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.