Standings after round 8
Group A
1. V. Topalov 6
2. T. Radjabov 5½
3-6. S. Karjakin, L. Aronian, P. Svidler, V. Kramnik 5
7-8. D. Navara, V. Anand 4
9. R. Ponomariov 3½
10-12. L. van Wely, S. Tiviakov, A. Motylev 3
13. M. Carlsen 2½
14. A. Shirov 1.5
Group B
1. M. Vachier-Lagrave 6
2. P. Eljanov 5½
3. Bu Xiangzhi 5
4-5. V. Bologan, D. Jakovenko 4½
6-9. T. Kosintseva, F. Nijboer, G. Sargissian, J. Smeets 4
10-11. D. Stellwagen, E. L’Ami 3½
12. J. Werle 3
13. V. Georgiev 2½
14. S. Atalik 2
Group C
1. I. Nepomniachtchi 7½
2. E. Berg 6
3. M. Krasenkow 5½
4-5. M. Bosboom, Hou Yifan 5
6-8. P. Negi, Z. Peng, W. Spoelman 4
9. E. van Haastert 3½
10-13. S. Brynell, N. Kosintseva, J. van der Wiel, H. Jonkman 2½
14. T. Willemze 1½![]()

Go Toppy!!!
This should shut the mouths for Kramnik supporters who have a modicum of decency.
Great picture! Real World Champion take a look on his successor…
Before this, I would have put odds on Anand winning Mexico. Not any more! This combined with his disastrous Olympiad performance and mediocre Sofia one would seem to indicate 37 year-old Anand is in serious decline.
So Mexico is wide open now. It is absolutely bog ridiculous that Topalov is excluded and it cannot in any way be considered a proper World Championship without him in it.
The only game in town now is a return Topalov-Kramnik match. Might as well get on with it!
Nepomniachtchi: 7.5 / 8 !!!
Those Topalov fans are really funny get up boys! (You know what is 23-14 ???) Answer is at the end of my message!
Kramnik and Topalov has different styles and you can choose one of them for favorite one. People always choose favorites whom they see near to their soul and game style. I feel Kramnik is near to me, because I think he is really a nice person (calm and gentelman) and beside this I think he is one of the strongest players of chess history.
My attention on Kramnik did not start with his championship or tournament results. When I started to care about chess (I think I was 14) I (as every chess fan) first met with great Kasparov through chess books or magazines. And some years did not see any young opponent against him.
But later saw that a young man (Kramnik) was able to beat Kasparov many times and thought that he will be further champion. And after a big complexity in the chess world finally he is now unified champion.
Coming to Topalov, I am sure he has lots of agressiveness (as polo_mateo said yesterdays post) and lots of desire to be WCC. That is very normal because he was only FIDE’s champion and noone saw him as a real chess champion! He was never a unified champion as Kasparov, Karpov or Kramnik! He will be very very happy to be in same “class” with those “real champions”! To proof he faced Kramnik and lost, he did not only loose a match he lost lots of support in chessworld.
You may play agressive and brilliant chess on the board, but when you start to accuse opponent in loosing situations, and when you start to be “restpectless” so I only say Kramnik is better for me say if he decreases to 1600 ELO!
Kramnik is champion, Topalov is not! That is the reality that Topa-low fans HAVE TO KNOW! Get up boys it’s morning!
Answer: 23-14 (and 41 draws) is overall record between Kramnik-Topalov games. And one of Topalov’s “full point” is the stolen 5th game of Elista!
Topa will keep on beating in the final round the tourist drawniks from the former Soviet Union
hairy kaya,
keep your nonsense for yourself please. you are wasting space and our time. it’s clear you don’t know anything about chess. On the positive side – some English lessons would make a great difference for you.
hairy kaya,
you are so totaly right..those topalov fans still think that topalov is better than kramnik!
in elista kramnik won, end of story kramnik is better
One interesting thing in chess is that perfect knowledge of the english language is related to elo.
One interesting thing about this blog is that only Susan Polgar can decide when a comment is unwanted.
One interesting thing about Kramnik is that he has remained polite.
Hayri Kaya
>> end of story kramnik is better
Maybe you want it to be the end but it is not. There is a total defeat and humiliation for the cheater Kramnik in the end.
