completely agree with you philipN. No blitz tournament deserves to be great withour Nakamura. i wonder why he is not perticipating there ?
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Yes, last year I was sorry because Nakamura did not join. Maybe he will join this year? I hope so. Although I am not 100% sure that he will win even a blitz tournament if the top players such as Carlsen, and Topalov play. I do believe that Carlsen would do much better if he were healthy. I'm pretty sure he would be in first and maybe Kramnik second.
Yeah, it's pretty obvious that Carlsen has been struggling with his illness; I'm guessing that blitz is even harder to play while sick. Hopefully he'll be feeling better by the beginning of the blitz tournament, now that he's on medication. I'm not 100% sure that Naka would win the blitz tournament with such a field, but it seems unlikely that his participation would have no effect on the final standings. Maybe he'll get invited next year, if he does well in Wijk!
Carlsen probably would have won the Tal Memorial, but the World Blitz Championship is a totally different story. Is Anand participating in it? If so, he will definitely win, beyond the shadow of a doubt. Anand is the best blitz in the world, and it will be exceptionally difficult for anyone, even Nakamura, to beat him.
Naka could've had a good showing at the blitz tournament (perhaps affecting the standings at the top of the crosstable even if he weren't in first place). There is evidence of this in the fact that Grischuk is in 5th place, and--as I found on Natalia Pogonina's website--Naka annihilated him in an ICC match at 3 0 (the WBC time control is 3 2)!
3/2? I thought it was 5/0... Probably I am mistaken. Yes, Nakamura is very good at blitz, but it is not certain if he could beat, say, Carlsen or Anand in a 3/0 10 game match...
quite happy with current blitz event in Moscow. Karpov is a big surprise and eager to see how he'll going the next 2 days.
Nakamura absent is cried out by many people. but outside US mostly people don't see this as an issue. at least from what I read in other forum, I suppose over here more US fans. but yeah I also curious to see Nakamura playing in this kind of event.
Anand is solid, but 1on1 Carlsen did beat him. We shall see it's a close race to the top.
Nilsen should lend Carlsen a hand and teach him some Tai Ch'i! That'll perk him right up!
I got the information that the time control was 3 2 from the chessbase website.
I'll admit that perhaps my complaint about Nakamura's absence has been influenced by my being an American chess fan, but I also think that I would've preferred to have him involved even if I were not from the U.S. because so many people call him the "world's best blitz player" and he has whipped #5 Gruschuk and #6 Ponomariov in blitz matches this year, at 3 0 and 5 0 respectively.
Oh well, maybe he'll get invited next year if he does well in his upcoming events.
Carlsen swept his four closest competitors (Anand, Karjakin, Kramnik and Grischuk) beating them all with both white and black. That is a rare feature in the crosstables of a tournament.
Sorry if someone already posted this and I missed it... You can see World Blitz champion Carlsen square off against Nakamura in the BnBank Blitz tournament (link: http://www.sjakk.no/bnbankblitz/profiler_en.html) Nov. 28th 2009.
Wow, thanks! I didn't know about that:)
I've been following the Tal Memorial, and wondering how the crosstable would be different if Carlsen were healthy, but I have to ask: What are your thoughts about the World Blitz Championship to follow?
I am of the opinion that no blitz tournament deserves that name unless Nakamura is playing:) After all, many consider him to be the best blitz player in the world, he beat WBC participant Ponomariov two for two in San Sebastian, and he did beat Grischuk 14.5-5.5 in an ICC match at 3 0! I suppose that 3 0 is very different from 10 0, or whatever time control they're going to use in the WBC, but still...
I guess he's at least going to get a crack at the world elite at Wijk in January, but I wish he were playing at the World Blitz Championship.