| Mar-23-20 | | goodevans: I find it very odd that Alekseenko saw that <88.Nf2+ Kxh4 89.Kf4> would draw but didn't see that <89.Nh1+ Kxh4 90.Kf4> would do the same. The two lines are practically identical and it's not too hard to see why they draw even for someone of my limited ability. Maybe Giri's relentless pressure just got to him in the end. |
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| Mar-23-20 | | Ulhumbrus: Instead of 18 Bg5, 18 Nxe6 gains the bishop pair 36 Ne4 loses the b pawn.
One example of an explanation is that the white queen occupies the centre and after Ne4 so does the white Knight. However in order to regain the pawn the White queen has to leave the centre so as to become placed no better than the black queen. This seems an instructive point.
Can White do better than this? One alternative to 36 Ne4 is 36 Kh2 so that Black can't play the move ...Qc1 with tempo or even with a fork. Even then Black's pieces don't seem placed much worse than White's and after 36...b6 37 Ne4 Qd8 proposes an exchange that White does not want. All this suggests that White's problem is that whereas Black can be satisfied with a draw White wants to play to win, but his advantage is insufficient to extract a win from the position. This suggests that Alekseenko went too far trying to extract a win from an advantage that was not great enough to win. |
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Mar-23-20
 | | offramp: This is apparently Giri's first ever win at the Candidates'. |
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Mar-23-20
 | | An Englishman: Good Afternoon: 18.Nxe6,fxe6 threatens both ...Bxf2+ and ...Qxg3, but White has both Ne4 and even Nh1 to defend. Maybe White didn't feel good about either line. |
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| Mar-23-20 | | qkxwsm: 18. Nxe6 Bxf2+ wins a pawn |
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| Mar-23-20 | | OrangeTulip: Will not be he last win in the Candidates |
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| Mar-23-20 | | Petrosianic: Yes it will. |
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Mar-23-20
 | | AylerKupp: I posted this in the 2020 Candidates Tournament page before (I think) this page was up: World Championship Candidates (2020) (kibitz #711). It shows how Alekseenko seemingly had a draw on hand after first he blundered, then Giri played less than best moves, then he blundered again. Apt showing of how the winner of a game is the player who makes the next to last mistake. |
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| Mar-23-20 | | Petrosianic: Here was my take on it. The ending at Move 54 is drawn, of course. But it's not effortless. This is important, because in Patzerspeak, all draws (and indeed all equal games) are dead draws. I was watching this on C24, and, predictably, when we hit Move 24, the low-rated players pronounced it a dead draw, and started complaining about how bored they were (10 seconds into the ending). Carlsen himself said that this ending wasn't effortless. And a club player could very easily lose this ending against a much stronger player. (It's harder to draw with Knights than it would be with Rooks, Bishops, or even Queens). One guy rated about 1485 walked out at this point, to show how bored he was and how sure there was nothing left to see. Even if it had been a draw, he could have learned from it if he hadn't been too busy showing off. So anyway, I think Alekseenko began going wrong as early as 55. f4. The move is not "bad", and certainly not losing. But it's the wrong idea. In this kind of ending, White should keep his pawns back, and make Black come to him. He doesn't want to make empty space behind his formation that Black might use to maneuver in. The idea behind f4 is to prevent Black from exchanging off the g pawns, leaving him an f and an h against White's f, but it has other drawbacks. Also, White wants his foremost pawn to have as little maneuvering room adjacent to it as possible. When g3 is the foremost pawn, there's only the h file to maneuver in. When f4 is the foremost pawn, Black has half the board to maneuver in. You can see that that's precisely the idea Black played around, when he positioned his King on e4, then played h4 to weaken the advanced pawn. That wouldn't have been possible on the other side. After f4, those holes on g4 and e4 are pronounced, and White's Knight never finds a good square. White gets in trouble, but black lets him off. The tragedy comes at 89. Nd3???. 89. h5 is simple, obvious, and cries out to be played. If Black captures Kxh5, he loses his pawns, if he doesn't, then his King can no longer catch the h pawn (both ways are a draw). It's difficult to imagine why he WOULDN'T play h5, even with only seconds on the clock. Perhaps he was thinking 89. h5 Nd5+ 90. Kd4 Nf4 91. h6 Kxf2 would be losing, but it's not. 92. h7 (again obvious), and Black will queen one pawn, but lose the other pawn and Knight. |
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| Mar-23-20 | | Petrosianic: <Perhaps he was thinking 89. h5 Nd5+ 90. Kd4 Nf4 91. h6 Kxf2 would be losing, but it's not. 92. h7 (again obvious), and Black will queen one pawn, but lose the other pawn and Knight.> And this should also be obvious at a glance to a GM, who will know in a heartbeat that a Knight can't defend against a King and Rook Pawn. In the middle of the board, he can. A GM will know at a glance that this position is drawn, because the Knight can hold off both King and Pawn without help, giving itself up if necessary. 
click for larger viewBut move everything over three to the right, and Black is lost. The Knight no longer has maneuvering room to hold the balance. |
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| Mar-23-20 | | OrangeTulip: Some GM’s are playing the endgame half as good as you <Petrosianic>., no joking.
