 |
Seventh Tal Memorial in Moscow
The event is a ten-player round robin event, is taking place from June
8th to 18th in the Pashkov House (Vozdvizhenka Street 3/5, p.1), Moscow,
Russia. Rest days are June 11 and 15. Time control: 100
minutes for the first 40 moves, 50 minutes for the next 20 moves, and
15 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per
move starting from move one. Games start at 15:00h
local time (last round 13:00h).
Draw offers are not allowed until after the first time control. The participants
are required to comment on their games in the press center after each
round. The prize fund is 100,000 Euros.
|

The venue: Pashkov House in Moscow, Vozdvizhenka Street 3/5

A view of the Kremlin from the first floor balcony
Participants in the Tal Memorial
Eight of the top eleven players in the world are taking part, with only Anand,
Karjakin and Ivanchuk missing. Tomashevsky is included as the European Champion
2009, and Luke McShane because he won a viewers' poll on the web site of the
Russian Chess Federation.
Player |
Rating |
Country |
w-rank |
Magnus Carlsen |
2835 |
Norway |
1 |
Levon Aronian |
2825 |
Armenia |
2 |
Vladimir Kramnik |
2801 |
Russia |
3 |
Teimour Radjabov |
2784 |
Azerbaijan |
5 |
Hikaru Nakamura |
2775 |
USA |
7 |
Fabiano Caruana |
2770 |
Italy |
8 |
Alexander Morozevich |
2769 |
Russia |
9 |
Alexander Grischuk |
2761 |
Russia |
11 |
Evgeny Tomashevsky |
2738 |
Russia |
15 |
Luke McShane |
2706 |
England |
39 |
The opening ceremony was on Thursday,
June 7th at 18:00h, with a unique drawing of colours: it took place as a
nine-round blitz tournament – 3min + 2sec – and the top five finishers
stood to get an extra white in the main tournament. The prize fund for the opening
blitz: 15,000 Euros. There was high quality video coverage of the opening ceremony
and the blitz tournament on the official site.
Once again the Russian organisers are providing unprecedented
coverage,
with a HD video stream of the action and commentary by grandmasters.
|
The opening ceremony blitz tournament of the Tal Memorial featuring the world’s
best, and brought a lot of highly entertaining action. With so many elite players,
pointing to a favorite was simply impossible. While there was a time when the
world number one was usually the dominant blitz player, such as Fischer, Karpov,
Kasparov, Anand, and even Kramnik, who traded shots with Garry at his peak,
Magnus Carlsen has not really distanced himself from the others in this particular
modality. Similarly Hikaru Nakamura, whose legendary online bullet results are
constantly brought up by commentators, has not had the same impact in the blitz
world championships, where he is an obvious contender, just not an outright
favorite.
At the start of the blitz Carlsen lost to Aronian, in the second round, but
this was not the end. He followed up by successive wins and inspired play, and
caught up with Morozevich soon enough. Depending on which round you checked
the crosstable, you would find Morozevich, Grischuk, and Carlsen at the top
of the leaderboard. The three showed themselves to be the players in form that
day.
Round seven seemed decisive, as Carlsen lost his encounter with Morozevich,
while Grischuk won his to move to second place. But round eight changed all
this, and suddenly both the Norwegian and Morozevich were once again in sole
lead. This deadlock was not broken in the final round, when both won, but the
tiebreak system, favoring the player with the most blacks, gave Alexander Morozevich
the top honors and 5,000 Euros, with Magnus Carsen in second with 3,000.
All in all, it was a magnificent way to get the event going, with adrenaline
and fun for all. And available to fans all over the world as a live HD video
stream, from which we grabbed the following images. We cannot praise the organisers
enough for this pioneering effort in chess broadcast: Chapeau!

Start of the closing ceremony with the blitz tournament

Once again the Russian organisers excelled themselves with live HD video
of the action



A special page with cross tables
and round results was updated almost instantaneously




The tournament is partially financed by ads which are played between the
rounds,
just like on TV coverage of sport events. Organisers all over the world should
study this model.

