Quality Chess Blog

Our World Cup Quiz would have run more smoothly if we had hired a lawyer to draft unambiguous questions. Two of our three hurdle questions eliminated nobody. Only Grünfeld fans were killed off early on.

Below are what I believe to be the correct answers to all the questions. Before we assess your efforts, and then declare a winner, it seems wisely paranoid to check with our eagle-eyed blog readers that all the answers below are true. Any disagreements or ambiguities?

Hurdle Questions

A: What will the most common opening move be in Round 1 (excluding playoffs): 1.e4 or 1.d4 or neither? A 50-50 draw between 1.e4 and 1.d4, so you could make a case for all 3 answers being right, so we ignore this question.
B: Which English player will go further: Gawain Jones or David Howell? (if knocked out at same stage then which one has played more moves is the tiebreak) Both knocked out in Round 1. Gawain played more moves, but David survived one more day, so is that going further? No ideal answer, so we also ignore this question. 
C: Which opening will be more common in Round 3 (excluding playoffs)? Grunfeld or Caro-Kann or tie? CARO-KANN. Eliminated if you said Grunfeld or tie.

Main Competition Questions:

1. Who will win the World Cup (3 points)? ARONIAN

Read more…

The English Chess Federation announced its four-book shortlist for Book of the Year. Each publisher is allowed to nominate two books and the Quality Chess two both made the cut. Ilya Smirin’s King’s Indian Warfare and Jacob’s Thinking Inside the Box are our runners. The other two nominees are books by Timman and Portisch, so it’s tough competition, but so far it’s going as well as possible.

We have run a few quizzes before, and they have been fun, so with the 2017 World Cup starting on Sunday in Georgia, 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.

Hurdle Questions: To allow us to quickly reduce the number of emails to check, only participants who get the three initial questions right will proceed to the second round of scoring. The points scored in the first round will count in the second round (unless otherwise stated, a correct answer is worth one point).

A: What will the most common opening move be in Round 1 (excluding playoffs): 1.e4 or 1.d4 or neither?
B: Which English player will go further: Gawain Jones or David Howell? (if knocked out at same stage then which one has played more moves is the tiebreak)
C: Which opening will be more common in Round 3 (excluding playoffs)? Grunfeld or Caro-Kann or tie?

Main Competition Questions:

Read more…

These will be sent to the winner of the quiz today. 

We have had the answers to the Quiz, and now is the time to officially announce the winner. Congratulations to “J.A. Topfke”!

Thanks to everyone who took part, and commiserations in particular to “RAP” who, as he mentioned in this comment, missed out on winning by one move. He was level on points, with the tiebreaker being how many moves the longest game would be. 94 was correct. 86 said RAP; 87 said J.A. Topfke.

The potential confusion of whether Magnus appealing to reduce a fine counted as an official complaint (I say no) luckily had no impact on the top places, however you interpreted it. We would have the same winner even if “yes” was accepted as the correct answer.

We did receive an email from our winner “J.A. Topfke” (using his real name) and we did reply, but we doubt our reply was safely received, as an automatic error message arrived here. So hello J.A.! We are not ignoring you; you just seem to have a lot of email problems. We do have a name and delivery address, so all should be well in sending you the prize – books written by the late Mark Dvoretsky. J.A., if you wish to get in touch, then maybe your email is fixable, or you can leave a comment on the blog.

I have put the final answers into the Quiz excel sheet, so you can all see how well you did. The rules for the quiz were given in this post.

Please feel welcome to check if I got anything wrong!! It is certainly not impossible. After considering any complaints we will officially announce the winner at the end of this week.

The answers are:

All these questions relate to the classical games. If you believe the match will end in a play-off, choose 13 in question two.

1. Who will be the next World Champion, Carlsen or Karjakin? Carlsen

2. How many days of play will there be played in the match (7-13)? 13

3. Which classical game will be the first decisive game (0=no decisive games)? 8

4. Will any game reach a position with Mate in 3 moves on the board? no

5. How many pawns will be promoted? 0

6. Will any official complaints be filed by either player? no

7. How many en-passants will there be? 0

8. Which first move by White will be played in the first decisive game? d4

9. How many draws in 30 moves or less will there be? 1

10. How many decisive games over 60 moves will there be? 1

11. How many wins for White? 1

12. How many wins for Black? 1

13. How many games will end with both queens on the board? 4

14. How many moves will be played in the shortest game? 30

15. How many moves will be played in the longest game? 94

I have finally gotten around to format the Quiz excel sheet, so you can all see how well you are doing. The rules for the quiz were given in this post:

I have taken the answers as being a “current situation”, not a guess or anything. Please feel welcome to check if I got anything wrong!! It is certainly not impossible.

The questions were:

The questions

All these questions relate to

the classical games. If you believe the match will end in a play-off, choose 13 in question two.

1. Who will be the next World Champion, Carlsen or Karjakin? Carlsen is champion at the moment, so this is what is in the excel file

2. How many days of play will there be played in the match (7-13)? 13, unless not 🙂

3. Which classical game will be the first decisive game (0=no decisive games)? 8

4. Will any game reach a position with Mate in 3 moves on the board? No

5. How many pawns will be promoted? 0

6. Will any official complaints be filed by either player? no

7. How many en-passants will there be? 0

8. Which first move by White will be played in the first decisive game? d4

9. How many draws in 30 moves or less will there be? 0

10. How many decisive games over 60 moves will there be? 1

11. How many wins for White? 1

12. How many wins for Black? 1

13. How many games will end with both queens on the board? 3

14. How many moves will be played in the shortest game? 32

15. How many moves will be played in the longest game? 94

Yet another top event, yet another chance to win a big pile of books. This time however, the prize will consist of books written by the late Mark Dvoretsky. You will not be disappointed.

The way to enter is to answer these 15 questions. We have tried to update our entry system this time around. Hope it works. Question 15 is first tie-breaker. If still a tie, question 14 is the second tie-breaker.

On question 8, please do not write, for example, 1.Na3 – write Na3.

Deadline is 1 hour before the first move in the first game on the 11th November.

The questions

All these questions relate to Read more…