Berkeley International Final Results

The Berkeley International Tournament, held in Berkeley, California ran from Dec 14-28, 2008, with the final results coming late by me...Christmas, not up to posting until today, trying to get all the games for a pgn file for download. I think I managed to do the latter. The file of course will be on the Website mentioned below.

Here are the Final Standings:


1 7.5 GM Giorgi Kacheishivili

2 7.0 GM Zviad Izoria

3-5 6.0 GM Josh Friedel, IM Irina Krush, FM Daniel Rensch

6-7 5.5 GM Vinay Bhat, IM David Pruess

8-12 5.0 GM Jesse Kraai, IM Justin Sarkar, GM Dashzegve Sharavdorj,
FM Marc Esserman, WIM Iryna Zenyuk

13-15 4.0 IM Lev Milman, FM Daniel Naroditsky, FM Dale Haessel

16 3.5 FM Bela Evans

17 3.0 IM Sandor Kustar

Elista Grand Prix 2008 Final results

The 3rd event in the FIDE Grand Prix held in Elista, Russia came to an end with a three-way tie for first. The thirteen round event finished yesterday after starting on Dec 14, 2008.

Here are the final standings, the pgn file will be available on TransWarp's website in the games page.

Grand Prix event #3, Elista, Russia Final Standings.

1-3 8.0 GM Teimour Radjabov AZE 2751
GM Dmitry Jakovenko RUS 2737
GM Alexander Grischuk RUS 2719

4 7.5 GM Vugar Gashimov AZE 2703

5-9 6.5 GM Peter Leko HUN 2747
GM Etienne Bacrot FRA 2705
GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov AZE 2731
GM Wang Yue CHN 2736
GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov UZB 2672

10 6.0 GM Ivan Cheparinov BUL 2696

11-12 5.5 GM Evgeny Alekseev RUS 2715
GM Pavel Eljanov UKR 2720

13-14 5.0 GM Vladimir Akopian ARM 2679
GM Ernesto Inarkiev RUS 2669

GM Gadir Guseinov wins one!

GM Gadir Guseinov, one of the higher rated blitz players beat TransWarp on time yesterday. I DO have a good excuse, I am beta-testing Chesspartner 6, which is going to be an awesome gui for the online computer players when the bugs are out.

GM Guseinov lost the first game, but then in the second game, the Chesspartner gui started acting funky, and me, not thinking straight, kept restarting CP 6 beta instead of falling back on CP 5.4.. Thereby losing 15 seconds penalties for each time it failed, which was 3...give a great blitz player an extra 45 seconds and he will make the best of it!

Since the time win is really just pieces getting moved back and forth in a locked position, and Rybka not trying to break out for some reason, I guess it just couldn't see anything and given the position, would probably have been a 50 move draw. I guess I will post both games so that the readers of this blog see what I mean. A small note, I will try to upload the Berkeley International tournament and Elista Grand Prix PGN files to the website, link in the Links list of course. They will be in the games page.

Here are the two games (At least TW got to PLAY two games!) I thank GM Guseinov.

photo from fide.com

GM Guseinov (2650, expected to be 2660-1) vs TransWarp



TransWarp vs GM Guseinov (Azerbaijan)



I would also like to thank GM Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia for playing as well, in case I haven't yet in a previous post, he played vs Deep Rybka 3 Human in the Chesspartner 6 gui, I just don't have the knowledge to know what caused it to fail in GM Guseinov's last game, things that make you go, hmmn.

Been slow to report...

Well, with the wacky weather we've had here in Kansas, I've been stoved up in bed, plus Christmas dinner put this guy to sleep! We actually were in a Tornado Watch early this morning and had a Severe Thunderstorm pass through dropping hail and some high winds, lots of loud thunderclaps as well (4:30am in the morning!). Tonight, snow...go figure. If you don't like Kansas Weather, wait a few minutes and it will change. ;)

TranswWarp has been kind of quiet as well, getting a few games from GM Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia, FIDE rating of 2616 and might hit 2628 in January, 2009. It's amazing that this young and upcoming Grandmaster is currently rated #31 in Russia, when he would be tied with GM Yuri Shulman at #5 in the US! Chess really needs to bring in corporate sponsors who realize that promoting this sport would help develop stronger players in the United States, but also help children learn more effectively, this has been proven, chess helps with problem solving skills, visualization and general brain power, help these young minds prepare for the future, when we may need their help solving all our global problems.

But at any rate, TranaWsrp only got a few games this week, mostly the games from GM Nepomniachtchi as well as a couple bullet games from GM Eduardo Iturrizaga of Venezuela. It'a getting harder and harder to find opponents, when you send a seek ad out and have only 1 eligible for blitz, 4 for bullet and 11 for standard, it's the top players who are left to play, but many of the higher rated players are only interested in playing each other, which I can understand. It's a bummer, but I understand.

GM Nepomniachtchi (faust) vs TransWarp





TransWarp vs faust

Nanjing Pearl Spring Super GM Final Results

Here are the final results of the Pearl Spring Super-GM Tournamant held in Nanjing, China. FIDE #1 Rated player, GM Veselin Topalov won the tournament and his rating is expected to break 2800 again, with estimates at 2809. This is an impressive win going into the FIDE Challenger's Match vs GM Gata Kamsky in February 2009.

Round 8
GM Topalov Veselin 1-0 GM Ivanchuk Vassily
GM Aronian Levon 1/2-1/2 GM Movsesian Sergei
GM Svidler Peter 1-0 GM Bu Xiangzhi

Round 9
GM Svidler Peter 0-1 GM Topalov Veselin
GM Bu Xiangzhi 1/2-1/2 GM Aronian Levon
GM Movsesian Sergei 1/2-1/2 GM Ivanchuk Vassily

Round 10
GM Topalov Veselin 1/2-1/2 GM Movsesian Sergei
GM Ivanchuk Vassily 1-0 GM Bu Xiangzhi
GM Aronian Levon 1/2-1/2 GM Svidler Peter

Final Standings:

1 7.0 GM Veselin Topalov BUL 2791
2 5.5 GM Levon Aronian ARM 2757
3 5.0 GM Bu Xiangzhi CHN 2714
4 4.5 GM Peter Svidler RUS 2727
5-6 4.0 GM Sergei Movsesian SVK 2732
GM Vassily Ivanchuk UKR 2786

TransWarp Website updates

On TransWarp's official website, I have added 800 more games of TransWarp vs opponents at ICC (Chessclub.Com). The address is http://www.transwarpchess.com then go to the games page. I will try to update this site more, but with the work of both of them, it's pretty tough for me. Some people can stay up at the computer hours on end, not this cat. He needs his rest :) But you will also find the pgn file of the Nanjing Pearl Spring Super GM Tournament uploaded there as well, and when the Elista Grand Prix event ends, I will upload the pgn file of that and the Inernational tournament in the San Francisco area going on at the moment. It's being called East Bay 2008 on ICC, but not the real name, just a shortcut. Sorry for no updates for a couple days, it's been pretty cold here in Kansas and that makes the joints and bones hurt... I never thought that was true as a young adult...but now, oh yeah, it's true.

Elista Grand Prix 2008 Round 4 and 5 results

GM WANG YUE

Round 4 in Elista, Russia's FIDE Grand Prix event finished yesterday, here are the results and standings after round 4 with today's round 5 pairings. Today's pairings will be updated today as they finish, there are already some results in from the round. A note I missed, I don't know if GM Wang Yue had played and lost before this event, but he had a rather large streak of being unbeaten, last I saw it was in the 80+ game range, (this include draws of course, just not losing a game), until Round 1 when GM Dmitry Jakovenko beat GM Wang Yue, however, this streak propelled him into the 2700's, among the elite players. Nothing to sneeze at, that's for sure!

Round 4 results, 17th December 2008

Kasimzhanov Rustam 2672 0-1 Alexeev Evgeny 2715
Wang Yue 2736 1-0 Eljanov Pavel 2720
Akopian Vladimir 2679 0.5-0.5 Gashimov Vugar 2703
Grischuk Alexander 2719 0.5-0.5 Inarkiev Ernesto 2669
Cheparinov Ivan 2696 0.5-0.5 Jakovenko Dmitry 2737
Bacrot Etienne 2705 1-0 Leko Peter 2747
Radjabov Teimour 2751 0.5-0.5 Mamedyarov Shakhriyar 2731


GM Wang Yue vs GM Pavel Eljanov Round 4



Another win by the rising star from China.



Round 5 results, 18th December 2008

Mamedyarov Shakhriyar 2731 0.5-0.5 Kasimzhanov Rustam 2672
Leko Peter 2747 0.5-0.5 Radjabov Teimour 2751
Jakovenko Dmitry 2737 0.5-0.5 Bacrot Etienne 2705
Inarkiev Ernesto 2669 0-1 Cheparinov Ivan 2696
Gashimov Vugar 2703 1-0 Grischuk Alexander 2719
Eljanov Pavel 2720 0.5-0.5 Akopian Vladimir 2679
Alexeev Evgeny 2715 0.5-0.5 Wang Yue 2736

(pairings and Round 4 results Courtesy of Chessdom.com, a great chess news site)

Here's a quick win by Bulgaria's GM Ivan Cheparinov

GM Ernesto Inarkiev vs GM Ivan Cheparinov



Round 5 Standings:

1-2 3.5

GM Teimour Radjabov AZE 2751
GM Vugar Gashimov AZE 2703

3 3.0

GM Dmitry Jakovenko RUS 2737

4-9 2.5

GM Alexander Grischuk RUS 2719
GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov AZE 2731
GM Evgeny Alekseev RUS 2715
GM Wang Yue CHN 2736
GM Etienne Bacrot FRA 2705
GM Vladimir Akopian ARM 2679

10-13 2.0

GM Ernesto Inarkiev RUS 2669
GM Peter Leko HUN 2747
GM Pavel Eljanov UKR 2720
GM Ivan Cheparinov BUL 2696

14 1.5

GM Ruslan Kasimdzhanov UZB 2672

Catch up on Nanjing Super GM 2008

I had a couple of bad days, so the posting was slow, sorry about this. Here's and update on the round results and standings of the Nanjing Pearl Spring Super GM Tournament.

