FiNet Chess960 Open Started, Rybka Wins Livingston Chess960 Computer World Championship
Article by Eric van Reem
On the fourth day of the Chess Classic, the FiNet Chess960 Open started at 12.30 with 263 players. The chance for amateurs to meet a GM on the other side of the board was very good, because no less than 56 Grandmasters came to Mainz to play the Chess960 extravaganza! Incredible: the top 10 has an ELO average of 2717 and the top seeds are Gashimov, Grishuk, Bacrot, Kamsky and Mamedyarov. After five rounds today there is a Gang of Four sharing the lead with a 100% score: Kamsky, Mamedyarov, Movsesian and Malakhov.
100% sounds familiar to Rybka: however, on the second day of the Livingston Chess960 computer world championship, something strange happened: Rybka did not win all of her games! In the last round of the preliminaries, on the brim of reaching a Fischer-like score, Rybka had to be content with a draw against Shredder, but hey, 11,5/12 games is not that bad!
Gata Kamsky
Favourites need to do repair work on Friday
“Winning the FiNet Open is probably more difficult than playing the FiNet Chess960 world championship”, Hikaru Nakamura said on Wednesday in the press conference. The American ace won the FiNet Chess960 Open, one of the toughest chess tournaments in the world last year. “You have to keep the pace on both days, 11 rounds in two days is really tough in such an incredibly strong field”, Nakamura continued. It is really a hazardous task to predict the winner of the FiNet Chess960 Open this year.
Top seed Vugar Gashimov found out that playing against an experienced Chess960 shark like Klaus Bischoff is not always a pleasure. The Azeri 2740 player lost in the third round, but soon recovered and has 4 points after day 1. A devastating blunder by top German player Arkadij Naiditsch in round four against Sergey Grigoriants reminded experienced Chess Classic followers of the blunder the German made in the last round of the FiNet Open last year. However, he still has six more rounds on Friday to start doing some repair work.
Other favourites like Grishuk, Bacrot, Akopian and Kasimdhanov also dropped a point here and there. The secret favourite of the Chess Classic crew, David Navara has 4,5 points, which is a great starting position for the final day. The best WGM who can keep the pace with the big guns is Marie Rachel Sebag from France. She has four points.
Six more rounds will be played in the FiNet Chess960 on Friday, and the top games will be broadcast live. The 6th round starts at 10.00 AM CET.
Rybka transforms into insatiable piranha
On the second day of the preliminaries Rybka was on the brim of scoring a Fischer-like 100% score in the 5th Livingston Chess960 Computer Chess world championship, but in the last round, the American program had to be content with a draw against Shredder. Vasik Rajlich, the brilliant hyperactive Rybka programmer was pleased with a 11,5/12 score. In the final Rybka will play against the German program Shredder, by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen. Shredder scored 7 points in the preliminaries. Gian-Carlo Pascutto from Belgium was not happy with the mere four points his program DeepSjeng scored. The Kolss brothers learned the hard way that playing a tough world championship with some of the best chess programs in the world is not always a pleasure: Ikarus only scored one point.
Vasik Rajlich
There was some time left for the programmers to play a small blitz exhibition for the spectators after the preliminaries. Surprisingly, Rybka could not win this fun tournament. Shredder showed that it is still a heavyweight in the computer chess world and convincingly won the blitz with 4,5 points/ 6 games. For Stefan Meyer-Kahlen it was a sign that Rybka is not unbeatable and that will boost his self confidence for the final that will be played on Friday. All games will be broadcast live in the CCM live Portal. The final starts at 11.00 AM CET.
Livingston Chess960 Computer World Championship preview
