The World Championship Predictions

Topalov..simply beause he gets upset when TOP masters go to the loo 4 times in the same hour!?

I like gelfands chances, his performance in the candiates was amazing! From the tournaments I have seen recently, anand has been below par, scoring draws in almost every game.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
You might like to ask what has he done for chess in India? Indeed, I was in Glasgow,
at the KFC and the young girl serving me was Indian, as i was getting my meal i asked
if she played chess, oh yes she beamed, i am from the same state as Viswanathan
Anand!

I know this is just an anecdote, but I think it is a very powerful one.

Originally posted by elady
Hey friends u forgot something: Gelfand was in top 10 during last 15, may be 20 years. He has sixth rating in the world before the world cup. Chuki, Svidler, Pono, Kamsky, Grischuk , Shirov, Radja, Gashimov, Polgar, Karjakin, Mamedyarov and more than 100 another very strong GM-s tried to win the cup and get the last ticket to the candidates matches. Gelfand ca view Gelfand has a better chances and i guess (and hope) he'll become next World Champion.

Hi, I lived in Jerusalem for several years, played at several clubs there. Did you ever play at the club by the bookstore, where they play chess and backgammon? I played a couple times at the Jerusalem club, near the bus depot if I remember right. You ever play there?

We used to live in Abu Tor on the hill overlooking the peace forest and then near Malcha across from the soccer field, end house with the swimming pool.

Just wondered what part of Jerusalem you lived in?

Did you ever visit that jewelry store where the owner and his buddies played on that amber chess set? Always played fianchetto games?

I had a great time in Jerusalem, worked at Intel, the only Varian rep in Israel, kids went to the Anglican International school there, one son graduated from there.

We were very active in the folk music community also, like Kibbutz Tzora, they had a great folk music night once a month there, also played Jacob's Ladder three times with Shelly Yamini and our family. Shelly is a great blues singer.

Judi and Lynn Lewis ran the folk club there, great people. My wife susan started the Israeli dulcimer society which is still going strong.

http://www.tzorafolk.com/club/artists/ids.htm

Originally posted by Paul Leggett
I know this is just an anecdote, but I think it is a very powerful one.

🙂

I think Kasparov must have had his history brain cells when he said it was the first match in which neither of the strongest players in the world were competing for the title.



During the second Botvinnik Tal match, I'd say that neither competitor was the best in the world at the time.

Botvinnik was then pretty much what Anand is now, a match specialist.

Tal was in such poor health that he obviously wasn't playing at top strength, or else he wouldn't have lost.



Probably in 1961 Petrosian was the best player in the world, followed by Gellar.

Tal was still a great player in 1961 despite his illness.
Probably the strongest chess tournament in 1961 was Bled.

1st Tal 14½
2nd Fischer 13½
3rd= Petrosian Keres and Gligorich 12½
6th Geller 11½

Fischer was the only player not to lose a single game beating Tal, Petrosian and Geller.

Tal's strength was his abilty to win against the tail enders.
Against the other five players mentioned Tal scored only 2 pts with no wins.
Fischer on the other hand score 4 pts including 3 wins.

Fischer's inability to finish off the tail enders told.
Tal scored 5 out of 5 v the bottom 5 so did Gligorich.
Petrosian & Keres scored 4½
Geller scored 4
Fischer could only muster 3 pts against the bottom 5 (4 draws 1 win.)

Gligorich's only lose was in the last round to Petrosian.
Gligorich needed a win with Black hoping both Fischer and Tal would lose
and so he could tie for first prize. Tal won and Fischer drew.

To his credit Gligorich pressed for a win against Petrosian of all people with Black.
Petrosian lapped it up, by move 27 he had three passed pawns and Gligorich
was on the retreat.


This is Gligorich (Black) attacking Petrosian.

Petrosiain wrapped it up on move 32 with a Knight sac.

Petrosian - Gligorich Bled 1961

Originally posted by greenpawn34
Tal was still a great player in 1961 despite his illness.
Probably the strongest chess tournament in 1961 was Bled.

1st Tal 14½
2nd Fischer 13½
3rd= Petrosian Keres and Gligorich 12½
6th Geller 11½

Fischer was the only player not to lose a single game beating Tal, Petrosian and Geller.

Tal's strength was his abilty to win against the tail e ...[text shortened]... b4 Qg4 26. Rde1 Qc8 27. b5 Qc7 28. Qe4 h5 29. c5 Qb7 30. Qc4 Re6 31. Nxe5 Rae8 32.Nxf7[/pgn]

You seem to have forgotten 1 player's success within that same calendar year of 60/61. Jonathan Penrose who played this:



And Tal just didn't read the Karle Orangen f2-f4 followed by some piece development to enable e2-e4-e5..... in fact I'd go further to say That Tal didn't even know it!!! Yes Tal was great, but IMHO far from top 10 ever.

-m.

Penrose - Tal the 1960 Olympiad.

The story behind that game is amazing. Tal did not know of the game he was
following and was not too chuffed with Keres for not telling him.

Here is the background in the words of Leonard Barden.

We pick up that tale just as Mr Barden is packing ready to go to the 1960 Olympiad.

-----------------------------------------------

The postman arrived just as I was leaving the house on the departure day for Leipzig,
delivering inter alia the latest issue of the Deutsche Schachzeiting.

