1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.Be2 Nc6 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nxd4 Nf6 6.Nc3 Bb4 7.Nxc6 bxc6 8.Qd3 Bxc3+ 9.bxc3 0-0 10.Bg5 h6 11.h4 d5 12.e5 hxg5 13.hxg5 a5 14.Qf3 Ba6 15.gxf6 Bxe2 16.Qg3 g6 17.Qg5 Qxf6 18.exf6 Rab8 19.Qh6 Rb1+ 20.Rxb1 1-0

After 15.gxf6.

click for larger view

After 12....Ng7

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click for larger view

[Event "Team match"]
[Site "http://gameknot.com/"]
[Date "2014.05.21"]
[Round "-"]
[White "verdantgarden"]
[Black "keypusher"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1968"]
[BlackElo "2014"]

2932 hits
241 doubles
145 triples
33 HR

14.3%

Ty Cobb (1905-1928)

4189 hits
724 doubles
295 triples
117 HR

24.7%

Honus Wagner (1897-1917)

3420 hits
643 doubles
252 triples
101 HR

29.1%

Sam Crawford (1899-1917)

2961 hits
458 doubles
309 triples
97 HR

29.2%

Tris Speaker (1907-1928)

3514 hits
792 doubles
222 triples
117 HR

32.2%

Babe Ruth (1914-1935)

2873 hits
506 doubles
136 triples
714 HR

crickets.....>

You can see it for yourself here:

<OhioChessFan: <JB: They make it tougher for some people to vote, largely Democratic ones.>

Well, yeah, most the really stupid people who can't follow instructions tend to be Democrats.>

Scroll to the second-to-last post on this page:

The word you (still) don't know the meaning of is "hypocrisy."

<Well, yeah, most the really stupid people who can't follow instructions tend to be Democrats.>

OCF is correct about this, although you'd still be in the wrong even if he wasn't.

OCF is correct about this, although you'd still be in the wrong even if he wasn't>

Well, first of all, no, if you are talking about being factually correct, he wouldn't be. Anymore than he would be right to generalize about all Republicans or all independents tending to be stupider (read the research about red state vs. blue state intelligence).

But that isn't the point! Are you deliberately avoiding the point? Or what's up?

As to your accusation that I don't know the meaning of hypocrisy, I was using it as if it means this:

<a pretense of having principles that one does not really possess. >

Lo and behold, dictionary.com confirms the accuracy of this usage here:

http://dictionary.reference.com/bro...

OK, pay attention. It is not hypocritical to express an honestly held belief that a person or a group of people is stupid while at the same time saying that we should not use puns that (falsely) identify a chess player as stupid. There is no contradiction between those two positions. Hence, there is no hypocrisy. If OCF said we should never call anyone stupid, ever, you would have a point. But he didn't, and you don't.

<Well, first of all, no, if you are talking about being factually correct, he wouldn't be. >

Oh yes, he would be. It is a well-established fact in the United States that very dull people and very bright people tend to be Democrats, and people in the middle tend to be Republicans. You can verify this for yourself. Incidentally, the inability of lower-IQ Democrats to deal with the cognitive demands of Florida's so-called butterfly ballot probably cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000.

<Anymore than he would be right to generalize about all Republicans or all independents tending to be stupider (read the research about red state vs. blue state intelligence).>

There have been some popular hoaxes on this point, which I hope you didn't fall for. Frankly, you strike me as gullible.

http://www.isteve.com/iqhoax.htm

Nevertheless, it is a fact that, e.g., the mean IQ in Massachusetts is certainly higher than the mean IQ of Mississippi. But if you go to Mississippi and test people there, you will find that Democrats in the state will have a lower IQ than Republicans. I'll let you do the research on that point too.

Levon Aronian 2830 (#2)
Vladimir Kramnik 2787 (#3)
Veselin Topalov 2785 (#4)
Viswanathan Anand 2770 (#8)
Sergey Karjakin 2766 (#9)
Peter Svidler 2758 (#11)
Shak Mamedyarov 2757 (#13)
Dimitry Andreikin 2759 (#42)

In the top 10 but not participating are Carlsen #1, Caruana, Grischuk, and Nakamura at ##5-7, and Vachier-Lagrave at #10. The only real outlier is Andreikin at #42.

I decided to compare this with old-time candidates tournaments, using chessmetrics ratings. This tournament is weaker than any of them, except maybe the 1959 event. Not absurdly so, though. The most striking difference (from all except Budapest 1950) is that the #1 rated player isn’t participating, because he holds the title! No one as low-ranked as Andreikin was in any of these earlier tournaments.

Budapest 1950

Vassily Smyslov 2760 (#2 on April 1950 list)
David Bronstein 2754 (#3 on April 1950 list)
Alexander Kotov 2753 (#4 on April 1950 list)
Miguel Najdorf 2741 (#5 on April 1950 list)
Gideon Ståhlberg 2732 (#7 on April 1950 list)
Isaak Boleslavsky 2722 (#9 on April 1950 list)
Paul Keres 2722 (#10 on April 1950 list)
László Szabó 2710 (#11 on April 1950 list)
Salo Flohr 2659 (#20 on April 1950 list)

The only masters missing from the top 10 were #1 Botvinnik, #6 Fine and #8 Reshevsky.

