Saturday Summary, Sans Svidler-Shankland, Starting Sunday

I guess the supposed starting date for the Svidler-Shankland match was based on the opening ceremony. They'll start playing tomorrow (Sunday).

There was plenty of action elsewhere though. First, let's get the computer action out of the way: Lc0 is still the chess entity of the future. Stockfish beat it 4.5-2.5 in one final, and in the other semi Houdini beat Komodo 4.5-3.5. Stockfish will beat Houdini tomorrow (Sunday) in the final of the TCEC Cup.

Now for the main event, round 1 of the Isle of Man International. Of the 82 games in round 1, only one saw the lower-rated player beat the favorite, and that was all the way down on board 68. But when we change the subject and talk about draws, it's a very different story. Despite gaps from nearly 300 points to slightly over 400, 20 players managed to draw their heavily favored opponents. Sticking only to 2700+ players, Anish Giri, Vladimir Kramnik, Wesley So, Hikaru Nakamura, Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Richard Rapport, Le Quang Liem, Michael Adams, and Zoltan Almasi were all held to draws. Some of them were losing or much worse (Kramnik, So, Wojtaszek, Rapport) and had to eke out the draw, while others (Kramnik again, Rapport again, Adams) were winning or at least much better before their opponents saved themselves.

Worse still for the top players, this was their supposedly easy round. In round 2 the top players are already facing mid-to-high 2500s, and it's only going to get tougher from there. This will be an entertaining event.