You could follow the action on a full screen or with the game and analysis
next to the video

The moves were accompanied by expert commentary and analysis – everything
beautifully executed!
The commentary for the blitz was in Russian, but we assume during the main event
it will also be in English
Final standings

Schedule and Results
We have worked out the following pairings and schedule for the main event
on the basis of the blitz results. They may be modified once the official web
site publishes them.
Round
1: Friday, June 8, 2012 |
Alex. Morozevich |
|
Fabiano Caruana |
Magnus Carlsen |
|
Vladimir Kramnik |
Alexander Grischuk |
|
Luke McShane |
Teimour Radjabov |
|
Ev. Tomashevsky |
Levon Aronian |
|
Hikaru Nakamura |
|
Round
2: Saturday, June 9, 2012 |
Fabiano Caruana |
|
Hikaru Nakamura |
Ev. Tomashevsky |
|
Levon Aronian |
Luke McShane |
|
Teimour Radjabov |
Vladimir Kramnik |
|
Alexander Grischuk |
Alex. Morozevich |
|
Magnus Carlsen |
|
Round
3: Monday, June 10, 2012 |
Magnus Carlsen |
|
Fabiano Caruana |
Alexander Grischuk |
|
Alex. Morozevich |
Teimour Radjabov |
|
Vladimir Kramnik |
Levon Aronian |
|
Luke McShane |
Hikaru Nakamura |
|
Ev. Tomashevsky |
|
Round
4: Tuesday, June 12, 2012 |
Fabiano Caruana |
|
Ev. Tomashevsky |
Luke McShane |
|
Hikaru Nakamura |
Vladimir Kramnik |
|
Levon Aronian |
Alex. Morozevich |
|
Teimour Radjabov |
Magnus Carlsen |
|
Alexander Grischuk |
|
Round
5: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 |
Alexander Grischuk |
|
Fabiano Caruana |
Teimour Radjabov |
|
Magnus Carlsen |
Levon Aronian |
|
Alex. Morozevich |
Hikaru Nakamura |
|
Vladimir Kramnik |
Ev. Tomashevsky |
|
Luke McShane |
|
Round
6: Thursday, June 14, 2012 |
Fabiano Caruana |
|
Luke McShane |
Vladimir Kramnik |
|
Ev. Tomashevsky |
Alex. Morozevich |
|
Hikaru Nakamura |
Magnus Carlsen |
|
Levon Aronian |
Alexander Grischuk |
|
Teimour Radjabov |
|
Round
7: Saturday, June 16, 2012 |
Teimour Radjabov |
|
Fabiano Caruana |
Levon Aronian |
|
Alexander Grischuk |
Hikaru Nakamura |
|
Magnus Carlsen |
Ev. Tomashevsky |
|
Alex. Morozevich |
Luke McShane |
|
Vladimir Kramnik |
|
Round
8: Sunday, June 17, 2012 |
Fabiano Caruana |
|
Vladimir Kramnik |
Alex. Morozevich |
|
Luke McShane |
Magnus Carlsen |
|
Ev. Tomashevsky |
Alexander Grischuk |
|
Hikaru Nakamura |
Teimour Radjabov |
|
Levon Aronian |
|
Round
9: Monday, June 18, 2012 |
Levon Aronian |
|
Fabiano Caruana |
Hikaru Nakamura |
|
Teimour Radjabov |
Ev. Tomashevsky |
|
Alexander Grischuk |
Luke McShane |
|
Magnus Carlsen |
Vladimir Kramnik |
|
Alex. Morozevich |
|
Playchess live commentary plan for the Tal Memorial 2012
08.06.2012 |
Round 1 |
Daniel King |
09.06.2012 |
Round 2 |
Lawrence Trent |
10.06.2012 |
Round 3 |
Lawrence Trent |
11.06.2012 |
Free Day |
|
12.06.2012 |
Round 4 |
Daniel King |
13.06.2012 |
Round 5 |
Robert Ris |
14.06.2012 |
Round 6 |
Robert Ris |
15.06.2012 |
Free Day |
|
16.06.2012 |
Round 7 |
Lawrence Trent |
17.06.2012 |
Round 8 |
Daniel King |
18.06.2012 |
Round 9 |
Yasser Seirawan |
Copyright
ChessBase