Amsterdam 1956

Vassily Smyslov 2793 (#1 on January 1956 list) Paul Keres 2782 (#2 on January 1956 list) David Bronstein 2770 (#3 on January 1956 list)
Tigran Petrosian 2755 (#5 on January 1956 list)
Efim Geller 2720 (#7 on January 1956 list)
Boris Spassky 2714 (#8 on January 1956 list)
László Szabó 2695 (#16 on January 1956 list)
Oscar Panno 2673 (#21 on January 1956 list) Miroslav Filip 2653 (#24 on January 1956 list) Herman Pilnik 2639 (#30 on January 1956 list)

Definitely weaker, top to bottom, than Budapest. The masters missing from the top 10 were #4 Botvinnik, #6 Reshevsky, #9 Taimanov, #10 Kotov.

Zurich 1953 was a quadruple round tournament, a real monster. Each man played 28 games. Too many, I think. Lots of short draws – kibitzers (including me) would be howling if it were broadcast live. But an insanely strong tournament. Out of the top <15>, the only players missing were the world champion and #15 Alexander Tolush.

Samuel Reshevsky 2781 (#1 on August 1953 list)
Vassily Smyslov 2765 (#3 on August 1953 list)
Miguel Najdorf 2753 (#4 on August 1953 list)
Efim Geller 2734 (#5 on August 1953 list)
Alexander Kotov 2727 (#6 on August 1953 list)
David Bronstein 2724 (#7 on August 1953 list)
Isaak Boleslavsky 2722 (#8 on August 1953 list)
Gideon Ståhlberg 2722 (#9 on August 1953 list)
Paul Keres 2721 (#10 on August 1953 list)
Tigran Petrosian 2717 (#11 on August 1953 list) László Szabó 2716 (#12 on August 1953 list) Mark Taimanov 2714 (#13 on August 1953 list)
Svetozar Gligoric 2707 (#14 on August 1953 list) Max Euwe 2688 (#16 on August 1953 list) Yury Averbakh 2645 (#25 on August 1953 list)

1959 Bled/Zagreb/Belgrade

Mikhail Tal 2766 (#1 on September 1959 list)
Vassily Smyslov 2762 (#2 on September 1959 list)
Tigran Petrosian 2753 (#3 on September 1959 list) Paul Keres 2743 (#5 on September 1959 list) Svetozar Gligoric 2736 (#7 on September 1959 list) Bobby Fischer 2700 (#14 on September 1959 list) Fridrik Olafsson 2670 (#20 on September 1959 list) Pal Benko 2650 (#29 on September 1959 list)

Sort of similar to Amsterdam in strength, though a smaller field and a quadruple-round robin. Probably a higher percentage of really exciting games than in any other candidates tournament. Absent from the top 10 were #4 Botvinnik, #6 Spassky, #8 Geller, #9 Taimanov, and #10 Korchnoi.

Curacao 1962
Tigran Petrosian 2782 (#1 on May 1962 list)
Viktor Korchnoi 2769 (#3 on May 1962 list)
Mikhail Tal 2769 (#4 on May 1962 list)
Bobby Fischer 2761 (#5 on May 1962 list)
Paul Keres 2743 (#7 on May 1962 list)
Efim Geller 2741 (#8 on May 1962 list)
Miroslav Filip 2673 (#18 on May 1962 list)
Pal Benko 2620 (#38 on May 1962 list)

Karpov -- well, here we are at his only loss to the KG. No Evans.

Kasparov -- there's this one, nearly as bad a blow to Bryan's defense as the Immortal Game.

Short vs Kasparov, 1993

But also this one, which is blitz. Short vs Kasparov, 2011

Evans, just this. Blitz. Kasparov doesn't seem to have liked 1....e5 any more than Fischer did.

Short vs Kasparov, 2011

Kramnik -- nearly 600 games with 1....e5 in the database, including lots of blitz and rapid I assume, and not a single KG or Evans. Sad.

Anand lost a KG to Morozevich and a very famous and beautiful Evans to Kasparov.

Botvinnik is the first WC to not rely on 1....e5. He never lost to the KG, it appears, and had that horrible loss to Kan as Petrosianic mentioned in the Evans declined. Kan vs Botvinnik, 1929

Smyslov is interesting. He played 1...e5 regularly, but never faced the Evans and never saw a KG until 1987, if this database is to be trusted.

Tal -- mostly played the Sicilian. Lost this wonderful game to Bronstein Bronstein vs Tal, 1968 in the KG

One Evans, also wonderful, which he won.

J Klovans vs Tal, 1951

Petrosian also didn't play 1...e5 a lot. Had a couple draws with the KG. (Bronstein played it against him, but Spassky didn't.) No Evans.

Spassky -- figured no one would dare play the KG against him, but I was wrong. He faced it five times and...won every time. Not too surprising.

No Evans.

The real problem with the Evans is that you don't get to play it. Not all that many people play 1...e5 to begin with, and those that do generally prefer 3....Nf6 in my experience.

<I wonder how many World Champions have lost to each one? Steinitz, Lasker, and Botvinnik all lost to the Evans at least once in their careers. How about the KG? We know Fischer and Karpov lost to it. How many others did?>

Well of course Steinitz lost to the KG as well as the Evans.

Charousek beat Lasker with the KG at Nuremberg, you'll remember.

Charousek vs Lasker, 1896

None of Lasker's losses to the Evans look like serious games; of course he helped put the opening out of business in the 1890s.

Corzo beat Capa in an Evans....of course JRC was 13 at the time. Doesn't look like Capablanca ever lost to the KG in serious play.

<The Match is played over a maximum of twelve games and the winner of the match shall be the first player to score 6.5 points or more. If the scores are level after the twelve games, after a new drawing of colors, four tie-break games shall be played.

The games shall be played using the electronic clock starting with 25 minutes for each player with an increment of 10 seconds after each move. In case the match is still drawn, a match of 2 games shall be played with a time control of 5 minutes plus 3 seconds increment after each move.