The ICC have a bunch of free stuff available relating to the Mexico World Championship Tournament.
One of the things they're doing is a free video of the day. This link will take you to yesterday's ... which includes several minutes of Kramnik and Leko analysing their game from round five. They don't seem to be talking with each other so much as at each other. Not only that, it kind of reminded me of those old Smith and Jones head-to-heads, an example of which you can find here.
Anyhoo, Vishy Anand is now clear out in front at 5/7 at the half-way stage. Gelfand is half a point back and Kramnik is a notch further behind. Is Vlad already out of it? His game with White against Anand in round 10 is now looking like a must-win.
Anybody out there think that Kramnik is going to retain his crown?
I think Svidler's jacked it in, I'll tell you that much. I was thinking of doing a posting about his quick draw last night using the headline
ReplyDeleteAnd says - "do you want to
Make a deal?"
Mig - on the free ICC round up yesterday - reckoned if Svidler had tried g4 instead of Kf2 (I forget the move number, perhaps it was 17) White would have been += (just).
ReplyDeleteI'm really interested to see what Kramnik's going to do against Svidler tonight (10 mins away). Will he go with the Petroff again or something a little sharper? Didn't he used to play the Sveshnikov?
He's playing the Petroff and to my mind he's playing it like a violin.
ReplyDeleteIt's Svidler v the fiddler.
I switched off the chess around midnight last night to watch Batman on BBC4. Unfortunately for the theme of these comments, the pantomime criminal was The Penguin and not The Riddler.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I did once hear of a chess player who, during a world championship match, was constantly going to the toilet.
ReplyDeleteHe became known as The Piddler.
Still too early to write Kramnik off. He's only a point behind Anand. What I was thinking was what Anand said before the tournament in regards to FIDE's convoluted WC cycle and the accompanying rematches--- rather than get riled up or exasperated by it, it would be simpler to just go out and win the WC tournament and shut everybody up. So, he's on his way to doing just that.
ReplyDeleteHe'll have to beat Anand, I think... & probably drop the benoni.
ReplyDelete