They have finished Round 7 now, I think my last results were from round 5..so here are the round results I missed as well as a couple of games, a win by Topalov as well as a win by Aronian.

Round 6 Results:

GM Topalov Veselin 1-0 GM Aronian Levon
GM Svidler Peter 1/2-1/2 GM Ivanchuk Vassily
GM Bu Xiangzhi 1-0 GM Movsesian Sergei

GM Topalov vs GM Aronian Round 6





Round 7 Results:

GM Bu Xiangzhi 1/2-1/2 GM Topalov Veselin
GM Movsesian Sergei 0-1 GM Svidler Peter
GM Ivanchuk Vassily 0-1 GM Aronian Levon

Here's the nice win with the black pieces by GM Levon Aronian vs GM Vassily Ivanchuk who is winless so far, but has had some well needed draws to stay close, but with only 3 rounds to go, he would have to win all his remaining games to pass GM'x Bu ans Topalov at 4.5 pts and in the lead at the moment. Here are the standings followed by GM Aronian's win.

Roung 7 Standings:

1-2: GM Bu Xiangzhi, GM Veselin Topalov 4.5

3: GM Levon Aronian 4.0

4: GM Peter Svidler 3.0

5-6: GM Sergei Movsesian, GM Vassily Ivanchuk 2.5

GM Vassily Ivanchuk vs GM Levon Aronian Round 7

3rd Round game in Elista, GM Mamedyarov vs GM Bacrot

I was observing and analyzing GM Mamedyarov's game on ICC as it was broadcast live on ICC, the 3rd round vs GM Etienne Bacrot of France (2705). It was a hard fought game with Deep Rybka keeping the game pretty even, however Bacrot made an error and Mamedyarov pounced on it immediately (31. Bf7+ Kg5? (Kf6)). Mamedyarov's lead grew bit by bit until 39. Rb5+ Kf6 40. Rxa5? (Rd6+ where the game is won, Rybka's eval was +4.50 and rising, then 40. Rxa5 and eval dropped significantly to approximately 0.00 (equal). This was a tough break for GM Mamedyarov, who I was hoping would win, I have a soft spot for all the GM's that play TransWarp, and lately GM Mamedyarov had played a lot of games.

Here is the game:

GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2731) vs GM Etienne Bacrot (2705)



At least it was just a mistake that went to a draw and not an outright blunder that made him lose the game, but losing a won game is tough, I lost many of them when I played, usually after the first 5 moves! Just kidding of course, but I did lose many a game to a silly blunder, why I don't have GM in front of my name, not even Expert! But for me it's fun, I don't play over the board anymore, (at tournaments) it would just be a waste of entry money, the meds I'm on make me lose my concentration and ability to hold a position, let alone win one. So I have to give GM Bacrot credit for hanging in there and not resigning too early (a mistake many of us have made) and waited for his opponent to misstep and it happened and he came away with the half point. A lesson for us all, don't resign too early, play on in unclear positions even if you know you are losing, you might catch a break!

*NEW*

GM Mamedyarov's 2nd Round Game in Elista

GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, having played TransWarp, is a Grandmaster of which I've started to take note. It's not too often a 2700+ FIDE rated Grandmaster plays a computer, his ICC handle is azerichess. At this time he's playing in the FIDE Grand Prix event in Elista, Ruaaia. I've had other 2700+ players challenge TW, but not as often, the exception being GM Hikaru Nakamura, who's rated 2704 now, but was rated in the mid to high 2600's, who played hundreds of games vs TransWarp when it was running Rybka 2.3.2a mp x64. He has never played TransWarp with Deep Rybka 3. He decided that blitz chess wasn't good for his game, or so I was told/read.

Here's GM Mamedyarov's game vs GM Ivan Cheparinov of Bulgaria.

GM Ivan Cheparinov (2696) vs GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2731)

GM Vladimir Kosyrev (Tankist) plays some standard chess

GM Vladimir Kosyrev (Tankist on ICC) played a couple of standard games yesterday, these are games that are considered longer than blitz, could be like these games, 15 minutes with 0 Increment (15+0) or up to a regular tournament style game, like 2 hours + 30 second Increment.

Here are the games GM Kosyrev was kind enough to play, he does say that he sometimes plays after some drinks for fun, so even though these are longer games, he might have been a little tipsy, although, some players were known to play better after a few shots of vodka, like the legend GM Mikhail Tal!

TransWarp vs GM Kosyrev (Tankist)



Tankist vs TransWarp



I saw this game, GM Kosyrev had a pretty good time advantage and what looked to be an even position, if he would have offered a draw, I might have taken it for TW. But they chose to fight on and in the end the silicon was just too fast for the flesh, with TransWarp breaking through and at the last moment, achieving a mate in two, 161. Kg1 Qg2# It was a really fun game to watch, there were pieces flying everywhere at the end, but when TW was trying to break through, she had to pick the right time, which was probably at the 49th move before the 50 move draw! This is what a high contempt setting does, I wish that the computer was able to just set up the position and go right to it, rather than moving pieces around, waiting. But this is the way it's programmed to play, go gung-ho at the last minute, it may have been able to make these moves earlier, but it was waiting for GM Kosyrev to make an attacking move, naturally, he's going to just protect his position and get the win on time or a draw, but the computer doesn't know that, so it doesn't try to break out sooner. But I thank GM Kosyrev for his continued play, he's a really nice person, and like all the GM's and IM's and other high-rated players, doesn't have to play, but likes a challenge and this time he almost got Miss Rybka. Yes, for all you out there, Rybka is referred to as "she", I know the ladies might get up in arms about this, but it's a good thing, after all, at the moment, it's the best computer chess program in the world that's commercially available! At least it's not some real storm devestating people out of lives and property as in Hurricanes. Which is why, now, Hurricanes carry both female AND male names. Rybka is a pretty "little fish" with VERY sharp teeth!

Oh, on a small sidenote, TransWarp did finally pass BigMomma's bullet record of 3326, which was just 4 points above Scrappy's official record of 3321, TransWarp's and BigMomma's records are "unofficial" as we are not the program's writers. TransWarp would like to commend BigMomma on holding this record for 13 months! Since November of 2007, it has been the computer to try and reach, TransWarp came close once with Rybka 2.3.2a mp x64, but fell short after the blockade trick was found and abused. Although TransWarp is not listed in BigMomma's notes, TransWarp would like to commend BigMomma "flyingfatmat on playchess.com" on the high standards it set. TransWarp has been lucky enough to hold the blitz record since March 10, 2008 when it achieved 3932, I didn't expect it to hold the record this long, and why I commend BigMomma on holding the bullet record for so long. By comparison, it held the blitz record for 1 year 3 months! So needless to say, it has been the computer to beat on ICC as for records.

However, I would like to point out that these records were achieved by playing humans, in BigMomma's case a stretch of time where it played humans only and would play computers unrated. I do believe BigMomma did play a few rated games with computers in bullet and standard. There are many computers that are VERY good, but choose to play each other as well as humans, this gives them a more realistic rating, except for a certain few, which pick and choose their opponents. Bountyhunter(C) is one example of a computer account that will play all comers, there is also DesertCat(C) formerly "DesertRat" that's another example. There are more of course, but these are guys that put a lot of time into their computer vs computer past-time. I don't have the energy to keep working on books and monitoring my computer to make sure it's operating okay like I used to be able. I'm on more pain meds, get tired very easy, and this is just much more easier for me to do (Play Humans only, although a few (C)heaters did get to play TransWarp, luckily, it won all those games. So if I'm going to commend BigMomma, I have to commend those who battle in the trenches every day in compter vs computer play. They are awesome, and I would like to call a few of them friends. They don't agree with what I do, but I do hope they understand, I get to meet a few of my favorite players, those who do talk, as well as not worry that TransWarp is going to crash and be norated for good. This is why I mention in my notes how stable it has been with the limited games it plays against people. I have been told by Admins that if TransWarp makes a habit of crashing, it may be norated permanately, which would really suck on my part.

A short note that ended up becoming quite long-winded. I apologize for this, also I hope to be able to work on the Website soon...I just haven't been up to it, few people realize how much work it is for me. When your immune system attacks your skeletal muscles, it's almost like walking in sand and water all day, that sand at the ocean that when a wave comes in, causes you to sink. I know some understand, but I do know, I'm probably not very well thought of by some computer vs computer players. :-/ I try. All I can do.

Round 5 Nanjing Super GM Tournament, Topalov Draws Blood!

As Round 5 of the Nanjing Pearl Spring 2008 Super GM Tournament (What a mouthful, or in this case, fingerful, (of typing), GM Veselin Topalov got a win over GM Peter Svidler. GM's Ivanchuk and Svidler are starting off slowly in this tournament, with GM Svidler bringing up the rear. This was GM Veselin Topalov's first win of the tournament however, as the other two games were drawn, he will join the leaders.

