Topping more than 100 GMs
Cappelle La Grande winner
The Cappelle tournament was won by the Ukranian chess grandmaster Yuri Vovk. Certainly I had never heard of him before this brilliant success, but what does that really mean? The Ukrane has so many great chess players coming onto the scene that it makes you wonder how much longer we will have to wait to see a World Champion from that great country! Whenever I am playing in these big european swiss tournaments it seems as though every second opponent is Ukranian! I don't know who is responsible (I hope Cherbonyl had nothing to do with it!) but well done!
Just how unkown is Yuri Vovk? When I did a google search of images ...it became clear that Vovk is best known as a car acessory!
Vovk by any other name, but certainly not Yuri
Yuri, born in 1988, finished with 7.5 pts from 9. There were 3 players with 7 pts. The tournament had more than 600 participants, of which more than 100 were grandmasters! 14 gm and im norms were achieved. Congrats to the organizers for doing a fantastic job!
IS THIS MAN THE BEST PLAYER IN THE WORLD TODAY?
MAYBE! I THINK SO
TOO MANY DRAWS !
Tournament winner on tiebreak
Grischuk lost one game (against the norwegian Carlsen) but won three. Ivanchuk lost none, but only won two games. I have to admit that I don't understand the purpose of tiebreaks: isn't it easier just to throw dice?
Carlsen was third; had he won his last game (he let slip a win in a simple enough ending) then he could have tied for first. Anand finished with 7 points (50%), and last place was the Cuban whiz Dominguez with 6 pts. Clearly the organizers have to do something about the large number of draws. My solution is to make supertournaments 16 player round robbins. I am certain that many of the top 10 rated would not like that: it would do away with the rating protectionism that has kept some of these fat cats up where they do not belong!
TOO MANY DRAWS IS HURTING BIG TIME CHESS
Grischuk is one of the best known poker players amongst the grandmasters
Until Grischuk found a steady girlfriend, he did not know what to do with his hair
What do we really know about Grischuk: this is what wikipedia gives
Alexander Grischuk (born October 31, 1983 ) is a chess grandmaster from Russia. In the FIDE World Chess Championship 2000 he made it to the semi finals.In the FIDE World Chess Championship 2004 he made it to the quarter finals, where he lost 3-1 to Rustam Kasimdzhanov.
He finished in the top 10 in the 2005 FIDE World Cup, which qualified him for the 2007 Candidates Tournament in May-June 2007. He won his matches against Vladimir Malakhov (+2-0=3) and Sergei Rublevsky (tied at +1-1=4, winning the rapid playoff +2-0=1), to advance to the 8 player FIDE World Chess Championship 2007 tournament. In that tournament he scored 5.5 out of 14, placing last in the eight player field.Along with being a top-level professional, Grischuk is also known as one of the best blitz chess players in the world, having once held the record for highest rating achieved on the Internet Chess Club. In 2006 he won the World Blitz Championship in Rishon Lezion, Israel with 10.5 points out of 15 games, winning 10 games.
Grischuk is married to the Ukrainian WGM Natalia Zhukova.
Fair enough. He was born on Halloween, and I guess that explains a lot! He is obviously a super talent, and belongs to that generation of players that has still to dominate. I met Alexander only once, in Calvia two years ago, and at a pub filled with other chessplayers such as Bacrot and Bologan. He seems like a very nice guy. I played Alex's wife in Gibraltar in 2007, and only drew! Afterwards she told me that I had a reputation for being a crazy attacking player (!)
I have been called worse things!
Getting back to Grischuk: let me go on a limb and call him the best player in the world today. I have been following his games for several years now, and I am very impressed. In my opinion it only makes sense that a player in his mid 20's would be the best player, and not someone who is almost 40. I only hope that he lives up to this promotion!
For those of you who have never heard of Alexander, here is a link to a recent video interview
http://baku2008.fide.com/video-interview-of-gm-alexander-grischuk-3.html
