Gashimov Memorial

A week left until the Gashimov Memorial starts with this field:

#1 Carlsen 2881

#5 Caruana 2783

#7 Karjakin 2772

#9 Nakamura 2772

#10 Mamedyarov 2760

#33 Radjabov 2713

Average rating 2780, and one of the "youngest" super tournaments ever with all participants in their 20s.

Carlsen's latest loss came June 15th, against Caruana. Maybe it's time for his first loss in ten months, or his first loss against Nakamura, who is the only player in the field not to have beaten Carlsen in classical chess.

For Carlsen there are two pleasant opponents and three less comfortable ones in the tournament, listing them in head to head order:

Nakamura +8-0=15

Radjabov +8-1=17

Karjakin +3-1=11

Caruana +3-2=6

Mamedyarov +1-1=6

Mamedyarov has only played one game against Carlsen the last six years, and the one player in the field he has a minus score against is Radjabov.

Nakamura's stats against the non-World Champions in the field look rather good, with +3 against Caruana and Karjakin, +1 against Radjabov and -1 against Mamedyarov.

Karjakin's stats look bad with minus scores against all opponents, -3 against Caruana and Nakamura, -2 against Carlsen, and -1 against Radjabov and Mamedyarov.

Aaah, thank you for these stats! Always love to read and go through them! 

At the Gashimov Memorial, will there be a doctor on hand with antidote for the hypnotoad?

#licked

First round:

Carlsen vs Mamedyarov

Nakamura vs Caruana

Karjakin vs Radjabov

Impressive win by Carlsen against Mamedyarov and new live rating record with 2885.7.

Oh, terrible. :)

Caruana was on the way to get his first win against Nakamura, but messed things up in time trouble, so Carlsen is the only winner today. Carlsen vs Nakamura in round 2 will be interesting as always.

Remember too that this is the 1st game between Carlsen & Nakamura since the trading of insults a couple of months ago. Naka comparing Magnus to the evil character in the Lord Of The Rings movie & Magnus responding with a verbal checkmate by saying something like "if he (Naka) were a stronger player I might be offended". Pow! Wow, maybe it will be a fun game. Still, Naka is 0-8 with 15 draws vs Magnus. He can talk all he wants but the math doesn't lie.

Magnus has a win expectancy of 6.5 out of 10 this tournament. For his rating to break 2900 he would have to score 8.5. I don't think that will happen.

Call the doctor for Mamedyarov.

Mamedyarov vs Radjabov usually means that no real game is played, but hopefully it will be this time. Even their last five blitz games have been drawn, before move 15. The score in classical is +1 -0 =10 to Radjabov, but then the one win came in what some considered dubious circumstances. In the last Grand Prix event in 2010 Radjabov needed a win, to secure himself a spot in the Candidates. If he did this Mamedyarov would also be included there, since he would get the Azerbaijani sponsor spot, and Mamedyarov played badly and lost the game.

Does anyone know of any good links for commentary on these games please?

Thanks Estragon, I may go with the playchess site.

I've also found this one:

http://new.livestream.com/chess24/ShamkirChess

chess24 site is the best, svidler and gustafsson are the commentators! I really hope to see a lot of blood today lol

This far Mamedyarov-Radjabov seems to be the most interesting game, Caruana keeps banging his head against the Berlin wall but it doesn't seem to get him anywhere, while Carlsen-Nakamura looks solid and drawish.

Is Naka going to lose yet again? It looks like he's going to get in time trouble.

Caruana-Karjakin already drew a game where nothing happened, and Mamedyarov-Radjabov has petered out and will soon be drawn too, while Carlsen is trying to squeeze out another win against Nakamura.

Has Naka thought for about 50 minutes on move 18 or is something wrong with the moves being relayed or is it my computer?

After 23 moves Carlsen seems to have just over an hour left, while Nakamura has 45 minutes.