Round 5 Results:

GM Topalov Veselin 1-0 GM Svidler Peter
GM Aronian Levon 1/2-1/2 GM Bu Xiangzhi
GM Ivanchuk Vassily 1/2-1/2 GM Movsesian Sergei

Round 5 standings:

1-3 GM Bu Xiangzhi, GM Veselin Topalov, GM Levon Aronian 3.0

4. GM Sergei Movsesian 2.5

5. GM Vassily Ivanchuk 2.0

6. GM Peter Svidler 1.5

GM Alexey Dreev latest to play TransWarp

GM Alexey Dreev was the latest to play TransWarp in blitz, but this was two days ago, games are getting fewer and far between. The main reason as I may have mentioned is the 3900 rating of TransWarp, as the rating gets higher, the list of eligible players gets smaller, which is kind of sad. It's too bad titled GM's couldn't risk 1 pt based on their title, but that's not the way it works. Players have to be rated approximately 700 pts below TransWarp to even be able to risk 1 pt. It's too bad the higher rated players, in the 3400 and 3500's don't take the risk to play, would be interesting, but they are interested in their rating. I have nothing but respect for those titled players who take the time to play TransWarp. It's a courtesy on their part to even try, they don't have to play a computer, much less one that is very hard to beat. But some DO see it as a challenge and give it a try, this I respect and honor with mention of their names in my notes on ICC and a Thank You. Speaking of which, I also have to thank IM Lucas Liascovich of Argentina for his occasional bullet games as well as GM Hristos Banikas of Greece, Thanks Gwntlemen!


Here are the two games of GM Dreev

GM Dreev vs TransWarp



TransWarp vs GM Dreev

Nanjing Super GM 2008 Rounds 3 and 4

Sorry I missed Round 3, I had a very bad day yesterday, slept most of it away. Here are Round 3 and partial round 4 results.

Round 3 results:

GM Ivanchuk Vassily 1/2-1/2 GM Topalov Veselin
GM Movsesian Sergei 1/2-1/2 GM Aronian Levon
GM Bu Xiangzhi 1/2-1/2 GM Svidler Peter

All hostilities end in a truce in round 3, leaving round 3 standings at as follows:


1-2 GM Levon Aronian, GM Bu Xiangzhi 2

3-4 GM Veselin Topalov, GM Sergei Movsesian 1.5

5-6 GM Vassily Ivanchuk, GM Peter Svidler 1

Round 4 Results:

GM Movsesian Sergei 1/2-1/2 GM Topalov Veselin
GM Bu Xiangzhi 1/2-1/2 GM Ivanchuk Vassily
GM Svidler Peter 1/2-1/2 GM Aronian Levon

Again, peaceful outcomes to all of the games, they are playing it safe it seems, but after 46 moves Deep Rybka 3 Human had the Svidler-Aronian game equal = So it's not like they aren't trying.

Round 4 Standings:

1-2 GM Levon Aronian, GM Bu Xiangzhi 2.5

3-4 GM Veselin Topalov, GM Sergei Movsesian 2.0

5-5 GM Vassily Ivanchuk, GM Peter Svidler 1.5

Round 2 Nanjing Super GM Tournament starts, Aronian ties Bu for lead.

GM Levon Aronian gained a full point today over GM Vassily Ivanchuk and finished the round tied with GM Bu who ended his game peacefully with a draw vs GM Veselin Topalov. GM Peter Svidler took a loss at the hands of GM Sergei Movsesian. Here are round two results and standings.

Round 2 results:

GM Svidler(2727) 0-1 GM Movsesian(2732)
GM Aronian(2757) 1-0 GM Ivanchuk(2786)
GM Topalov(2791) 1/2-1/2 GM Bu(2714)

Standings after Round 2:

1-2 1.5 GM Levon Aronian ARM 2757
GM Bu Xiangzhi CHN 2714

3-4 1.0 GM Sergei Movsesian SVK 2732
GM Veselin Topalov BUL 2791

5-6 0.5 GM Peter Svidler RUS 2727
GM Vassily Ivanchuk UKR 2786

Round 1 Nanjing Super GM Tournament starts, Bu starts out good!

The Nanjing Pearl Spring 2008 Super GM Tournament started today, 6 player double round robin tournament, with these top GM's playing.

1. GM Veselin Topalov BUL 2791
2. GM Vassily Ivanchuk UKR 2786
3. GM Levon Aronian ARM 2757
4. GM Sergei Movsesian SVK 2732
5. GM Peter Svidler RUS 2727
6. GM Bu Xiangzhi CHN 2714

Round 1:

GM Movsesian(2732) 0-1 GM Bu(2714)
GM Ivanchuk(2786) 1/2-1/2 GM Svidler(2727)
GM Aronian(2757) 1/2-1/2 GM Topalov(2791)

Standings:

1. GM Bu 1
2-5 GM Aronian, GM Topalov, GM Svidler, GM Ivanchuk 0.5
6. GM Movsesian 0

GM Movsesian vs GM Bu Xiangzhi

BOOO gets a time win, Chess Assistant 9 time management?

Yesterday, BOOO,, the anonymous player, who has drawn TransWarp before, achieved a win on time. I was using Chess Assistant 9.1, which is known to have time management problems, I normally never use it for onliine play, but for sorting out databases and looking for certain openings and variations. But since my ChessPartner 5.4 was in the shop, so to speak, I had to use Chess Assistant 9. I do NOT know if Chess Assistant 10 & it's upgrade 10.1 have solved this time management problem, but I don't really see anyone using it as a gui to connect their computers to ICC, so I'm guessing they haven't.

Chesspartner 5.4 is very good at managing it's time and usually does well in all time controls if you have it set right. I switched computers from HP to Dell and suddenly, it doesn't recognize 4 cores. I figured out it was a long filename problem and after renaming the long Rybka filename, all was solved and she's riding her old horse Chesspartner again.

But to give BOOO credit, after analyzing the position where it lost on time, the position was drawn. Rybka showed a +1.00, but as the analysis got deeper, the score got lower, to less that -0.50 (black advantage to computer analysis neophytes.) When white has an advantage, it's always a positive score, such as +0.50 for a guesstimate of a 1/2 pawn advantage. For a strong advantage, it would be like +3.00, or the equivalent of a minor piece, Rybka also takes into consideration the position on the board, so even though it's a K+P vs K endgame, where you would think the most the computer could give as a score is +1.00 (1 pawn) the position is also considered, if it's a winning position for white, it could be +9.00+ or even a Mate in # score, but if black's king can defend to where he can draw the position, the score would be 0.00. Just reverse the scores for black advantages, ie. -0.50, -3.00 and -9.00+ etc. So a quick, but I hope not confusing computer score lesson. A note, some engines tend to give higher scores than Rybka in some positions, especially older crafty engines. It's just a manner of how the programmer set up his/her value system for material and position...too complicated for me to make an engine, that's for sure.

Also, again GM Mamedyarov played some games this morning, not as many as the two previous days, but at least TransWarp is climbing back up towards it's 3940 high...but a ways to go at 3910.

BOOO vs TransWarp



Plus a nice draw sa well.

GM Mamedyarov plays another marathon

Grandmaster Mamedyarov, currently #15 in the world on Hans Arild Runde's Live Rating List (Not official, but a great tracker of current ratings of players over 2700 between Official rating lists), at 2727.9, played 12 games this morning. I had to examine a lot of them to see why he resigned, only to see that the computer had a good advantage in the positions. He was able to see this right away, this always amazes me. Here's the last game.

Condolences to the Polgar family

I would like to offer my condolences to the Polgar family, Susan, Szofia, and Judit as well as their parents at the loss of their grandmother. She was the last survivor of the Polgar family confined to the horrible extermination prisoner camp of Auschwitz. This is indeed a sad time for the Polgar family, having lost both my Grandmothers, I truly know how they feel. Nothing we can say but we are most sorry can help their grief at this time.

Here is a quote from Susan's blog:

"Her beloved Grandmother, the last member of Susan's family who survived Auschwitz, just passed away earlier yesterday in Budapest, Hungary. She is survived by her daughter Klara (Susan's mother), 3 grandchildren (Susan and her sisters), and 6 great grandchildren (Tommy, Alon, Leeam, Yoav, Oliver, and Hanna)."

Again, my deepest condolences go out to the Polgar family for their loss of a dear family member.

BOOO draws twice, GM Mamedyarov plays ten!

BOOO, the enigma of ICC, an untitled (as far as we know, it's an anonymous account), high-rated player, who prefers to be anonymous has drawn twice. I do have to admit, his last draw was a mistake on my part, when starting to use Chess Assistant after ChessPartner refused to see all four cores on my machine (The first draw, just one core, ugh, but Rybka could have won, still good play on BOOO's part, even on one core, Rybka 3.0 is tough!), I forgot to set the contempt level to my preference, at a low contempt level, it took an easy 3 move repetition draw, higher contempt would have avoided this.
After the loss to azerichess, the two draws by BOOO put a serious cramp in TransWarp's quest for 4k. However, after the 2 draws today by BOOO, azerichess played ten games and in a way, donated 20 pts to it's cause. Not by giving up I mean, but TransWarp getting some revenge for the loss. But she still sits at just 3917 now, a far cry from 3940, a long road to travel again. But that is Internet Chess! You have to take the highs with the lows and the past few days after floating on a cloud so to speak, TransWarp was humbled. She didn't take it well, I could swear I heard her circuits crying..lol! But to do BOOO justice, I have to post those draws, it's only fair.
But, I would also like to applaud GM Mamedyarov (azerichess), when he played the ten games today, he put up 2pts per game, most won't risk this. The pts are too precious to them, but Deep Rybka 3 IS intimidating, some titled players have said in their finger notes that it ruined the game of chess. But in the computer age, I think it has brought more fans to the game as well. There was a time when master rated computers would cost over $1,000! The old Saitek and Novag as well as Mephisto self-contained chess computers, the type that looked like a chessboard with all the chess software inside it and even moved the pieces on it's own through magnetic pieces. You would see them in malls playing over Fischer games in demo mode behind glass. You could go to radio shack and get a chess computer that you pressed the piece to the board where it was and moved it and pressed it to the board again to make the moves. These could be rated about 1700 or so, and you would have to wait hours on end on it's higher levels for it to move! They were about $75-$125 on the lower end. Now, for that price, you have Deep Rybka uci for about that price! You have to have your own pc of course. The computer technology has just gone wild in the past 20 years. That's when I had my $100 press and move computer, around the time I got disabled, actually a few years before in '86, I would go to my college class, come back and the darn thing still hadn't made it's move...lol. For us computer chess addicts, how did we get by?? My goodness!

