So Topalov beat Kamsky...

...hopefully after Anand WHIPS HIS ASS sometime later this year, the blatant FIDE favoritism towards Topalov will be over. Finally. But I doubt it. I also realize I haven't written a proper sentence this post. Deal.

Seriously though, who would have thought that the Tarrasch French would be the opening of the match? The French wasn't exactly a mainstay of Kamsky's repertoire prior to this match (though it does fit his style in my opinion), and I can't imagine that his team spent as much time on the Tarrasch as on the Nc3 mainlines since that is what Topalov has mostly played. For what it's worth, I expected Topalov's team to outdo Kamsky's team and that didn't happen. Kamsky got drawable positions from the opening, he just messed up. Time usage continued to be an issue for him, and lack of time definitely played a role in his errors.

In any case, Kamsky should have been playing Anand directly but since I think he would have lost that match much worse than he did this one, it doesn't bother me so much that he didn't. With FIDE you have to expect disruptions and changes for no reason, and this is just another example of that.

In other news, Mamedyarov has accused Kurnosov of cheating at Aeroflot. If you look at the game (a short and brutal crush of Shak), there were only something like 6 moves out of theory and they were relatively forced. I think a player much weaker than Kurnosov could have found them. I have always thought that Shak Mamedyarov was overrated. Obviously his 2750 rating isn't BS, but he seems to duck the top tournaments and when he does play against Carlsen, Anand, etc, he doesn't impress. I think he'd probably do a Loek Van Wely swan dive if he couldn't play the slightly weaker opens like Aeroflot. His opening repertoire is offbeat which is not necessarily a bad thing, but he's no Morozevich and I think he gets a few points from playing positions his opponents aren't as familiar with. That wouldn't work at Linares. You can probably tell I think this cheating accusation is bunk and that Shak is acting like a child after a brutal loss to a weaker opponent. He should stop bitching, stop accusing people, and reassure himself that losing to a 2600 player is not such a bad thing. 2600 does in fact mean you can play some chess. Though Shak did have white.

On the personal side I don't recall if I mentioned that there was too much scar tissue to do the surgery laparoscopically or not, but that was in fact the case. They had to open me all the way up, and so recovery is taking much longer. I have 30some staples and I don't get those out until Friday. Even after that's done, it will be a while. A bit of a setback, but no serious infections (thankfully). I'll be playing again soon.

The Curious Case of Veselin Topalov

What's so curious about Topalov? You might well ask this question if you haven't been watching his recent games against Gata Kamsky. Aside from his hideous suits which look like scaled up duds from a 1970s Ken doll and his Rasputinesque facial expressions, his opening choices have been baffling to say the least. He started off somewhat normally with two relatively sharp Gruenfelds and a sharp offbeat Lopez, but the last two games have been so out of character it seems like he's been possessed by the ghost of 1974 Karpov. A main line Closed Lopez and a Tarrasch French? Topalov has ~60 games on the white side of the French in the Megabase 2008, and only 5 are Tarraschs. I expected this match to produce some major theory since Topalov is such a great expert on the white side of the Gruenfeld, but so far I haven't seen much.

So what's going on with these games? Grinding positional battles are Kamsky's wheelhouse, and I don't understand why Topalov would play that sort of chess by choice here. He did win today, but only because of a Kamsky blunder. He didn't have shit out of the opening, and the game should have been a draw. If Kamsky gets to play two more Closed Spanish games in his other two whites, he very well might win both. Has Cheparinov run out of ideas? Has Topalov's copy of Rybka gone on strike? He's probably the sharpest player of his generation, and we've seen no gambits or even the exchange sacs he's so well known for. You can probably tell I'm dissapointed by the match so far. All I can say is that if Topalov goes on to play Anand and continues in this manner, he's going to get eaten alive. Incidentally, this would be fine with me because I'm not big fan. I think he dragged Kramnik through the mud for no reason other than to protect his pride, and I think his manager is the chess equivalent of Don King. I don't assume he will get a shot at Anand however, since Kamsky is scrappy and definitely not out of it yet.

Here is today's game, which Kamsky blundered in and lost. Prior to the blunder it was one of the most boring games I've ever seen at this level.

Topalov-Kamsky.pgn


In personal news, I might have gotten an infection after all. It remains to be seen if it will extend my hospital stay. I dearly hope not.

Ridiculous Chessbase Hyperbole, and Still Undefeated in Florida...

...for what that's worth. I've played two games, drew one and won the second. Both opponents lower rated than me. Feed me to a few Class A guys and I doubt I'll stay undefeated much longer. In any case, the second game was played at the Boca Raton Chess Club at Florida Atlantic University. I played a young (10-ish) Asian kid, which scared me a little since kids tend to by underrated. I played the Classical Sicilian, and I have to say that it was one of the best games I've played. He made a mistake on move 7, and I was able to squeeze him for the rest of the game. I was proud of myself, because I didn't let up mentally and I kept total control of the game the entire time. I gradually pushed his pieces back with various threats until he was too passive to generate counterplay, and when a tactical chance presented itself I took it and won.

This has to be the most egotistical post I've ever made, praising myself like this, but I promise if I keep playing good chess it will become less pronounced. It's just nice to see work paying off over the board. It's true that I outrated my opponent quite a bit, but what made me happy wasn't the winning, it was that I feel that for probably the first time ever I played 'real chess' (in the Dan Heisman sense) for an entire game. And if you don't know what 'real chess' is (as opposed to 'hope chess') and you're rated under 2000, then you should read this: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/real.txt . In any case, here's the game:

Yin-Rampley.pgn



So that was that. Very clean for me. In other news, Topalov won the Pearl Spring tournament with a performance of just under 2900 (2890). Chessbase asked the ludicrous question in their article (http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5101) if Topalov was on his was to becoming the best ever. I can't tell you how absurd that is. While he is a great player, he's too streaky to ever be more than your 'normal' super GM. He's never won a world championship match (and in my opinion has never been world champ; Kasparov-> Kramnik -> Anand). Look at Fischer and Kasparov. Both were extremely consistent and showed long stretches in which they absolutely dominated everyone else. Kasparov was +55% =38% -7% in his career. Not only did he only lose 7% of his games (most of which were earlier in his career), but he won 55% of the time. That's sick considering the level of competition he was playing against. Fischer was +56% =28% -16%. Topalov is +36% =42% -22%. Not even close to the same league. For the record, Topalov's nemesis Kramnik is +38% =51% -11%. And he held the world title for 8 years. Capablanca was +51% =32% -17%. Laughable is too weak a word for Topalov as the best ever. The streakiest ever, maybe. Unbelievable.