Kamsky chooses Black and draw odd
Y. Shulman (2613) – G. Kamsky (2702) [D11]
Draw odd time bidding US Championship playoff (11), 25.05.2010
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be2 0–0 7.0–0 Qb6 8.b3 Bg4 9.Ba3 Re8 10.Rc1 e6 11.h3 Bxf3 12.Bxf3 Nbd7 13.Bd6 Bf8 14.Bg3 a5 15.Qc2 Qa7 16.Rfd1 Nb6 17.Be2 Nc8 18.c5 b6 19.Na4 Ne4 20.Be5 b5 21.Nb6 Nxb6 22.cxb6 Qxb6 23.f3 Nd6 24.Qxc6 Reb8 25.Qxb6 Rxb6 26.Kf2 Ne8 27.Rc2 Ba3 28.e4 Kf8 29.g4 h6 30.h4 Rd8 31.Bf4 Kg7 32. Be3
32…Nd6 33. exd5 exd5 34. Rc5 Ne8 35. Rxb5 Rxb5 36. Bxb5 +/-
36…Nc7 37. Bd3 Ne6 38. f4 Be7 39. Rh1 Bf6+=
40. h5 gxh5 41. Rxh5 Bxd4 42. Bxd4+ Nxd4 43. Ke3 Nc6 44. Bb5 Nb4 45. Kd4 Rb8 46. a4 Rc8 47. Re5 Kf6 48. Rf5+ Kg6 49. Re5 Kf6 50. g5+ hxg5 51. fxg5+ Kg6 52. Re7 Ra8 53. Be8 Kxg5 54. Kc5 f5 55. Rg7+ Kf6 56. Rg6+ Ke7 57. Bb5 f4 58. Rg4 f3 59. Kb6 f2 60. Rf4 Rf8 61. Rxf8 Kxf8 62. Kxa5 Nc6+ 63. Kb6 Nd4 64. Bf1 Nxb3 65. Kb5 Ke7 66. Kb4 Nd2 1/2-1/2
Click here to replay the game.
By having the draw odd, Kamsky wins the 2010 U.S. Championship by drawing this game. Congratulations to Gata and Yury for a great battle!
Congratulations to the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis for a well run event!
How come you have the information up already and the official USCF website doesn’t? Shouldn’t this be a top priority?
Why not a couple of classical, or 90 30, games on one day. then maybe this monstrosity.
Why does one of the players get to choose which side he wants? That gives him an advantage. If this type of game is to be done (and I don’t like it), then why not choose the sides randomly?
Also, it used to be that there could be co-champions.
Why not play Russian roulette?
He also won without defeating the Champion.
Everyone should demand a challenger vs champion match to determine the champ.
He could have simply picked Kamsky as the challenger since he had the high rating. if Naka won then pick someone different next year.
The Champ will never be a champ until we finally have a Challenger vs Champion match the same as Anand vs Topalov.
All the rest is just an illusion.
American chess players need match experience. when will they get it.
USCF is too busy to do anything for chess.
All the USCF Staff in doing journalism stuff at the site of the Shulman-Kamsky battle. That’s why it doesnt’t get posted immediately on USCF Site. It’ll be up shortly after the press conferences are finished so that can be put in the write up.
Matt,
This is the reason why I usually have comment moderation. Even that it is not full proof.
This is the new duplicate article which I just re-posted per your request. I have posted nearly 30,000 items in the past 5 years. This is a one time re-do to show my respect to the sponsor and the St. Louis Chess Center. I simply do not have the time to repeat this process daily.
The policy of my blog is simple:
http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2010/05/lifting-blog-moderation.html.
Best wishes,
I’m not for or against the playoff system. My question is should there be at least 2 games to be fair?
OK. Thanks. Any chance you can require a Google account login to comment? Then there’s at least some assurance that the poster is who they claim to be.
-Matt
“All the USCF Staff in doing journalism stuff at the site of the Shulman-Kamsky battle. That’s why it doesnt’t get posted immediately on USCF Site.”
Why not? This is purely incompetence. It should be up immediately. The USCF simply doesn’t get it, do they? If the news aren’t up immediate, people will get the news elsewhere. It’s 2010, not 1910.
Geesh!
Matt,
I tried that but please remember that this blog is read in over 150 countries. Not all countries have the internet luxury or freedom of speech which we do in America.
Some are scared to death to speak up or speak out. I have received countless requests asking me to give them the freedom to speak up, especially from specific countries, without being punished.
Best wishes,
Susan! Um confused , he actually took black, draw odds and used a tricky knight? I thought eieebody said white was winnin right outta the opening what happened to that philosopy Susan? and were calls received from the top traditional guys, Kasparov, Kramnik, and lil Magasparov? Susan did ya see the fide grandprix games? check out the games when ya get a chance its quite humorous on many levels.
Well, this is just my opinion, but as a chess enthusiast I have to say that I personally find the format for the US championship extremely anticlimactic. I was actively following from day one and started to get dissapointed after game 7. FYI: I was rooting for Nakamura or Kamsky to win…I’m just shocked about the way Kamsky won.
yeah tellem Susan! i was walkin down the streets of Buffalo N.Y. and i saw President Obama pass by in his motorcade so hes a real person! so when ya see Kasparov tellem i said “tone it down”!!!
I’m so sorry, can someone please enlighten me? Why Kamsky chooses black and has “drawing odds” – what does that mean? Why can’t they share the title when the result is a draw? (the difference in prize money is only $5,000 extra, who care?) And black wins by drawing?? This’s all very confusing….thanks in advance!!
OK. That’s fine.
I am stating for the record that anything posted here with the name “Globular”, without the Google/Blogger login, has not been posted here by me.
Anyone lifting comments from ICC, or some other source without attribution, is being bad.
-Matt
This was a weird bidding system. What did Shulman bid? Does anyone know?
Finally a real wise decision by the USCF! The USA Champ will be a Russian! Muahahaha!
Draw odds is nearly impossible to win. This is not chess. There’s no bidding in chess.
@ppmint
You can see an explanation of the playoff system in the video “2010 Round recap 6: Previewing the playoff” on http://www.USChessChamps.com/video
@Macauley
Thanks!! I also found it here: http://saintlouischessclub.org/content/tiebreaks-and-playoff-procedures
@Anon
Kamsky’s bid: play with Black and draw odds for the title with 25 minutes, versus 39:55 minutes for Shulman.
@ppmint – 2:09:00 PM CDT
Actually Shulman got 60 minutes. He only BID 39:55. Since he was underbid by Kamsky, Shulman got White and 60 minutes, and Kamsky took black with 25 minutes and draw odds.
Both players explain their rationale in the video “LIVE: Interview”, on the U.S. Championship videos page.
@Macauley
Yes, Shulman only bid 39:55 and since he didn’t win the bid, he got 60 minutes with White instead. Thanks for clarifying on that!!
It’s a strange way to decide a championship of this calibre, but white had a won position so in a way he did have a great chance and blew it.
Gata needs to smile more. He won the games dammit!
Show us some teeth man!
Dr. Rabbit
A well run event but a completely idiotic format.
What happened to Irina Krush? Did she get her second GM norm? I hope she won her last game.
Draw odds?! Bidding 25 minutes? Are they finding the best chess player or the best game theory tactician? Ridiculous.
A number of people have complained that the format for deciding tiebreaks in the US Chess Chamapionship was weak, not “chess enough” or a disappointing compromise. To respond, I ask what OTHER format would not, in many cases, turn out to be a similar compromise?
As we all know, in chess the logical result is often a draw. In any tournament with a large number of players, it is not uncommon to have two or more players with the same score. The options for deciding an outright champion all, to my mind, have issues:
Option 1) keep playing classical games, in match format, until there is a clear result. Problems: The black/white divide gives the first player with white an unfair advantage. There is no fixed schedule. The games could, potentially, go on forever- a la the first Karpov-Kasparov match- Straining schedules and resources.
Option 2) Institute an “armageddon” solution. The game is still chess, just chess with time constraints. Problems: the quality of the chess is not likely to be as high, and games are more likely to be decided on who keeps their cool the best rather than who is the best classical player.
Option 3) A “batsford” like system tiebreak system- whereby the winner is the player who beat the most opponents who beat the most opponents etc,.. Problems: This doesn’t account for clutch performance. The winner might be decided by the exigencies of pairings, unrelated to the quality of play.
Option 4) You could always spin a roulette wheel, as was done to tie-break the 1983 Inter-Zonal:
http://tinyurl.com/2cuosjl
Whatever option you come up with, there’s going to be problems.
I found the tie break scheme to be interesting and reasonably sensible. The resulting chess game, while imperfect from an analysis standpoint, went to the player (Kamsky) who kept his cool, and played in the best manner under the circumstances. That Kamsky won this was really no different than if he had won a chess match at classic time controls after an obvious blunder by his opponent. Had THAT happened, folks would be complaining that he wasn’t REALLY the champion as his opponent more or less ceded the match.
Brad Hoehne