Some nice unexpectedly strong performances so far in Qatar, mostly by youngsters. Through the 7th round, there are 7 players who have gained 20+ rating points. The group consists of 4 teenagers, a pre-teen, a 20 year old, and a female IM out of Vietnam.

14 year old Raja Har**** of India leads the group at +40 rating points, 16 year old Chinese FM Li Di is at +37, 19 year old Xu Yinglun (also of China) is at +33, and 12 year old Alireza Firouzja of Iran is at +31 (after gaining 49 earlier this month in his upset win in the Iranian national semi-finals).

Firouzja is the most notable from an historical perspective. His current live rating of 2452 is now the sixth highest ever earned at or before his current age of 12.55 years. He is rated 96 and 104 points, respectively, ahead of Magnus Carlsen and Wei Yi's peak ratings at the same age. Seeded 118th out of 132 he is currently sitting on a 50% score. Not too shabby for a pre-teen!

Firouzja is superb indeed and he is going to be a superstar, but to me, at this very moment at least, Yinglun is even more intriguing. I feel like this might be a case of a diamond in the rough who has not had many opportunities to play and therefore his rating has not improved at the level he had.

I checked his history and there are some amazing things in there. Firstly, he has only received his first rating in January of 2011, meaning when he was at the age of 14 or 15 (not sure of his birthdate). In this day an age that is incredibly late, as a matter of fact if you are not a GM at that age you are barely even a prodigy anymore. Effectively, he has went from getting an ELO in 2011 to being ~2500 in 2016.

If that enough was not impressive (we are in the prodigy age after all...) here is more. He has played incredibly little tournament games, compared to other young and upcoming players who seem to play constantly. He has played a bit more than 200 FIDE rated games in those years, which is like 1.5-2 years of work for a lot of younger players if they have money to travel.

Furthermore, the most points he has EVER lost in one FIDE calculated month is SIX POINTS. He had a couple more "losing" months were he lost 1 or 2 points. Apart from that, only gains in every month where he has played at least one game.

Last but not least,

2800+ performance through 8 rounds given the opposition he faced is not a fluke. Can a 2500 performance be a fluke? Absolutely. 2600? Possible, much less likely though. 2700? Incredible, extremely rare.. But 2800+? Pretty much extra-terrestrial. People can reach these performances when they score like 7.5/8 against a 2450 opposition, which is incredible enough, but doesn't come close to describing what he is doing in this tournament. 5/8 versus the field in which the lowest rated guy was 2637 is not a fluke.

I will be following his progress very very keenly and I will not be in the least surprised if he will become another addition to the 2700 Chinese Squadron (if he gets some sponsorship to play enough).

Btw, been mentioning this for a while, but Lu Shanglei, who somehow literally no one knows, is also going to be 2700 eventually, despite having a rather poor tournament here.

edit: also, you probably have him in your list already, but if you don't: http://chess-results.com/tnr198869.a...&wi=821&snr=94

Very interesting info on Yinglun. I made the mistake of dismissing him as interesting because he was 19, but that does look like a strong argument to expect good things out of him in coming years. I'll have to go calculate the odds of a "true 2470" player achieving 2800+ performance, in order to determine exactly how "extra-terrestrial" it actually is, but regardless I agree that it's too phenomenal of a result to dismiss. Can't wait to see if he can score at least the half point against Ponomariov tomorrow, and to follow him going forward. Thanks for looking into him!

And yes, Sindarov has been on my radar for a pretty long time (as long as a kid under 10 can be, lol). At his peak he posted the highest U10 rating of all time, as far as I know.

By the way, YKW, looking at the half dozen 23xx players in Qatar who have gained 20+ rating points so far, an obvious question comes to mind: why aren't you playing? Looks like it would be a pretty amazing tournament to be a part of, and a great chance to chase another norm

I think he has to become a lawyer or something super boring like that.

Magnus once again finds a way to get an extra 3 hours rest before the tiebreaks. Elite time management.

Well, after winning a couple of World Championships in every time control and being #1 for so long, he is now cementing his place as best tiebreaker.

Still GOAT apparently. Just needs to avoid IMs.

Sofia Polgar, 5.5/6 at age 14 with a 2735 perf rating vs 2600 opponents. Someone on that young list is a fluke, we just don't know who yet.

White mates in two.

Amusingly the tournament you linked (which didn't make the cut for the January rating list) is one in which he scored 4.5/9 and gained 81.2 rating points.

This will EXACTLY make up the difference from his one December tournament that DID make the cut for the January list - one where he scored 4.5/9 against a much weaker field and lost 81.2 rating points.

Pretty strange that other than the minus sign in front of the bad result, he lost exactly the same amount in one as he gained in the other, all the way to the tenth of a rating point, and with the same score to boot.