Anyway, here are the two draws by BOOO :)

BOOO vs TransWarp



TransWarp vs BOOO



Plus I got some good news today, Coruschess.com has allowed me to use info and pics as long as credit is given (Which I always try to do anyway), which is pretty cool as I'm excited about the upcoming Corus event!

GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov checkmates TransWarp!

Grandmaster Shakhriyar Mamedyarov threw TransWarp a curveball and struck out her out on Dec, 4 2008. I am late posting this game because at the moment, I'm not feeling well. I am trying to hold off this probable virus, it's at the worst time of the year too...winter in the Northern Hemisphere, I say this as I do have the occasional visitor from South of the Equator. I promised azerichess I would have this posted yesterday, but just didn't feel up to anything, even postponing a non-basic Dr's appt! (Go over some cardiac test results, couldn't do anything to help my current situation as a specialist and not my regular Doctor).
But as promised, here is TransWarp's thrashing, courtesy of azerichess (GM Mamedyarov), I don't feel bad that TransWarp got beat by a Super-GM, after all, this can only have what openings I have put in it's books, there's bound to be certain openings that GM's have studied and in a 3 0 blitz game, take care of a computer that hasn't seen the position before. No excuses, only an explaination. I congratulate GM Mamedyarov on his win! Below, please find the game. A small note: TransWarp was able to reach 3940 to gain a few points in the "Unofficial Computer Blitz Rating" record, but this loss was a setback in further gain as TW lost 31 pts in the game. At the moment, it sits at 3922.

TransWarp vs azerichess

Titles Awarded to Chess Players at Dresden FIDE Congress

Both men and women were issued new chess titles at the 79th FIDE Congress in Dresden, Germany this November 16-26 and finalized. I congratulate all players in their achievements, even kava, GM-Elect Anton Kovalyov, who's history is known to TransWarp followers. For those curious, it's in the blog archives, but congrats to him at any rate.

Grandmaster titles awarded:

Country, Name

ARG Flores, Diego
ARG Kovalyov, Anton
ARG Valerga, Diego
ARM Melkumyan, Hrant
BUL Bojkov, Dejan
BUL Rusev, Krasimir
CHN Hou, Yifan *
CHN Zhou, Weigi
CRO Bosiocic, Marin
CRO Saric, Ivan
CUB Gonzales Vidal, Yuri
CUB Corrales Jimenes, Fidel
EGY El Gindy, Essam
FRA Cornette, Matthieu
FRA Thal, Abergel
GEO Dzagnidze, Nana *
GER Braun, Arik
GER Siebrecht, Sebastian
GRE Papadopoulos, Ioannis K.
HUN Berczes, David
IND Arun Prasad, S.
KAZ Ismagambetov, Anuar
PER Cordova, Emilio
PHI Gomez, John Paul
POL Socko, Monika *
RUS Klimov, Sergey
RUS Orlov, Andrey
RUS Sjugirov, Sanan
SLO Borisek, Jure
SRB Milanovic, Danilo
UKR Simantsev, Mikhail
USA Friedel, Joshua E.
* Women achieving "Men's" Grandmaster Title, noting this as you will see there is a separate Women's Grandmaster Title, with less requirements to meet. There were a select few, starting with GM Zsuzsa (Susan now) Polgar winning the title the conventional way, as Men would. Nona Gaprindashvili was awarded the Men's GM Title as a result of winning the 1977 Lone Pine Tournament, held in the US, in 1978. Then Maia Chiburdanidze beat Nona and two other women in 1984 to win the Women's World Championship and was thus awarded the Men's GM Title. So although, Susan was the 3rd the achieve the conventional GM title, she was the first to win it the same way the men win it. Then came Judit, but that's a whole different story! Precise ways Nona and Maia achieved their GM titles: source wikipedia.com

International Master Titles awarded:

Country, Name

ARG Della Morte, German
ARG Iermito, Sebastian
AUT Hangweyrer, Manfred
AUT Santos, Marcus Vinicius M.
BUL Milchev, Nikolay
BUL Serafimov, Tervel
CAN Quan, Zhe
CHN Liu, Qingnan
COL Uribe, Mauricio
CRO Martinovic, Sasa
CRO Sertic, Rudolf
CUB Gomez Garrido, Camilo
CZE Biolek, Richard Jr.
ENG D'Costa, Lorin AR
ESP Recuero Guerra, David
FRA Delorme, Axel
FRA Goldsztejn, Gildas
FRA Housieaux, David
FRA Nezar, Mustafa
FRA Roser, Kevin
GEO Benidze, David
GER Morawietz, Dieter
GER Pasalic, Mehmed
GER Spiess, Gunter
GER Wegerle, Joerg
HUN Balog, Imre
HUN Nemeth, Miklos
HUN Toth, Ervin
INA Purnama, Tirta Chandra
IND Arghyadip, Das
IND Bathay T. Muralikrishnan
IND Narayanan, Srinath
IRI Toufighi, Homayoon
ISR Bykhovsky, Anatoly
ISR Caspi, Israel
ISR Kostromin, Mikhail
ITA Zimina, Olga
KAZ Amanov, Zhanibek
LTU Beinoras, Mindaugas
LTU Vaznonis, Vytautas
MKD Pancevski, Filip
NED Bitalzadeh, Ali
NED Rothuis, Vincent
NED Wemmers, Xander
PER Cruz Sanchez, Cristhian
PHI Barbosa, Oliver
PHI Nolte, Rolando
POL Piorun, Kacper
RUS Kharous, Ernest
RUS Klimov, Anton
RUS Kuznetsov, Gennady
RUS Moskalenko, Alexander
RUS Yatsenko, Alexey
SUI Carron, Julien
SUI Vuilleumier, Alexandre
SVK Jurcik, Marian
SVK Michalik, Peter
SWE Blomqvist, Erik
SWE Grandelius, Nils
SWE Smith, Axel
UKR Ipatov, Alexander
UKR Muzychuk, Mariya
UKR Nyzhnyk, Illya
UKR Tuka, Oleg
USA Kaufman, Raymond

Women's Grandmaster Titles awarded:

Country, Name

CRO Stock, Lara
CUB Marrero Lopez, Yaniet
IND Swaminathan, Soumya
ROU Sandu, Mihaela

Womrn's International Master Titles awarded:

Country, Name

BUL Jordanova, Svetlana
BUL Nikolova, Adriana
BUL Raeva, Elitsa
CHN Xu, Tong
CZE Pertlova, Sona
FRA Congiu, Mathilde
GEO Danelia, Mariam
GER Hoolt, Sarah
HUN Domany, Zsofia
LTU Limontaite, Simona
RUS Vazirova, Karina
SVK Borosova, Zuzana
TUR Ozturk, Kubra
USA Melekhina, Alisa
USA Zenyuk, Iryna

Grandmaster Titles awarded (conditional on rating*)

Country, Name

ARG Lemos, Damian
ARM Ter-Sahakyan, Samvel
BUL Vasilev, Milen
FRA Libiszewski, Fabien
LTU Pileckis, Emilis
POL Swiercz, Dariusz
UKR Zherebukh, Yaroslav
ZAM Simutowe, Amon

*must achieve a rating of 2500, not sure if they can pass 2500 during a quarterly rating period, then drop below before the rating period ends and still achieve title. Say, achieve a 2506 rating during September, but fall to 2498 in the same month, end up rated 2498 in October list and still achieve the title. Hmn, seems if someone passed 2500 during the period, they would end up NOT playing other tournaments until the next rating list to make sure Title is achieved (Many countries pay a stipend to it's professional players based on titles), thus losing out on a possible tournament win and payday. Would have to delve into the deep recesses of FIDE rules to find out.

International Master Titles awarded (conditional on rating)

Country, Name
ARG Filgueira, Hernan
AUT Kreisl, Robert
BUL Berbatov, Kiprian
CZE Jasny, Stanislav
CZE Nemcova, Katerina
ENG Rudd, Jack
ISL Arngrimsson, Dagur
MAS Lim, Yee-Wenig
NED Slingerland, Fred
POL Leniart, Arkadiusz
USA Arnold, Marc

Women's Grandmaster Titles awarded (conditional on rating)

Country, Name

ROU Ionica, Iulia-Ionela

Offer Ends December 31, 2008

Corus Group B and C announced!

In the big upcoming Corus 2009 Tournament, broken into 3 major parts at the top, Group A, announced previously in a post, was finalized with the addition of the names of those who will be competing in Group B and Group C. There also is an open tournament for those not picked for the top 3 groups. It's a major tournament I look forward to seeing each year, well, at least watching some of the live relays on ICC of my favorite players. This tournament takes place next month, and then followed by the Candidate Match for the challenger for the World Title against Champion, GM Viswanathan Anand, (GM Veselin Topalov vs GM Gata Kamsky) after much haggling over place and money.
But back to the subject, here are the invited participants of Group B, no guarantee this will be everyone who plays, there might be a drop out or such.

