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GM-elect Shankland has truly come out swinging this year at the US
Championship with an impressive 3/4, with notable victories over veterans
Gregory Kaidanov and Larry Christiansen.Shabalov had been struggling, with
1/4 in the first few rounds.However, the tables turned in this game as
Shabalov mixed it up and apparently took Shankland into some tricky home
preparation.Shabalov sacrificed an exchange early in the game, and
retained his extra two pawns as ample compensation throughout.Shankland
resigned on move 39 out of frustration, not wanting to stick around for a
few extra hours in a hopeless endgame.
So many upsets!
This year's US Championship has had a few major upsets thus far, however
it's not surprising that Gata Kamsky and Yury Shulman are leading the field
in group 1 after the completion of round 5.20 year-old Robert Hess is
topping group 2 with a very impressive 4/5 points.It's definitely a shame
that US #1 Hikaru Nakamura has elected not to participate in this year's
event, as it would be fantastic to see another great match-up between these
two rising stars.
My Predictions ...
It seems that Kamsky and Shulman have a good hold on group 1, and will
certainly remain the favorites to make the semi-finals.As for group 2,
Hess has a solid lead over the competition however there is still a lot of
chess to play (4 more rounds until the semi-finals).It seems reasonable to
pick Onischuk as the fourth player in the semi-finals.
Update 23/04/11
My predictions were close. Hess, Kamsky, Shulman and Shankland advancinginto the semi-finals. Onischuk and Shankland went into a tie breaker-round (video) and Shankland won, eliminating Onischuk. In the semi-finals Shankland will play against Kamsky, while Hess will play against Shulman.
For more tournament coverage please check out Will's post with over 8 videos
In the men's section two teams have scored 20 out of 22 match points - ShSM-64 (Gelfand, Wang Hao, Caruana, Giri, Riazantsev, Potkin, Grachev, Najer) and Tomsk-400 (Ponomariov, Motylev, Areschenko, Inarkiev, Bologan, Khismatullin, Kurnosov). ShSM became the Russian Club Champion for the second year in a row on tie-break (board) points by just 0.5 points! The rating favorite, SPBShF (Ivanchuk, Svidler, Vitiugov, Movsesian, Efimenko, Zvjagintsev, Khairullin, Matlakov) came third with 17 match points.
In the women's section the fight for gold was also very intense. By winning 3-1 in the final round, ShSM-RGSU (Kosteniuk, Gunina, Romanko, Girya, Kashlinskaya) clinched the overall victory from the rating favorite AVS (Stefanova, Lahno, Pogonina, Muzychuk M, Savina), which came third. Giprorechtrans (Zhukova, Munguntuul, Zaiatz, Vasilevich I, Fominykh) lost to Ladia (Galliamova, Paikidze, Gaponenko, Turova) 1.5-2.5, but still got silver on board points.
The rules are simple - send us your questions and see them featured in Natalia's Q&As column!
Q1: Are women underrated or overrated as compared to men?
A1: There is no universal answer to this question. Earlier, when women used to play mainly among themselves, they were definitely underrated. After a careful study, in 1987 all women (except for Susan Polgar) were awarded 100 rating points as an attempt to compensate for the gap. Nowadays many women compete on par with men in open tournaments, so their ratings are more or less balanced. Of course, this revives the good old discussion about the difference between playing in elite closed events as opposed to open tournaments, the underratedness or overratedness of certain countries/cities, etc.
Q2: I enjoy your articles on Top 10's (recent ones included Men and Women Grandmasters, Chess Websites, etc.), my question is, what are the top 10 selling chess books of all time? Continued success to you with your OTB games and with your website.
A2:Thanks. Regarding chess books: most publishers don't share this information with the community. Besides, if we take all-times best list, most of the titles would probably be Soviet since at that period the state used to release an enormous amount of copies (like over 100,000). Nowadays few titles can match it. Overall, I doubt that anyone will be able to answer your question adequately.
Q3: How would you rank the world champions? Who is the best player of all times?
A3: This classical debate hardly makes any sense, in my opinion. If we take raw playing strength, then we have to admit that chess players are generally getting better and better each year. However, when discussing "greatness", we have to take into account the personal contribution of a champion into the development of chess, and his relative strength (i.e. how much better he was than his contemporaries). In this respect, I believe that rants along the lines of "Kasparov was the only one to give simuls to national teams and win" - "No, only Fischer could crush top GMs 6-0" - "At Morphy's time no one could even come close to his level", etc. are simply a waste of time (or entertainment - depending on your taste). Let everyone have their own views on this.
Q4: Have you ever played Judit Polgar?
A4: Unfortunately, I haven't. Will have to work a lot on my chess to play in the same league as her and get a chance to meet Judit over the board.
Q5: I know you are on ChessCube/Chess Maniac/Chess Planet...
A5: Watch out for impersonators. If someone claims being Natalia Pogonina and starts saying or doing something weird, it is probably a fake account. A short list of frequently visited chess websites where I have profiles: Chess.com, PlayChess, ChessGames.com, ChessPro.ru, CrestBook.com, RedHotPawn.com, ChessWorld.net, ICC, ChessPlanet.ru, ChessGlum.com. I used to comment or have my articles published at other chess websites (e.g. ChessDom.com, ChessNews.ru, etc.) too.
The rule of thumb in suspicious situations is to contact me via Pogonina.com and find out the truth.
Q6: What is it like playing chess for years as a woman in a male-dominated
activity? Do you think that it is much different from what a man might
experience in a female-dominated activity (if you need an example: knitting)?
A6: Most of the time I am enjoying the process. Of course, there are some obstacles, but some benefits too. As to comparing with female-dominated activities - that is an interesting topic, worth writing a scientific publication on.
Q7: How do the Russian feel about the fact that the Women's Chess Champion is a Chinese girl?
A7: As a leader in international chess, Russia is aimed at regaining both the men's and the women's titles. However, the fact that nowadays there are many competitive professional players all over the world, not only in post-Soviet countries, is beneficial in terms of general development of chess and boosting its popularity.
If you like chess and/or Math and/or puzzles, here is a brain-teaser for you:
Imagine a regular chess board. You are allowed to paint any rank/file in the same color (i.e. make all the a-file, or 4-th rank white or black). By applying such tweaks, can you obtain a board that has just one dark square?
