The World Cup ended a week or so back, so it’s time for results of our Quiz. Sorry for the delay – we were busy finishing books.
Below are what we believe to be the correct answers to all the questions. Before we assess your entries, and then declare a winner, let’s check that all the answers below are true. Any disagreements or ambiguities? The only debate I know about is Question 17, where Vitiugov and Grischuk were both knocked out in the Quarterfinals, but it seems to me that Vitiugov went further, as he lasted to the Armageddon stage.
- What will the most common opening move be in Round 1 (excluding playoffs)?
1.e4
- Predict the score: Lu Shanglei – Boris Gelfand (excluding playoffs)
1-1
- Predict the score: Eltaj Safarli – Sam Shankland (excluding playoffs)
1-1
- Who will win the World Cup?
Teimour Radjabov
- How many top seeds (1-64) will be knocked out in Round 1
15
- How many Round 2 matches will end in Armageddon Blitz?
1
- Predict the four semi-finalists. (2 points per correct answer)
Ding Liren, Yu Yangyi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Teimour Radjabov
- Which round will Gawain Jones reach?
2
- How many 1-1 draws will Anish Giri have (excluding playoffs)?
2
- How many Black wins will there be in Round 4 (excluding playoffs)?
0
- Predict the score: Jorge Cori – Nihal Sarin (excluding playoffs)
0-2
- Predict the score: Michael Adams – Aravindh Chithambaram (excluding playoffs)
1-1
- Predict the score: Baskaran Adhiban – Eduardo Iturrizaga Bonelli (excluding playoffs)
1.5-0.5
- How many Indians will there be in Round 3?
2
- Who will be the youngest quarter finalist?
Jeffery Xiong
- How many USA players will make it to the 4th round?
3
- Which home player (Russian) will go furthest?
Nikita Vitiugov (quarterfinal Armageddon)
- Which country will have the most players in the third round?
Russia
We have run a few quizzes before, and they have been fun, so with the 2019 World Cup starting soon in Khanty-Mansiysk, let’s have another. I say it’s for fun, but there is a winner-takes-all prize.
Quality Chess will send a box of 20 books to your home. 10 of them chosen by you, 10 of them chosen by us. All you have to do is to predict some results in the World Cup. We will contact the winner once the World Cup is over and organize the shipment of the prize.
Cut-off date for submissions is Tuesday 10th September at 11:00 UK time (15:00 Khanty-Mansiysk Local Time). To enter click on this link and select your answers. Only one entry per person please. Good luck!
We are delighted that Practical Chess Beauty by Yochanan Afek has been selected for the shortlist for the English Chess Federation Book of the Year prize. To quote the ECF judges: “Afek is one of the world’s best and most prolific end game study composers and it is possible simply to enjoy a remarkable collection of studies which feature truly astonishing play. As far as the judges are aware this is the first time that a book of end game studies has appeared in BOY. The volume is beautifully produced to Quality Chess usual high standards.”
The prizewinner should be announced next month.
I mentioned in a previous blog post that the two books nominated by Quality Chess for the English Chess Federation Book of the Year prize had both been chosen for the four-book shortlist. Well, we have a winner. Congratulations to GM Jan Markos, as his Under the Surface is the 2018 ECF Book of the Year. The judges had many kind words including “The winner stood out for its original approach and quality of writing” and “An original, fascinating and very worthy winner of the 2018 Book of the Year.”
The English Chess Federation has just announced its four-book shortlist for the ECF Book of the Year prize, and two Quality Chess books made the cut:
Small Steps to Giant Improvement by Sam Shankland
And Under the Surface by Jan Markos.
Congratulations to Sam and Jan!
The rules of the competition allow each publisher to nominate only two books, so things are going as well as possible. It was already tough to choose which two of our books to nominate, with one magazine editor trying on his own to nominate The Thinkers by David Llada – an understandable point of view, but sadly not allowed by the rules.
The winner should be announced at the start of October.
Yesterday the young Dutch player Lucas van Foreest finished on 7/9 in the Condigne Dutch Open. This was 1st equal on points, but GM Erwin l’Ami won on tiebreak. More significantly for Lucas, the score was enough for a final GM norm and gaining enough rating to push him over 2500. So that is the Grandmaster title at age 17. Congratulations!
So what is the Quality Chess connection? Three years ago Lucas was the joint winner of the quiz we ran about the 2015 World Cup, winning 20 free Quality Chess books.
Lucas Van Foreest
So that’s the secret – get 20 Quality Chess books, become a grandmaster. Sadly, that’s not quite the full story. Lucas is clearly a hardworking and talented young man from a famous chess-playing family. Older brother Jorden is a GM and rated well over 2600, while their family website tells me their great grandfather A.E. van Foreest was Dutch Champion three times. And that’s just to mention three members of the family: there are more chessplayers. New quiz question: name a more impressive chess family?
In related news, and with a definite Quality Chess connection, a Chess24 tweet informs me that “Loek van Wely is also organising the Hoogeveen Chess tournament this year (21-27 October), when the matches will be: Svidler vs. Shankland & Jorden van Foreest vs. Fedoseev”
Sam Shankland is of course the author of Small Steps to Giant Improvement. And also US Champion.
The winner of our World Cup Quiz was of course Alberto Muniz Pardino. Alberto was kind enough to send us a photo of his book prizes, taken at his chess club in Hong Kong.
The winner of our 2017 World Cup Quiz is… Mr Alberto Muniz Pardino.
Mr Muniz’s excellent score of 12 points was a clear winner. If you want to see how it was done, our winner’s answers were (with correct answers in bold):
1.d4
Howell
Which opening will be more common in Round 3 (excluding playoffs)? Grunfeld or Caro-Kann or tie? Caro-Kann
1. Who will win the World Cup (3 points)? Aronian (3 points)
2. How many top seeds (1-64) will be knocked out in Round 1? 11 (1 point)
3. How many Round 2 matches will end in Armageddon Blitz? 1 (0 points)
4. Predict the four semi-finalists. (2 points per correct answer) Carlsen, Aronian, So, Mamedyarov (2 right, so 4 points)
5. Which round will Levon Aronian reach? Final (1 point)
6. How many 1-1 draws will Anish Giri have? 2 (1 point)
7. How many Black wins will there be in Round 4 (excluding playoffs)? 0 (0 points)
8. Predict the score: Dreev – Bachmann (excluding playoffs) 1-1 (0 points)
9. Predict the score: Motylev – Xiong (excluding playoffs) 1.5-0.5 (1 point)
10. Predict the score: Hou Yifan – Piorun (excluding playoffs) 1.5-0.5 (1 point)
11. How many Russians will there be in Round 3? 6 (0 points)
12. Who will be the youngest quarter finalist? So (0 points)
13. How many non-European players will make it to the 4th round? 6 (0 points)
14. Which home player (Georgian) will go furthest? Pantsulaia (0 points)
Tiebreaker: How many moves will there be in the longest game? 115 (tiebreak not needed, but pretty close to the correct 130)
Surviving the hurdle question by going for the Caro-Kann, then correctly picking Read more…
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