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

Magistral Casino de Barcelona 2008

Magistral Casino de Barcelona 2008 is one tournament of several that are going on at this time. I hope all the latest tournaments is what's keeping players from taking on TransWarp, although in good spirit, GM Zhang Pengxiang played a game today, but the day is just starting, hopefully there will be more action. But to the subject.

The participants of this tournament are:

GM Alexey Dreev (RUS 2670) *
GM Baadur Jobava (GEO 2664) *
GM Kiril Georgiev (BUL 2644)
GM Holden Hernández (CUB 2580)
GM Artur Kogan (ISR 2561)
GM Boris Gulko (USA 2552)
IM Fidel Corrales (CUB 2551)
GM Antoaneta Stefanova (BUL 2550)
GM JM. López (ESP 2547)
GM Marc Narciso (ESP 2511)
(again the *'s are for those who have played TransWarp, GM Jobava played the 2.3.2a version though, GM Dreev has played both versions, but Deep Rybka 3 only once. He did get +0=2-17 vs 2.3.2a x64 mp out of 19 games vs that version for and +0=0-1 vs Deep Rybka 3. GM Jobava only played Rybka 2.3.2a x64 mp for 5 games in Jan, 08 getting 1 draw for +0=1-4) but again, it's cool to have some of the big names play now and then.)

After 3 rounds: courtesy of Chessdom.Com

Round 1 30.10.2008 at 16:00

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

Round 2 31.10.2008 at 16:00

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

Round 3 01.11.2008 at 16:00

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

Round 4 02.11.2008 at 16:00 (Today's Pairings) Games ongoing now 10:00 ICC Time

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

Here is a game from Round 2, a very nice game by GM Jobava



And on the homefront, here's today's game between TransWarp and GM Zhang Pengxiang, who was also the 2007 Individual Asian Champion. I hope he gets his wish of a good tournament to play as he's no slouch with an ELO of 2636.

zpx (3215) vs TransWarp (3794) (ICC blitz ratings)

Dry spell ended! Thank you GM Zhang Pengxiang!

GM Zhang Pengxiang (China) ELO 2636 ICC 3240, ended TransWarp's two day dry spell without a game by playing 3 games. As TW won all 3, I don't want him to think I am rubbing it in by posting all of the games, I will just post the last game. I have great respect for all those who play TransWarp and posting a bunch of wins by TW instead of a good game by the player, may seem disrepective. Far from the truth, as I have said before, I hope the people do well, as soon it will be so bad with the faster processors and stronger programs, that they just might feel it's not worth the time. Sure, I hope the program does well, but we can still wish for mankind to overcome. zpx (ICC handle for Zhang Penxiang) is a first time player of TransWarp, I'm glad he took the challenge, I would wake up each morning to see if anyone had played, only to see the pieces still in the starting position. But even with a formula that allows people rated 700 points below TransWarp to play (I've seen one with a formula of 350 below, not risking playing people who will only give up 1pt per loss, too worried about that 31 rating point loss if it loses and 15 point loss if it draws someone 650 points below them....) it's tough to find players because with TW's rating at 3793 now, one must be rated 3093 to play, that's getting up there in ratings..and a lot of the higher rated GM's (like depressnyak) won't give it a try at the risk of losing 9 points or so. He is the #2 player in ICC in blitz, and #1 human at 2. 3636 depressnyak. But it does show his dominance over other human players, although there is controversy about that..I won't go into what people think, I just wish he might give TransWarp a try. But I'm sure he won't waste time with "just a computer". I have to respect that.

Photo Courtesy of Chessdom.Com

Here's the zpx game as promised.

TransWarp vs zpx



I hope to see GM Zhang Pengxiang play again!