I would like to use my 1000th post to hype the US Chess Championships 2011 which started today It has probably the strongest field and best format in many years. The tournament is taking place at Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis for the 3rd straight year and this venue has been a tremendous boon to the US Championships.
One of the biggest notes of this year's championship is the absence of US #1 Hikaru Nakamura who has decided to skip the event and focus on his goal of becoming world champion which up until this last year seemed like a long shot, but is becoming a much stronger possibility with his tremendous results.
The format for this years championships is 2 round robin groups leading into a 4 players semi-finals (top 2 in each group advance). I've been playing competitive chess for about 9 years now and I'm a huge fan of many of the players in the event. I'm going to give you my own description of each of the players in the field.
Round Robin 1:
1. Gata Kamsky 2733 Kamsky is the defending US Champion scoring his first US championship after nearly 20 years. He was at one point top 3 in the world and is known as a very solid player who has tremendous ability to grind out endgames with a small advantage. Kamsky is probably the favorite to repeat given his experience and rating advantage over the field. Kamsky is most known for 1. e4 as white and the Grunfeld and Sicilian as black, but has a wide repertoire and can play almost anything.
2. Yury Shulman 2622 Originally from belarusShulman is one of my favorite players in the field and was the runner-up in last year's US Championship after beating Nakamura with black in the playoffs. He's known as a very positional player, but very much plays as the position as it demands. He's been a stable player on the US Olympiad team for a while now and has over-performed in the US Championship quite a few times managing to claim the title in 2008. His repertoire is a little more predictable mostly playing 1. d4 as white and the french and slav defenses as black.
3. Varuzhan Akobian 2611 Varuzhan is strongest of many strong Armenian-American chess players in the United States. He achieved the GM title in 2003 only a few years after coming to the United States. He's very similar in style and openings to Shulman, but he relies a little more on very strong preparation that Shulman seems to, but he's definitely capable of winning this group.
4. Jaan Elhvest 2586 Elhvest (not Elvis) is originally from Estonia and was incredibly strong in his day, but hasn't shown quite a strong of results in the last few years. He's an incredibly experiences player and a a frequently player in the Swiss tournaments in the US. He's a very dynamic player who could take a game off any player in the field.
5. Alexander Stripunsky 2578 Stripunsky is probably one of the more underrated GMs in the field. To make a starcraft analogy, he's probably the Catz of the professional chess world (playing wise). Has a creative approach to openings and hopes to get an advantage in having more experience in his pet lines.
6. Alexander Ivanov 2540 Ivanov is the ultimate New England swiss journeyman. If there's a tournament in the northeast he's probably playing and winning it. He strikes fear into the hearts of all the FMs and IMs in the northeast all of whom have had to play him dozens of times in tournaments. He's not always the best practical player, often spending a good chunk of time in openings he's quite familiar with, but don't be fooled, his openings are very well prepared if slightly offbeat.
7. Ray Robson 2522 Ray is considered the top talent in the US and one of the best hopes for an American to win the world championship one day. He was having big results in the US at a very young age and holds the record for the youngest American player to get the GM title. He has an incredibly well-analyzed opening repertoire and consistently plays the sharpest lines with 1. e4 and playing deep theoretical lines such as the botvinnik semi-slav as black.
8. Daniel Naroditsky 2438 "Danya" is the other junior member of the US chamipionship with Ray being more than a year younger than Ray. He has a tremendously mature style for his age even being a published author and book of the year finalist from his book on positional chess. He's also one of the top junior hopes in the US and has had some good results recently one being in January when he finished the requirements for his IM title.
Round Robin 2:
1. Alexander Onischuk 2678 Onischuk is the top seed in this group and deservedly so. He's had consistent strong finishes in the US Championship for quite a few years now. He's probably the player in the field I would describe as having the most "classical" style favoring openings such as the Ruy Lopez as black for many years. He is definitely the biggest threat to Kamsky failing to repeat as champion.
2. Yasser Seirawan 2638 Seirawan was a surprise entrant in this year's field who's been out of the professional scene for quite a few years now and making his comeback for this tournament. I'm ashamed to say I'm not as familiar with his style as some of the other players as some of the other players, but as a 4-time US Champion he's not a player that should be underestimated. If he came out of retirement for this tournament he didn't do it so he could be a chess tourist, he's playing to win.
3. Alexander Shabalov 2590 Shabalov is known for being one of the stronger attacking players in the field. He's originally from Latvia which has a history of producing players who thrive in crazy positions such as Tal and Shirov. Don't expect safe chess form Shabalov who is known from taking large risks to his position to try steer the game into his territory, in this way think of him as the TLO of this tournament.
