2016 Candidates Moscow 10-29 March

[Jonathan Bryant]

I missed most of yesterday. Do I gather there were confusing announcements out of Moscow re tiebreaks?

It depends whether you define "arbiter not being aware of the tiebreak rules despite round 13 of 14 having just ended with the possibility of a tie-brea being required looming large" as 'confusing' or 'SNAFU'.

[NickFaulks]

I missed most of yesterday. Do I gather there were confusing announcements out of Moscow re tiebreaks?

It depends whether you define "arbiter not being aware of the tiebreak rules despite round 13 of 14 having just ended with the possibility of a tie-brea being required looming large" as 'confusing' or 'SNAFU'.

Could you point me to exactly what happened? I spoke to the CA about this last week and he was absolutely clear.

[JustinHorton]

Nick - trawl back over the past couple of pages and click on the various Twitter links.

[JustinHorton]

Well, maybe not this one since it's been deleted, but this and this. They don't tell the whole story but basically, the arbiter stated that in the event of a three-way playoff Anand would drop out and then Karjakin would beat Caruana on most wins.

After much social media agitation on the lines of there being no basis for this anywhere in the regulations, the arbiter changed his mind, i.e. it was claimed that his true meaning had been "lost in translation".

[NickFaulks]

but basically, the arbiter stated that in the event of a three-way playoff Anand would drop out and then Karjakin would beat Caruana on most wins.

I still need to be convinced that he actually said it. To whom did he say it?

[JustinHorton]

That question might be better addressed to ChessVibes?

[LawrenceCooper]

The official broadcast has at least two games mixed up. On the video you can see Karjakin-Caruana is a Sicilian but on the live games it's a Catalan

[JustinHorton]

Catalan was about half of the London candidates it felt like.

We have a Catalan!

And a Classical Sicilian, a rare bird these days.

[Martin Benjamin]

The board names are wrong on the official site. According to the commentators, Karjakin - Caruana is a Sicilian, but the game with their names showing is a Catalan. I don't like being critical, but in view of the fuss about transmission rights (which I haven't had time to follow closely), that is poor.

[NickFaulks]

That question might be better addressed to ChessVibes?

The question I address to you is why the tweet was immediately accepted as gospel.

[LawrenceCooper]

The board names are wrong on the official site. According to the commentators, Karjakin - Caruana is a Sicilian, but the game with their names showing is a Catalan. I don't like being critical, but in view of the fuss about transmission rights (which I haven't had time to follow closely), that is poor.

Thankfully we have the illegal streams with the names correct

[JustinHorton]

That question might be better addressed to ChessVibes?

The question I address to you is why the tweet was immediately accepted as gospel.

It wasn't. The debate that followed was both prolonged and sceptical.

[Carl Hibbard]

So which is which?

[Peter Shaw]

Not a single Berlin endgame in the whole tournament...

[NickFaulks]

It depends whether you define "arbiter not being aware of the tiebreak rules despite round 13 of 14 having just ended with the possibility of a tie-brea being required looming large" as 'confusing' or 'SNAFU'.

This one wasn't very sceptical, though of course it wasn't you.