More Shipov commentaries!

Heads up, chess fans! Over the next two weeks, starting tomorrow, I plan to translate some of GM Sergey Shipov’s online commentaries from www.crestbook.com on the grandmaster super-tournament in Dortmund, Germany. I will share the duties with another English translator, whose name is Colin McGourty (“mishanp”).

Colin originally hails from England and now lives in Poland. He has already translated Shipov’s commentaries on Kramnik – Liem from round one and Ponomariov – Kramnik from round two, and posted them on his excellent new website, www.chessintranslation.com. I urge you all to check them out, especially Ponomariov-Kramnik, a game where two former FIDE World Champions collide and the winner is not who you might expect.

I will translate Shipov’s commentaries on rounds 3 and 4, then Colin will translate rounds 5 and 6, I will translate rounds 7 and 8, he will do round 9, and I will do round 10. That is the plan, anyway (subject to change).

Dortmund is a 6-player double round-robin (thus, 10 rounds overall). Besides Vladimir Kramnik and Ruslan Ponomariov, the other players are Peter Leko, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Arkadi Naiditsch, and Le Quang Liem. The last name is a somewhat unfamiliar one on the professional circuit: Liem is a 19-year-old from Vietnam, playing in his first “super-GM” tournament. So far he has acquitted himself well, with draws in the first two rounds against Kramnik and Naiditsch.

Another interesting thing about this tournament is that it is being run with “Sofia rules.” Draw offers are not allowed, so that draws can only occur on the board (by stalemate or threefold repetition) or if the arbiter determines that a known drawn position has been reached.

Because I am several time zones behind Germany, I will not attempt to translate the commentaries live, but I will post the translations on the same day the games are played. Thus, you can look for round three here tomorrow (Saturday, July 17) and round four on Sunday.

Also, if you just can’t get enough of Crestbook, my translation of part two of the public “KC-conference” with Alexander Khalifman has now been posted. (It was somewhat delayed because Khalifman wanted to approve the translation.) You can read it here, to find out GM Khalifman’s favorite chess book, favorite chess engine, and favorite kind of music, among other things …

Finally, let me mention one new addition to this page, which probably only people with very sharp eyes would notice. At the very top of the blog (above the masthead), I have added a new permanent page called “Chess Translations.” This page will provide a permanent link to all of the game commentaries that I have translated from Crestbook. I’ve put it there for your convenience: that way you won’t have to hunt for them in my massive archive of old blog posts.