Last week’s poll question was: “Who will win Wijk aan Zee?” It seems the readership’s faith in the World Champion has been restored, as Magnus Carlsen won the poll overwhelmingly, with almost two-thirds of the votes cast.
Earlier this month a simultaneous display titled “Beauty versus the Beast” was held between GM Nigel Short and 20 of New Zealand’s best female players. You will know or guess that this is related to Nigel’s remarks about the supposed differences between male and female brains, including that: “Men and women’s brains are hard-wired very differently, so why should they function in the same way?”
Do you agree with Nigel Short that the evidence suggests men are hardwired to play better chess than women, for whatever reason?
Jacob suggested the following possible answers:
A) I have a feeling that this is true, although we cannot know why this is the case before it has been investigated thoroughly.
B) I very seriously doubt that there is anything biological making women worse at chess than men.
C) I am a full-blown sexist and don’t care about the facts. Report me now!
D) Other
Last week’s poll question was: Do you think your rating will go up or down in 2016? As the results below show, the winner was the most optimistic answer, just ahead of the slightly optimistic option.
Overall, about two-thirds were optimistic about their rating. Is that surprising? I don’t think so. I suspect our blog readers (and poll-clickers) are not a representative sample of all chessplayers. If you bother to go to a chess book blog, you probably are more optimistic and interested in improving your chess than most.
Later this week an interesting range of tournaments starts in Wijk aan Zee. The top event, the Tata Steel Masters, is a 14-player all-play-all that features almost half of the world’s Top 20, including Carlsen, Giri, Caruana, So, Karjakin, Ding Liren and Eljanov. Who will win Wijk aan Zee 2016? “Others” could include the likes of Mamedyarov, Adams, Navara and Wei Yi. You can see a full list of players here.
Too easy a question? Well, the last time we had a “Who will win…” question was about the London Classic, and Carlsen just edged out Aronian on the vote. And you were most impressed by Giri in 2015…
We are continuing our special offer – if you buy three books or more and live in the normal European Union zone (as defined by UPS – for example, they exclude some islands and remote areas) we will send you an extra book free. Recently the default option on the free book has been Positional Chess Sacrifices but we will change that now to CARLSEN’S ASSAULT ON THE THRONE by Kotronias and Logothetis.
But if you already have Carlsen’s Assault on the Throne, or would prefer a different free book, then send us an email with your order, asking to have it replaced with one of the following titles:
POSITIONAL CHESS SACRIFICES
GRANDMASTER VERSUS AMATEUR
GRANDMASTER BATTLE MANUAL
REGGIO EMILIA 2007/2008
TACTIMANIA
SAN LUIS 2005
ATTACKING THE SPANISH
CUTTING EDGE 1: THE OPEN SICILIAN
CUTTING EDGE 2: SICILIAN NAJDORF 6.Be3
Happy New Year from everyone at Quality Chess! Today is our first day back in the office in 2016, so there is a lot of catching up to do, including a couple of poll results.
Which chessplayer impressed you most in 2015? Anish Giri was the winner, with ‘Other’ taking second place ahead of the World Champion, who gained some late votes by winning in London and Qatar. Who was this player known as ‘Other’? An amalgam of Nakamura, Kramnik and Eljanov seems likely.
Over the holidays, Jacob ran a poll, with a narrow majority preferring spending time with family to playing a chess tournament.
The current poll question is: Do you think your rating will go up or down in 2016? With a range of answers to click on, from wildly optimistic to we’re-all-doomed.
Last week’s question was: “Which chess engine is best?” Komodo seemed in the lead all week, but a late surge gave the win to Stockfish. As the count shows, these two engines dominated the field.
As the year draws to a close, it is natural to look back. So my question this week is: Which chessplayer impressed you most in 2015?
Maybe that’s an easy one for you: Magnus Carlsen is World Champion and World Number 1. But he didn’t have a great year, by his standards. So maybe for you it is the (almost) unbeatable Anish Giri. Or perhaps World Cup winner Sergey Karjakin, or runner-up Peter Svidler, who so nearly won. Maybe you are impressed by Veselin Topalov reaching World Number 2 and hitting a peak of 2816. Or possibly the player who caught your eye was Wei Yi: at 16 he is already in the Top 30. Or someone else entirely?
Our friends at Forward Chess have a promotional video. See what you think. It is only 46 seconds long, so it will not delay you long. It does have sound, so be careful if you are supposed to be working…
As the blog poll predicted two weeks ago, Magnus Carlsen won the London Classic. With three rounds to go, Magnus had drawn all his games and I was doubting the wisdom of crowds, but a 2½/3 finish and a playoff win proved you right.
Last week’s question was: How do you meet 1.d4? To my surprise, the Grünfeld edged out the KID, Nimzo and Slav. Are there really more Grünfeld than KID players among our readers, or are the Grünfelders just more fanatical about clicking the vote button? Who knows.
So far this has been John writing, but now Jacob takes over with this week’s poll question: Which chess engine is best?
Our friends at Komodo are able to celebrate another great victory. There are a lot of good engines out there at the moment, with Stockfish and Johnny being the main ones, having surpassed the likes of Houdini and Rybka a long time ago (Rybka and Fritz15 are now one and the same as far as I can understand. I do not know how strong it is).
Komodo beat Stockfish by 53.5-46.5 or 8-1 if you like, in a 100-game match. You can read more here.
Does this actually answer our question? Nope! But I hope someone will do so in the comments section below…
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