It’s absolutely wrong that Kramnik is polite, gentleman and that Topalov is respectless! Stop talking bulshit. That’s a huge lie and a deep fallacy that takes place in some people’s minds. I think that sport is not for cheaters after all – if you have some health problem or issue that bothers you and makes you go to the bathroom like 4-5 times a minute – then probably you need a walk in the mountain or visiting the hospital, and not to be a professional sportsman. An if someone like Topalov wants the rules to be rules and reminds us that this should be the way things are (i think this is an example of being respectfull to the game, to the fans, and to the sport), then he is respectless, is that what Kramnik fans are trying to say ?!?
Kramnik is a total cheater, and every time i see his face, i can only laugh. Remember, an UTP5 internet cable was found in the toilet he used to visit so frequently…
I wish the chess community would be able to agree on a format for the world championships – the situation today is a mess.
However, the real world champion at the moment is Kramnik, and as Corus Chess has no connection to the world championship, the results here have no bearing on that fact…
ok….lets get this str8…
kramnik DID NOT CHEAT!!!if he wants to get up and go to the lounge or toilet its perfectly fine!
furthermore ther was video survalance and they also looked and could not find any cheating devises in the toilet kramnik used!
there was also a writen contract, and it did not say that he could not go to the toilet or the lounge to think over his moves!, kramnik sighned that contract, topalov sighned that contract.
topalov lost the first two matches and then relised…that he cant beat kramnik!. so topalov and danilov ster shit up so that kramnik would get frustrated and start playing wers.
lol, but he still just couldnt do it!! he just still couldnt beat kramnik!
evan karpov said that he wouldnt of kept playinbg if he was kramnik korchnoi also said that he wouldnt have played on after the bull shit topalov came up with about kramnik cheating!
kramnik played on ..he played on even with topalov saying that he is cheating and all that, he played on for the fans! he played on when everyone else wouldnt of!
kramnik is the world champ and he deserves to be!
Its amazing how polarized views become when adressing the Kramnik/Topalov situation. I for one have great respect for both as chess players. Topalov’s play while not as graceful as Kramnik’s is certainly more exciting and I think he has the potential to do better in tournaments since he tends to crush lesser opposition at a better rate than Kramnik.
On the matter of the World Championship I think Topa shot himself in the foot and the accusations against Kramnik actually affected his play more than Vlad’s. A bit like when Kasparov became paranoid about Deep Blue and ended up playing really badly as a result.
No one can tell if there was any cheating going on at Elista. Most modern buildings are covered by networks of wires going here there and everywhere. The finding of a cable in the bathroom means nothing – you cant receive a signal with a cable alone – you need some kind of computer to accept the signal and display it, so where was the computer – in his ear? perhaps his glasses are really television monitors!
Its also very hard to tell from moves whether the very top players are using a computer since they are such good players. I think Jeremy Silman did a test on an old WC game (1950s? Botvinik/Smyslov? can’t remember) and discovered that a significant portion of the moves in that game followed Fritz’z recommendations – before Fritz had been invented!
The discussion is irrelevant anyway Kramnik is WC like it or not and has been the WC since he beat Kasparov (in order to argue that the FIDE WCs were real world champions you would have to believe that Karpov was the true WC in 1993 not Kasparov – few people believe that).
Have to admit in some ways I would like to see Topa as WC (via a rematch with Kramnik not via this Mexico nonsense) since it would guaratee exciting chess matches.
Unfortunately it’s not up to the chess community, it’s down to Ilyumzhinov diktat – that’s why it’s a mess.
If FIDE had any brains, they would increase Mexico to 10 players, adding in Topalov and Leko; and replacing Leko in the Candidates with Ivanchuk.
If we could start over, without prior committments, then most sensible would be to seed Kramnik, Topalov, Anand, and Leko into quarterfinal matches (of at least 10 games), each playing a qualifier. The 4 qualifiers to come from a 16 player round robin of the next 16 most deserving players.
Now that would be a REAL World Championship format! Not too difficult is it?
