Gibtelcom Results: Lenderman the Fighter

As the first prize at Gibraltar cannot be shared, there was a four-player playoff among Adams, Gustafsson, Sandipan, and Vallejo Pons. Adams defeated Gustaffson in one semi-final, and Vallejo Pons won the other. Adams then defeated Vallejo Pons to take first. Kamsky and Lenderman also tied with 7.5 after the 10 rounds, but missed out on the playoff on tiebreaks. Lenderman gets the fighter's award. Of the 90 games played by those tied for first, only three games were lost, and two of those were by Lenderman. That says just as much, of course, about his number of wins. Had the tiebreak system rewarded victories as we see in some tournaments, Lenderman would have won the event. See his final round win below.

Rank	Name	Flags	Score	Fed.	M/F	Rating	TPR	W-We	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1	GM Gustafsson, Jan		7.5	GER	M	2627	2769	+1.88	1	1	1	½	1	½	½	1	½	½
2	GM Adams, Michael		7.5	ENG	M	2694	2764	+0.97	1	1	1	½	1	½	½	½	1	½
3	GM Vallejo Pons, Francisco		7.5	ESP	M	2705	2726	+0.33	1	1	½	½	½	1	1	½	1	½
4	GM Sandipan, Chanda		7.5	IND	M	2622	2720	+1.29	1	1	½	1	½	1	½	½	½	1
5	GM Kamsky, Gata		7.5	USA	M	2693	2719	+0.38	1	1	½	½	1	½	1	½	½	1
6	GM Bacrot, Etienne		7.5	FRA	M	2713	2713	+0.11	½	1	1	1	½	½	½	1	½	1
7	GM Movsesian, Sergei		7.5	SVK	M	2708	2708	+0.07	1	½	1	½	1	½	1	½	1	½
8	GM Geetha Narayanan Gopal		7.5	IND	M	2584	2656	+0.95	1	1	½	1	0	1	½	½	1	1
9	IM Lenderman, Alex		7.5	USA	M	2560	2652	+1.33	1	0	1	1	1	½	1	0	1	1

London Chess Classic: Don't Look Over Your Shoulder, Magnus

Carlsen dodged a bullet against Adams today in London. The game is worth seeing. Kramnik continued his comeback, and is now close enough that tomorrow will be a full work day for Magnus.

A further word on Kramnik. My sense is that he's going to go down as an under-appreciated World Champion. He is provocative in his statements at times, but that can likely be attributed to being brought up in a different (chess) world. One shouldn't ever forget that he took down arguably the greatest champion of all time, and I've never really bought into the idea that he did so when Kasparov was past his prime. He simply outplayed Kasparov for a brief moment in time. That was a feat. Among his recent pronouncements, he said that Magnus was not quite up to his and a few others' level quite yet. With a little time to digest the remarks, I suspect he's right. I also suspect that Magnus will exceed them all in a short time. In any event, here's to Vladimir and his game. He played well against Nigel today. And he's still a large force.

London Chess Classic: Carlsen over Kramnik

Carlsen was the big winner at the London Chess Classic today turning in a clean, convincing performance against Kramnik. There were no fireworks in the game, but rather one accurate move after another until Kramnik folded. Impressive. McShane also won, but I haven't found the energy to look more closely at this 163-move glacier. There could be some good chess in there. Disappointingly, Nakamura let a win slip through his fingers against Ni Hua. Adams and Howell drew after some fighting chess.