chess_underground

Two tournaments in to 2010.

At the USAT North I had a great game with Yermolinsky followed by an even better game with Gavin McLanahan. I will try to post the McLanahan game once I understand it.

The past two weekends I played in the Chess.MN 3rd FIDE Ratings Tournament. The crosstable can be found here:

http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?201003077341

I plan to get up notes on the games as soon as I can, so check back here for updates.

_pdk

Hans Ree, from New in Chess 2008#8:

“To me, ‘historical predetermination’ is an empty concept. What has happened, has happened. The idea that it had to happen cannot be denied, nor in any meaningful way affirmed.”

I am having issues updating the sidebar in my current wordpress theme, so for now I will link you all to a new c_u feature. Started for the first time for the Nanjing Pearl tournament: the Live Blog! with commentary, discussions, and comments regarding the games. You can post replies, responses, comments, or questions as a ‘comment’ to this post and we will have an open (albeit confusing for the moment, silly web editor software) forum on the games!

I am intrigued to see how this will work…

Link to live_blog

In no particular order…

-I have never seen a better event to have a live webcam for. The quick blitz action was AWESOME to watch. I argued some years back when Kasparov played a computer (I forget which one) and Maurice Ashley commented on ESPN2 that it was a HORRIBLE choice to introduce chess to the public. For television, they should do something like what the World Series of Poker does- large tournaments, lots of action, lots of key moments and positions to discuss, lots of post-mortem. Keep the action coming. One match with man vs. machine was absolutely the wrong thing to televise.

- Speaking of the webcam, if you did have the good fortune to catch it live and in-progress, you would have seen the sheer determination on Kasparov’s face. Maybe he just motivated himself for the match, but he certainly didn’t look “retired” to me.

- The blitz games were absolutely exciting. The action in the 6th of 8 games was mind-boggling. It was a pure dogfight from the first move. Seeing such old war-horses battle so ferociously really inspired me to play, play, and play some more. The quality of chess displayed throughout the match was, of course, very high, though I would be interested to see what they would be capable of producing during, say, a 90+30 match.

- It was great to see my long-time idol, Kasparov, back at the board. I think the chess world has missed him immensely (I know I have). It really did feel distinctly different with Garry involved than many other “super-tournaments” since he left the scene. Welcome back, Kaspy, even if it is only temporary.

Chessdom.com has asked me to do further live commentary for their site. Previously, I gave live analysis for the Dortmund super-tournament earlier this year. I will resume commentary for the upcoming Nanjing Grand Prix event, the Spice Cup, and possibly one more event that is still a “surprise in the making”.

For now, here are two more games from the 2009 Iowa Open.

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