Keano wrote on 06/04/16 at 17:47:38:

Now, that was a bit unnecessary. Again, either you are trying make joke (Ha!Ha!) or you are trying to take the piss and deliberately misreading my post. Sheeeeesh! They won against non-Azeris in last round, kudos! But someone a little bit less generous will say that drawing the earlier games (and tournament rules meant they have to paired against each other in the earlier rounds to prevent any collusion) by playing on auto-pilot (except for one decisive game) meant that the Azeris can reserve their energy (physical and mental) for the non-Azeris. which looks like what may have happened (this is just speculation in case someone does not read English and misunderstand again!). This is speculation, I repeat.
I point to the Asian Continental where two of the Indian players won with Black in last round which meant one of them came first. But in that tournament, it is a Swiss, and no signs of draws in earlier rounds.
BTW, without suggesting there being any deliberate strategy in this case, this was also part of the complaint in the Caracao tournament, that the Soviets reserved their energy for the games with the non-Soviets.
This is my last post in this thread. Not worth posting anymore with the "mis-communication".
Salut! Ciao!

Indeed. A bit disappointing the end of the Karjakin-Radjabov game mind.

Update - but the post match interview / post mortem was fantastic 

Not even remotely nowadays - just one of these Nf3,g3,Bg2 things that they've been resorting to to avoid forced lines with some regularity. Got an interesting looking position out of it as it happens.

Bibs wrote on 06/01/16 at 12:04:18:


I thought I was being nice, no intention of points scoring. Its a discussion, no more no less.

Looking again and cant see anything at all untoward in this thread, are chess players really such sensitive souls? I think not.

Lets carry on. Re the Caro game it might be slightly suspicious alright.

eh... but final thoughts. I suggest we get back to the actual chess - both Caruana and Giri seem to be playing some great stuff here. The Caruana-Radjabov Rossolimo I particularly enjoyed.

For goodness sake. I appreciate it is the internet and all, but is it possible to lay off this kind of behaviour?
GG said it looked iffy.
That was my impression too as it happens.
Others do not have that impression. Okay.
We don't need to be picking over each other's words, trying to score points or something.

Let's try to be nicer to each other. And, indeed, to anyone we meet. Just...try to be nice. Deal?

Right, let's see if it's full p(o)ints or draws today....

Cheers,
B

I noticed just from the games themselves.
ChessBase are also making a clear point there, as quoted.

Azeri barman: 'Pint?'
Chess player: 'No, just a half'

I mis-typed. I meant to say that the opponent had played the same initial moves against the C-K four rounds earlier (and won).

Bibs wrote on 05/30/16 at 23:32:29:


Your friend was just well-prepared, since the same opponent had trotted out the C-K four rounds earlier...

I hadn't noticed any whiff of pre-arranged draws tbh - will have a closer look but I didn't notice anything strange so far, although granted that could just be my ignorance.

Hello.

GabrielGale wrote on 05/30/16 at 09:35:34:

The draws are not guaranteed from the outset. The Azeris just seem to prefer a draw to playing on whenever they reach clearly equal positions, which has happened so far in all three games.

Have a nice day.

Without trying to hijack the thread, but was about to start a thread on this tournament. Wanted to pose the following question for ChessPubbers to digest and ruminate:
"What is your opinion of a tournament where 4 of the players are from the same country and they are all drawing their games with each other?"
I am not suggesting any blatant unethical behaviour such as match fixing (nothing like Bobby Fischer's allegations of the Curacao tournament).
But surely there is a whiff of "unsporting-like" behaviour? After all what is the point of a tournament where there are going to be a guaranteed 6 drawn games.