4. Larry Christiansen 2586 Christainsen is definitely known for some of the best attacking players by any American player. He's has multiple US Championship titles and is one of the older players in the field, but he is definitely capable of winning the whole thing and is definitely not one to be counted out. He doesn't always play the most attacking lines but instead has a tremendous ability to create wild attacks out of the most innocuous-looking positions.
5. Gregory Kaidanov 2569 Kaidanov is sometimes mistaken for someone who mainly trains young US talents having coaches some of the top US developed talent in the United States and being one of the original coaches for the US Chess School. However, he's also an incredibly dangerous player with an aggressive style who can play a large variety of positions.
6. Robert Hess 2565 Robert Hess made an even bigger name for himself 2 years ago when he finished clear 2nd place in the US Championship 2 years ago while he still only held the IM title.
7. Sam Shakland 2512 Shanland finally got a big monkey off his back earlier this year finally earning his final GM norm and getting the title. He had been incredibly unlucky to miss out norms when he had tremendous tournaments either to just missing the required performance by a minimal margin or because he couldn't be paired with the final foreign player he needed to qualify for the norm. He's one of the players I have more personal experience with as I played him a few times when he was a talented low-master, but he shot up almost 200 points in 1 year to make a name for himself as one of the top juniors in the country. He won the 2008 world U18 championship in what was at the time a huge upset to get his IM title and first GM norm.
8. Ben Finegold 2500 Finegold was for a long time considered one of the strongest IMs in the world. He lost that distinction a few years ago when he finally earned the GM title. He works as the "Grandmaster-in-residence" at the St. Louis club and as such is a "wildcard" player in the field. I wouldn't consider him a threat to win the event, but he's known to be one of the hardest fighting players in the field with a very logical approach to the game.
If you guys have any questions / requests, post them here and I will see what I can do.
On April 16 2011 05:27 mikeymoo wrote: I've heard that Maurice Ashley is one of the best commentators out there. Now I understand.
I think he's one of the best for general audiences, but I'm a little bit of a chess snob so I really like guys like Larry Christiansen, Ronan Har-zvi, or Joel Benjamin. I think Shahade's brother Greg is really good, but he's too busy playing poker and I don't think he enjoys it as much.
On April 16 2011 05:28 where wrote: Ah never watched a chess livestream yet, thanks. whats the time restrictions?
The time control is 90 minutes each for the first 40 moves and 30 minutes are added after that for the rest of the game. Also after each move the players gain 30 seconds on their clock.
Notably top 10 player Nakamura is missing, perhaps last years edition was the strongest one, but the revival of Seirawan makes it more interesting (former Candidate and beat Kasparov/Karpov in their respective primes).
On April 16 2011 05:28 where wrote: Ah never watched a chess livestream yet, thanks. whats the time restrictions?
The time control is 90 minutes each for the first 40 moves and 30 minutes are added after that for the rest of the game. Also after each move the players gain 30 seconds on their clock.
On April 16 2011 05:47 zanzib wrote: Notably top 10 player Nakamura is missing, perhaps last years edition was the strongest one, but the revival of Seirawan makes it more interesting (former Candidate and beat Kasparov/Karpov in their respective primes).
Yea, I definitely think the tournament is very exciting and the format is arguably better than last year's format, but missing the strongest player in the field has to be considered a loss for the tournament. If I could trade Naka for Seirawan straight up, I would.
On April 16 2011 05:28 where wrote: Ah never watched a chess livestream yet, thanks. whats the time restrictions?
The time control is 90 minutes each for the first 40 moves and 30 minutes are added after that for the rest of the game. Also after each move the players gain 30 seconds on their clock.
woa..how come they take so long?
that actually seems quite quick
pity that naka's not playing. hope robson does well
On April 16 2011 05:28 where wrote: Ah never watched a chess livestream yet, thanks. whats the time restrictions?
The time control is 90 minutes each for the first 40 moves and 30 minutes are added after that for the rest of the game. Also after each move the players gain 30 seconds on their clock.
woa..how come they take so long?
That's just the way serious chess is played. I promise you that it's one of those things where when you're not a high level player it seems like a long time, but to strong players it still feels very limiting, decisions you make at the board are mostly permanent and tiny tiny mistakes decide many games.
Why is there a separate women's championship? Women aren't worse than men; there are just fewer women interested in chess than men. I don't see why there shouldn't just be one large tournament.
