Showing posts with label kamsky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kamsky. Show all posts

Friday, February 20, 2009

Kamsky - Topalov

Paul Hoffman's "Chess It Out!" at NPR offered an interesting commentary on Gata Kamsky's "Brain Freeze" in the second game of his match with Veselin Topolov for the right to challenge Anand:
Wednesday's game was morbidly dramatic, in the way NASCAR racing is when cars collide. Kamsky got strangely caught up in the boundlessness of chess and self-destructed. He suffered brain freeze and spent much too much time thinking in simple positions. The rules required him to make his first 40 moves in two hours, but he managed to play only 32 and forfeited — a very rare result in world-class chess.
Kamsky briefly pulled even at the halfway point, but Topalov soon took a commanding lead in the match and won it all with Game 7. Analysis of the seven games can be found online from various commentators:

Game 7
Topalov - Kamsky, 1-0 (French Defense, Tarrasch Variation C07)
Game 6
Kamsky - Topalov, 1/2-1/2 (Caro-Kann, Short Variation B12)
Game 5
Topalov - Kamsky, 1-0 (French Defense, Tarrasch C07)

Game 4
Kamsky - Topalov 1-0 (Ruy Lopez, Closed - C88)
Game 3
Topalov - Kamsky 1/2-1/2 (Gruenfeld - D81)
Game 2
Kamsky - Topalov 0-1 (Ruy Lopez, Berlin Variation - C65)
Game 1
Topalov - Kamsky 1/2-1/2 (Gruenfeld - D86-88)
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Sunday, December 16, 2007

Kamsky Wins World Cup, Joins World Championship Cycle

U.S. GM Gata Kamsky today won the FIDE World Cup by forcing a draw in game four of his championship match against GM Alexei Shirov. The win gives him the right to play Topalov in a 2008 semi-final match leading up to the 2009 World Championship against the winner of a Kramnik-Anand match. It's a great come-back for the 1990s star, who went undefeated in the entire tournament! Based on his play--and especially his deep opening preparation in these matches--I think he has a very good chance of going all the way.

News, pictures, notes, and video regarding the final game of the match:

Read more about the history of the World Chess Championship at Mark Weeks's site or in the latest Kibitzer column ("How Many World Champions?" - PDF) by Tim Harding.

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Saturday, December 15, 2007

Kamsky Leads Shirov 2-1

U.S. GM Gata Kamsky today drew the third game of his championship match against GM Alexei Shirov (now of Spain) in the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. He has White in the final game (barring tie breaks). The winner of this match will play Topalov for the right to challenge for the 2009 World Championship against the winner of the expected Anand-Kramnik match.

Kamsky won the second game of the match yesterday. That second game was a very interesting and closely-contested encounter that featured attacks and counter-attacks by both sides and will likely attract much high level commentary. Several sources have already provided extensive annotations to the game, and I will try to add others as they appear:

Updated at 11:00 Sunday-- thanks for the corrections and additional links.

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