CORUS GROUP "B"

1 GM Krishnan Sasikiran India 2694
2 GM Zahar Efimenko Ukraine 2680
3 GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov Uzbekistan 2672
4 GM Alexander Motylev Russia 2672
5 GM Francisco Vallejo Pons Spain 2664
6 GM Andrei Volokitin Ukraine 2659
7 GM Nigel Short England 2642
8 GM Fabiano Caruana Italy 2640
9 GM David Navara Czech Republic 2633
10 GM Erwin l'Ami The Netherlands 2610
11 GM Jan Werle The Netherlands 2582
12 WGM Hou Yifan China 2578
13 GM Henrique Mecking Brazil 2567
14 GM Dimitri Reinderman The Netherlands 2543


CORUS GROUP "C"

1 GM Wesley So Philippines 2610
2 GM David Howell England 2593
3 GM Abhijeet Gupta India 2580
4 GM Tiger Hillarp Persson Sweden 2543
5 GM Friso Nijboer The Netherlands 2540
6 GM Eduardo Iturrizaga Venezuela 2538
7 IM Manuel Leon Hoyos Mexico 2535
8 GM Oleg Romanishin Ukraine 2532
9 GM Frank Holzke Germany 2524
10 FM Anish Giri Russia 2466
11 WGM Dronavalli Harika India 2462
12 IM Roeland Pruijssers The Netherlands 2458
13 IM Manuel Bosboom The Netherlands 2416
14 FM Ali Bitalzadeh The Netherlands 2370

Breaking News: TransWarp passes 3932

I just happened to check out TransWarp's current status, it was sitting at 3930, approaching it's old unofficial blitz record of 3932, when I saw BOOO (strong anonymous blitz player) playing. BOOO must be very good to hold his own and sitting at #16 in blitz between #15 GM Bu Xiangzhi (bxz) and #17 GM Arman Pashikian with a post game rating of 3241. But I would like to post the game that put TransWarp at 3933, hopefully advancing more, but it's really tough when a draw can cost you 15 pts, meaning you play 14 games but 1 is a draw, you come out behind. Like 1 step forward, 14 steps back! :) A draw is bound to happen sooner or later, so I will be happy with this moment, which gives me a little pleasure, as I had a very small part in TransWarp's success, updating her opening books, actually making those books, not being able to use the Official Rybka book because I just have the UCI package and use ChessPartner 5.4 as it's gui, which cannot read Chessbase opening books. It's a small input, but Deep Rybka 3.0 "Human" does all the work with the nudge I have given her, and just a small nudge at that!
Will hopefully continue moving forward, I dread the inevitable draw or even loss, but it WILL happen, just a matter of when. Thanks to BOOO, whoever he/she may be, for being brave enough to be the one who risks the pts that put TW past it's old record, set on March 10, 2008. Here is the game that took her to 3933.

TransWarp vs BOOO (anonymous)

GM Vladimir Kosyrev stuns TransWarp in 15 0!

GM Vladimir Kosyrev played TransWarp yesterday in 15 min + 0 increment chess (Known as Standard on ICC, that is the fastest time control of the Standard category), stunning it with a win! The position was actually a draw, and GM Kosyrev, known to his fellow ICC'ers as Tankist (even me, who would bet on him with fake chips in the bettingbot channel, but that's a different story), offered a draw, but sadly, I was busy sawing logs and TransWarp was on her own. So Tankist did what anyone would do, kept playing and ended up out blitzing TW. This is where I kind of miss the time control options in the settings of Rybka 3.0, it spent more time in the opening and middlegame, but didn't save that extra for a time battle. But no excuses, I have to go over the game and see what went wrong, hopefully fix it, and move on. You don't make progress without a few setbacks.
The game was also special in that it was the first win against TransWarp, since GM Rauf Mamedov did it in October, the game is in the archives here. Also, TransWarp had been on a run of games without even a draw (89) until Tankist smacked her right in the code. Here is the game: Congrats to Tankist (GM Vladimir Kosyrev)

Tankist vs TransWarp



I do have to give it to GM Kosyrev, offering the draw in an obviously drawn position, but that's the risk an operator has to take when you cannot man the computer all the time. I WISH I was watching, of course I would have taken the draw, but C'est La Vie. :)

GM Mamedyarov plays 6 games!

I was pleasantly surprised while updating the blog that GM Mamedyarov was playing TransWarp. I only got to see the last 2 games which I will post. I was able to thank him before he logged off and he was cool enough to reply with a "Thanks" in the form of the Internet abbreviation "thx" :) I am very grateful for those players who continue to give TransWarp a try, lately GM Mamedyarov and GM Mamedov. But it sure was cool to have him play 6 games.

TransWarp vs azerichess (GM Mamedyarov)




azerichess vs TransWarp

Corus 2008 "Group A" player list (may change)

The Corus tournament is one of the major tournaments I look forward to watching online, there you can see many top players go head to head in 3 major groups, A, B and C. The winners of the lower two sections win a spot in the tournament group one step above, say the winner of group C wins a spot in group B and the group B winner wins a spot in the prestigious group A. At least that's the way it's been in the past, with GM Sergei Movsesian the winner of group B last year, playing in group A this coming January, (Jan 16 to Feb 1, 2009). There also is a time control change in 2009, 40 moves in 2 hours, 20 moves in an hour followed by 15 minutes with a 30 second increment as the final time control.

Here are the players for group A, as far as I know, group B & C haven't been announced yet. Mark Crowther's "This week in Chess" and www.corus2009.com

71st Corus Wijk aan Zee A-Group
(NED), 16 i - 1 ii 2009
(# = rating in top 100 in October 2008 FIDE rating list.

Alexander Morozevich RUS #2 2787
Vassily Ivanchuk UKR #3 2786
Magnus Carlsen NOR #4 2786
Levon Aronian ARM #7 2757
Teimour Radjabov AZE #8 2751
Wang Yue CHN #11 2736
Michael Adams ENG #12 2734
Sergei Movsesian SLW #13 2732
Sergei Karjakin UKR #15 2730
Gata Kamsky USA #16 2729
Leinier Dominguez CUB #21 2719
Loek van Wely NED 2618
Daniel Stellwagen NED 2605
Jan Smeets NED 2604

Final Standing of 2008 Olympiad (a little late)

A little late but here are the final standings of the 2008 Chess Olympiad: The USA managed to pull in a Bronze medal, several different results had to happen for the USA to get this medal. However the Olympiad was tainted by the theft of the Gaprindashvili Cup. See earlier blog post.

Tie break 1: Match points (2 for win, 1 for Draw, 0 for Loss)

Tie break 2: Olympiad tiebreak (read more here)


Final Open (Men's) Standings: (top 10)

1 Armenia 19 400.5
2 Israel 18 377.5
3 United States of America 17 362
4 Ukraine 17 348.5
5 Russia 16 375
6 Azerbaijan 16 359.5
7 China 16 357.5
8 Hungary 16 341.5
9 Vietnam 16 340
10 Spain 16 337.5

Final Womwn's Standings: (Top 10)

1 Georgia 18 411.5
2 Ukraine 18 406.5
3 United States of America 17 390.5
4 Russia 17 367
5 Poland 17 364.5
6 Armenia 16 353
7 Serbia 16 318.5
8 China 15 392.5
9 Israel 15 325
10 Belarus 15 317.5

The US Women's team brings home a Bronze medal as well, keeping up with the guys, way to go!

Top 10 performance ratings ELO (####) Perf. Rat. [####]

1 GM Sargissian Gabriel (2642) Armenia [2869]
2 GM Leko Peter (2747) Hungary [2834]
3 GM Gelfand Boris (2719) Israel [2833]
4 GM Topalov Veselin (2791) Bulgaria [2821]
5 GM Akopian Vladimir (2679) Armenia [2813]
6 GM Vallejo Pons Francisco (2664) Spain [2807]
7 GM Movsesian Sergei (2732) Slovakia [2794]
8 GM Jakovenko Dmitry (2737) Russia [2794]
9 GM Blagojevic Dragisa (2522) Montenegro [2792]
10 GM Delchev Aleksander (2632) Bulgaria [2788]

Top 10 Womwn's Performance Rating

1 GM Chiburdanidze Maia (2489) Georgia [2715]
2 WIM Majdan Joanna (2284) Poland [2621]
3 IM Fierro Baquero Martha L (2361) Ecuador [2613]
4 IM Kosintseva Nadezhda (2468) Russia [2591]
5 IM Zatonskih Anna (2440) United States of America [2571]
6 IM Khukhashvili Sopiko (2409) Georgia [2564]
7 WGM Hou Yifan (2578) China [2563]
8 IM Socko Monika (2434) Poland [2563]
9 WGM Zhukova Natalia (2488) Ukraine [2553]
10 IM Mkrtchian Lilit (2443) Armenia [2549]

Gaprindashvili Cup Stolen!!!

"The Gaprindashvili cup has been stolen
unfortunate incident on the way back to Ukraine

Ukraine receiving the trophy
a few days ago at the Dresden Olympiad
Leonid Timoshenko, a representative of the Ukrainian Chess Federation, has had a precious diamond he was carrying stolen. He was accompanying a diamond-encrusted cup, which had been won by the Ukrainian National Chess Team in the World Chess Olympiad in Germany, on a flight from Frankfurt to Kiev, reports Russia today.

After landing, Timoshenko saw that his bag had been opened up. The cup, which is named after the famous Georgian chess player Nona Gaprindashvili, was broken and the stone had vanished.

The group carrying the cup had flown through Frankfurt on their way back to Kiev. It was in Frankfurt that they were forced to check the cup into baggage. On the previous flight from Dresden they were allowed to take it onboard as a carry-on piece.

The president of the Ukranian Chess Federation, Viktor Petrov, has already filed a report with the police." (Pretty messed up if you ask me!-Jayhawker)

Photo and article courtesy of www.chessdom.com

A few days off.. but a good day yesterday!

I took a few days off from posting here due to the American celebration of Thanksgiving. Although we can be thankful every day we wake up, I guess the US decided to make a day for reflection and gratefulness. Although, being Native American, or as I like, the Canadian version, First American, much better than being known as an "Indian" due to an error over 500 years ago! And in chess, with many Indian GM's on the scene, can be confusing at times after over 40 years of being called an Indian. I would also like to refer people to this article on CNN.COM.


But I AM grateful for the blitz games by GM's Mamedov and Mamedyarov! I was able to see some of the games, but missed muisback's mini-marathon, (GM Rauf Mamedov). Right now, TransWarp is luckily sitting at 3897, just 3 pts from 3900 and close to TW's previous high of 3932. That was attained when GM Nakamura would play, I DO have this to say about him, he didn't care about the pts he risked. I do applaud him for that. I will post the last game by GM Mamedov and the last game by GM Mamedyarov, I could say kiddingly, it was an Azeri attack on TransWarp, but I don't want people to misunderstand that. It's just they are the last two to play in a while. During the Olympiad (which I failed to update to the final standings).

