Grand Slam Chess Final Masters
Bilbao will receive from September 2 to September 13, the strongest tournament of the History of the Chess. A tournament of the category XXII with Elo’s average of the participants of 2775,63. For the first time ever in the world an event of such characteristics will take place in the street, in the Plaza Nueva, right in the centre of Bilbao’s Old Town from 17:00hrs. To this end a huge soundproofed and air-conditioned glass case will be fitted out under a marquee where the games will be played.
The big deployment of computer and audiovisual means and the comments, interviews and analysis by journalists and presenters will allow and excellent entertaining and amusing follow up of this tournament for the people turning up at the Plaza Nueva.
The six participating players will be headed by world’s champion and number one Viswanathan Anand. Along with him, Magnus Carlsen (number two), Vasili Ivanchuk (number three), Véselin Topálov (number six and ex world’s champion), Teimur Radyábov (number seven) and Levon Aronián (world’s number ten currently) will compete in Bilbao. No tournament had managed so far to gather such a high Elo’s average level (scoring system to order players’ ranking).
The Grand Slam Final Masters has the official recognition of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) and it will be played in a double round league during ten days (plus a two-day break). The total prize money amounts to €400,000, sum only exceeded by World Chess Championships.
Official website: http://www.bilbaofinalmasters.com/en_index.asp
The drawing of lots will begin tomorrow morning. It is my understanding that my LIVE commentary with my friend Leontxo Garcia, who I believe is the greatest chess commentator, will be available online.
Former World Champion Boris Spassky will take over the commentary duty for me when I have to leave Bilbao. The only player I have seen so far is Levon Aronian. This will be an incredible event as the #1 world ranking is on the line. Anand is still #1 but Ivanchuk and Carlsen are closing the gap.
Ivanchuk will win again and break 2800. That would be awesome.
This is certainly an importan tournament.
I hope one of Tmman/Speelman/Nunn will write a book about this tournament and annotate the heck out of every few moves :-))… a la “The Art of Analysis” or “Speelman’s Best games.”
Go Chucky!!! Go Magnus!!! <3
Anand will win the tournament in style and will be crowned “The King of Bilbao”.
Great news Susan! Your commentary will be captured and saved if you can post the links to this blog!
Thanks!
Chess Fan
I hear a rumor than Magnus is going to bring his largest bottle of orange juice yet, 3 liters!
Watch the kid shine and create an upset of graphic preportions!
It’s the orange juice dummy!
I’m willing to be at the tournament. It’ll be a great tournament!!
1938 AVRO tournament had the top 8 players of the world at that time.
No tournament (including Bilbao masters) have come close to this, so AVRO remains the strongest tournament ever.
Bilbao has come close actually- just Morozevcih and Kramnik are missing from the top 8 here.
Las Palmas 1996 was probably the strongest tournament.
Kasparov, Karpov, Kramnink, Anand, Ivanchuk and Topalov played and at the time they were 6/7 top ELO.
The only one missing was Kamsky who had just quited chess, and in any case was surpassed by those people in the next rating list.
In 1938 AVRO it was 8/8 from the top.
No tournament surpassed that.
By what ranking were they 8 first players?
There were no FIDE ratings then and I am sure one could claim that not all of them were in top form
But even if it was like this, from active players, Las Palmas had 6/6 i.e. same percentage with 8/8, only it didn’t include the 7th 8th players (Short, Adams or Shirov at the time). Would you consider Las Palmas stronger had it included those two players?
If it was 8/8 I would consider Las Palmas as equal than AVRO. 9/9 is better.
P.S.: In 1996 Kamsky was still active.
In 1996 Kamsky lost to Karpov and withdrew from chess (he even announced it just or shortly after the end of the match). This tournament was after that match if I recall correctly.
Still he was active for a year before he became inactive.
technically if you die today you are still conisdered active for a full year 🙂
However this is hardly relevant!
Not true. Dead players are immediatelly removed from the rating list. (that is if FIDE was notified).
fair enough..
However what if you had an accident and are still alive technically but your brain isn’t working?
🙂
You can twist it any way you like but 1938 AVRO remains the strongest tournament ever played 😉
hehe 🙂
Possibly. But what is true is that Las Palmas had the 6 best active (in reality not technically) players of that time. Given it was a 6 player event it was as good as it could be. In any case, if not the strongest it is certainly the second strongest (above Bilbao).
Kamsky played 29 games in the rating period (July 1996 – January 1997) that Las Palmas was played in. You definatelly can’t count him as inactive even if his last tournament was in August and Las Palmas was in December.
Unless he had stated clearly, before that event, that he had quited chess (which he had)!
What about Kasparov just after his last Linares? Would you count him active or not?
This obviously is subjective, but I would consider him inactive, in similar way I would consider a dead person inactive, with the distinguished difference that living people can change their mind while dead … 🙂
However, even if you do count him in, it was 6/7 with the only one missing being No5 (i.e. not 1 or 2 which would be more important).
When the player is inactive his rating can’t change. Kamsky’s rating last changed January 1st 1997, and Kasparov last rating change was April 2005. By no means they can be regarded as inactive before those dates.
Ok, enough!
You are extremely stuborn. A persons rating can change according to your definition, even after he dies. As I told you, defining inactivity is subjective (unless we speak about the (i) label at the lists, in which case some times even dead people are active), since myself and many other people would consider Kasparov inactive after his last game with Topalov and not after the new release of a rating list. (same with Kamsky at that time or as a matter of fact, in basketball, Michael Jordan e.g. after he announced he has quitted)
You are entitled to your opinion, but it is pretty obvious that you have to admit that one can have a different opinion equally valid.
