isle of man

hope yifan hou doesnt throw another tantrum !! her first opponent was female---kosteniuk..who is a top class player too. it was a draw

She's paired with Elisabeth Paehtz in round two.

Originally posted by @byedidia
She's paired with Elisabeth Paehtz in round two.

Originally posted by @byedidia
She's paired with Elisabeth Paehtz in round two.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
How do they compare rating wise?

Nothing at all wrong with Yifan's draw. It's just how it happened.

Infact there would have been a bigger outcry if they changed the draw.
It's been given as OK by arbiters and two different Swiss pairing programs.

She has just lost her third round game.

Kramnik got beat by the 65 year American James Tarjan . This defeat
has cost him 9 rating points and puts him way down in 3rd in the race for
the two candidates rating spots between him, Caruana and Wes So.

Hey, I got beat by James Tarjan once, too.

For me it is interesting to watch the following:
Zuniga Granda
Short
Timman

Anand
Gelfand.

It is an extraordinary opportunity to see some "only" open tournaments player, like Zuniga Granda against still WC contenders as Kramnik and Nakamura (and even Champion himself).

And amongst them there are washed out dinosaurs, or better say walking dead - Short, Timman, Anand and Gelfand.

If they gave the wild card to Tarjan, they could have given it ti Romanishin, too.

There is one player missing, though, one of open tour sharks - namely Tkatchiev.

Originally posted by @vandervelde
For me it is interesting to watch the following:
Zuniga Granda
Short
Timman

Anand
Gelfand.

It is an extraordinary opportunity to see some "only" open tournaments player, like Zuniga Granda against still WC contenders as Kramnik and Nakamura (and even Champion himself).

And amongst them there are washed out dinosaurs, or better say walking d ...[text shortened]... ishin, too.

There is one player missing, though, one of open tour sharks - namely Tkatchiev.

Yifan's 4th female in a row is again sound.

Here are the 32 players currently on 1½ pts. plus their grade which gives them their seed order.

1. Hou Yifan 2670
2. Akobian Varuzhan 2662
3. Tregubov Pavel V. 2589
4. Ju Wenjun 2574
5, Aravindh Chithambaram Vr. 2573
6. Wagner Dennis 2564
7. Vishnu Prasanna. V 2543
8. Perelshteyn Eugene 2524
9. Lubbe Nikolas 2515
1O. lafsson Helgi 2512
11. Praggnanandhaa R 2500
12. Brown Michael William 2499
13. Hambleton Aman 2479
14. Salomon Johan 2476
15. Basso Pier Luigi 2460
16. Paehtz Elisabeth 2453


The halfway cut. The players due White in the top group will play in seed order players from the 2nd group due Black.

17. Swayams Mishra 2444
18. Shvayger Yuliya 2442
19. Sundararajan Kidambi 2426
20. Arkell Keith C 2415
21. Wallace John Paul 2413
22. Arjun Kalyan 2406
23. Roberson Peter T 2403
24. Karavade Eesha 2384
25. Woellermann Jan 2384
26. Ledger Andrew J 2361
27. Hemant Sharma 2342
28. Ragnarsson Dagur 2340
29. Kolbus Dietmar 2320
30. Ojas Kulkarni 2289
31. IM Rudolf Anna 2286
32. Harari Zaki 2027

But...The tournament need the highest rated player on 1½ pts. due Black to up float and play someone on 2 pts.

Yifan is due a white and so was Akobian so upfloated was Tregubov and now those
on 1½ need a player from those on 1 point due a Black. The highest rated player due a
Black from the group on 1pt. was Yankelevich Lev.

Revised list.

1. Hou Yifan 2670
2. Akobian Varuzhan 2662
3. Ju Wenjun 2574
4. Aravindh Chithambaram Vr. 2573
5. Wagner Dennis 2564
6. Vishnu Prasanna. V 2543
7. Perelshteyn Eugene 2524
8. Lubbe Nikolas 2515
9. lafsson Helgi 2512
10. Praggnanandhaa R 2500
11. Brown Michael William 2499
12. Hambleton Aman 2479
13. Salomon Johan 2476
14. Basso Pier Luigi 2460
15. Paehtz Elisabeth 2453
16. Swayams Mishra 2444

The halfway cut. This is group 2

17. Shvayger Yuliya 2442
18. Sundararajan Kidambi 2426
19. Arkell Keith C 2415
20. Wallace John Paul 2413
21. Arjun Kalyan 2406
22. Roberson Peter T 2403
23. Karavade Eesha 2384
24. Woellermann Jan 2384
25. Ledger Andrew J 2361
26. Hemant Sharma 2342
27. Ragnarsson Dagur 2340
28. Kolbus Dietmar 2320
29. Ojas Kulkarni 2289
30. IM Rudolf Anna 2286
31. Harari Zaki 2027
32. Yankelevich Lev 2443 (remember Lev has only 1pt.)

The highest rated player (Yifan) due White v the highest rated due Black in group 2. Shvayger Yuliya.

Now if an idiot like me can understand this you lot should have no trouble at all

Originally posted by @greenpawn34

...But...The tournament need the highest rated player on 1½ pts. due Black to up float and play someone on 2 pts.


Now if an idiot like me can understand this you lot should have no trouble at all...

Here is the game from round 3, Tarjan v Kramnik. Tarjan goes into a pawn-endgame with 2 bishops against a rook. Nice work for an old-timer.

Very sad and indicative how opet-tour-shark Zuniga Granda lost from WC Carlsen under 30 moves.
Granda gave up his off-variations from te first ages of Openings-books, and tried regular Petroff game and was crashed without visible track of mistake.

Originally posted by @greenpawn34
Yifan's 4th female in a row is again sound.

After the hoo-ha at Gibraltar Yifan's draw was checked and double-checked (A chess pun!)

Players at the Isle of Man could ask for a bye in between rounds 1-8
and receive ½ a point. A few players took this opportunity for a day off.

Yifan tweeted.

Hou Yifan: "The pairings in the first half of #IoMchess made me a little bit....well, upset. So I decided to take a bye"

Very strong speculation that this was a wee joke on her part. because
she lodged no protest, the draw was sound and easily explained