Update: carnival announcement is up over at Prodigal Pawn: here is the link.===========Tommyg over at Prodigal Pawn is hosting the July 4 Carnival, seventh in the series. Thanks to those that are consistently publishing great content, it makes this thing keep going!If there is something you want to see, whether it is from you or from someone else’s site, you can submit it here.

Oh those Germans. They can’t let the French one-up them on anything, not even chess cheating. At the German championship last week, 23-year-old FM Christoph Natsidis of Bannewitz, who will now be quasi-famous for this one thing for the rest of his life thanks to Google and his own stupidity, decided it would be a good idea to check his position on his smartphone a few times in the toilet. ChessVibes has the story. (Repeated toilet trips, suspicious opponent.) Natsidis confessed and apologized when confronted, so I’m not sure we can even say he was caught. Had he stonewalled and refused to let the arbiter see his phone they probably would have had to disqualify him without further proof. I don’t think anything has come out about Natsidis’s other games — he was on track for an IM norm and would have scored it even had he lost that final game.

But much the way refusing a breathalyzer test allows the state to do all sorts of things to you, the “consciousness of guilt evidence” (that is the term, as oxymoronic as it sounds) of his refusal to let them see his phone would have been strong, even if he could have denied guilt till death. I don’t know if the German Ch actually has rules saying the arbiter has certain search powers that cannot be refused under penalty of disqualification, but apparently something like that is required. It will be interesting to see what the German federation will do. FIDE?!

I don’t remember which of my chess tweeps said, regarding the event, that only top events can afford security. But while it would hardly be foolproof, you can get a hand-held security wand that will pick up a cell phone for less than a hundred bucks. Probably still not practical for big opens, but what would be? Lockers for checking phones are yet another expense and potential can of worms. The only thing you can do is give arbiters clear guidelines, limited powers, and make the penalties severe enough to create a deterrent. Stripping a player of his membership for a lengthy time first offense would be a good start. Second offense, chopping off a hand?

Linares went on hiatus. Mainz disappeared, MTel seems to be gone, and Amber is definitely over. Someone recently tried to convince me this was all a coincidence, that despite the appearance of a trend, there was a distinct reason for each case. Plus, there are events like London and Bazna taking up some of the slack. I’m not entirely convinced, but it’s also true that Dortmund is still rolling and Bilbao is beefing up to a six-player event after last year’s recession-sized quad. (Though to do it they split the event with Sao Paulo and put the players on a cruise ship.) My anxiety about the dropoff off top events is also somewhat ameliorated by the fact that Hikaru Nakamura seems to be playing in just about every top event this year, including Bazna, Dortmund, and Bilbao.

My other gripe is more of a pet peeve I’ve whined about here several times, the increasing prevalence of the six-player double round-robin, the format used in all three of the aforementioned events. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it, and it has its virtues as a rigorous elite test, but it would be nice to see some balance with bigger fields that provide more dynamism and more room for fresh blood. That’s what makes Wijk aan Zee such a thrill ride. But more players, more money…

Meanwhile, there are always fun sprints like Leon, where world champion Vishy Anand just crushed Alexei Shirov 4.5-1.5 in a rapid chess match. Anand won twice with black in the Caro-Kann, which I think runs his personal record against Shirov in that defense to +6; that is, six wins, no losses, and five draws. That, as the kids say, is sick. Even sicker was that in game three, Shirov resigned after move 17. With white. Against the Caro-Kann. That’s enough to make you want to call in… sick. It was the second recent dominant rapid showing by Anand, who dusted off his occasional second Kasimjanov in Tashkent in March. I don’t know if Anand is planning on playing any classical chess before Bilbao, which isn’t until the end of September.

The Bazna Kings Tournament begins on June 11th. The official site isn’t easy to find and doesn’t have much in the way of information. The winner gets a spot in the Grand Slam final in Bilbao, unless it’s Carlsen or Nakamura, who are already qualified. I assume that would create another wildcard. Bazna should be a great one, with a fighting cast of stars plus the local Nisipeanu, who dangerous enough to keep the top-tenners honest. He’s usually in the cellar but he did beat Radjabov last year. The field this time is Carlsen, Ivanchuk, Nakamura, Ponomariov, Karjakin, Nisipeanu. It could be really great if Radjabov doesn’t draw all his whites in 20 moves. I think they had a 30-move minimum last year, which is better than nothing. Games start at 1530 local, 8:30am NY time.

Robert Pearson has posted a most excellent Sixth Carnival. I love the book reviews, hope that becomes a trend. Thanks Robert!You can submit stuff for the 4th of July carnival here. If you want to host then email me (bluedevil [dot] knight (yahoo)). We always need hosts: even if you are a shy, new, or infrequent blogger, or don’t think you can do it, you can, and I will help you as much as you