I hastily jammed the mail into the rest of my luggage, which included my opening
indexes, then around 40 thick looseleaf files, effectively a handwritten ChessBase.
There was a significant excess luggage charge at the airport.

On the morning of the final round when we were paired with the USSR who had
already won the Olympiad, Jonathan Penrose asked me for a suggestions on what
to play against Tal.

I presented him with half-a-dozen bulging files, provoking a glazed look, and then
as an afterthought added the Deutsche Schachzeitung which led on its first two
pages with the game Ojanen-Keres from a friendly Finland v Estonia match.

Jonathan was immediately hooked and quickly decided this was his weapon for
that afternoon. It succeded rather easily, and afterwards JP described his feeling
during the game as being like an Essex v Middlesex county match.

Tal failed to suss out Ojanen's key white plan of e5 dxe5 f5 with Ne4 and a mighty
attack down the f file, erred early with Re8, fell into awful time pressure, and was
crushed.

Tal had left Riga for a pre-Olympiad engagement causing him to arrive two days
late in Leipzig (where on the morning he arrived I witnessed him in the Olympiad
barber shop having a haircut while whizzing through the bulletins of the previous
rounds) so hadn't received his DScz. Keres didn't mention his own disaster against
Ojanen before Tal took on Penrose. Tal was apparenly quite annoyed at that.

When Jonathan came into the dining hall, he was accorded a standing ovation.
I think it was the only game the USSR lost at that Olympiad.

The opening did become known as the Penrose-Tal system, which upset Ojanen
who had worked out the entire plan before his game with Keres and deserved the
credit.

Jonathan has recounted how Ojanen came up to him at the next Olympiad
in Varna saying something like 'Penrose-Tal, MY variation'.

------------------------

Originally posted by Thabtos
I think Kasparov must have had his history brain cells when he said it was the first match in which neither of the strongest players in the world were competing for the title.



During the second Botvinnik Tal match, I'd say that neither competitor was the best in the world at the time.

Botvinnik was then pretty much what Anand is now, a match specia ...[text shortened]... lost.



Probably in 1961 Petrosian was the best player in the world, followed by Gellar.

Glad to see Geller gets a shout out!

If you had a bar full of GMs in the late sixties complaining about playing Fischer, Geller would be the only guy in the bar who could say "He's tough, but he can be handled", and no one would argue with him.

Originally posted by Paul Leggett
Glad to see Geller gets a shout out!

If you had a bar full of GMs in the late sixties complaining about playing Fischer, Geller would be the only guy in the bar who could say "He's tough, but he can be handled", and no one would argue with him.

Geller was great tactical player. In 1967 he Won Fisher Twice as Black .
BTW Gelfand saw him winning the USSR championship in Minsk, when Gelfand was a boy. Perhaps he started to play Sicilian under the influence of Geller's games.

P.S. ONLY 10 DAYS TO GO! Shall we see e4 c5 !? 😲

12 hours. Gelfand looked baffled at the opening ceremonies. Anand is white in Game 1.

d4.

Originally posted by byedidia
12 hours. Gelfand looked baffled at the opening ceremonies. Anand is white in Game 1.

d4.

long shot?
1. Nf3
then if 1....c5
2. e4

and if 1......Nf6
2. c4

and if 1......d5
2. d4

Originally posted by greenpawn34
Tal was still a great player in 1961 despite his illness.
Probably the strongest chess tournament in 1961 was Bled.

1st Tal 14½
2nd Fischer 13½
3rd= Petrosian Keres and Gligorich 12½
6th Geller 11½

Fischer was the only player not to lose a single game beating Tal, Petrosian and Geller.

Tal's strength was his abilty to win against the tail e ...[text shortened]... b4 Qg4 26. Rde1 Qc8 27. b5 Qc7 28. Qe4 h5 29. c5 Qb7 30. Qc4 Re6 31. Nxe5 Rae8 32.Nxf7[/pgn]

Considering "super tournament" in Bled 1961 - which ironically served in socialist Yugoslavia to celebrate anniversary of famous tournament from 1931 in Kingdom of Yugoslavia - there are plenty of anecdotes and accounts from Croatian chess magazine "Sahovski glasnik' /Chess Messenger/ and the Tournament Book.
I have them both.
http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/7130/bled5.jpg

Before the last round, Fischer could catch Tal if he lost against Najdorf.
According to an apocryphal story, Fischer and Najdorf had spent all night - Fischer tried to prepare his Argentinian /born Polish/ colleague in / khm err, Najdorfvariation. But Tal won the game.

Tal lost for the first time from Fischer in a strange game.
In the tournament book, he analyzed the game and said he made an overlook, he simply forgot to put his Pawn on the field "a6" in 6th move::::
"When I came to the board and saw White Knight on b5 I was surprised, but I realized I forgot to play 'a6'. Now I was lost..."




Fischer was proud on his score against the "Russians" although Petrossian could save equal position, and Tal practically lost because of a blunder.

But Geller fell into a trap and lost in 22 moves!:::



It may sound peculiar, but typical Fischer's game on this tournament is from 19th round - a draw with Black pieces aginst Ivkov in 19th round.
Maybe crucial loss that enabled Tal to win Bled 1961.



And, atypical for him, he made a couple of quick draws - with Klaus Darga and Ludek Pachman, players who normally didn't have chances against Bobby.

http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/5509/bled3.jpg