BOTW: 2015.06.26
photo: 46-year-old Vassily Ivanchuk plays in the 10th Edmonton International in the same week when 40-year-old Veselin Topalov and 45-year-old Vishy Anand drew their last-round game to finish 1-2 at Norway 2015, ahead of U25s: Anish Giri, Fabiano Caruana, and World Champion Magnus Carlsen (+2 =3 -4 !!), and raise themselves into a tie for second in the live rating list.
10th Edmonton International
The annual 10-player RR features three 2700+ and two 2600+ GMs, and four Canadians: IM Aman Hambleton, FM Vladimir Pechenkin, FM Dale Haessel, and qualifier Robert Gardner.
With six rounds played, Indian GM Pentala Harikrishna (2733) leads with 5.5. That puts him a point-and-a-half ahead of the visiting GMs who are tied with 4/6: Vassily Ivanchuk (2733, UKR), Wang Hao (2704, CHN), Sam Shankland (2656, USA) and Surya Ganguly (2625, IND).
There are three rounds to go, and Harikrishna still has to play Wang and Ganguly. You can watch them online here:
http://edmonton-international.com/
Kramnik turns 40
Vladimir Kramnik turned 40 on June 25. In an interview on the Russian site ChessPro, Kramnik discusses his age, his future, his favourite games, and the time he and Kasparov were nearly killed in a car crash (!).
A few quotes:
"Boris Spassky once remarked a World Championship match takes three years off your life. If I played four of them, then it turns out I’m 52, not 40!"
Computers vs Experience:
"At the level I play everyone has the fundamental opening knowledge. During my youth that knowledge had be to acquired manually – reading books, studying “Informants”, analysing one position or another – and therefore great experience could compensate for lower energy levels.
But now you turn on a computer and everything’s brought to you on a silver platter, just as long as you can recall it. So it turns out the advantage of experience is largely offset, while the advantages of youth have become much more noticeable."
Russian Olympiad Woes:
"Winning the Olympics [one last time] has become for me almost the main goal before the end of my career."
There's an English translation of about 70% of the interview, with replayable games, on Chess24:
https://chess24.com/en/read/news/vladimir-kramnik-it-turns-out-i-m-52-not-40
The full interview in Russian is on ChessPro:
http://www.chesspro.ru/interview/kramnik_levin_interview
Sparkassen Chess-Meeting
aka Dortmund (June 27- July 5, 2015)
Kramnik returns to action in an event he has won 10 times.
This year's 8-player Round Robin features: Caruana, Kramnik, So, Hou Yifan, Nepomniachtschi, Nisipeanu, and Germans Naiditsch and Meier.
You'll be able to see if Kramnik can keep pace with his fellow 40+'ers by following the games live on various sites, including the event homepage:
http://www.sparkassen-chess-meeting.de/2015/