Perhaps this deserves it's own thread but the 1st round games are now underway - watching them on Playchess this morning but will have to sleep for work and come back when they're done

We have two Grunfelds, a Nimzo-Indian, a Catalan, and a Scotch - interestingly enough, I would have expected the Carlsen/Kramnik game to have the Scotch (they're the Nimzo-Indian) - and I don't recall seeing a Catalan in recent play

edit/RT: official site allegedly here, appears to be down at the moment

No way Kramnik would have tried for the Berlin against Carlsen given the amount of work Kasparov must have done on that and thereby allowing a scotch, if Carlsen had opened 1. e4 we would have seen a Petroff for sure.

Chessdom also transmits the games and has live GM commentary for all games. Great game by Kramnik and Carlsen today.

Go, Kramnik!
Go, Chucky!

5 draws in round 1 but I guess they were hard fought - (no time to research right now) - I know Rybka didn't like Carlsen's position when I went to bed but sounds like all went well for him today

Garry Kasparov dropped in on the playchess server to see how the fight was going - I gotta say, that was about the coolest thing I can think of in recent memory

Off-topic: Kasparov actually watches the action on Playchess quite often, at least most of the super tournaments.. A couple years back I was teaching online and had my game under the "Broadcast" tab. There was some super GM tournament taking place and Kasparov logged on to watch the action. And I assume he mis-clicked when he tried opening one of the games, but for a brief one or two seconds there he was, spectating MY broadcast. Obv he exited immediately, but those couple seconds were freakin awesome

On-topic: what a great round! Despite all games ending in draws I enjoyed watching them immensely. I don't like to use computer assistance when spectating, and hate people who do that, so to me it looked like Moro was definitely winning, but as I said, that evaluation has not been checked by any engines. Also, even though I am rooting for Carlsen (and Moro), Kramnik played a great game today and deserved victory more than Magnus IMO. Ivanchuk - Anand was also a great positional battle, very interesting to watch. Gelfand - Porno Mariov was meeh, and Aronian - Svidler was kind of meeeh too, but still, they were not short draws hopefully other rounds will be as interesting!

I haven't seen any analysis of Ivanchuk-Anand but it looks like White is way better out of the opening and then it just fizzles out somehow. Was Black really OK or did Ivanchuk mess it up?

I am one of those losers who uses the computer when spectating - but truth is I was only getting in a little bit of analysis before bed - between the time I get off work and the time I go to sleep I have maybe a 60 min. window where I get to see after the opening moves, but not enough time to make it to the endgame - LOL

Day 2 - 5 more draws - it'll never replace Poker for televised action

rb

round 3 in progress - a couple more grunfelds, another Nizmo, a semi-slav, and a QGD Ragozin defense

Watching Carlsen as black vs Gelfand (one of the Grunfeld's) - I prefered his position slightly due to an isolated d pawn which I think has good chances of becoming passed -

An interesting sidenote - the Carlsen game has almost 20% more observers then the other 4 games - (playchess.com) - even though all 5 can be watched by anyone with a decent sized screen - I guess the Kasparov promotion has helped in exposure if nothing else - we shall see if it aids in skill as well one of these days -

I would be shocked if we don't see one win today - I'm thinking two

oh look, kasparov just joined the playchess server - kewl

Morozevich - Kramnik was amazing. I find the psychology very interesting in that Kramnik was the first to play into what is generally considered a very mediocre opening after which things heated up fast. I also don't understand why Morozevich continued to play on in a position he knew it would be impossible for him to do anything but lose in. Seemed pretty unsporting for play at that level even if he was tilted after blundering.

looks likely to be 4 decisive games if Ivanchuk can win. I think Ponomariov must have misevaluated something badly in time trouble.

Just surfed the chessdom site surf to check on the Tal . Wow, apparently Carlsen is sick with flu-like symtoms. Some are concerned he could have H1N1which is a bit of a dilemna for the tourney and players.

I am very impressed with Kramnik's play so far. It is not totally surprising though. He has had a long baby break after his loss in Bonn last october. Now he really seems hungry for chess and probably has a lot of novelties stored up. His Dortmund win was pretty convincing.

Here in round 1 he was close to winning with Black against Carlsen. In round 2 he drew comfortably against Anand while sacrificing his queen.
The game against Moro was amazing. So many tactics. And he saw them all. Nxf2 and the beautiful rook sacrifice Rf8 for the mating finish.
And today he more or less crushed Svidler in the Grünfeld also in a very nice game. It also showed he has prepared really well for the tournamnet.

And all that although he is apparently sick with a cold. Let's hope it's not swine flu. If he hadn't been the favourite at the beginning, he sure is now.

Chessbase is fairly insistent that Carlsen does not have flu of any sort, just a throat infection so hopefully that will clear up.