So I'm playing in the Australian reserves championships at the moment. From 02-12 and I'm doing great at the moment. currently 3.5/5

First round I played an unrated ~1500 strength player and won. Second round my opponent was 1950 Fide 1870 ACF . that was a draw but I probably should have been able to win since he messed up pretty bad in the opening. 3rd round I was black against a player who was 1915 for FIDE and ACF. I won that by grinding them down. round 4 I played a young WFM she was over 2000 FIDE and had an ACF of 1877. Again I drew but That was a real copout as my position was clearly much better, the engine had me at close to a pawn advantage so I dont know why I uncharacteristically repeated.
Just finished round 5 where I was black against a CM, he has a 2043 rating in both FIDE and ACF. Another draw but this was the first game I was in a slightly worse position for most of it. Although he messed up allowing me to go into an a better endgame I was a pawn up in the final position but didn't see much so repeated. Afterward I felt maybe I should have tried to win it still but the engine says it was only .35 in my favour so maybe a draw is quite acceptable

Considering my FIDE is about 1590 and my ACF is 1633 I'm pretty happy with my results so far. I already have 2 completed ACF rated tournaments that will net me about 100 point increase in march, now this tournament looks like I'm going to gain a hell of alot as well. 200 points should be attainable and maybe 300 for FIDE. Plus I have a club tournament that I think will be finished in time for the march update as well so I should be set for another massive rating jump come March. February is when I'll get to see my FIDE increase. For now I still have 6 games in the championship and my opponent tomorrow is in the 1900s


My round 3 game, we had 2 games that day so this was played after I'd already played a 4 hour game, this one went closer to 4 and a half plenty of inaccuracies from both sides, but you wouldn't have guessed white was 300 points higher rated than black
http://chessmicrobase.com/microbases/4882/games/574826

Congratulations on a fantastic result so far! However, I will have to play the unfortunate role of a bearer of bad news. If I understood correctly, you are expecting to gain 300 FIDE points from this tournament alone? That is literally physically impossible I will assume that your FIDE K is 20 (for it to be 40 you'd have to be under 18, which is possible I guess, but unlikely!), in which case you are probably gaining something around 50-60 FIDE. Even if your coefficient is indeed 40, that would make it in the range of 100-120 or so. In either case it is a fantastic result, but 300 FIDE ELO gain is a bit much to expect

BTW, Microbase requires sign up - could you repost the game on one of the free replayers?

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=104951



And yeah 300 points was stupid thought from a single 11 round tournament still, I'll be gaining alot of points

Also thought I'd have a quick look at the botnivick variation in prep for tomorrow. Big mistake as you can't "have a quick look" at such an incredibly highly analysed and complicated line with endless theory especially half an hour past midnight

11/11, with every opponent rated 400+ points higher than you, you could gain up to 202 points (405 if you're under 18). That's the max possible gain in 11 games.

Shoulda clarified that it is impossible anymore, with his current result

ignore, was replying to rei's puzzle, didn't realise i wasn't on the last page

got it though!

Wow, I didn't expect to ever meet a 2+2 mod who doesn't have the '100 posts per page' setting (found in the 'Thread Display Options' section)

Every single player ever seems to play the gruenfeld now. I really ought to actually learn it at some point since it seems that every man and his dog uses it as their main weapon

down to the last round in the championship tomorrow. I'm actually thrilled with my results, 6.5/10 only had 1 loss. The thing is with the exception of one unrated opponent and one opponent in the 1800s all my games have been against players over 1900 or 2000. My performance rating must be over 1900 which I'm pretty happy with given I'm only currently 1633. If only I'd been converting my winning positions, still I've been reasonably consistent


Todays game
http://chessmicrobase.com/g/f5j8udbb

just calculated my performance rating, it's actually closer to 2000

Congrats on the great performance!

Following the advent of Racing Kings (that have already made it to Youtube), Lichess has just added the good old crazyhouse

Regarding the opening theory of Racing Kings, who else thinks that 1. Nxc2 is the strongest move? It seems to force 1... Nxf2 (if 1... Rxc2, then 2. Bd4 Nb2 and Black is a bit cramped, smth like 3. Rg3 Nb3 4. Kh3 Ka3 5. Nc3), then the game might proceed in a symmetrical way like 2. Nxa1 Nxh1 3. Rxh1 Rxa1 or 2. Rxf2 Rxc2.

I guess major pieces are more valuable here than in classical chess - their rank batteries are powerful when it comes to cutting the king off, though minor pieces are still necessary as cannon fodder that interposes the ranks controlled by major pieces or is exchanged for the opponent's interposers.

I haven't really studied the opening theory (despite being a former world #1, going to keep pointing that out) but I mostly stuck to the less forcing 1. Bd4 and met 1. Nxc2 with 1...Rxc2 2. Bd4 Bb2!? and if 3. Bxb2 Qxb2, though the other recaptures might be OK as well. I could believe 1. Kg3 (my other preference), 1. Kh3 or 1. Nxc2 are all good too though.

In the "symmetrical take everything line" I like the look of 3. Kh3 instead of wasting a move on the recapture on h1. You might need to take it at some point but the rooks are better both on the g-file than on g and h, especially if you have the lead in the race.