It’s Saturday Open Forum. A lot of things took place in the past 7 days.
Irina has an Open Letter to protest the US Women’s Championship results 9 days after the tournament ended. Here is her letter. Anna has yet to respond.
Shirov took a shot at the Topalov – Kamsky match with his own open letter here. Not to be outdone, Kamsky’s management fired back here. I spoke to Gata on the phone a few days and all I can say is you cannot always believe everything you read.
Yesterday, FIDE President Ilyumzhinov personally guarantees $935,000 with $750,000 going to the players. Hopefully everything will be finalized and resolved soon. This will be an exciting match.
GM Joel Benjamin made a comment about why some of the top players declined their invitations for the US Championship. You can read it here.
Morozevich has 5 wins and 2 draws after 7 rounds in Sarajevo against a field of 2680 average. His rating is now unofficially at the #2 spot in the world and he is closing in on 2800.
Carlsen defeated Leko in game 4 of their rapid match in Miskolc to lead 2.5-1.5 at the half way mark.
Anand got by Vallejo Pons in blitz tie-break at the Leon Advanced Chess event. Ivanchuk is up today against Shirov. It will be an exciting final no matter who wins.
It’s Saturday Open Forum. The forum is yours. What would you like to discuss?
About the US women’s championship, its unfair of Irina that now she should be called co-champion as both the players have played illegal moves and so many people have pointed out that she should have protested it immediately. Also arguing that champion can not be decided in blitz game is wrong if it was already been accepted as the way to decide champion. If this way was decided at the last minute after the tie, she should have rejected it outright not after loosing it.
Any advice for someone who has dropped over 150 USCF ratings points in about 3 months? (1650 down to 1490!) It’s not that I haven’t been studying. In fact, I’ve been doing a lot of tactics puzzles in CT-ART. It’s just that I’ve been on a roll lately where I get equal or better games (in late middlegame) and then just blow it. Time after time. What sort of psycological advice can folks give me? Should I take a break?
Brad H.
“Anna has yet to respond.”
Why should she respond at all? Anna is the World Champion now. Each word she writes, she wastes time in becoming a grandmaster.
“Should I take a break?”
Yeah, take up cricket or baseball. Chess ain’t for all.
Anna is world champion? No wonder she won the US women’s championship then. I thought the world champion was ANANd, not ANNA.
what is the source for Ilyumzhinov guaranteeing 935K?
“what is the source for Ilyumzhinov guaranteeing 935K?”
Yury Vasilyev. Yes, the same Vasilyev who two weeks ago wrote that the money has already been transfered.
Here is an idea if Blitz or Armageddon games are going to be used to decide tourneys – play them on computer. There can be mouse slips but such a method would have huge advantages in preventing exactly the sort of disputes which marred the ending of the US women’s championship (e.g. who moved or did not move correctly, who did or did not hit the clock, pieces knocked over, who actually overstepped) The computer would track all of this, flagging the loser and preventing all sorts of problems (moving too soon, putting the piece in an ambiguous location, interfering or seeming to interfere with the opponents hand, etc. etc.)Plus there will be actual time record with the moves. It would open up other commercial endorsement possibilities – Monroi, Chessbase or Convetka could easily create a program which allow two laptops to connect via a USB cable and play. Or if there are fears of the machines being tampered with, dedicated devices could be cheaply built which only play head-to-head chess with a timer. It would make time setting easy! No more multifunctional buttons. No more confusing sheets to decipher afterwards. Imagine a small device about the size of those used to play the game “battleship”. For those kids and adults who play mostly on-line, in fact it would be more ‘natural’. Again it would eliminate a lot of potential problems and may be the next step in the game…I realize that for purists it would be a tough sell not to actually move pieces.
Treetown
In the past, many male chess players have proffered a multitude excuses when they lost to a female player. I had a headache or I ate something that didn’t agree with me are examples. But I’m beginning to wonder if the new excuse must be “she cheated”. By now most people are familiar with the comical accusation from a recent high level tournament where Anna Rudolf was supposed to have been aided by a computer concealed in her lip gloss.
http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2008/01/ugly-behavior.html
This occurs to me after the last two tournaments I played in I had wins against higher rated male players and subsequently it was brought to my attention that my opponent was throwing around the idea that he thought I was cheating. And I don’t even use the same brand of lip gloss as Anna Rudolf. I wonder if other female chess players are experiencing similar aspersions cast toward them.
Well I have had that a number of times on internet chess- where the opponent suspects that I am using a computer. Never in real life- but you tend to play many more quick games on the internet- plus there is les transparency- also opponents can be ruder than in real life due to anonymity. So it is not really the same thing.
But cheating with computer is completely different type of cheating to moving in your opponent’s time. The latter could do things like denying a 3-fold repetition when it has repeated 5 times just to try to win on time. It is unsportmanlike, dishonest, but not as extreme as using a computer.
i dont agree an argameddion should be done thru a coputer, its unmoral and besides mouse slips can be very frustrated, why not run a 100 meter race to decide the title.
irina, u my champ, i think she should be co-champion.!!!!
jb.
susan every day you look more prettier thgan before whats your secret diet? some armageddon games!!!
This was posted by National TD Mike Atkins:
MichaelAtkins on Sat May 31, 2008 2:31 pm
I’ve watched this video a dozen times now and the only infraction I saw was when Irina knocked over her rook and didn’t replace it. Anna could have re-started Irina’s clock and made her reset the piece on Irina’s time, this would have been completely legal in the rules of blitz (it is the reccomended procedure), but this would have caused Irina to lose on time and probably provoked an even greater storm.
Players at this level, and almost any level of competitive FAST blitz, play fast. Managing the clock is as important as winning on the board, perhaps even more so at times. In slow time controls, more importance is put on the concepts of Move Determination and Move Completion. When a piece leaves your hand the move is determined, when you hit your clock the move is complete. The only real reason this is important is that during that time in between Determination and Completion, a player has the right to make claims (3-fold, 50-move, ect) and once the clock is hit, they lose that right.
How many people have an opponent who forgets to hit their clock? Do you sit and wait for your opponent to fall on time, or tell him (technically talking to your opponent could be a distraction), or simply move when you have decided on a move. Hmmm, that is technically an infraction as well since the move is not complete. Blitz players simply do not have the time to sit, carefully observe just when the clock is hit and only then make their move. Someone who did this would either lose on the board from lack of attention or on time for wasting time. The relevant rule here is that a player must allow his opponent a chance to punch their clock after making a move. I’ve had to warn players in blitz tournaments not to do this. There are players who are so inhumanly fast from blitz practice that they can make their move, AFTER their opponent moves, and hit the clock before their opponent has even hit the clock. THIS is the main clock infraction in blitz and this did not happen in the video. It got pretty close once or twice, but I saw each player having a chance to hit the clock.
Making claims after a game is long over is pointless as it will never be upheld, unless there was some sort of clear evidence of computer cheating like the Von Nuemann World Open incident from many years ago. Unless one of the players had an Fritz Implant, this didn’t happen either. Complain during or as the game ends or forever hold your piece, pun intended.
I was talking to Larry Kaufman at Arlington Chess Club last night, and he is seen watching the game from behind Irina, and he made a good point. Armageddon games like this, if they have to be played, ought to have a 1-2 second increment or delay. That would take the edge off most of these kind of complaints. Better solution would be to make two finalists co-champ and avoid all this negativity after the fact.
Its probably time to move on to the next controversy.
Michael Atkins
Don’t you need a winner for the Olympiad team? So I do not see the co-champ solution.