GM Rauf Mamedov (muisback( vs TransWarp



GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (azerichess) vs TransWarp



I just picked that last game played by each player, the first game is kind of short, I messeged GM Mamedov on how I was impressed how he could tell a lost game so early, I had to go further into the game (even though Rybka showed a sizable advantage) to see for myself. So just because the game is short, doesn't mean there is no interest in it.

Dresden 2008 Chess Olympiad Round 10 notes

Today's results are in from Dresden, Germaany as I finished my other posts, nope, I don't work too fast these days. One more round and again, hopefully players will be back to ICC ready to get their blitz on!

Round 10

Rank after Round 10
Rk Team Games TB1 TB2
1 Armenia 10 17 339,0
2 Ukraine 10 17 309,5
3 Israel 10 16 315,5
4 China 10 16 291,5
5 Russia 10 15 309,0
6 Netherlands 10 15 292,0
7 Spain 10 15 270,0
8 USA 10 15 266,0
9 Azerbaijan 10 14 305,0
10 Vietnam 10 14 296,0


Top 10 players by performance rating

No. Name (Rtg) [Rp] *Pts.#Games
1 GM Sargissian Gabriel (2642) [2893] *8,5 #10
2 GM Gelfand Boris (2719) [2862] *7,0 #9
3 GM Aleksandrov Aleksej (2617) [2830] *7,0 #8
4 GM Jakovenko Dmitry (2737) [2826] *6,5 #8
5 GM Vallejo Pons Francisco (2664) [2823] *8,5 #10
6 GM Akopian Vladimir (2679) [2823] *7,5 #10
7 GM Topalov Veselin (2791) [2821] *6,5 #8
8 GM Leko Peter (2747) [2813] *6,5 #9
9 GM Short Nigel D (2642) [2812] *7,0 #9
10 GM Movsesian Sergei (2732) [2811] *6,5 #8

GM Alexey Dreev plays a couple of games

GM Alexey Dreev took some time out of his day to play TransWarp a few games, of course I really appreciate this as slow as it's been. Thanks to GM Dreev!

a little miniature here.

TransWarp vs Dreev



Game 2 more of a fight.



I don't mean to embarrass anyone, just a shortage of games lately has me posting the short game, but it can show us beginners a trap in the caro-kann. (Game 1, find why GM Dreev resigned).

Dresden 2008 Chess Olympiad Round 9 notes

Round 9 of the 2008 Chess Olympiad finished yesterday in Dresden with some changes in the leaders. Also, I will update the top ten performance ratings in the open section after round 9. There are two rounds to go in this massive chess event, then hopefully more players will be back to ICC to play some blitz to take the edge off! :)

GM Boris Gelfand Photo courtesy of Chessdom.Com

Rank after Round 9

Rk. Team Games TB1 TB2
1 Israel 9 16 252,5
2 Armenia 9 15 268,0
3 Ukraine 9 15 241,5
4 China 9 14 240,0
5 England 9 14 213,5
6 Serbia 9 14 207,5
7 Russia 9 13 250,0
8 Germany 1 9 13 246,0
9 Bulgaria 9 13 241,0
10 Netherlands 9 13 223,5

Top 10 performance ratings after round 9:

No. (Rtg) Team [Rp] *Pts. #Games
1.GM Topalov Veselin: (2791) Bulgaria [2969] *6,5 #7
2 GM Sargissian Gabriel: (2642) Armenia [2950] *8,0 #9
3 FM Abdel Razik Khaled: (2406) Egypt [2929] *7,0 #7
4 GM Gelfand Boris: (2719) Israel [2875] *6,5 #8
5 GM Movsesian Sergei : (2732) Slovakia [2848] *6,0 #7
6 GM Rodshtein Maxim: (2609) Israel [2843] *6,0 #7
7 GM Short Nigel D: (2642) England [2827] *6,5 #8
8 GM Jakovenko Dmitry: (2737) Russia [2809] *5,5 #7
9 GM Akopian Vladimir: (2679) Armenia [2800] *6,5 #9
10 GM Kasimdzhanov Rustam: (2672) Uzbekistan [2796] *5,5 #7

The US Team sits in 12th place at this moment.

Chess Olympiad 2008 Round 8 results

• 
  GN Gabriel Sargissian of Team Armenia (source:http://www.coruschess.com/)
  
  The 2008 Chess Olympiad continues with round 8 finishing up yesterday. I will report only on that, as I am a bit peeved with a player, I want to say, but I will hold my tongue. This is regarding TW of course.
  
  But to the Olympiad: Stats courtesy of Chessdom.Com, Thanks to them for sharing with my blog.
  
  Performance at the Olympiad after round 8 Men's (Open)
  1 GM Topalov Veselin Bulgaria 2936
  2 GM Sargissian Gabriel Armenia 2927
  3 FM Abdel Razik Khaled Egypt 2893
  4 GM Gelfand Boris Israel 2835
  5 GM Akopian Vladimir Armenia 2822
  6 GM Almasi Zoltan Hungary 2814
  7 GM Jakovenko Dmitry Russia 2809
  8 GM Short Nigel D England 2805
  9 GM Leko Peter Hungary 2803
  10 GM Vallejo Francisco Spain 2801
  
  Rank after Round 8
  Rk. Team Games TB1 TB2
  1 Armenia 8 15 224
  2 Israel 8 14 205,5
  3 Russia 8 13 206
  4 Ukraine 8 13 205,5
  5 Azerbaijan 8 12 210,5
  6 Germany 1 8 12 190
  7 China 8 12 187
  8 Vietnam 8 12 169,5
  9 France 8 12 168
  10 Slovakia 8 12 168
  
  
  
  

2008 chess olympiad update

Here's a little factoid courtesy of chessdom.com, giving the top performance ratings over 7 rounds by the players of the Men's (open) and Women's section.

Here are the top 5 Players after ELO-Performance:

1 BUL GM Topalov Veselin 2889
2 ARM GM Sargissian Gabriel 2888
3 AUS GM Johansen Darryl K 2884
4 UZB GM Kasimdzhanov Rustam 2829
5 EGY FM Abdel Razik Khaled 2810

1.SWE GM Cramling Pia 2705
2 HUN IM Vajda Szidonia 2684
3 CHN WGM Hou Yifan 2660
4 MGL WGM Munguntuul Batkhuyag 2623
5 BUL WGM Voiska Margarita 2607

Here are the top 10 teams after round 7: listing tiebreak 1 (team pts)
Tiebreak 2 (Olympiad rules, info here: http://www.chessdom.com/news/chess-olympiad-changes).

Rank after Round 7
Rk.
1 Armenia ARM 13 165,0
2 Germany 1 GER1 12 149,5
3 Israel ISR 12 141,5
4 France FRA 12 137,0
5 Russia RUS 11 155,0
6 Ukraine UKR 11 149,5
7 China CHN 11 145,0
8 Vietnam VIE 11 130,0
9 USA USA 11 116,0
10. Azerbaijan AZE 10 147,5

TransWarp's Latest Game vs GM Dlugy Drawn

Lately, it's been kind of slow, but BOOO and Dlugy came to the rescue in the past 24 hours. I've been negligent in posting here because the last 3 days have been tests or Dr. appts. I get today and the weekend off, then back to the Doc's on Monday and x-rays sometime soon! Been postponing those because of all the other stuff, like a heart stress test, with the drug...God, if I could do the treadmill I would in a heartbeat (pardon the pun!). I believe it's spelled adenesine or adenasine, but boy, you get an idea what a heart attack is like! Glad it's over and hope the tests come out okay.

But to the latest game, GM Maxim Dlugy achieved a draw and that's what I will post here, it's very long because I wasn't monitoring the game, just had got my coffee and turned on the monitor when I saw it was in the +200 move range! I apologized to GM Dlugy and feel badly that I cannot monitor the machine all the time and this happens. But to get Deep Rybka to take risks, you have to turn up the contempt value, also helps with breaking blockades. Here is the game.

Dlugy vs TransWarp

Not much going on, Olympiad The Big News!

With the 2008 Chess Olympiad going on in Dresden, Germany, TransWarp has lost many of it's regular players. It's been 4 days without a blitz game, however yesterday Saint89 (IM Sergei Yudin RUS) played 4 bullet games. GM Rustemov (Goldmund) is busy watching his team (Russia) holding the lead after 5 rounds in the Olympiad. Who can blame him! It's pretty exciting, I try to watch a game or two, usually the USA team, GM Nakamura had a scary game against South African IM Watu Kobese, however Kobese crumbled under the pressure and Hikaru schooled him in the endgame.

Here are the top 10 teams as provided by the official site:

http://schachlive.dresden2008.de/results.m.eng.html

Rank after Round 5

Rk. SNo Team Team Pts.
1 1 Russia RUS 82.5
2 9 Armenia ARM 80.5
3 11 Germany 1 GER1 77.5
4 4 Azerbaijan AZE 74.0
5 2 Ukraine UKR 73.0
6 15 England ENG 62.0
7 21 Poland POL 72.5
8 13 India IND 68.0
9 30 Sweden SWE 68.0
10 17 Georgia GEO 67.0

An older game I found.

I found this game while messing with the databases. I didn't know that RoadKing (A top rated ICC player, anonymous GM) had played one game. I wish he had played a few more, but as his rating is 3504, I seriously doubt he would. His rating at the time of the game was 3320 post-game, so probably 3323 prior as TW was 3702. If he gave me 3 pts, he may have actually put TW over 3700, maybe not for the first time since Deep Rybka 3.0 as the game was one month ago, but who knows? I am not going to search...too tired.

