Karjakin on the verge of an upset
THIS world championship match had been described by journalists as an irresistible force against an immovable object as the first seven games ended in fighting draws.
Champion Magnus Carlsen (2853) is renowned for converting slight advantages to wins with superior endgames technique, while challenger Sergey Karjakin (2772) is one of the best defensive specialists of all time.
Karjakin had resisted all attacks of the champion in the seven games and now we’ve finally witnessed a decisive result. Sergey claimed the first full-point on the eighth game and now leads 4.5 to 3.5 in this race to 6.5 points. He began the match ranked No. 9 and has inched up to No. 6 in the world in the live ratings with his performance so far.
In the end, Carlsen overextended his reach, wandering into endgame territory more dangerous than he’d realized. Karjakin eventually found the winning line and won after 52 moves and 5 hours of play.
Judit Polgar, the official commentator for the match, offered an explanation why Carlsen risked so much in the game
“Magnus was really determined to have a decisive game today...He gave Sergey a lot of opportunities in this game... Magnus was so determined to win the game, even when it was hard to understand why he went on. He wanted to have a decisive game,” she said.
I earlier reported that for the first time since Fide was founded in 1924, its president is absent from the world championship. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, under sanction by the Department of Treasury, reported the other day that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry will look into this situation,
“Sergei Lavrov told me that at his next meeting with Kerry they would discuss my situation,” Ilyumzhinov said. “I am still hopeful I can come to the match and attend the awarding ceremony. By the way, I have invited Donald Trump to the closing ceremony. I hope he will be able to attend.”
SCRABBLE. I am giving space to scrabble as it is very popular and a close cousin of chess being “mind games” like poker. Roger was also a close friend since the 70s.
The 3rd Roger Abella Memorial Scrabble Open tournament will start tomorrow at Robinson Fuente sponsored by Rose Pharmacy in coordination with DepEd and the Cebu City Sports Commission. There are two sections---pro- fessionals and college and high school and elementary.
Registration is P350 for Professionals, P300 for college students and P200 for the high school and elementary students. The format used will be modified King of the Hill for five rounds.
I did some research on mind games and found out that scrabble is sold in 121 countries and is available in 29 languages. Approximately 150 million sets have been sold worldwide and roughly one-third of American and half of British homes have a scrabble set. There are around 4,000 Scrabble clubs around the world and estimated number of players is close to 500 million.
On the other hand, poker has extremely deteriorated since its peak about 10 to15 years ago of about 100 million players worldwide. It has now declined to 40 million, half of whom are in the USA.
In Cebu alone, there was a time when that there were more poker clubs (five) than chess clubs (three). Now there are no more poker clubs here as it is a losing proposition. Too much money are deducted called “rakes,” which goes to the poker club and Pagcor.
Chess is the king not only in mind games but also of all sports with about 700 million adherents. There are no figures listed in the number of chess clubs and venues worldwide but it should be more than 10,000. Cepca will be opening a venue in Robinson Galleria next month aside from affiliate Colonnade Chess Club.