On April 16 2011 07:20 Seth_ wrote: Why is there a separate women's championship? Women aren't worse than men; there are just fewer women interested in chess than men. I don't see why there shouldn't just be one large tournament.
This is an often debated topic. My personal opinion is that chess would be a better activity if more women participated and having a few women's tournaments encourages more participation. It can be quite intimidating socially for some women to compete when 90%+ of the competitors are men.
Also what they're doing now is really awesome and something that I think sc2 misses a little bit. Imagine grabbing MC or Naniwa after a game he won and immediately going over the replay at 2x speed giving his thoughts on the game. Often we just get vague overall thoughts, but then again chess players spend A LOT longer on each decision.
On April 16 2011 05:31 Anihc wrote: lol, I don't know anything about chess but I read your entire post and it was strangely entertaining.
I felt pretty similar about it, cool post! Chess was something I always contemplated getting into, I'm sure getting a better grasp on it would open up a lot of new layers to appreciating it, similarly to Starcraft
Being unfamiliar with the scene, I have a basic question: Why are there different championships for men and women? (or so it seems from the stream anyway)
On April 16 2011 07:44 Zelniq wrote: i see theyre grandmasters too but do they have a fancy gold star by their name? I don't think so.
No, but being a grandmaster in chess is enough to get paid to play in some chess tournaments, but the prizes for chess tournaments are pretty small compared to starcraft.
On April 16 2011 05:31 Anihc wrote: lol, I don't know anything about chess but I read your entire post and it was strangely entertaining.
I felt pretty similar about it, cool post! Chess was something I always contemplated getting into, I'm sure getting a better grasp on it would open up a lot of new layers to appreciating it, similarly to Starcraft
Being unfamiliar with the scene, I have a basic question: Why are there different championships for men and women? (or so it seems from the stream anyway)
I posted briefly about this above, but I'll leave an even simpler answer, chess championships are funded by sponsors and there are sponsors who want to be affiliated with it so it exists. If I told you we could have all kinds of female only starcraft events and in 20 years there would be so many female players it would become unnecessary, would it be worthwhile? Maybe, maybe not, but it's something to consider. Now what if I change the difference between men and women with the difference between non-koreans and koreans.
Even though I take pride in being damn good at chess (even go to local chess club at times, occasionally beating old guys who play all day lol) this play is amazing. No apparently huge mistakes ><
I'll also answer any related questions.
Do you guys want to make a room on the teamspeak server to discuss this?
On April 16 2011 06:08 zobz wrote: I'm not sure I can actually tell, but like 70% of these names are russian or slavic?
Yes, there are many foreign born players in the tournament, but also consider that former soviet republics have a much stronger chess tradition, the current world champion was born in India.
I don't even understand the dynamics they are talking about... lol. I personally can barely see 1 move ahead in chess sometimes >.> so easy to make mistakes
Btw to everybody who wants to check it out again, the broadcast will start at 19:00 GMT (+00:00). TSL will probably still be going, but the interesting part of the games probably won't be until TSL broadcast is over anyways.
On April 17 2011 08:42 XXGeneration wrote: This has piqued my interest for chess.
Can anyone give me advice in learning semi-competitive chess? I already know the movements, but the strategy eludes me.
Download Buy Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition and do the Josh Waitzkin tutorials. It takes you from "This is a pawn" through "Find the best move on this complicated board", and ends with highly detailed annotated games played by professional chess masters and grandmasters where you are occasionally instructed to find intelligent moves based on what Waitzkin is telling you. Lastly, there's about 12 games of Waitzkin showcased, where he delves deep into his strategical thinking, making you understand his thought process behind his moves. Highly recommended to anyone.
There's also a section where Larry Christiansen discusses attacking chess, and shows off some inspirational games from the world's greatest attacking players while narrating.
If you can't find Grandmaster Edition, the previous version (Chessmaster 10th Edition) works just as well if I recall correctly.
On April 17 2011 08:42 XXGeneration wrote: This has piqued my interest for chess.
Can anyone give me advice in learning semi-competitive chess? I already know the movements, but the strategy eludes me.
Download Buy Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition and do the Josh Waitzkin tutorials. It takes you from "This is a pawn" through "Find the best move on this complicated board", and ends with highly detailed annotated games played by professional chess masters and grandmasters where you are occasionally instructed to find intelligent moves based on what Waitzkin is telling you. Lastly, there's about 12 games of Waitzkin showcased, where he delves deep into his strategical thinking, making you understand his thought process behind his moves. Highly recommended to anyone.