TransWarp vs RoadKing

TransWarp News and Stats and Stuff

I had a question on how long I had been using Deep Rybka 3.0, I use the "Human" version at all times, at least so far. I had also broken all the games into 3 databases, two of which are on my website available for download and one which I am still using until I get about 800 games on it. It has about 550 at the moment. I decided to merge what I had so far on my Fritz 9 program and then hit the CrossTable option. This gave me a list of all who had played TransWarp, even bullet and standard along with blitz. I hope this lines up though! You will see who has played TransWarp the most, their records, the scores are combined, even though you may see Rahmaninov with 17.5, he might just have that score in draws, although I do think he has one win vs TransWarp with Deep Rybka 3.0, I know Goldmund has maybe 2, there are 3 confirmed checkmates of TransWarp so far, I know this. All other losses were on time, one of which was a lockup in the opening vs Goldmund, who of course tried to play again, but JimmyS(C) had already NoRated TransWarp, so a thanks of course to JimmyS(C)! Before this bot was put online to monitor the Computer accounts, you would be surprised at the computer operators waking up to find that their account had lost a hundred+ points before a kind player would notify an Admin, who would then norate the computer account. However, there were also many players who would abort the game when it saw the account in trouble. So JimmyS(C) is a handy bot to have around. All the names are ICC Handles, some are anonymous, some might be adjourned and restarted later, so I cannot account for the perfection of this table. I had to turn on noescape at one point because of adjourn and evaluation sessions by players. Some were innocent adjourns because of phone calls, someone at the door, etc. I would hope the latter was the case in all of them :) Ah, okay, it seems it sorted out the aborts and adjourns. Cool. At the end, I will post the losses of TransWarp in blitz. I really count the checkmates as legit losses, because the machine and program was beat, just not beat by a fast mouse + smartmove. The CheckMate Club Members are: Dlugy (1), Rahmaninov (1), Akademik (1) and latest, muisback (1)!


chessclub.com 2008

1 TransWarp 1422.0/1472
2 Rahmaninov 17.5/443
3 Goldmund 3232 10.0/236
4 Charodej 3135 5.0/90
5 Dlugy 4.0/100
6 B-Amin 2671 4.0/115
7 Akademik 2.5/46
8 muisback 3190 1.5/53
9 bani 1.0/47
10 Sensei24 1.0/32
11 RafaNadal 1.0/6
12 RENATEX 2520 0.5/3
13 AndrinoGiardino 3417 0.5/27
14 Sunofeast 3264 0.5/3
15 Hatred 3015 0.5/11
16 Hermetica 2505 0.0/5
17 zeigmata 2391 0.0/5
18 azerichess 0.0/5
19 Snooker 0.0/5
20 lodachnik 2536 0.0/16
21 zpx 0.0/4
22 Blitz-King 3058 0.0/25
23 Tankist 2566 0.0/3
24 juse1928 2523 0.0/2
25 faust 0.0/3
26 Dreev 3341 0.0/2
27 GMAlex 3116 0.0/2
28 insolente 2544 0.0/2
29 ASSAULT4EVER 2506 0.0/2
30 Kempka 0.0/2
31 tapuax 3384 0.0/1
32 XHUNTERX 3094 0.0/1
33 GeneraLisimus 3049 0.0/1
34 el-roedor 2932 0.0/1
35 Danya 2929 0.0/1
36 Superpoil 2927 0.0/1
37 ActiveKing 2760 0.0/1
38 cunningfox 2560 0.0/1
39 nobletime 2557 0.0/0
40 Guambomb 2505 0.0/1
41 Subzero2008 0.0/0
42 zhong 0.0/1
43 RoadKing 0.0/1
44 A-Adly 2529 0.0/32
45 QuangRuan 2554 0.0/10
46 Pikaso 2990 0.0/10
47 Egyptianfox 0.0/18
48 Infernal-XaM 3093 0.0/9
49 denmanisgod 2961 0.0/9
50 Saint89 2749 0.0/9
51 IBorg 0.0/19
52 junior 0.0/8
53 NECF-InSchools 3059 0.0/7
54 TRADE 0.0/7
55 padrino 2907 0.0/5
56 Federicov 2705 0.0/5
57 Dolgoruki 2595 0.0/6
58 BOOO 0.0/6
59 bxz 0.0/6

0 3193 muisback 3678 TransWarp 1-0 [ br 3 0] B06 Mat 08-Oct-08
1 3175 Goldmund 3650 TransWarp 1-0 [ br 5 5] D27 Fla 23-Sep-08
2 3631 TransWarp 3164 Charodej 0-1 [ br 3 2] A10 Fla 22-Sep-08
3 3660 TransWarp 3185 Akademik 0-1 [ br 3 1] D15 Mat 22-Sep-08
4 3099 Goldmund 3605 TransWarp 1-0 [ br 3 3] C01 Fla 19-Sep-08
5 3556 TransWarp 3142 Rahmaninov 0-1 [ br 3 1] E92 Mat 16-Sep-08
6 3105 Dlugy 3640 TransWarp 1-0 [ br 5 2] C55 Mat 05-Sep-08

World Blitz Championship 2008 Won By Leinier Dominguez

GM Leinier Perez Dominguez won the 2008 World Blitz Championship, held in Almaty, Kazakhstan. GM Dominguez has played TransWarp, so kudos to him, as I was hoping one of the GM's who had played TW would win, yeah, I was playing favorites! :) I was hoping to put the games on my website, but it seems many are incomplete, blitz can be furious, pieces flying back and forth on the board and at certain times the board recording the games can mess up, I don't believe players are required to keep score as in USCF blitz tournaments, at least last time I played one. I wasn't feeling well late last night-early this morning, so I missed the games live. I was blissfully sawing logs (snoring). Since I was sitting here a long time for me, watching the last round of Casino 2008 in Barcelona on ICC as well as the previous marathon of games by AndrinoGiardino (unknown player on ICC, who tied GM Alexander Grischuk for the highest human rating achieved on ICC at 3737), that I just have no energy today, I'm also working on getting a hospital bed, I think it will help a lot, getting in and out of bed and better sleeps. So wish me luck on my Monday's Rheumatologist appt for the prescription for one, as he gave me one before, but I wasn't sure how to go about the process, it expired. I also wasn't in as much pain as I am in now. So congrats to GM Dominguez on his fine win! I hope the scores and crosstable stays in place, but I don't have high hopes on it not being crooked.

Final Standings: Sorry, just couldn't clear up the image after transferring from a spreadsheet, I wanted them to line up, but just couldn't get them to do so (In my somewhat limited html knowledge) with the blogger, so converted to bitmap and I think blogger, where they store the pictures, took a bit out of the quality, it was much better at this size on my comp.

Final Standings Magistral Casino 2008 (Name, title, country, rating, crosstable, final score, performance rating).



lol, I tried. Had some bullet games on TransWarp, but no blitz games yet, last one by BOOO (Anonymous, untitled (this can be kept off at request)). Bullet games by QuangRuan, and with Saint89, a new player! IM Sergei Yudin FIDE 2556 :) All new players are welcome and appreciated.

Magistral Casino de Barcelona 2008, Dreev takes First!

Here are today's pairings..

Round 9, 07.11.2008 at 16:00

GM Dreev Alexey 2670 - GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2548 1-0
GM Georgiev Kiril 2645 - GM Lopez Martinez Josep 2547 1-0
GM Kogan Artur 2561 - GM Hernandez Holden 2580 1-0
IM Corrales Jimenez Fid 2552 - GM Narciso Dublan Marc 2511 1-0
GM Jobava Baadur 2664 - GM Gulko Boris 2552 1-0


Congrats to GM Alexey Dreev with 7/9! Once he got started, he just kept rolling!

Final Standings: After 9 Rounds
1. GM Dreev 7.0
2. GM Georgiev 6.5
3. GM Jobava 5.5
4. GM Gulko 5.0
5-6. GM Stefanova, IM Corrales 4.5
7. GM Lopez 4.0
8. GM Hernandez 3.0
9-10. GM Narciso, GM Kogan 2.5

Wow, Has TransWarp had a cool day!

Today, TransWarp played AndrinoGiardino, who is tied in the record books for the highest blitz rating achieved by a human at 3737 with depressnyak, who supposedly is GM Alexander Grischuk. There are rumors as to who AndrinoGiardino is, but with an anonymous account, you know how rumors are for these, like a game, "Guess The Grandmaster", many "Searching For Bobby Fischer" until he died, pardon the pun.

Starting yesterday, TransWarp got a one game visit from GM Ilya Smirin (tapuax), which was cool, FIDE 2649 (ISR) and #72 in the October, 2008 Top 100. It's possible that AndrinoGiardino (untitled & anonymous on ICC, MIGHT be a top 10 player, but I don't know, you always have to take "Guess the Grandmaster" with a grain of salt.

Also, before AndrinoGiardino played his 27 game marathon, GM Rauf Mamedov played as well as GM Maxim Dlugy, so quite a morning! Andrino did get a draw, I will post that game. After achieving the tie with depressnyak on ICC's Best Record, AndrinoGiardino's rating went down to the 3400's, he was 3417 at the beginning of the marathon and 3375 at the end, but I'm sure he can gain those points back rather quickly, the way he plays. Since he tied depressnyak, obviously he went into "have fun" mode after he achieved his goal, this is only speculation on my part of course. Whatever the reason, I am truly grateful for the opportunity that TransWarp got with all these players, yesterday and today, I was glad GM Smirin took time out of his day to play as when I WAS playing chess, I went over many of his games. I know he's won some big tournaments here in the US, I believe one of the World Open's being one...would have to check online, my old Chess Life magazines are packed away, haven't renewed my USCF account in a while (5 years at least) since I don't actually get to play tournaments anymore. I liked reading the magazine, but now, most major tournaments are online live, so I pay my money to ICC to be able to watch them & occasionaly whip out my low rated patzer skills on morphine and go cross-eyed after getting whupped up on by those lucky enough to play me! :) Now, the game (about time, says everyone!).