As I already stressed, this misses my main point which was:
“In any case, if not the strongest it is certainly the second strongest (above Bilbao).”
But some people need to prove they are right 100% and everything that another person says is wrong … How sad.
Heh, and you are not stuborn???
I believe I proved that I’m right on both points:
1) AVRO is the strongest tournament
2) Kamsky was active in second half on 1996.
You just don’t want to admit it. But you don’t have too. I never said that you must agree with me. I have given more counter argumernts for your assertions than you gave for mine (in fact I rebuffed everyone of yours)
Ok.
You proved nothing. You proved that AVRO might have been stronger.
You are using one criteria (a good one) the number of players from the top10 of the relevant period.
However this is already obviously subjective. For example, Fisher in 1970 was no1 as is Anand now but one can hardly compare these two players. So just having the no1 participating is not a sufficient (undisputed) criterion.
Now similarly about the activity of Kamsky. I said that it is reasonable to take as criterion whether a player played games at that rating period as you claim. However, I said that it is also reasonable to assume that someone is inactive after he announces that he retires.
There is some subjectivity in these arguments, which I pointed out (thus I am not the stuborn since I accept your view as reasonable).
Moreover, I even gave it to you that AVRO was probably the strongest tournament ever. However, whenever you compare difrent era events there is no definite answer (i don’t want to say that you may not attept the comparison since some criteria as you used can apply).
For example, maybe in 1850 there was a tournament with all the top20 players of the times. Well since not many people played then, I would find that weaker tournament than one held now.
Finally, comparing Las Palmas and Billbao is easier since 4/6 players of Las Palmas are still active (3 are participating).
really paricularly about Kamsky being inactive:
Is it so unreasonable if some people consider Kamsky inactive AFTER he announces that he has retired? (and thus not waiting for the next rating period?)
I don’t see that you brought ANY argument about this. You just insisted that he played games at that rating period, which is something I already knew and never claimed the opposite.
Hmm, lets see:
“In 1996 Kamsky lost to Karpov and withdrew from chess (he even announced it just or shortly after the end of the match).”
Not true. He played one more tournament more than a month after the Karpov match.
“technically if you die today you are still conisdered active for a full year :-)”
Not true.
“A persons rating can change according to your definition, even after he dies.”
Again not true. When the person dies the rating gets deleted. Of course if FIDE doesn’t know that a player has died it will keep him on the rating list. You can’t expect from FIDE to keep track on every player if he is alive or not. Dead people sometimes get bills for electricity and water too. But it doesn’t mean that they used it.
The rules when a chess player is active and when it is not are very clear. Even if we ignore that a year without any games has to pass (like I did for the sake of argument), by no means you can consider a player that has played in the same rating period as inactive. Otherwise I can also claim that all players are inactive when they are not playing, meaning that every player is inactive between two tournaments. So at best we can consider Kamsky as inactive after the last rating change in January 1997. It’s against all logic that a rating of inactive player can change like you are claiming.
“You proved nothing. You proved that AVRO might have been stronger.”
Neither true or false, just confusing. How could I proved nothing if I proved something???
“Not true. He played one more tournament more than a month after the Karpov match.”
That I didn’t know and is the first time you mention it.
For my argument the important point is when did Kamsky announced that he is quitting chess. It could well be after Las Palmas in which case you are 100% correct that Kamsky was active (even if he didn’t actually played any tournament eventually).
My argument on this was that he had announced he is quitting, and to me (not to FIDE) this is sufficient reason to consider him inactive.
The examples about dead people et al was just to point out that there are other criteria than the official fide lists for when someone is inactive.
A question: If someones wins a super tournament with 100% and dies imediatly after, his last rating is the one that didn’t take into account this tournament? Not that it matters in any way, but I would guess that they would count the games, even if they are aware that he died, for his final rating. In this sense, and if you take games in agiven period as indication of someone being active, the dead guy was active! Not that it really matters.
The rules for FIDE for when someone is active are very clear indeed, and do not involve the “Even if we ignore that a year without any games has to pass”.
My point was that for people, not for the rules of FIDE, to classify a player inactive is relative. If for example, I announce that I quite chess, or if I have an accident that destroys my mind, many people would consider me inactive while both FIDE and you will not (until the period of 3 months for you 1 year for fide passes).
How clearer can I make it? The above two cases, the rating changes and still many (most?) people reasonably would argue that he is inactive player.
Finally about the contradiction… I meant that you did not prove none of the two things you claimed to have proven. They were:
(a) AVRO is (definetly) the strongest ever tournament
(b) Kamsky was active.
What I said is that you proved that AVRO MIGHT (not certainly but with good chance) was the best tournament ever.
The wrong way I stated that was due to english not being my fist language and slight lost of temper.
And I’m supposed to be the stuborn one? 🙂
Stuborn (to me) is a person insisting he is right and things couldn’t be possibly other than what he says.
It is whether one can change his mind or stick to his position nomatter what.
I clearly stated that there is some subjectivity and I fully accepted your versions as possible and even as more likely (about AVRO being the best tournament). This happened after you argued and I took some of your points as valid, or plaussible. However, while I still believe you are too stuborn I admit that myself also has insisted on some things for quite a bit 🙂
Anyway it has dragged far too much for something really not that important!
So let us close it 🙂 All the best!