Chess

[DarthFed]

I definitely enjoy more dynamic attacking games that are quickly out of theory. The reason I brought up talent is that in your original post you were talking about people that are competitive without knowing a lot of theory. I don't think that means they are stronger than people who generally play a lot of theory

 

[DarthFed]

^I'm not sure I agree with that actually. First of all we need to encourage decisive games and this is the way to do it. Secondly the guy who's trying to win in this sort of company is likely to take risks and therefore the chance of losses is higher. We must encourage that. Otherwise we're saying that the guy who goes for it and ends up on 0 should be placed behind a Giri who just draws, that makes no sense to me. Besides if you look at some of Capuana's draws he has blundered winning positions. Sure we can saying blundering a win and ending up with a draw is better than blundering a drawing position and ending up with a win, but the reality is that it amounts to the same thing, weak chess at decisive moments (obviously I'm talking in a relative sense)

As for Vishy today, he's been terrible with the black pieces all tournament. He finds himself facing the same dilemma Carlsen faced and he went for it against Svidler and crashed and burned. Say what you want about Svidler but the guy is solid. If Vishy blunders he'll get into serious trouble today.

I think we need to encourage fighting chess. That in itself will often lead to more decisive games on average. I don't think, especially in the biggest tournament of the year, that they should reward what has amounted to risky, up and down play over much more solid play. The way to do this is to not allow "grandmaster draws" where they play 20 moves and shake hands. They do have a couple tourneys that have +3 for wins and +1 for draws so that is a different ballgame and clearly the players have to take more risks and play more aggressive chess in those tournaments. No one with an even score is a threat to win a tournament, I'm just talking the winners of the tournament. Personally, after H2H in a tourney I think it should head straight to rapid/blitz games.

 

[Federberg]

I definitely enjoy more dynamic attacking games that are quickly out of theory. The reason I brought up talent is that in your original post you were talking about people that are competitive without knowing a lot of theory. I don't think that means they are stronger than people who generally play a lot of theory

Ah ok fair enough. It's a tough one for me, watching live it's no contest, the dynamic games are captivating. But often on reflection when you go through some of the slower games I find the depth of thought and the clarity of the plan more impressive.

I recall a Carlsen game against Van Wely a number of years ago which looked fairly mundane to me, but Daniel King's explanation of how Carlsen saw a deeper truth in the position was quite something. Or another would be a game Morozevich played against Svidler in Greece I think at a Grand Prix event.

What I'm trying to say is that I like watching dynamic games for the immediate thrill, but the games I go over time and again are the deeper positional ones

 

[DarthFed]

I agree and I'm much the same way. I have a great appreciation for deep positional play. I've told some of my friends and family who are new but interested in chess that if they want to learn the game they should play over some of Karpov's games. But if they want to learn to "love" the game play over Kasparov's games. In theory it's easier to learn great positional play vs. attacking, tactical play. Some people will just never be great tacticians who can see dozens of moves ahead but that doesn't mean they can't be great players.

 

[DarthFed]

Even with having a knight vs. bishop I'd prefer white's position in Karjakin-Caruana. Anand does not have much activity going for him. He will have to open things up soon.

 

[DarthFed]

Naka-Aronian is interesting just to see if there is some bad blood there. Meaningless game and is very drawish but I wonder if they will play on for 50 more moves

 

[DarthFed]

Definitely some action in the Svidler-Anand game. With 25. Bxc5 it still looks very even, slight edge to White.

 

[DarthFed]

To me it looks like Caruana has slowly improved his position here, still a pretty even game. Giri-Topalov is a bore. You'd figure Giri would be more aggressive today, playing the weakest player with white and trying desperately not to finish with all draws. If anything black is better and it's not like Topalov has played with much conviction this game either. Giri played passively and has created some weaknesses on his own.

 

[DarthFed]

Barring a disaster from Svidler there is no way Anand wins this. White has a clear edge but far from decisive.

 

[Federberg]

Yes I figure, Sergey has to get this into endgame territory where he is superior to minimise any disaster happening. All in all, he looks solid

 

[Federberg]

Lol! Giri has drawn every game. What a boner!

 

[DarthFed]

And Aronian and Naka did actually agree to the draw right after I posted that earlier. The two meaningful games are still going on but I think it's really just the Karjakin-Caruana one at this point. If you're Karjakin you are definitely watching Svidler-Anand closely and now you have to have faith in Svidler being able to at least draw. At the start of the round Karjakin had to go in with the mentality that he may have to win today. Now the mentality is that he just has to draw. The Anand-Svidler game was always meaningless to Caruana, he came in having to win no matter what.

 

[DarthFed]

Wow, Karjakin sacrificed a pawn a few moves back. Bizarre given what I just mentioned. Very complex position now. Pretty cool considering it all comes down to this.

 

[DarthFed]

If I'm white and I just need to draw this I'm trying to get the queens off the board. No matter what White is getting that pawn back.

 

[Federberg]

Ooops! Fabio, Fabio, Fabio. It's done. When the chips were down, he choked a little bit. Sergey will convert this, he's not the sort to chicken out of a won position. So the two friends from their early teens will face each other. At least it wasn't Vishy again. He did credit to himself but we need to see someone else. Can't see a different outcome. Perhaps we'll see Queens Indians and Sicilians in NYC

 

[DarthFed]

Rxd5! was a nice find. I think I would've played Re4 too as black, didn't really see the danger of Rxd5. Well done by Karjakin, like you said it will be interesting to see new blood in a WC match.

 

[Federberg]

Looking at the ratings list, it's almost as if Toppy has just given Sergey a stack of rating points!

 

[Federberg]

Will take some time to really make my mind up about how some of these guys have done. I'm very disappointed in Aronian that's for sure! Karjakin did what I expected him to do... not to beat himself. And given how Vishy has been this year, it wasn't a bad tournament for him. Hikaru showed some character, after showing a complete lack of it, and Toppy was just a disgrace. I'm betting the only reason he came was to spite Kramnik, but he really didn't play like he wanted to be there

 

[DarthFed]

^ I don't like the lack of volatility in the rating system. Topalov probably only loses something like 20-25 points for this, and I'd assume Karjakin doesn't gain that even. If you beat someone near the same rating as you it's like +5 or so. It's going to take a few more tourneys of Topalov sucking before we see a rating that reflects his true level at this point.

 

[Federberg]