But your endgame is twice better than your art of predicting, half joking |
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| Mar-24-20 | | SChesshevsky: <...Maybe Giri's relentless pressure just got to him in the end. > Yeah, analyzing the moves is pretty straightforward but looking at why a player makes them always needs context. In general, the context for Kirill in this tournament appears that he's not quite at the other guys level. Probably in chess knowledge and certainly OTB experience. He knows it and more importantly all the other guys know it. He's got a big target on his back. So it's not surprising that he has been spending lots of time and energy in his games. Having to do this game after game against tough competition adds up. Now in this game, it looked like Alekseenko might of been inaccurate late opening and was worse from about move 28 on. So he's been playing from behind for about 5 hours by the endgame. With an endgame that's not trivial and being worse hours for this game and probably coming in a bit fatigued from previous games, I'd expect Alekseenko to see stuff that's not there and miss stuff that is in the ending. If he's lucky it's not at a critical moment and gets away with it. If not, it's an unpleasant loss. Though unpleasant, hopefully Kirill gets some confidence knowing he should have drawn. And it should be a big boost if he can sneak a win here sometime. |
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| Mar-24-20 | | Petrosianic: Continuing the whole thought about Knights and Rook Pawns, here's a position that didn't arise in this game, but might have if Black had played it wrong.
click for larger viewDespite being a piece and pawn up, Black is dead lost here. White starts with Kxf4, then picks up the other Knight and Pawn, while Black's King desperately tries to get back in the action. That's how dangerous White's h pawn can be once the black King can no longer catch it, and why 89. h5 was just crying out to be played. As with the previous example, move everything even one file over to the left, and it's a draw. |
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| Mar-24-20 | | Eyal: <I find it very odd that Alekseenko saw that <88.Nf2+ Kxh4 89.Kf4> would draw but didn't see that <89.Nh1+ Kxh4 90.Kf4> would do the same.> Apparently Giri felt the same way - here he is, immediately following Alekseenko's resignation, sadistically pointing at the h1 square: https://twitter.com/olimpiuurcan/st... |
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| Mar-24-20 | | Petrosianic: <Apparently Giri felt the same way> Well, the explanation is surely a combination of exhaustion and shortness of time. It's definitely not the case that the ending was too difficult for a 2698 player to solve under normal conditions. |
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Mar-24-20
 | | HeMateMe: how talented to win an endgame like this with such a small advantage. First, winning the extra pawn with Queens on the board, then finding a way to trade the queens without giving back the material. |
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| Mar-24-20 | | Petrosianic: I think Black would rather have kept the Queens on if he could have. But winning the pawn required allowing the Queen exchange and he couldn't find anything better. |
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| Apr-02-20 | | JohnBoy: <Ayler: "Apt showing of how the winner of a game is the player who makes the next to last mistake."> - I can think of dozens of games where I made the next to last mistake and didn't win. In most of these I made both the previous error and then the final error as well. |
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| Jun-03-20 | | wordfunph: "When I realized that I would win for the first time, I almost had a heart attack! My heart has never beaten so hard. After the game I will go to a cardiologist!" - Anish Giri (after his first victory in 2020 Candidates) Source: NIC Magazine 2020 #3 |
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| Apr-25-21 | | joddon: Giri really is aewing for the world championships....his stamina is so high....its almost unbelieveable how hes getting his queen and knight from one end of the board to the other end...........the rest of positions at this level are so common that these Gms have played them over and over nearly thousands of times......stamina is the difference at the top 2 level....they can play safe, not blunder, keep their positions held in high posts, pieces in high posts....get up the ranks faster....and last of all play the tactical weapon the last moments of the game knowing your oppennet is in time trouble trying to calculate and in doing so .....the last part of losing the World Title, its called the BLUNDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...well done GIRI...played foolish draws to make opponents thinks that thats all he can do......he is not a drawish player but a tactical magician! |
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Kibitzing
