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| Jul-26-07 | | Troller: Hector-Thorfinnsson is interesting:
1.d4,d5 2.Nc3?!,Nf6 3.Bg5,c5 4.Bxf6,gxf6 5.e3 (in Ah Hamad vs Z Pengxiang, 2006, White played e4 and was crushed in 20 moves),Nc6 6.Qh5?!: 
click for larger viewOf course, Hector is well-known for his original play, also in the openings. |
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| Jul-26-07 | | nescio: <Of course, Hector is well-known for his original play, also in the openings.> Well, although White lost quickly, the middlegame position in O Sagalchik vs I Krush, 2003 looks highly unclear.
Hector should be in his element. |
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| Jul-26-07 | | Troller: <nescio> Yes, but he took some time before playing 8.0-0-0 as in the Krush game. One would have expected him to be prepared for this line. Black plays 8..Bb4 and they are still following that game, although, judging from the time, none of them knows (or remembers). |
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| Jul-26-07 | | nescio: <Troller> If Hector knows the earlier game, he may be searching for an early improvement, knowing the result. |
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| Jul-26-07 | | Troller: Maybe. But he played 9.Nge2 just the same after more than a quarter of an hour's thought. Meanwhile, deFirmian is trying to play solidly, but Sargissian has some annoying play on the Q-side. Krasenkow-Nielsen after 21.Qb3,Rae8:
click for larger viewAt first glance, white may have an edge because of his actively posted pieces, but I really have difficulties judging this. |
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| Jul-26-07 | | nescio: Looking at your diagram, the position in Krasenkow-Nielsen seems equal to me. The black knight has a nice square on e5, hindering White's activity. |
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| Jul-26-07 | | Troller: Krasenkow-Nielsen continues 22.Nd2,d3 23.Qxd3,Nd4 24.Bc4 with sharp play. Can Black play ..f5? |
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| Jul-26-07 | | nescio: <Troller: Can Black play ..f5?> Good call. d4 is indeed an even better square for the knight, but I doubt that it's worth a pawn. |
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| Jul-26-07 | | Troller: He did play ..f5, and now Krasenkow has B+N+R against queen. Postion after 28..Qxf5:
click for larger viewObviously material advantage for White, but very difficult to play. His minor pieces are placed awkardly, and there may come lots of Q-checks. On the other hand, Black has to secure his back rank at some point, giving White a tempo. |
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Jul-26-07
 | | Appaz: Nyback-Bae reached this position
click for larger viewwhere black of course played 61...Bxd4, but then they went on playing for eleven more moves until this position: 
click for larger viewWonder why they bothered.
Bae is btw playing for his IM-title. He needs to raise his rating to 2400, and he is very close at the moment. Scoring 50% in the remaning games should be more than enough. |
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| Jul-27-07 | | Troller: Unfortunately local hero Nielsen lost yesterday. Malakhov maneouvred around until his lower rated opponent panicked and played d6-d5 to lose the game in oncoming time trouble. Malakhov-Krasenkow and Sargissian-Hillarp Persson are the top games of today. Malakhov-Krasenkow is so far a QGD, the Sargissian game QGA: 
click for larger viewposition after 4..Bg4 |
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| Jul-27-07 | | Troller: Stig Rasmussen may be the Dane to cheer for now the other Rasmussen got thrown out of the tour. He was a grand talent some years back, then took a break, but returned to chess about a year ago and has been improving rapidly. Today he is playing Khenkin with White in a Caro-Kann that is following P Negi vs T Willemze, 2007 at least until move 14. |
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| Jul-27-07 | | Troller: Malakhov has given Krasenkow something to think about with the rare 1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 Nc3 Be7 5 e3 0-0 6 a3 Krasenkow has spent more than twenty minutes so far. The move 6 a3 was used not long ago in the European Championship:
D Shengelia vs K Landa, 2007 |
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| Jul-27-07 | | Troller: Hillarp Persson has spent more than an hour pondering 9.Qb3:
click for larger viewMeanwhile, Nielsen has a pleasant position and an hour on the clock against Nithander. The position in Malakhov-Krasenkow is just about to open up, but knowing these two, play is still level. |
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| Jul-29-07 | | PaulKeres: I think that 10 rounds is too many, it is starting to be difficult to get the pairings. Also Malakhov has had too much time to recover from a poor start. I think 9 rounds is better. Anyone disagree, and why?
Also interests me how they decided how many rounds to have in a Swiss. Anyone know any theory / maths on this matter, a www link perhaps? |
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| Jul-29-07 | | Karpova: <PaulKeres: Also Malakhov has had too much time to recover from a poor start. I think 9 rounds is better.>
Malakhov won the first 4 games |
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| Jul-29-07 | | Karpova: Sargissian-Malakhov 1/2
Nybäck-Krasenkow 1/2
So Malakhov, Sargissian and Krasenkow have all 8 points |
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| Jul-29-07 | | Karpova: De Firmian (won against Nielsen in a wild attacking game) and Berg (won against Schandorff) also got 8 points |
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| Jul-29-07 | | PaulKeres: This proves my point I believe, that 9 rounds might have been better than 10, since we ended up with 5 co-leaders. |
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| Jul-29-07 | | Troller: Politiken Cup actually used to be 11 rounds. This was kind of a specialty. Logically, more rounds should give a better chance for a single winner, but 1 extra round ought not to matter that much. Nielsen btw presumably had a win somewhere in the last round. But a nice fight anyway! |
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Jul-29-07
 | | sisyphus: <PaulKeres: Also interests me how they decided how many rounds to have in a Swiss.> How many rounds is up to the organizer. But the basic measure is that you need at least n rounds, where 2^n > number of players. By that standard, you can get a single winner - if someone wins all their games. In this case, with 279 players, you should have at least nine rounds. Regardless, there's no way to prevent a shared first place. |
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| Jul-30-07 | | PaulKeres: < Troller: Politiken Cup actually used to be 11 rounds. This was kind of a specialty. Logically, more rounds should give a better chance for a single winner, but 1 extra round ought not to matter that much. > I don't think it's true that <more rounds give a better chance of a single winner>, as top players start to draw and "almost-top" players can catch up by beating the low rated players. ... I'll try to find a www link to help my argument here, a post it later ... be back ... |
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| Jul-30-07 | | PaulKeres: ... Investigating more on this Swiss topic, and now of rounds. Its as fine balancing act, and headache stuff to think about for too long! :) but ofcourse you don't want too many rounds, as players will end up playing each other more than once (although this ofcourse is not a sin, but usually not done, gets messy). Too few, and you just have no chance of an outright winner. As <sisyphus> correctly points out, its normally thought you need minimum of 2^n > number of players where n is rounds. I was interested in a "rule of thumb" for a maximum no. of rounds before for example players start playing each other a second time. The difficulty with chess ofcourse is the fact that there are so many draws - this complicates it all yet further. After saying all this, I do like the Swiss way of doing things. |
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| Aug-01-07 | | barbababa: <PaulKeres> <a "rule of thumb" for a maximum no. of rounds before for example players start playing each other a second time.> I thought they always play against closest opponent with whom they haven't played yet. E.g. if there are two players in the lead with 7 points and they have played allready against each other, they play against someone with 6 1/2 points. If they have allready played against all who have 6 1/2 points they play against someone with 6 points etc. So they could play (number of players -1) rounds without playing against same opponent twice. |
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| Aug-02-07 | | PaulKeres: Yes, but its not ideal for players with different scores to play each other. Obviously though "7 pts v 6.5 pts" is fine though. |
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Politiken Cup (2007)
