Greetings IW Chess fans!
Finally the match to reunify the world chess championship is upon us, between Classical World Champion Vladimir Kramnik and FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov.As a keen player, I'm pretty ecstatic - fans everywhere have been waiting for this reunification match to happen for some time now to hopefully quell the confusion as to who is in fact 'world champion'.
I've been keeping track of the progress of the games, which so far have yielded some fantastic chess 2.5 to 0.5 in favour of Kramnik, who at this stage has managed to positionally outlast the ever confident and energetic Topalov in two fascinating games. Despite game three being a draw, it also contained some nice tension and hidden tactics, with Kramnik sacrificing a rook for perpetual check.
The mistakes humans make are alarmingly obvious to everyone now using chess engines like Fritz to analyse the games - Topalov for example missed a chance to capitalise on a blunder in the second game with Rxg4+ which would have brought the match back to a tense kind of equilibrium. [img]smile.gif[/img] But such is the fallibility of the human condition, particuarly under stress and time-trouble!
Some fine reports, analysis on the games and indeed the world chess scene in general can be found at ol' chessbase.
www.chessbase.com
So is anyone else following the match? I recall Black Baron being a very strong player (rated above 2000 - you still around mate?) and I'm sure there would be others following it more casually in the news and internet media. There are an abundance of options to view the games live, but the most popular are either playchess.com or the Internet Chess Club (ICC) which requires the software blitzen to be downloaded from
www.chessclub.com. You can get a trial membership for a week in order to view the game and to even play some games against members and training bots whilst you're there.
Topalov has to regroup his forces in order to challenge Kramnik now and will most likely push again for the advantage with white in game four tonight. Will he stick with 1.d4 or go for more forceful tactical chances with 1.e4 and risk facing a sicilian? (Although Kramnik has used the Petroff as an equalising weapon aswell...) Regardless, it should be powerful stuff!
Chequered squares and rook forks to you all,
CD
[ 09-27-2006, 04:33 AM: Message edited by: CerebroDragon ]