It is amazing how many games Svidler lost in the Gruenfeld considering the fact that he is a leading specialist for many years. Why castle on move 9 and why play Bg4 on move 10? Two decisions that I do not understand, especially since the alternative leads to easy equality in both cases.

Black doesn't even have to play the "Kramnik-endgame" with Na5 like Kasparov. Czech GMs have made a living with Nb4 and nobody was able to refute it so far.

My private conspiracy theory is that the second dumped a few chips his boss there....

My theory is that he knows something about the Nb4 line the opponents of the Czechs don't know. And i'd rather play some obscure Bg4 stuff against Kramnik than the infamous endgame. But it's not going to be much fun to defend against an in-form Kramnik anyway, regardless of the opening. He seems so good at getting positions he likes and can grind his opposition down in.

Ivanchuk is wearing an oversized white face mask today.
He is looking a bit like a villain from an old western movie. I guess if he wins today, he probably will take it as a good sign and only play with it from now on.

There is live video transmission from the playing hall here: http://video.russiachess.org/browse/10#session68

Watching Anand-Leko makes me want to throw up. This game has computer written all over it. For many years I was interested in high level chess because one could learn something from it. You cannot learn anything from games like this one other than you can win by creating a highly complex unreal position that you have analyzed to the very end with your engine.

Sure, Anand was just testing Leko's opening repertoire; if Leko's going to play a sharp line, he has to make sure there are no mistakes in his prepared analysis. The "culprit" in the game Anand-Leko may have been 23...Bc8 ( 23...Rf6 likely leads to a draw ) which almost certainly was analyzed by Anand ( or his team ) before the game and Anand likely didn't have to "play" more than ten moves!

Now it looks like either Kramnik or Anand will finish first. Kramnik's last four rounds appear slightly "easier" than Anand's ( but nobody is exactly "easy" in this field! ). Aronian, now half a point behind them, has chances too ( with White against Kramnik in round 7 and Black against Anand in the last round ).

How bitter a person you must be Shandrax.

That opening is not actually particularly complex. It is deceiving since it seems like much is going on, but in reality there are very few candidates for each side and they mostly transpose into one of just a few key ideas especially once white commits with 10. O-O. The novelty came on move 22 with .. Nxd4 and it should not be a shocking move for anybody above like 2200, much less a top 10 player facing a world champion. Anand has also reached this position, only with the black pieces, in 2006 and obviously saw this idea back then.

If Leko didn't bother to investigate the consequences of Nxd4 then it's his fault. They both blitzed out the first 20 moves knowing that each other had certainly studied the position extensively. To not study the consequences of a natural and extremely dangerous looking move is just foolish and lazy. Perhaps Leko just browsed through the previous games with Rybka and didn't think much about Nxd4 as Rybka takes quite a long time to find it. Wouldn't that be ironic.

Either way, Rybka is irrelevant here. Anand 100% saw the idea without Rybka's help. Leko should have seen the idea. For whatever reason he didn't seem to really consider it. His time per move skyrocketed after Nxd4.

Leko was lazy and got punished for it.

Not so sure. On 23. .. Rf6 white has the super sexy 24. Qe1!!!!!!! when black's going to be struggling for a long time. Like: 24. .. Bd5 25. Re7 Kf8 26. Re8+ Qxe8 27. Bxe8 Rxe8 Qb4+. And that actually seems pretty much forced.

This.

There is no need to comment on this game any further. The position was too complex to solve it over the board and Anand did his homework better than Leko. Does this have anything to do with chess? I doubt it. It is memorizing computer moves up to a point where the position is clearly won. If you really believe that Anand had to make a single keymove on his own, then you still don't get it. It was analyzed to the very end and this isn't even surprising, it is how things go in such openings on this level.

Kramnik's team also overlooked such a move in the championship match against Leko. Having the engine not analyze the position long enough seems to be one if not the deciding factor these days.

At what time starts to watch live? (ET).

Better is 25...Kg8 instead of 25...Kf8?? ( in your line, you probably mean 27...Re6 but simply 28. Qb4+ +- ) after which 26. Re8+ Qxe8 27. Bxe8 Re6 and Black may be able to hold; the other possibility is 24...Rxe6 25. Qxe6 Qc7 suggested by Monokroussos ( at chessmind.net ) who seems to claim this holds: he gives a very long line starting with 26. Re1 d3 27. Re5 d2 28. Rf5 d1Q+ 29. Bxd1 Rf8 but obviously one would need to check this with a "bot".

In the game, apparently 30...Rc7 doesn't equalize due to 31. Ra8! Be6 32. Qd6!. In any case, we may not see much more of 22. Nxd4!? if it turns out that 23...Rf6 equalizes ( which seems to be the case ).