naka is da man.

i'm really surprised gelfand lost in such a manner.

here are two games where the first 20 moves were identical to the gelfand-naka game and white lost to a similar sac on g2.

the first game is vs ftacnik who's also known as a solid player.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1046655
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1503607

Yeah, I just don't understand the Gelfand game. He's playing his best chess ever, has played the KID as black and white for years and yet he walks right into 20 moves where black is scoring insanely well (after 16. .. dxc, the score is massively in black's favor at 36% in my DB) and loses in the exact same way countless others have. I'd love to hear his comments on the game. Oddities aside, this is probably the biggest accomplishment of Naka's career so just a really huge game overall.

I wonder how much Naka's apparent better prep is due to teamwork and getting to use the reserves to prep.

Wow, that was completely insane. I honestly don't know what happened on that board.

Thanks for the recommendation.

greece just wins armenia
and won russia

im proud of greece

they beat them 3-1, that's sick
akopian and petrosian both lost

I don't really know where to deviate, IIRC Khalifman gives 14. Ba3 instead of 14. a4 but i'm not sure if it makes much of a difference. The whole 9. b4 Ne8 line seems to have seen quite a revival, when Khalifman wrote "Openings for White according to Kramnik" i think he considered the move as dubious.

I think 14. Ba3 makes quite a substantial difference. White connects several tempo earlier than a4 and is scoring well there. I'm guessing if Naka had some sort of novelty prepared, it was in that line.

Nakamura's a flipping hero

Israel lost to Turkey last round, Sutovsky lost to a 2478 and Rodshtein to a 2513. I guess it's the tourney of upsets.

Rodshtein has a nice style very very positional-classic for a kid.

he is in army, i read.

Here is Nakamura's annotation of the Gelfand-Nakamura game. http://main.uschess.org/content/view/10023/571/
He admits he was influenced by Charbonneua's game from Montreal that featured the exact same sacrifice. BTW Charbonneu has said on CLO that his game was all home preparation.
I'm surprised the Chessbase annotator didn't mention that game and said this about Naka's Nxg2 "Double exclam for this beautifully unexpected move, and for the courage to play this against the world's number six player, who is 53 rating points above the American."
Naka didn't even give it one exclam and says it leads to a draw if White plays Kxg2.

BTW as far as the opening, they were following the Belieavsky-Nakamura game up to move 16 when Gelfand deviated with 16.b5 instead of 16.a5 as was played unsuccessfully by Beliavsky. So it seems as though Gelfand did come prepared, his 20.d6 being the new move, but alas he didn't go far enough.

Also I should add that according to Mark Ginsburg, in the Beliavsky-Nakamura game White would've been winning if he played 21.Qc2 instead of Nxc7.
http://nezhmet.wordpress.com/2010/01...-kings-indian/

jontsef, Gelfand was not playing preparation. If his moves don't convince you then look at his time. The thing about these KID races is that preparation BEGINS around move 15-20. Everything else is just a few simple decisions. You play b4 or Nd2, f3 or Bf3, c5 or Ba3, a4 or Ba3. Gelfand seems to have spent a fair amount of time deliberating on move 11 and by move 15 he was hitting the tank for every move.

Naka tried the KID again yesterday against Aronian but Aronian, on the other hand, DID come very well prepared, whipping out a nice novelty on move 19 in a position that left black with apparently no play, at least according to Nakamura who felt it was better to give up his offensive and look to draw. An uncharacteristic tactical blunder (41. .. Ng7??) left Nakamura drawing dead in what was already a very difficult position.

exclamation thing is very funny


i dont respect exclamation of most annotators at all.

where can I see the time spent on every move?

Radjabov amazed me with his KID. against vescovi and banikas. His loyalty to KID is amazing. he's doing a historic work on this opening wont be forgotten

If the official site doesn't store the move times, check out ICC. The games are in "liblist WTC10" and "liblist WTC10-2".

Rank Team Gam. + = - MP Pts. Res. SB.
1 RUSSIA 8 6 1 1 13 21 0 98,75
2 UNITED STATES 8 6 0 2 12 19½ 0 82,00
3 AZERBAIJAN 8 5 1 2 11 20 0 74,00
4 INDIA 8 5 1 2 11 17½ 0 81,25
5 ARMENIA 8 4 2 2 10 17½ 0 76,75
6 ISRAEL 8 3 1 4 7 16 0 48,50
7 GREECE 8 3 0 5 6 15½ 0 50,50
8 BRAZIL 8 2 0 6 4 12 0 21,00
9 EGYPT 8 1 1 6 3 11 0 20,50
10 TURKIYE 8 1 1 6 3 10 0 21,50

brazil total shame

india impressive
greece surprise

i just see aronian beat naka.

now u guys understand why aronian is my favorite singe a while ago

he'll be world champion imo. no carlsen this time

edit: i mean. i hope he wins.

I'm kinda frustrated that the move Radjabov played vs Banikas (Qe7) isn't mentioned in my Kill KID book on the Four Pawns Attack even tho it was Watson's recommendation for Black in his Modern Benoni book way back in 2001 :-\
Also Radjabov's win vs Vescovi is impressive

Heh jontsef, I am having correspondence with Semkov over the same issue as well. The computer's suggestion of playing the slightly silly looking 12.Re1 Nb6 13.Qd1 is a quick fix for the problem, dunno if it's optimal

TY I'll keep that in mind, please let me know if there are any new developments in the FPA

How bout that Hikaru Nakamura?????

Also yay for US silver, I thought the Russians would take it down from the get go so no surprise there.