In all this noise over trifling details, an event with a potentially great importance for chess was hushed up. On January 18, in Wijk ann Zee, Nederlands, was concluded the agreement for forming the Grand Slam in chess. It includes the tournaments in Wijk, Linares/Morelia and Mtel Masters. The last tournament will be played on a rotational basis with this year’s venue being Bilbao, Spain. Because those are very strong tournaments, they will soon superseed the weak tournaments organised by FIDE if this organisation continues with its mistaken policies.
i don’t know either player personally, but from what i’ve seen of them in post game conferences and analysis, topalov seems like the nicer guy
poor carlsen…were you expecting him to do better, Susan?
Funny, some of the same people here that have criticized Topalov for his suspicions are some of the same people that probably hail Fischer as this hero for his ridiculous behavior and accusations during his run for the title. When Topalov was accused of cheating at San Luis, did the chess world vilify his accusers? Where were the condemnations against those GMs that accused him?
I understand that some of you love Kramnik, but the hypocrisy is silly. Kramnik won the championship, fine. But is he the same type of ambassador for chess that Kasparov was? No. Does he really fight in tournaments, not really.. While I accept him as champion, I don’t think he displays world champion qualities. To think all of this would have been avoided if Kasparov had fought harder in his games as White in their match…
>>This should shut the mouths for Kramnik supporters who have a modicum of decency. >>
Oh yes, any decent person should admit that the loser of a match was actually the winner.
Geez, with friends like these, Topalov doesn’t need any enemies. “It doesn’t matter if he’s a nutcase and a terrible sport if he’s a great player.” Anyone with any intelligence would be trying to put this incident behind them, rather than justify it.
>It’s absolutely wrong that Kramnik is polite, gentleman and that Topalov is respectless! Stop talking bulshit. That’s a huge lie and a deep fallacy that takes place in some people’s minds.>
Well, we can all see for ourselves that that’s true, but gee, if an anonymous guy on the internet says it isn’t, then our eyes and ears must be wrong, huh.
Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo.
“Topa will keep on beating in the final round the tourist drawniks from the former Soviet Union”
Topalov lost the match. Get over it, already and stop disgracing Bulgaria.
>> Geez, with friends like these, Topalov doesn’t need any enemies.
This exact silly phrase is repeated in those blogs for more than 10 times. It’s one and the same miserable Kramnik fan. By the style, it looks like Tom Chivers hiding his identity.
>> eyes and ears must be wrong, huh.
Yes, your eyes and years need retuning.
>>Maybe you want it to be the end but it is not. There is a total defeat and humiliation for the cheater Kramnik in the end. >>
It seems kinda hypocritical to give your own guy a pass when you know he cheated, and then condemn someone else on wishful thinking. Also seems kinda stupid to be so blatant about admitting that Topalov can’t be defended any other way.
Still, if that’s your game plan, don’t let me change it. Heh, heh.
>> stop disgracing Bulgaria.
If winning the tournament is disgracing Bulgaria, I am all for it.
“This should shut the mouths for Kramnik supporters who have a modicum of decency.”
They should stop the tournament right now and give the trophy to Topalov! And give him the world title for life.
“This exact silly phrase is repeated in those blogs for more than 10 times. It’s one and the same miserable Kramnik fan. By the style, it looks like Tom Chivers hiding his identity.”
The phrase “Kramnik cheated”, without a scintilla of supporting evidence, occurs more times than that. So, by your reasoning, all those posts are written by the same guy.
Really, your argument is ridiculous. Topalov is the most hated man in the entire chess world now. His behavior violated FIDE Ethics rules and not a single GM supported it. To try to blame his troubles on one guy that nobody ever heard of is just dumb.
>>This exact silly phrase is repeated in those blogs for more than 10 times.>>
Has it occurred to you that you might keep hearing this because it’s true? If Topalov’s play is great but his behavior is lousy, then friends who focus all the attention on his behavior really aren’t very good friends, are they? Well meaning boobs, at best.
To continue the argument for either side is ridiculous. Why don’t you concentrate on their chess games instead?
Susan and others….take a look at these very interesting clips
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DCLfMpHoHA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht_yJBU3C30
I didn’t know they were filming this. The last minutes of the real King..:)
I find all the Kramnik-Topalov stuff a bit odd. I have no idea if Kramnik was cheating – so can’t think of him as a cheat. Certainly as there is no evidence. I’m sure no-one else can know either – so how come all these pundits think they can?
