| Jan-23-16 | | Marmot PFL: It's not clear who will Tata Steel, let alone the candidates, but to me Caruana looks like the most worthy and likely challenger. He has had occasional "losing streaks" but hopefully has corrected that problem. |
|
| Jan-23-16 | | qkxwsm: Hard fought endgame. Nice job. |
|
Jan-23-16
 | | Open Defence: alternatives on move 13 ? e.g. 13..h6 or 13...Rac8 or even 13..d5 |
|
| Jan-23-16 | | shintaro go: <Marmot PFL> yes 2015 seems like a down year for Fab. 2016 looks promising for h so far |
|
| Jan-23-16 | | The17thPawn: Really hard fought and inventive play from both players. This was a pleasure to review. |
|
| Jan-23-16 | | latvalatvian: Shortly after sitting down at a chess board one must compose oneself. Sit up straight and look sharp. Then review in your mind all the habits of Steinitz, Chigorin, and Botvinnik. Don't think about any player who plays chess during the chess computer era. Chess computers are corrupting chess and continue to do so. Before computers game along chess players like the above knew how to think. They didn't just process information, because their wasn't that much information available back then. They knew what day of the week it was and what time the church service was, but that's it. Because of that their brains worked much better and were never overloaded. The information age has wrecked havoc on the chess brain and will continue to do so. There are so many bogus theories on chess players now that people have almost forgotten principles laid down by the three above. |
|
| Jan-23-16 | | thegoodanarchist: Ding had his bell rung in the endgame. |
|
| Jan-23-16 | | Jambow: Great game it was lost by move 45 already with sound play by white. Black would eventually have to capitulate.
I suspect that there could have been a more efficient course to the win, but win it is. You now have the two Cars out front, one fabulous and the other magnificent. |
|
| Jan-23-16 | | Rookiepawn: Botvinnik at church service? Doubt it. |
|
| Jan-23-16 | | latvalatvian: Botvinnik was interested in the time church services started, but it is doubtful he went though Karl Marx was a religious thinker. But this is not relevant to what I was saying. When the great and mighty Botvinnik sat down at the chess board, you would never hear him say "White has a 1.26 advantage." Why? Because this is not an idea, it's just a number. Does 1.26 suggest a queen move or a bishop move? It suggests nothing. Despite this most feel smart by saying it. |
|
| Jan-23-16 | | latvalatvian: chess computers give people the illusion of knowing when really they probably don't know much of anything. |
|
| Jan-23-16 | | Marmot PFL: Botvinnik was highly involved in computer chess, and one of the first to think they would someday play at grandmaster level. An opinion for a long time shared by few other players, one exception being Fischer. Botvinnik didn't live to see a computer beat his star pupil, Gary Kasparov. |
|
| Jan-23-16 | | Eyal: As Caruana said in an interview after the game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4I...), 43...Qxa5? is probably the decisive mistake whereas a move like 43...Rc3 should draw. Black's problem is that after 44.Rxd3 he has to lose a second pawn (on h5) because of the double attack on d8 & h5; exchanging on d3 would lose immediately - 44...Rxd3 45.Rb8+ Kf7 46.Qxh5+ Ke7 47.Qe8+ Kd6 48.Rd8+ Kc5 49.Rxd3. |
|
| Jan-23-16 | | morfishine: <latvalatvian> Nice postings, I understand your sentiment, not only as it applies to chess, but modern life in general |
|
Jan-24-16
| | Open Defence: well I am very rusty having not played a competitive game in over 3 years but I am inclined to prefer 8...0-0 over 8...Na5 I think that would prevent this Nh4 line through which White obtained some opening advantage For example 8..0-0 9. Ba2 Be6 (and now if 10.Nh4 Black can play Bxa2 followed by Nxe4 threatening the Knight on h4) 8..0-0 9.Nc3 Bg4 should be ok for Black e.g. 10.Be3 Nd4 11.Bxd4 exd4 12.Nb1 and most of the traditional problems for Black in this line are cured if 10.h3 instead of Be3 then 10...Bxf3 11.Qxf3 Nd4 and getting rid of White's light squared Bishop in the lines as played after 8..Na5 9.Ba2 c5 10.Nc3 Be6 11.Nh4 now Nxe4 does not work due to 12.Nxe4 Bxh4 13.Bxe6 fxe6 14.Qh5+ 9...0-0 10.Nc3 is also possible and here 10...Bg4 11.h3 Be6 12.Nd5 seems ok and so does 12.d4 but very detailed analysis is required note that unlike in the lines after 8..0-0 here 11...Bxf3 12. Qxf3 does not help Black too much since the Queens side Knight is on a5 and cannot come to d4 and the light squared bishop is on a2 |
|
| Jan-24-16 | | Eyal: <Deffi> According to the database 8...0-0 still seems to be the more popular move by far, but Ding is one of the few who like to delay castling and play Na5 & Be6 first - he already played like that twice last year: Anand vs Ding Liren, 2015
Wei Yi vs Ding Liren, 2015
So it's likely that Caruana's 11.Nh4 idea was prepared specifically for him. Still, if Ding had delayed castling for one more move and played 13...d5 Black might be ok... As the game developed, after 16.Bg5 Black has either to give up (blunder?*) the pawn as he did or allow the exchange on f6, with White firmly controlling d5 and a classic good knight/bad bishop position. * Perhaps Ding missed that 20...Rc8, to defend the c4 pawn, fails to 21.f6! Nxf6 22.Qxc8! Qxc8 23.Ne7+. |
|
Jan-24-16
| | Open Defence: 13...d5 14.Bg5 0-0 15.Qe1 may bring the Black pawns under pressure but still better than what followed in the game, perhaps that was Caruana's preparation |
|
Kibitzing
