The 5th edition of the Zurich Chess Challenge is scheduled to take place from 12-15th February 2016 at the Hotel Savoy Baur en Ville in Zurich, Switzerland.
The event is organized by Zurich Chess Club and sponsored by Zurich Chess Club (founded 1809), Savoy Chess Corner, “IGC International Gemological Laboratories”.
Official website/ Zurich Chess Challenge LIVE/ Zurich Blitz Challenge LIVE/ Match Morozevich – Gelfand LIVE
Participants: Viswanathan Anand (India), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Anish Giri (Netherlands), Alexei Shirov (Latvia).
The oldest chess club in the world and its honorable member Oleg Skvortsov suggest an innovation for the future of classical chess with a new time control of 40 minutes per game with additional 10 seconds for each move.
In addition, a promotional two-game match will be played between Boris Gelfand (Vice World Champion 2012) and Alexander Morozevich (Runner-up of the SG Zurich Jubilee-Open 2009), with the same time control 40′ + 10″.
The scoring system remains the same as in previous editions: 2 points for a victory, 1 point for a draw in new classical chess and 1 point for a victory and 0.5 points for a draw in a blitz.
Let’s pay attention to the statistics how players perform against each other at classical chess. The rows show the results of each player with the white pieces while the columns present the corresponding headups with black.
Classical statistics crosstable
| Kramnik |
Nakamura | Anand | Shirov | Aronian | Giri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kramnik | ** | +2 =4 -3 | +7 =32 -4 | +10 =15 -3 | +5 =9 -1 | +5 =0 -0 |
| Nakamura | +2 =4 -2 | ** | +2 =4 -0 | +2 =0 -0 | +4 =6 -2 | +2 =11 -1 |
| Anand | +6 =34 -0 | +1 =6 -4 | ** | +12 =9 -1 | +2 =10 -4 | +0 =5 -0 |
| Shirov | +9 =13 -5 | +0 =1 -0 | +1 =18 -4 | ** | +0 =7 -2 | +1 =5 -1 |
| Aronian | +3 =15 -2 | +9 =6 -2 | +5 =13 -2 | +3 =6 -0 | ** | +1 =4 -0 |
| Giri | +0 =4 -1 | +1 =7 -1 | +1 =4 -0 | +3 =2 -0 | +0 =5 -3 | ** |
Having in mind that the new time control is virtually a mix between the classical and the rapid tempo of play, it is interesting to see the rapid score between the players.
Rapid statistics crosstable
| Kramnik | Nakamura | Anand | Shirov | Aronian | Giri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kramnik | ** | +1 =2 -1 | +4 =29 -4 | +4 =7 -2 | +5 =5 -2 | +0 =3 -1 |
| Nakamura | +1 =2 -3 | ** | +3 =1 -0 | +0 =0 -0 | +1 =2 -3 | +1 =1 -0 |
| Anand | +9 =24 -4 | +0 =1 -0 | ** | +7 =16 -1 | +4 =6 -2 | +1 =1 -1 |
| Shirov | +5 =7 -3 | +0 =1 -0 | +3 =10 -8 | ** | +0 =0 -0 | +0 =0 -0 |
| Aronian | +6 =3 -2 | +1 =3 -3 | +4 =5 -2 | +0 =1 -0 | ** | +1 =0 -0 |
| Giri | +1 =2 -1 | +1 =0 -0 | +0 =1 -1 | +0 =0 -0 | +0 =0 -1 | ** |
Blitz statistics crosstable
| Kramnik | Nakamura | Anand | Shirov | Aronian | Giri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kramnik | ** | +1 =0 -1 | +2 =5 -1 | +2 =3 -0 | +2 =1 -0 | +0 =0 -1 |
| Nakamura | +1 =2 -1 | ** | +3 =0 -0 | +0 =0 -0 | +9 =4 -1 | +2 =1 -0 |
| Anand | +3 =1 -2 | +2 =3 -1 | ** | +0 =1 -0 | +1 =1 -0 | +0 =0 -1 |
| Shirov | +1 =1 -1 | +0 =1 -0 | +0 =0 -1 | ** | +0 =0 -0 | +0 =0 -0 |
| Aronian | +2 =1 -2 | +4 =6 -2 | +2 =2 -1 | +0 =0 -0 | ** | +2 =2 -0 |
| Giri | +1 =1 -0 | +1 =1 -1 | +2 =0 -0 | +0 =0 -0 | +1 =0 -0 | ** |
Finally, let’s focus on the overall scores between the players in all three time controls.
Overall ranking according to percentages:
| # | Player | Total | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nakamura | 92/169 | 54,4% |
| 2 | Aronian | 125/238 | 52,5% |
| 3 | Anand | 194,5/377 | 51,6% |
| 4 | Kramnik | 192,5/381 | 50,5% |
| 5 | Giri | 48/103 | 46,6% |
| 6 | Shirov | 79/219 | 36,1% |