Magnus Carlsen, the world No 1, squeaked home in the tightest of finishes at Stavanger on Friday night after his Indian rival, the world champion, Gukesh Dommaraju, had missed his chance to draw with the US champion Fabiano Caruana and had instead fallen into a knight fork of his queen and rook.
Final scores were Carlsen (Norway) 16; Caruana (US) 15.5; Gukesh (India) 14.5; Hikaru Nakamura (US) 14; Arjun Erigaisi (India) 13; Wei Yi (China) 9.5. In his final Armageddon game, Carlsen blundered into mate in two against Erigaisi in mid-board in a drawn position, although that did not affect the standings.
Amid suggestions that Stavanger might be his last classical event, Carlsen told Take Take Take: “It’s a long time since I enjoyed a classical tournament.” Later, he expanded on that comment and on his defeat by Gukesh: “The dream of playing a really good tournament burst with that game. I wanted a score that reflects the fact that I’m still significantly better at chess, and since I couldn’t achieve that, a potential win of the tournament would not mean as much.”
Carlsen’s next chess fixture will be in Wynn Las Vegas in July, as part of the $750,000 five-series Freestyle Grand Slam whose previous legs have been held in Germany and Paris and which will conclude in Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town.
The cream of the world’s chess players will come to the Novotel London West Hotel in Hammersmith next week, for the World Rapid and Blitz championships, with an opportunity for Londoners to watch them in action. Play is daily from 1.30pm to 8.30pm from Wednesday 11 June to Sunday 15 June. Tickets are limited, and priced accordingly.
There are expected to be 55 teams, many of them English, with such well-known names as Nakamura and Ian Nepomniachtchi, playing 12 rounds of rapid and a mixed format of blitz chess. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have entered strong national teams, but the strongest of them all are the top seeds, WR, which is short for Wadim Rosenstein, a German millionaire who has hired the elite including Nakamura and Nepomniachtchi to play for him, with himself as the captain. The WR squad also includes two of the best female players, Hou Yifan and Alexandra Kosteniuk.
Other familiar names are Alireza Firouzja, Nigel Short, Anand, and Erigaisi, but there will be no Carlsen, as the Norwegian has fallen out with Fide.
England will have numerous teams, amounting to an impressive defence of national honour. Seeded 9th are Malcolm’s Mates” (ECF international director, Malcolm Pein) which is effectively the England team of Luke McShane, Gawain Jones, Michael Adams, Nikita Vitiugov, Elmira Mirzoeva on the women’s board, and a 1900-rated amateur.
Seeded 19th are e-therapeutics containing several GM blitz specialists plus England’s 10-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan who is strong in fast play. Seeded 24th are Wood Green, runners-up in the British 4NCL League. Seeded 26th are Sharks 4NCL, another strong 4NCL team, while 26th are Sassy Seniors, a 50+ England team led by two grandmasters.
Several of the English teams will be composed predominantly of young players who will be looking eagerly for chances of giantkilling, so some sharp attacking games will be likely. A new name to look out for is Russia’s Roman Shogdzhiev, who has become the youngest ever international master at age 10.
Last week’s strong Cambridge tournament was won jointly by the eight-time British champion Michael Adams and by the former Australian and New Zealand blitz champion Brandon Clarke, who both totalled 7.5/9. Clarke’s final round win was achieved with the Hungarian Dragon Sicilian in only 21 moves.
The game is an offbeat line, which Black knew better than White. The engine assesses White’s 16th as the decisive error and much prefers 16 0-0-0.
Over three years of the Cambridge tournament Adams has now won first prize, alone or jointly, every time and has played 27 games without defeat. This was an impressive performance by a man in his 50s against predominantly younger rivals and testifies to the Cornishman’s excellent judgment of the pace of a tournament, knowing when to press and when to take an occasional short draw. His closest rival throughout the three years has probably been Dan Fernandez, as the younger grandmaster continues his campaign for a place in the England team.
The other England players seem to have tacitly accepted that Cambridge is Adams’ personal kingdom. The major prizes at Cambridge are £1500-£750-£600, as against £6,000-£3,000-£2,000-£1500 for the British Championship at Liverpool in August, for which Vitiugov and Jones have already entered, while prizes for the English Championship at Warwick in July are £2,000-£1250-£750, so that is probably a factor.
3975: 1 Bxh6+! Kxh6 (if 1...Kg8 2 Bxf8 Bxf8 3 Nxg6 wins) 2 Nxf7+! Qxf7 3 Rxe7! and if Qxe7 4 Qxg6 mate.
