut job who made the most outrageous demands of everyone, then forfeited his title. I still haven’t seen any of the naysayers coming up with a better system for resolving over the board tie-breaks in one day without using blitz. It’s easy to criticize, especially when you didn’t get the results you wanted. How bout being constructive, and suggesting a better, realistic method?
I love the people complaining about needing a fair way to resolve the tournament. In the good old days, Akobian and Abrahamyan wouldn’t have even had a chance to win, since their tie-breakers were worse. You can complain about different time controls between matches, and I think that’s fair, but they got a chance to win over-the-board. I’ll bet Kramnik would have loved to have any kind of playoff in last year’s candidate matches.
I guess in some minds talking about the fairness of a contest equates to wishing for a different result. Simple minded.
Also if it weren’t for that kook, Fischer, it’s fair to think that chess wouldn’t even be on American radar. Historically, Bobby was the professional chessplayer’s best friend…so says Boris Spassky.
It wasn’t that long ago when it was perfectly ok to have Co-champions or even Tri-champions. Does anyone object to that?
Using Fischer as the arbiter of what is professional and fair is absurd. Fischer’s insane, unreasonable demands were embarrassing.
I wonder if people posting about unfairness here complain about teams earning byes in sports playoffs, and about how unfair that is too.
Co-Champions? Thankfully, outdated ideas like that are long gone. Maybe Kasparov and Karpov could have been Co-World Champions when they finished 12-12 in one of their matches.
The vast majority like to see clear winners. Tuesday’s playoffs were great to watch. They were very exciting, and were exactly what chess needs to help grow it’s popularity. The format could be tweaked a bit, but deciding a championship over the board just seems like a no-brainer. Anyone have any better suggestions?
Not too long ago, the world championship could go on months with dozens of boring, short draws. And back then, the champion would automatically get a rematch. Thankfully, we all realized those ideas were bad and we evolved.
Basketball figured out they needed a shot clock. American football added the forward pass. Somethings are just bad ideas that don’t help your sport, and need to be changed. Co-champions and math tie-breakers might be ok for amateur events, but they are bad ideas for high end, broadcasted chess events trying to reach a larger audience.
If current day chess fans would acquaint themselves with the history of the game they purport to love, they’d see that Bobby Fischer’s “insane” demands were anything but insane and many have been incorporated into modern professional chess.
Plus, he was responsible in raising the level of monies to be earned by players at the highest levels – once again, refer to Spassky. Before Bobby, apart from the subsidized players of the USSR, there were few, if any European or American chess players who could support themselves simply by playing the game.
Fischer was instrumental in changing all that.
I would actually suggest you read a bit more about your idealized hero Fischer. Many of his demands were absurd and sprang from his unbalanced mind. After demanding so much money for the world championship, Fischer then demanded that the cameras be removed from the playing hall. Sounds pretty insane to me. Not to mention that he forfeited his title because they didn’t give in to his absurd demands for an unlimited length match and letting him retain the title on a 9-9 tie.
The guy was a genius on the chessboard, but those 64 squares are the confines of where admiration for him should rest.
Ignorance of history is bliss. Listen to Garry Kasparov on just one aspect of Fischer’s impact on chess:
“Keep in mind that the chess world of the pre-Fischer era was laughably impoverished even by today’s modest standards. The Soviet stars were subsidized by the state, but elsewhere the idea of making a living solely from playing chess was a dream. When Fischer dominated the Stockholm tournament of 1962, a grueling five-week qualifier for the world championship cycle, his prize was $750.
Of course it was Fischer himself who changed this situation, and every chess player since must thank him for his tireless efforts to get chess the respect and compensation he felt it deserved. He earned the nickname Spassky gave him, “the honorary chairman of our trade union.” These efforts meant he was often an event organizer’s worst nightmare, but that was not Bobby’s concern. Ten years after Stockholm, the purse for the 1972 World Championship between Fischer and Spassky was an astronomical $250,000, plus side deals for a share of television rights.
It’s barely an exaggeration to say that Fischer’s impact on the chess world was as great financially as it was on the board. The world championship became a hot commodity and as we know, money talks. Chess tournaments and chess players acquired a new respectability, although it did not all outlast Fischer himself. My epic series of matches against Anatoly Karpov from 1985 to 1990 fanned the sponsorship flames into a blaze—we were not going to play only for the greater Soviet glory now that we knew there were millions of dollars to be had. We had learned more from Fischer than just chess.”
Fischer may have devolved into a pitiful human, but when it came to speaking for the integrity of the game, the conditions under which it’s played and the respect to be shown to its professional players, he had few equals. Following Fischer’s whole career – actually knowing chess history instead of a few scattered incidents – shows him as a very complex individual, not to be written off lightly.