If you happen to be a World Championship Candidate, then I guess your usual choice is the Sicilian or 1…e5, with some Caros and the occasional French thrown in, but I expect there will be a range. So what’s your line? Is it Sicilian, 1…e5, French, Caro-Kann, 1…d6, 1…g6, 1…d5, 1…Nf6 or Other?
I know this will only tell us your first move, not your favourite line. A Najdorf fanatic is a different animal from a believer in the Pin variation, and allsorts play 1…d6. But, like your first move, it’s a start.
Last week’s poll gave a wide spread of answers, with several posters for the lower brackets lamenting that they couldn’t play as much as they would like.
The chess season in the UK runs from roughly October-May, so now seems like another good time to ask about your own playing habits. The majority of games are played in midweek league matches or weekend congresses, and there are also 9 round international tournaments on the continent almost every week (and a growing number here too).
If you had the time and the inclination you could play all year round, but at least one elite grandmaster would advise you against that: “When you play too much chess in a short period, bad things tend to happen” tweeted Hikaru Nakamura after a below par performance at the European Club Cup, which came shortly after his rather excellent one in Las Vegas. So our question this week is how many games of chess do you play in a year? Count all your over the board matches, FIDE rated or otherwise (but leave out all these blitz games on Lichess!) 0-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-75, 76-100 or 100+
Last week’s poll showed a clear preference for Magnus Carlsen to behave like Merv Hughes over Alastair Cook.
Do you think less of Magnus Carlsen after his emotional outburst at the World Blitz Championship?
A few days ago I had a discussion with a friend on Skype about Carlsen’s swearing and throwing of a pen during the World Blitz Championship. The best way to bring my point across is to give a slightly edited version of the conversation. After this, vote on the poll please…
“Before I let you go. What is your opinion of Carlsen loudly exclaiming “baen” in the middle of the tournament hall after losing to Grischuk?”
“It is great. I think he said “faen”, which is short for “for fanden”, “done on behalf of the devil” or simply “the devil’s work”. It might be spelled differently in Norwegian, but essentially it is Danish.”
“But very vulgar, right? Google translate and chess.com mistranslated it to f***.”
“Not really no. In English it is “damn.” But either way: do you want the sexlessness of tennis players? Or Tiger Woods? They are like Ken; and the blonde tennis girls are like Barbie. They always talk so nicely about everything and everyone, while it is common knowledge they all hate each other. Because the sponsors want to avoid negative PR. F*** that!”
“Good point.”
“Give me a sport with some emotion please. I love Nakamura, because he is like John McEnroe, clearly a bit full of himself, but brings attention to the sport and cares deeply about it – and is fun to watch. His feuds with Carlsen are entertaining. And Carlsen’s feuds with Kramnik are entertaining. Kramnik and Carlsen get along fine, though they both enjoy some banter…”
Today is the third and final day of the World Rapid Championships, with the Blitz equivalent taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday and seemingly receiving an extra injection of players straight from the Isle of Man. Most of us can only dream of being in Berlin, but I’m sure we all enjoy the occasional blitz binge after (during!?) a hard day at work or university. So our poll question this week is where is your favourite site to play online?
Chess24, ICC, Chess.com, Playchess, Gameknot, Red Hot Pawn, A combination of the above, somewhere else, or do you prefer over the board blitz at your local club?
The results of last week’s poll placed Nigel Short as your favourite chess commentator, with Jan Gustafsson and Yasser Seirawan also highly popular. However, the large number of votes for ‘Other’ suggested we did not give you enough options! Comments showed Daniel King and Peter Svidler may have been amassing a large chunk of these votes, while there was also some interesting discussion on the best pairings to make up a commentary team.
Live tournament coverage has really taken off in the last few years, with all major tournaments now coming with a commentary team broadcasting alongside the action. The commentator’s job varies from explaining the player’s moves, to interviewing them post-game, to generally passing the time with anecdotes or question/answer sessions with viewers. So our poll question this week is who is your favourite commentator?
Nigel Short, Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, Jan Gustafsson, Emil Sutovsky, Evgenij Miroshnichenko, Maurice Ashley, Jennifer Shahade, Yasser Seirawan, Simon Williams, Sergei Shipov or someone else?
Asking who you want to win the World Cup is too easy (Svidler, right?) so instead:
In 2016 there will be 8 Candidates to challenge World Champion Magnus Carlsen. By reaching the final of the World Cup, Svidler and Karjakin have now qualified, making 7 places fairly secure: Anand, Caruana, Karjakin, Nakamura, Svidler, Topalov and Giri (the latter two probably qualifying on rating). That leaves one place for a wildcard. Who do you want to be the wildcard?
Adams, Aronian, Gelfand, Grischuk, Kramnik, Mamedyarov, Radjabov, So, or someone else?
***
In last week’s poll, a large majority did not want arbiters interfering too much:
In the final Armageddon game in the match Nakamura – Nepomniachtchi, Nakamura castled with two hands on move 5. Following a Facebook discussion with a lot of intelligent people, I have come to two possible opinions of the arbiter’s responsibility in this situation.
First a few clear things:
1) This is an illegal act. You have to move the king, then the rook
2) The game is not a blitz game according to the rules, so the arbiter can step in should he find it fitting
3) The penalty would be an extra minute awarded to Nepomniachtchi
So the vote is on the following: How do you see the arbiter’s primary role?
a) To make sure that the rules are followed to the letter
b) To make sure the game is performed in a fair and fluent manner
When you have a number of entrants (128 in this case) competing in a knockout format, what kind of seeding/pairing system should be used?
The most common pairing system involves splitting the list in two, so that No.1 plays 65, 2 plays 66 and so on until 64 plays 128. This is seen as normal, although it’s slightly odd that the players ranked from places 60-68 (give or take) might only be separated by a few rating points, yet will have vastly differing chances of making it through the first round, depending on which side of the halfway line they happen to fall.
The actual system being employed at the World Cup involves the top seed playing the bottom seed in each round, i.e. No.1 vs. 128, 2 vs. 127, all the way up to 64 vs. 65. The main argument in favour of this system is that it gives the highest seeds the best chance of making it to the end – but does it stack the odds too heavily in their favour while making it too difficult for those players nearer the middle of the rankings?
This brings us to this week’s poll question: Is the World Cup pairing system fair?
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