TransWarp vs AndrinoGiardino


It was a lot of fun to watch the marathon, that's for sure. I thank whoever AndrinoGiardino is, for his time & amount of games played. Thanks!

GM Smirnov Draw

Here's the draw by GM Smirnov (ICC Handle: Charodej) with the black pieces, he had been drawing more than others with the Saragossa opening as white. When losing after I did some work on that opening, he pulled off a draw in the next game.

TransWarp vs Charodej



Thanks to GM Smirnov (Charodej) and GM Mamedov (muisback) for keeping TransWarp active. It really sucks to sit there idle for a few days like it did earlier, I suspect all the tournaments going on at this time, (I HOPE!)

Magistral Casino de Barcelona 2008 Round 8 Results

Here are round 8 results from today's games in Barcelona. Also will post a draw vs TransWarp by GM Igor Smirnov, it seems rather odd that he can play 2 games and get a draw or just one game and draw. When analyzing the A00 Saragossa opening he had been using and tried as white today, before I made changes to the book, the lines Deep Rybka 3 recommended seemed to be followed a lot, not just the beginning...but far into the game, and this was with analysis longer than the time limit of the game itself. Now, I will check his draw right after the loss w/white in the A00 Saragossa he would always use, with the black pieces...wonder how much is similiar to Rybka's recommendations, I don't know...muisback (GM Rauf Mamedov) played 5 games today with no luck, yet Charodej seems to have very good luck, despite their ICC blitz ratings being nearly identical. GM Mamedov is near the top 100 Fide, while GM Smirnov is 2504, but blitz it a whole different monster.

But back to business.

Round 8, 06.11.2008 at 16:00

GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2548 - GM Jobava Baadur 2664 ½-½
GM Gulko Boris F 2552 - IM Corrales Jimenez Fid 2552 1-0
GM Narciso Dublan Marc 2511 - GM Kogan Artur 2561 ½-½
GM Hernandez Holden 2580 - GM Georgiev Kiril 2645 ½-½
GM Lopez Martinez Josep M. 2547 - GM Dreev Alexey 2670 0-1

Standings after Round 8:

Standings: After 8 Rounds
1. GM Dreev 6.0
2. GM Georgiev 5.5
3. GM Gulko 5.0
4. GM Stefanova, GM Jobava 4.5
5. GM Lopez 4.0
7. IM Corrales 3.5
8. GM Hernandez 3.0
9. GM Narciso 2.5
10. GM Kogan 1.5

Last round tomorrow!

Casino de Magistral 2008 update

Round 6 ended peacefully at all tables with draws between the opponents. There are a couple of results so far today (Round 7) with GM Dreev winning over GM Hernandez and a draw between GM Stefanova and GM Lopez and now a win by GM Gulko with the black pieces.

Round 6 04.11.2008 at 16:00
GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2548 - IM Corrales Jimenez Fid 2552 ½-½
GM Jobava Baadur 2664 - GM Kogan Artur 2561 ½-½
GM Gulko Boris F 2552 - GM Georgiev Kiril 2645 ½-½
GM Narciso Dublan Marc 2511 - GM Dreev Alexey 2670 ½-½
GM Hernandez Holden 2580 - GM Lopez Martinez Josep M. 2547 ½-½

Between these two rounds, the US elected Barack Obama as the new President, making history as the first Black President, usually, you hear African-American, but this may be confusing, as of course President-Elect Obama is 100% American first. Had McCain won, there would have been a first woman Vice-President. So over all, the Election was a guaranteed first for one of the tickets. (Gov. Palin isn't the first woman to run as a Vice-Presidential candidate, that honor going to Geraldine Ferraro.)

Round 7 05.11.2008 at 16:00 (Today's Games)
GM Lopez Martinez Josep M. 2547 - GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2548 ½-½
GM Dreev Alexey 2670 - GM Hernandez Holden 2580 1-0
GM Georgiev Kiril 2645 - GM Narciso Dublan Marc 2511 1-0
GM Kogan Artur 2561 - GM Gulko Boris F 2552 0-1
IM Corrales Jimenez Fid 2552 - GM Jobava Baadur 2664 ½-½

Round 8 06.11.2008 at 16:00
GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2548 - GM Jobava Baadur 2664
GM Gulko Boris F 2552 - IM Corrales Jimenez Fid 2552
GM Narciso Dublan Marc 2511 - GM Kogan Artur 2561
GM Hernandez Holden 2580 - GM Georgiev Kiril 2645
GM Lopez Martinez Josep M. 2547 - GM Dreev Alexey 2670

Round 9 07.11.2008 at 16:00
GM Dreev Alexey 2670 - GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2548
GM Georgiev Kiril 2645 - GM Lopez Martinez Josep M. 2547
GM Kogan Artur 2561 - GM Hernandez Holden 2580
IM Corrales Jimenez Fid 2552 - GM Narciso Dublan Marc 2511
GM Jobava Baadur 2664 - GM Gulko Boris F 2552

Standings: After 6 Rounds
1-2 GM Dreev, GM Georgiev 4.0
3-5 GM Stefanova, GM Jobava, GM Lopez 3.5
6-7 GM Gulko, IM Corrales 3.0
8. GM Hernandez 2.5
9. GM Narciso 2.0
10. GM Kogan 1.0

Standings: After 7 Rounds
1-2. GM Dreev, GM Georgiev 5.0
3-6. GM Gulko, GM Stefanova, GM Lopez, GM Jobava 4.0
7. IM Corrales 3.5
8. GM Hernandez 2.5
9. GM Narciso 2.0
10. GM Kogan 1.0

GM Georgiev wins in a tense endgame that was close to time control for both sides, to keep with GM Dreev in the lead with 5pts with 2 rounds to go. Here's that game.

GM Mamedyarov plays again!

TransWarp's quiet spell was ended with games from untitled and anonymous player BOOO and azerichess (GM Mamedyarov). I would suspect that GM Mamedyarov is doing a little practice for the World Blitz Tournament. Here is his last game.

azerichess vs TransWarp



Thanks to GM Mamedyarov and BOOO of course. TW hates sitting idle ;)

ps. not feeling too hot today, will probably do the Casino update tomorrow.

Interesting Comments about GM Nakamura and GM Radjabov

While perusing GM Susan Polgar's blog, I found an interesting article about Double Standards between GM Nakamura and GM Radjabov. It is a very interesting read, considering the history between myself and GM Nakamura. I have nothing against him, never berated him as he did myself, but it is interesting to find an article pointing out the very things I experienced (Note prior posts in archive about Nakamura). Here is the link to GM Polgar's blog & article. I have tried to get permission to post some of her materiel here, but never got a response, I will keep the link to her blog though, as it is interesting and a good blog for all.

http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2008/11/double-standard.html

Magistral Casino de Barcelona 2008 Round 5

At the Casino tournament, GM Baadur Jobava's undefeated run was stopped by GM Alexey Dreev in round 4 and fell again in round 5. I will post the GM Hernandez vs GM Stefanova round 5 game as TransWarp sat there unused in the last day. I again hope it's just all the tournaments that are going on that is keeping TransWarp idle.

Here are the results of yesterday's games and today's results. Round 6 & 7 pairings shown as well, of 9 rounds..will keep updating. Will try to put all the games on my website..been hard to keep up with all the tournaments going on lately. Will for sure post the Cap d'Agde Games in the games section as well as these game there too, when tournament is done.

Round 4 02.11.2008 at 16:00

GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2548 - GM Kogan Artur 2561 ½-½
IM Corrales Jimenez Fid 2552 - GM Georgiev Kiril 2645 ½-½
GM Jobava Baadur 2664 - GM Dreev Alexey 2670 0-1
GM Gulko Boris F 2552 - GM Lopez Martinez Josep M. 2547 ½-½
GM Narciso Dublan Marc 2511 - GM Hernandez Holden 2580 ½-½

Round 5 03.11.2008 at 16:00

GM Hernandez Holden 2580 - GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2548 0-1
GM Lopez Martinez Josep 2547 - GM Narciso Dublan Marc 2511 ½-½
GM Dreev Alexey 2670 - GM Gulko Boris 2552 ½-½
GM Georgiev Kiril 2645 - GM Jobava Baadur 2664 1-0
GM Kogan Artur 2561 - IM Corrales Jimenez Fid 2552 0-1

Round 6 04.11.2008 at 16:00
GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2548 - IM Corrales Jimenez Fid 2552 ½-½
GM Jobava Baadur 2664 - GM Kogan Artur 2561 ½-½
GM Gulko Boris F 2552 - GM Georgiev Kiril 2645 ½-½
GM Narciso Dublan Marc 2511 - GM Dreev Alexey 2670 ½-½
GM Hernandez Holden 2580 - GM Lopez Martinez Josep M. 2547 ½-½

Round 7 05.11.2008 at 16:00
GM Lopez Martinez Josep M. 2547 - GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2548 10
GM Dreev Alexey 2670 - GM Hernandez Holden 2580 3
GM Georgiev Kiril 2645 - GM Narciso Dublan Marc 2511
GM Kogan Artur 2561 - GM Gulko Boris F 2552
IM Corrales Jimenez Fid 2552 - GM Jobava Baadur 2664

Standings: (again spellings from official site)http://escacs.cat/ciutat08/

1-2. Alexey Dreev, Kiril Georgiev 3.5
3-5 Josep M. Martinez Lopez, Baadur Jobava, Anoaneta Stevanova 3.0
6-7 Boris Gulko, IM Fidel Jimenez Corrales 2.5
8. Holden Carmenates Hernandez 2.0
9. Marc Dublan Narciso 1.5
10. Artur Kogan 0.5


GM Holden Hernandez - GM Antoaneta Stefanova