Irina Krush and two or three players from other countries decided not to attend this event, which is held in Russia not far from Georgia where a war is going on. It seems that no player was substituted for her from the USA; would this have been possible?
Also, the entire Georgian delegation is not attending, and although there is a comment that they cannot physically get out of the country, I think it is more likely that they declined for political reasons to travel to Russia. This is very significant because perhaps absolutely, and certainly per capita, Georgia is historically the most significant country in the world in women’s chess. This year I’m not sure how strong their contingent was, but they had about 10 players in the event.
Rather than note the no-shows and re-pair the rest, it seems the tournament is awarding the opponents of the no-shows forfeit wins in their first round matches. So Anna Zatonskih got a little time for sightseeing. nalchik2008.fide.com/news/?lang=eng&id=28
Anna Zatonskih got a forfeit win in her first round match because her opponent did not come to the tournament. So both of our representatives survived the first round.
Humpy Koneru who easily won her first-round match gets a forfeit win in the second round, because her second-round opponent was to be the winner of a match between two Georgians, neither of whom came to the tournament.
Monika Socko won her tiebreak because her opponent’s flag fell in a position where each side had K+N only. The arbiter ruled it a draw because one could not lose it accidentally; one would actually have to try to lose. But the appeals committee overruled, saying that didn’t matter, there is a legal checkmate so mate is possible with sufficiently “unskilled” play. (e.g. White has Kb6, Nc7, Black has Ka8, Nb8. Black would first have to tuck the king in the corner, then move the knight thru possible capture on a6 or c6 to trap the its own king. The knight could not have come from d7 because that would have forced White’s king to move.) I would have probably ruled the same way (anyway I’m not an arbiter) but if FIDE means to include helpmates why don’t they say so?
Ruling the game a win was, I’m pretty sure, consistent with current FIDE rules.
For a while FIDE had a different rule, wherein a player would need to have a “help-mate-minus-one” in order to win on time. That is, there must be a sequence of legal moves (with both sides cooperating) leading to a position where the defender, even though it is his move, cannot avoid a forced loss. But this may have been only in blitz, and it may no longer be the rule even there.
If this had been a USCF tournament, the position would have been ruled a draw under 14E, Insufficient material to win on time. This is different from 14D, Insufficient material to continue, which is more like the FIDE rule.
Hou Yifan and Alexandra Kosteniuk in the final. Hou is 14 years old and is THE REAL THING. She generally dominated Humpy Koneru – when has that ever happened before – to reach the final. Her play is so smooth. Unlimited upside, she has the look of a super-GM to me.
Soon we may see her two plastic hairpins in the qualification events for the Overall World Championship.
Alas Hou Yifan lost today, with white. Tomorrow she has black, but she can come back and win!
I haven’t seen the game score, only a description, but it seems Kosteniuk played quietly, the opposite of Koneru. And Kosteniuk didn’t go with Hou and others on an excursion to the waterfall yesterday, instead no doubt she was preparing openings, certainly the responsible thing to do. nalchik2008.fide.com/photo/?lang=eng&al=28
2 draws, Hou needs a win tomorrow with black or else Kosteniuk is the champion.
I am profoundly impressed with what I have seen of Kosteniuk’s play in this match. It seems that Hou is facing a perfect opponent! Has Kosteniuk made any inaccuracy?
Um, you mean other than TWICE allowing a draw when she was two pawns up? Not the kind of endgame technique one generally associates with a World Champion.
The appeals committee was correct. What the FIDE rule says is that the player whose flag falls loses unless “the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves, even with the most unskilled counterplay.” This differs significantly from the USCF rule, under which a player cannot win on time with only K+N or K+B “unless there is a forced win.” I’m not entirely happy with either formulation, but the USCF rule seems slightly fairer.
I’ve only seen the Game 3 endgame of the two you refer to, and according to Shipov’s analysis which I read over, Kosteniuk “allowed” a draw because that’s all there was in the position with Hou’s perfect defense. I’ve seen top GMs fail to defend endgames as well as Hou did.
And yet, Kosteniuk made even fewer mistakes. Congratulations to her!
I haven’t changed my opinion of Hou. Next cycle she may be too busy with the Overall competition to have time for the Women’s.
I agree that the FIDE rule can lead to some odd results (see westernchess.blogspot.com/2008/0 … nough.html). But consider: No one disputes that a player with K + pawn on the second can win on time against K+Q. (That’s why an experienced player will often eliminate the last pawn before starting to mate.) Would it really require worse play to lose with Q vs pawn than with K+N vs K+N? If you don’t like the FIDE formulation, you will have to come up with one which forbids the latter but allows the former. The USCF’s solution was to list specific exceptions, as many as necessary. This probably leads to a slightly fairer result, but it’s not ideal (in principle, all rules should have a “closed form”).
Well yes, I think K+Q can lose against K+P with very unskilled play. Move the queen around randomly while the opposing pawn promotes to a queen, then do some more random stuff while the other guy basically executes a K+Q vs. K checkmate or allow the queen to be skewered by the opponent’s new queen. A random move generator can and probably would lose this, within 50 moves.
Whereas K+N vs. K+N would only be lost by a random move generator after thousands or millions of moves. Then you run into the 50 move rule. You have to very carefully maneuver the knight (through possible capture) to trap your own king in the corner, to get mated in that one. Generally speaking, I would say that skill is required. For the unskilled to get mated within 50 moves would be the same as for the unskilled monkey to type a Shakespeare sonnet accidentally, within his first 10000 keystrokes. Well almost anyway.
I see from your link that the old FIDE rule said
. What’s wrong with that? Even with the “unskilled” verbiage, you need all the same exceptions for theoretical positions that require more than 50 moves, etc.
You also say there that the USCF rule was “clearly intended to disallow helpmates”. If so, I conclude that K+N vs. K+N would be a draw under USCF rules, because a helpmate is the only mate available in that ending.
You’re confusing two different rules. “(N)either player can checkmate the opponent’s King with any series of legal moves” refers to insufficient material to continue the game. That’s not relevant here. The one that applies is insufficient material to win on time, which is where the “even against the most unskilled counterplay” comes in. What they’re trying to do is make a distinction between a position which is immediately drawn because no checkmate is possible for either player, and a position in which a player may not win on time because he does not have “mating material” (however that is defined).
As for USCF rules, K+N vs K+N is explicitly covered in 14E2 (a player may not win on time if he has only K+B or K+N “and does not have a forced win.”) A rule stating that “helpmates” are allowed/not allowed would not be acceptable because the term is not well-defined. (If a player overlooks a mate in one, is it a helpmate?)
You don’t actually have to move your N through a capturable square to get mated in K+N vs K+N. Think of Kg8 and Nf8 versus Kf6 and N. One K shuffles between g8 and h8 while the other N moves to f4 (a K triangulation between g8-h7-h8 might be needed to get the tempi “right”). Then you eventually have Kg8-h8, Kf6-f7, Nf8-h7, Nf4-g6#.
I guess that changes it from massively implausible to merely highly implausible (the player-to-be-mated would simply have to inattentively shuffle in an attempt to avoid flagging and overlook the Ng6 threat).
Ah so less skill (no brilliant offer of a piece-sacrifice) is required. Very good. Maybe the monkey only has to produce a commercial jingle not a Shakespeare sonnet!
I think this is the first time I’ve seen a helpmate cooked by a not-so-helpmate.