and Grizzly Adams had a beard..

Grizzly Adams did have a beard

They are friends, right? And to qualify to the final both of them needed a draw, right? There's zero chance it wasn't a prearranged draw. I'm not saying it's poor sporstmanship, as almost every other 2 GMs (even not being friends) would do exactly the same in this tournament situation. I'm just saying it wasn't a real game.

These responses make me sad. Hint: McLovin agrees with you, d2d4.

Can I follow the blitz tournament live?

don't know if blitz will be covered live

Is it really that bad? That was more or less a must-win game if Naka hopes to win the tournament. Naka followed this game http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1378331 until Shulman deviated with 9...cxd4 instead of Nge7. That was the only game I have in megabase where Shulman lost in this Qa5 line. Naka certainly had chances out of the opening. He just seemed a little too determined to keep the initiative with 21. Bg5 and 22. f4 - weakening his own king instead of actually generating threats against black.

Arguably he should have played 1. d4 but if he's going to take on the Winawer, sharp play like this is pretty forced.

lmaooo

Yes I was agreeing with d2d4. Wtg BobJoeJim

I think there's a Tal quote regarding pre-arranged draws that goes something like..

"You can't force two men to fight if they don't want to."


Naka lost in basically 25 moves as White. That's a Knock-out (I prefer this over the term "miniature") and it's embarrassing. I would have preferred him to play 1. c4 as he does have a very good perf. rating with this first move.

Naka can be quite stubborn at times (or at least more than someone with his FIDE rating should be) and that's shown with 21. Bg5 and 22. f4. Naka is supposed to be world class, and losing an important game with White in this fashion is class-less.

Interesting. I'm sure we'll just never agree but I don't think a loss was really any different than a draw given the tournament situation and thus risky play was justified. Nakamura has drawn a lot of probably justified criticism from chess fans (me too) but I think we've seen real maturation over the last year or two.

Anyway, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. When you have to play to win and your specialty is sharp play, you'll occasionally fall on your face regardless of who you are. Except Magnus. I can't find any games where he gets smashed off the board with white.

Kasparov http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070708
Anand http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018628
Fischer http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044264
Karpov http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067319
Kramnik http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1327775

Those games make me feel better after a bad tournament

I do see your point and agree that it makes a good amount of sense (which isn't surprising, you are one of my fav. posters in the forum). Aggressive, attacking players will go down in flames with White from time to time.

Both players sort of needed to win in Nakamura-Shulman, and it's often a challenge to generate winning chances vs. the English. I think that Shulman would have had to play something fairly aggressive against it and Naka could have played off of that factor for tangible winning chances himself.

Naka just seemed to throw everything And the kitchen sink at Shulman instead. If not class-less then this approach definitely had less tact.

edit: I am aware that's generally how you play the Winawer but if you're going to be taking part in a sharp battle then preparation is key. Perhaps Naka and his second didn't prepare sufficiently for the game. Anything is possible.

Good points, mclovin. I especially like the idea of playing 1. c4.

Totally off topic now but I got to hang out and chat a bit with Naka's second and it was pretty interesting. Obviously the guy didn't give away big secrets, but he really, REALLY believes in Naka. Especially during the 7th round he was completely unconcerned when everyone else was getting excited about Larry's chances. Plus he's a pretty strong player (FM I think) himself. I wish now that I had asked him about possibly playing the english.

25 minutes, interesting. I would have expected a bit lower.

I think they said Shulman bid 39:55.

Whatever the quality of the chess, Shulman isn't playing this very cleverly. He's only got 41 min left now to Kamsky's 21 and Kamsky is obviously still deep in book.

Yeah, the time management at this point is a disaster. Move 12 and down to 38-21 already in what's very likely book for both.

Kamsky wins with the draw! Terrible clock management from shulman. He should never have had to play blitz with kamsky.

While I agree, Hippo, that did make the game super exciting!

This, this, And.. this.

Kamsky showed a lot of toughness in the game though, recovering to defend after the shot 34. Rc5!

Just wanted to post that I love the tiebreaker format. Curtains... I assume you were responsible for it?

Curtains had a long discussion on this format on one of his videos on chessvideos so it is a good bet that he was responsible for this. When he explained it it made a lot of sense. I missed the game today but it sounds like the format worked pretty well in practice.

I very much enjoyed the tiebreaker format as well.

Wtg curtains if you were behind it.

obv was my system

Impressive.

Tiebreaks are insanely easy to just **** up.

I like how I read that Kamsky (who put 25 minutes) even said he had made a mistake and should have put "about 30 mins" instead. In the process, admitting to making a game theory mistake.

This system is way better than 5 mins vs 7 mins + draw odds.

If you like the system go to www.uschesschamps.com, find their contact info, and tell them if you ever want to see it again.

Why secret bids instead of an open auction curtains?