Meanwhile Topalov was faced by a guy who kept going to the loo and COULD be cheating – and so his seconds tried to make sure that wasn’t happening. So you can’t really think of him as necessarily being the evilest person on the planet either. (spotting someone is in a position to cheat and making sure they can’t…isn’t necessarily accusing them of cheating – but that’s another story).
So, in the absence of knowing the facts, how can you hate either of them?
Banjanx
oh god all mighty
make the morons stop talking about who is better between Topa and Kramnik.
oh god all mighty
Give each one of them a life
Amen.
ioannis,
how many toilet breaks did kasparov take in this video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DCLfMpHoHA
must be a cheater.
Good to have video to catch any touch movers.
magnus about to cry in picture
OMG Kasparov left the table!! Where is he going? Follow him!!!
Exactly my point anonymous.
>>So, in the absence of knowing the facts, how can you hate either of them?
Banjanx >>
Ah, but we’re not without facts. We know for a fact that Topalov attacked his opponent publicly without evidence, and in so doing broke FIDE Ethics rules, the rules of chess, and drove a reprimand from the ACP for conduct disgraceful to the game. We know he apologized and admitted he’d over-reacted, and then retracted his apology, claiming he himself was lying when he made it, and invented new charges again without evidence.
The world hates Topalov because chess is having a hard enough time getting sponsorship without one guy damaging the credibility of the game for his own personal benefit. Especially a guy who’s been attacked this way in the past himself, and should have known better. Topalov isn’t evil for having suspicions, he’s evil for dealing with them in a manner damaging to the game of chess. Since he sees nothing wrong with what he did, he’s too loose a cannon to be allowed near a title event for some time to come.
“hairy kaya,
keep your nonsense for yourself please. you are wasting space and our time. it’s clear you don’t know anything about chess. On the positive side – some English lessons would make a great difference for you.”
Who are you? This your style represents that you were not able to answer me and got angry and than wrote about stupid post. Are you owner of this blog? If you are respectful for people give your name! As I am open to everyone to argue what Kramnik is and what Topalov is. Here I am come on all Topa fan (funniees)!
Kramnik 23- Topalov 14 (1 is stolen point of Elista!)
“Great picture! Real World Champion take a look on his successor…”
Hahahah I liked this comment! That is what all “real loosers” are called “real champions” nice so what about the winner? :DDDDDDDD
Kramnik 23- Topalov 14 (1 is stolen bla bla bla…)
In the picture above , guess where Kramnik is ?
In the johns, off course!
So why those topa fans like so much speaking about Kramnik’s toilet visits? Don’t you know that he has a serious illness and can not sit for long time? If you know this and still trying to mock with champion that shows only your “humanity!”.
And what if he is not in the picture and that topalof is looking in “deep hate” to the champions game? may be he suggested something to little carlsen to get draw? Why not!
here is my blog for Kramnik and see the photos of real gentelmen and hater Topalov if you want to see why Kramnik is a gentelman check this!
http://kramniktheunifiedchampion.blogspot.com
Anonymous said…
Nepomniachtchi: 7.5 / 8 !!!
+++++
We should learn how to pronaunce this name quickly. Seriously look at his games
I don’t understand why people extend this subject, Elista.. Do you think those two guys need your defence? No, not at. They both are great players who have different manners. No need to be more Kramnik or More Topalov, more than them themselves..
Kraldan cok kralci olmaya gerek yok degil mi Hayricigim..
“Ankylosing spondylitis is a painful, progressive rheumatic disease… the bones begin to fuse together… symptoms can be prevented and relieved by regular movement of the areas involved”
Thats why Kramnik has to get up regularly to exercise in the toilet. If Kramnik sits for too long, he might find his bones fused together and cant move…
Imagine a chessplayer who cant lift his arm to move a piece 🙁 that would be a tragedy 🙁
Of course if Topalov allows it, Kramnik could exercise infront of Topalov, that way we can be sure Kramnik isnt getting computer assistance in the toilet.. but I guess thats too much to ask for.
Nepomniashchiy (Непомнящий) = Who can’t remember (Russ.)
Very misleading. Lol.
It’s unfortunate that some of the bloggers here seem to represent a sizeable portion of chess fandom. Certainly not the majority but an all too large a portion.
THIS is the real problem with chess. It’s not the personalities of the superstars.