There's also a section where Larry Christiansen discusses attacking chess, and shows off some inspirational games from the world's greatest attacking players while narrating.
If you can't find Grandmaster Edition, the previous version (Chessmaster 10th Edition) works just as well if I recall correctly.
This is a good one. If you want a book that goes over some aspects of competitive play as well I highly suggest "Everybody's Second Chess Book" by Dan Heisman. He also has a whole archive of columns at http://www.chesscafe.com/archives/archives.htm#Novice
Broadcast starting up again today. For those of you looking for higher level commentary I highly, highly suggest www.chess.fm Ronan Har-zvi and Nick DeFirmian are on right now and they're both really good (although I know there are some accent haters out there who might have trouble with Har-zvi, but he's awesome.
I'm a decent club-level player but it's amazing how strong some of the players are. It was funny to see Kamsky just sort of look at Maurice Ashley when asked why he thought White resigned. And Robson going something like 14-15 ply deep in his game... Wow.
On April 19 2011 08:07 where wrote: haha that Ray Robson kid seems pretty pro
Yeah, I'm hoping he can win the US a world championship one day. (38 years since the last one) and fischer was hardly a patriot.
I personally think Hikaru has a shot. I thought his style was immature a few years ago compared to his colleagues, but he has since become a total boss (there's a rumor he's even working with Kasparov). I don't doubt Robson is a tremendous talent, but I think at least right now Robson still needs to show he can make the next leap. I think its' likely that he can, but it's not a given.
Thanks for sharing MoreFaSho! I know nothing about chess besides what pieces do what, but I've been looking to at least learn some strategy. Just listening to Mr. Maurice really engages you in what's going on. Just from 15 minutes he's probably one of the best commentators I've heard in any sport o_O
Starting up again today, here's my summary of what to look for: A lot of the finals is already decided. From reading the rules there's not much of an advantage from being 1st vs 2nd unless the semifinals are tied and it needs to go to a tie-break.
Hess is 90%+ to qualify, Kamsky and Shulman are definitely the favorites in the other group. I'd name Onischuk as a favorite to come behind Hess, but it's far from a decided matter as Shankland actually faces Onischuk in the last round (but he will have black).
There is an outisde chance that someone else could make it in these groups.
This round has to be the round that someone trailing Shulman or Kamsky has to win if they want to have a shot though as Kamsky plays Shulman in the last round and if they still lead by a point a draw is a VERY likely result.
Is anyone else annoyed by the commentators ragging on players for not taking risks every single round? A draw is a natural part of the game. I'm all for not short draws with all of the pieces still on the board, but it's stupid to push your position when it's clearly equal, you're facing someone renowned for his technique and he's higher rated than you. You're just inviting him to beat you.
Thx so much to the op for posting this, it's been great so far, love the commentators. And i have to agree with them that from a spectator perspective it does bother me that they don't play out the match. I think a format with more time and no draw offer rule would be better. I mean these matches last way too little, look at the snooker tour where a match can last more than 1 day lol. Also are there any more of these chess tournaments coming up with good production ?
On April 24 2011 15:11 rekul wrote: Thx so much to the op for posting this, it's been great so far, love the commentators. And i have to agree with them that from a spectator perspective it does bother me that they don't play out the match. I think a format with more time and no draw offer rule would be better. I mean these matches last way too little, look at the snooker tour where a match can last more than 1 day lol. Also are there any more of these chess tournaments coming up with good production ?
There are quite a few chess tournaments throughout the year that have pretty good production, although mostly just game boards with audio commentary, I think the ability to interview the players like this adds a lot.
www.chessclub.com (Internet Chess Club) has live commentary quite often via chess.fm (they did for this event as well)
The next big tournament is the world championship candidates starting May 3rd. The only player from this event that will be playing is Gata Kamsky. The commentators on ICC for this tournament have been Joel Benjamin and Jan Smeets for the more recent rounds and I find them to be very good commentators.
As for draws, I think you can ask a lot of the players when you put on a nice event and they get paid like they are here. Some events require you to ask the arbiter to agree to a draw which works pretty well. I think it's easy to forget the are many tournaments where players are only paid if they win and the tournament isn't really treated as a spectator event and they should consider those event separately. It would be like telling all starcraft players that they need to play all games out until the last building is destroyed.
oh man, no Hikaru is interesting. Hoping the two young'uns score a few wins at least (not just against each other ... ) Ray Robson is pretty ridiculous.
EPT
, thanks.
