Well, I guess 0-1 in 21 moves answers the question.

It's surprising that Moro managed to win with that 2... b5 response to KIA. The centre wasn't closed by a Black's pawn on d5, so his pieces were indeed more mobile than in a usual KIA, but only by a bit - they were still almost spectators of Svidler's attack until move ~18.

6.0/6.

Yeah, but two of the six were only 25xx GMs, so meh.

(Three of the six were 26xx GMs, and one was world #12 Mamedyarov, 2760, for those actually curious, but not so curious as to look it up themselves. Next up in round 7? Kramnik!)

Yeah, he has gained only +3.0 per win on average, whereas the gain for a win over an eqaully rated opponent is of course +5 at the 2400+ level. Swings of this size are pretty standard, meh.

Caruana's Sinquefield exploits and the rearview WC match have spoiled you. Giri's ascension, nearer and nearer 2800, is riveting regardless of whether he's gobbling up cupcake GMs or flattening the elite into pizza dough.

Saying 'standard', I assume the poker meaning of this word, i.e. 'more often than 1 time out of 100-200 or so'. Poker players are just used to big samples where such things happen every month; probably so are online biltz and bullet players in chess. In OTB tournaments, it's of course harder to get a meaningful sample (in live poker too), so swings are perceived more emotionally.

Assuming for simplicity that Giri would score 70% of points vs every opponent in this field (hence his rating gain for a win would be exactly +3, he'd lose 2 points for a draw and lose 7 points for a game loss - the expectated value of rating change must be zero), and that the outcome distribution is rather drawish - 50%/45%/5% (0.725 pts to him) if he's White and 10%/45%/45% (0.675 pts to him) if he's Black - the chance of him winning 6 given games is 0.5*0.45*0.5*0.45*0.5*0.45 ~ 0.0114 ~ 1/87.8.

As the strength of his opponents varied, with mamedyarov being among them, the chance of winning all 6 was somewhat lower, but still better than 1 in 200, I reckon.

It's certainly not "standard" (in the sense of "commonplace", before you nitpick that too) that a 20-year-old wunderkind goes 6.0/6 en route to closing in on 2800. I really don't care how standard it is anyway; I want something to root for.

You surely realise that, when poker players call some swing 'standard' in BBV threads, it's usually tongue-in-cheek

Irrelevant sample size. You need 10k games minimum preferably about 50k

If I sounded at all dismissive in my post, saying the opponents were "only" blah blah blah, know that my tongue was indeed planted firmly in my cheek. Of course it's impressive.

However Kramnik just brought Giri's run to an end with a nice victory.

Giri hasn't grown up to Caruana's binking skill level yet I'm somewhat glad because otherwise miss Girimishvili would fall into his shadow totally instead of being recognised as a good player in her own right.

Meanwhile, Hou Yifan is playing not a single FIDE rated game this month, and on January 1st, 2015, she seizes to be a girl in FIDE terms (as she's already 20 now). It's depressing me that she's stopped only 3 points short of being the next girl to become clear world's #1 among all women. In her shoes, I'd set up a match vs someone underrated... or just take part in the upcoming Chinese league leg - even foreigners like Gunina and Khotenashvili are there.

In this light, I'm looking at the closest candidates for becoming world's women's #1 in or before the year when they turn 20.

There are 2 girls who have a shot: Aleksandra Goryachkina (RUS) and Iulija Osmak (UKR, pronounced 'Yulia', blame transliteration rules), both born in 1998 and rated over 2400. They have 4 years left to be the first girl to cross 2700. Plus, there's a bunch of high 2200s-2300s born in 2000 (incl. Zhansaya Abdumalik (KAZ) mentioned itt), Annamaria Marjanovics (HUN) born in 2001 and rated 2247, and also a new additon to the female top 100 list - Jennifer R Yu (USA) born in 2002 and rated 2186.

I wonder if anyone else is following the progress of Goryachkina and Osmak

I meant to write 'overrated' instead of 'underrated', obviously, we prefer to face either overrated or exploitable opponents for a rating gain.

It's strange that there's been no buzz here about Jen Yu; the States are proud of her earning the first international female champion title in chess for the country in 27 years, an example of this pride is the Washington Post article on her junior championship. Her run there was remarkably hot too - 10 points out of 11.

Fwiw, in her latest tourney, the 2014 Washington Chess Congress, she gained 74.4 rating points (rounded down to 74; equivalent to a 18.6-point gain at the 2400+ level), scoring 4.5/7 in a strong field (incl. a scalp of WGM Sabina-Francesca Foisor). This allowed her to get ITM (unlike Sam Sevian, who bubbled ), winning $436.50 gross (the BI was $80).

This needs clarification. I've just looked Judit up at Chessmetrics - she first crossed 2700 on the September 1995 unofficial list of performance ratings, when she was 19 years and 2 months old. Her personal peak as a 'FIDE girl' was 2711 in November 1995.

But her published FIDE rating was too slow to follow her progress as a girl. According to a blog with the FIDE top 100 rating lists archive, it peaked at a mere 2675 on the January 1996 list (ratings were published twice a year back then).

Any realistic way to progress here? If so..how?

at 1st glance that A-pawn sure looks good

maybe white can work his king over to d1, and than offer a trade of rooks on e2, after black plays his rook to a3, than white can play his king over to f2 with the idea of maybe playing Kg3 or trying to support a pawn advance. Tough to win this game though, I think.

Get in good physical shape, shuffle pieces back and forth, and wait for a blunder.

I've thought about this too, but that, on a3, the rook will be pinning the f-pawn might be a problem.

Rook endgames with a 1-pawn advantage are seldom winnable, sigh.

This is how I see it: Black can just move his rook betwen a3 and e3 without issue if things stay as they are, and then move his king closer to the kingside whenever he gets the chance.

If I put the rook behind the F pawn it doesn't seem to accomplish anything because his king is there.

If I go after the A pawn, it is going to result in second rank demolition and there is no way I can see to move the pawns on the kingside constructively to prevent that, and his pawns are too advanced to get back to defend afterwards.. not to mention his king being closer to the kingside than mine.

After that, I'm out of ideas but maybe there is a subtle patient way to build things up that is far beyond my understanding..

A pretty tactic in one of my blitz games black 2 play

actually everything is winning, it still looks pretty tho

Black to play.





In other news, Giri's run has collapsed like an overheated souffle, thanks in no small part to my jinxing efforts. He lost yesterday to Yu Yangyi, who is sort of like a mini Carlsen: a killer in dry, dead endgames. Our next exercise is from their game.



What is the idea behind Giri's time-trouble blunder 87. Bxh6, and why does it fail?

1st puzzle: