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| Posted by magna68 mailcafe.net 12/16/2006 04:22:39 Play online chess |  Subject: Has Topa totally lost it?Message: -> www.chessninja.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted by ganstaman mailcafe.net 12/16/2006 09:29:11 Play online chess | Message: But look back at the history of what Russians have done or been accused of doing to ensure the player they want to win something wins it. And then tell Topalov that his opponent is going to the bathroom very often, the only place with no camera, but a wire was found in the ceiling (and don't even bother explaining why there would be a wire legitimately in the ceiling). Before the match he was confident, but now Kramnik is making strong moves. For someone without a strong personality, you can easily convince them that they are being cheated. And it's really not that hard to believe, either (though I personally don't think Kramnik cheated at all). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted by magna68 mailcafe.net 12/16/2006 12:39:47 Play online chess | ganstaman Message: What do you mean by that ganstaman? Would his blather make more sense in US Today or Newsweek? Don't think so. The rest of your post you use trying to justify his accusations, even if you admit in the end that you don't believe he's right. Don't really understand where you are going. ——— A New Theory on the Origin of the Lewis Chessmen — The Lewis Chessmen are the most famous and important chess pieces in history. They have a long historical and scholarly record, part of which is that they were made in Norway roughly 800 years ago. But now two Icelandic men are challenging that belief and trying to prove that the chess pieces came from their country. The pieces were discovered on the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, in 1831 — hence their name. Carved mostly out of walrus tusk, they were found in a small carrying-case made of stone inside a sand dune. There are different theories about how they ended up there, including that they were left over from a shipwreck or that they were stolen and buried on the island and ... Posted by ganstaman | mailcafe.net 12/16/2006 13:37:24 Play online chess Message: It's actually not to hard to understand why someone thinks something without agreeing with it yourself. I don't think Kramnik was cheating. However, I can understand why Topalov could believe Kramnik was cheating. ——— Rapid Games Win Over New Fans — Many people who would like to see chess attract more fans agree that traditional games — which usually last several hours — are too slow for all but the die-hard. At the same time, blitz chess — where players have only five minutes for all their moves — are fun to watch and attract crowds on street corners, but they are riddled with errors. Rapid games, where each player starts with 20 or 25 minutes and then has additional time — often 10 seconds — added after each move, seem to be a happy medium. The format is becoming more popular, and there are now many chess tournaments that feature it. Two elite chess events last week used rapid-game time controls. One was the annual ... Posted by bucklehead | mailcafe.net 12/16/2006 16:12:59 Play online chess Mig? Biased?Message: It's not like Daily Dirt made it up. Follow the link on his page ( -> www.abc.es ) and you can see the interview in the original Spanish. ——— Aronian Leads Shanghai Masters — In 2008, the Grand Slam Chess Final Masters was created to bring together the winners of the top chess tournaments of the year. Last year, the final was reduced to four competitors from six because of the economic downturn, but it still included the winners of the year’s elite chess events. This year the formula was changed. While the grand slam still includes top chess players, their selection is more arbitrary. And there are two events: A final that will be, as in the first two years, in Bilbao, Spain (and to which Viswanathan Anand of India, the world chess champion, and Magnus Carlsen of Norway, the world’s top-ranked chess player, are already invited), and a preliminary tournament in Shanghai, China, to ... Posted by magna68 | mailcafe.net 12/16/2006 16:23:09 Play online chess Message: "The major Spanish daily ABC has a long interview with Veselin Topalov by Federico Marin Bellon, apparently done after Topalov lost the final blindfold game with Judit Polgar in Bilbao (he had already clinched the match)." I understand it can be hard to believe that Topalov really made some of those comments, but sadly it looks all to be true. ——— Vishy Anand throws down the gauntlet to Magnus Carlsen — Vishy Anand set the agenda for top chess in 2010, and probably 2011, when he declared after retaining his world chess title that his ambition now is to regain the No1 spot in the global chess rankings. Anand thus laid down his gauntlet to Magnus Carlsen, the Norwegian who leads the international list and whose current rating of 2826 is the second highest mark ever after Garry Kasparov. Anand's ambition might seem reasonable for a reigning world chess champion, but in reality it is highly ambitious and there will be many doubters. At age 40, the Indian's strength now seems to be increasingly in the slower pace of one-to-one matches rather than in the cut and thrust of chess tournaments ... Posted by ganstaman | mailcafe.net 12/16/2006 16:29:05 Play online chess Message: As for his bias, I admit I only started looking at that site when the game 5 fiasco began. Since then, I haven't seen him say anything good about Topalov (could be because everyone only links to that site when there's something bad to say). Still doesn't change my ability to understand what was going through Topalov's head. You don't have to be insane to believe these things. ——— Kamsky Wins Strong Chess Tournament in Azerbaijan — Gata Kamsky is enjoying a renaissance. A year ago, Kamsky seemed to be slipping. He lost a semifinal match for the world chess championship to Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in early 2009. After that he had a few lackluster tournaments and his world ranking dropped to 41 from 18. His ranking has still not full recovered (he is No. 34 on the current list, which was released Wednesday), but his results have improved. Earlier this year, he won the United States Chess Championship for only the second time in his career. Last month, he won the Grenke Open at the Chess Classic in Mainz, Germany. He finished ahead of a world class field that included Levon Aronian of Armenia, Alexander Grischuk and ... Posted by sayb | mailcafe.net 12/17/2006 07:43:16 Play online chess noMessage: It's one of those things in the world where if you speak your mind about what's really obvious you look like a bigot or a close-minded looney. I'm sorry that ganstaman had to suffix his post with the "though I personally don't think Kramnik cheated at all" disclaimer to avoid flames here. It's not hard to imagine russians doing something like this. What is Kasparov campaigning against after all? He's recently had his headquarters ambushed by russian police and turned upsidedown with a FAKE warrant. Is it a far cry from that to send a few chess moves electronically (maybe with a wireless device in Kramnik's tooth or ear) to protect a title they've always been willing to go to extreme and illegal measures to protect in the past? Posted by bucklehead | mailcafe.net 12/17/2006 09:27:45 Play online chess To be fair...Message: For my part, the play at the chessboard more than trumps strange bathroom-visitation patterns or unidentified cables found in ceilings (where's Kramnik's USB port, anyway?). Both those guys played some shoddy chess, and a computer would have smacked them around but good. Are we alleging that the Russians are so powerful as to have concealed a cable and telepathic-transmission apparatus but not sharp enough to get the latest version of Rybka? Posted by sayb | mailcafe.net 12/17/2006 16:29:07 Play online chess wellMessage: topalov's team claims that they witnessed evidence.. but to be honest.. a cable in a ceiling is pretty stupid proof.. definitely an embarassment that topalov cites that as proof. i still lean more in the direction that kramnik cheated. but that "proof" was really lame.. and slightly pushes me over to the kramnik camp Posted by yanm | mailcafe.net 12/17/2006 22:32:40 Play online chess conspiracy theory here we areMessage: hand, I cannot also conclusively say that Topalov/Dainalov haven't totally lost their marbles... But in what I actually believe is that Kramnik didn't cheat and that Topalov is a real weirdo but saddly I don't have any conclusive proof. sayb "one possibility is that he made some moves on his own and used the computer for some.. he could easily have made some intentional mistakes in order to make it all seem real." I think that this is really the kind of comment that Topalov's team could have done. And isn't it called 'building a castle out of thin air' or something like that? Just kidding :D cheers, yanm Posted by ionadowman | mailcafe.net 12/17/2006 23:31:22 Play online chess Well, yeah...Message: Reminds me of Olympias's hystrionic grief at the funeral of her assassinated husband, Philip II of Macedonia. "She seemed to be afraid the people would think her innocent" was the mordant comment of an observer. Maybe something of the sort was at work here - Vlad letting Topa know he's cheating - but retaining enough "plausible deniability" to make Topa look bad if he kicked up a fuss. Do I believe it? Is the Pope a Buddhist? It seems to me that a whole lot of people are reaching for any old stick to beat the Russians with. As usual. Cheers, Ion Posted by sayb | mailcafe.net 12/18/2006 12:31:44 Play online chess Message: If the network cable would have any plausibility it would be because there was a private room right ABOVE that bathroom that Kramnik would have access to. And if that were the case, Topalov and his manager would definitely have raised a fuss about that. (The only argument against that logic is that Topalov and Danilov were pressured to keep their mouths shut. That's stretching it a bit. Possible but a stretch) Plus where was the computer for the network cable? That could have been in the ceiling too (a laptop of course) and removed promptly afterwards, but that's a big stretch. I just find the frequent bathroom visits strange, I don't think Kramnik is strong enough to beat Topalov, I really don't, and I've found Kramnik's behavior very shady for the past years. He spent his LIFE preparing to be the only player to defeat Kasparov in a match. Then he refused a rematch. Then he dodged and ducked every super tournament he was invited to for a long while claiming health problems. Finally he surfaces again for awhile before a match, robs the title again, and I'll bet before long he'll be fading into the shadows again. Maybe he didn't cheat and just wanted Topa to get the impression he was. Almost as bad. Posted by bucklehead | mailcafe.net 12/18/2006 14:25:10 Play online chess Here's the "proof"Message: My Russian is weak and not entirely helpful here, but it's clear that they call the wire in question an "internet cable" (кабел за интернет); though, interestingly, they do not show the END of the cable, which (if Topa's claim is to be taken seriously) should have some sort of terminator to allow connection to an electronic device. PS: If Kasparov wanted a rematch, he should have insisted on including that in the Braingames match contract. But since he was sure he'd win, he didn't want a sour-grapes Vladimir knocking on his door. The Greeks called this "hubris." Posted by yanm | mailcafe.net 12/18/2006 23:48:46 Play online chess chessbaseMessage: I think that if Topalov's team has *real* proofs (not suspicions) they should put them forth, or shut up. Otherwise they are guilty of what is called a libel... Posted by caro-kann | mailcafe.net 12/19/2006 02:09:39 Play online chess That has given thoughtMessage: Posted by ionadowman | mailcafe.net 12/19/2006 23:48:58 Play online chess Karpov-Korchnoi ...Message: All of which doesn't give chess - particularly proffessional chess - a whole lot of cred, really. These kinds of goings on, together with the advent of computer games able to beat the best, means that Big Buck Professional Chess hasn't much longer to live, whence comes to that. Too bad. |