It will be a sore statistic with Magnus Carlsen for years to come. The world champion has just emerged from a run of 21 consecutive draws which threatened to derail his achievement of staying No 1 in the global rankings since July 2011.
Carlsen halved his final five rounds at the European Club Cup in October, famously drew all 12 classical games in his world title match with Fabiano Caruana in November, then this week halved his first four rounds at Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee, where the international tournament continues this weekend and can be viewed online, with grandmaster and computer commentaries, from 12.30pm daily.
There are ironies associated with this unwelcome record for top chess. The runner-up drawing specialist, with 20 in a row, is Anish Giri, the pacific world No 5, whose tweets are often jibes at the champion. Worse, 21 is one more than Bobby Fischer’s famous 20-game series in 1970-71 which brought the US legend to the verge of the world crown. It is just that Fischer’s was a winning sequence. Carlsen has stated in the past that he thinks he could have defeated Fischer and that it would be even between him and Garry Kasparov at his peak. What happened this week is sure to come up in the future whenever chess fans argue over who was the greatest.
Other ironies are positive for Carlsen. He dropped rating points with all those draws, yet is still five classical rating points clear of Caruana, who has also found winning difficult. And while the champion has been held at classical, he has crushed all opposition at speed, beating Caruana 3-0 in their rapid tie-break, almost winning the world rapid despite a terrible start, and capturing the world blitz unbeaten in 21 games.
Finally, Carlsen is far from out of it at Wijk. He won in round six and shares the lead on 4/6 with Giri (Netherlands) and Ding Liren (China).
The other significant move in the early rounds was the fine form of Ding, now fully recovered from the broken hip he suffered in a cycling accident during the Stavanger tournament last summer. China’s No 1 is aiming to qualify for the next world title candidates in 2020 via the rating list, and moved up to No 3 this week behind Carlsen and Caruana.
The UK 4NCL league favourites Guildford and Manx Liberty kept their 100% match records at Daventry last Sunday, and after four wins each are heading for their showdown at the final league weekend in early May.
The all-conquering Surrey team is now on a record unbeaten run of 68 wins and two draws stretching over more than six years. This season Guildford have scored 7.5-0.5 or 7-1 margins except for 5-3 against their old rivals Wood Green.
As a further statement of intent, Guildford fielded the England No 1, Michael Adams, playing his first 4NCL game since May 2014.
Manx, sponsored by the chess.com website, had to work hard, with only 5-3 against Guildford’s B team and just 4.5-3.5 against 3Cs Oldham despite a rating edge of 150 points a board. Manx have yet to meet Cheddleton, who have won all four matches.
David Zakarian v Michael Adams, Oxford v Guildford, 4NCL 2019
Adams was faced with the dashing King’s Gambit on his Guildford debut, but made smooth work of it after his opponent went wrong early with 8 Bd3? instead of 8 Bxd5.
1 e4 e5 2 f4 exf4 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 Nc3 Bb4 5 Nf3 O-O 6 O-O Nxe4 7 Nxe4 d5 8 Bd3? dxe4 9 Bxe4 Re8 10 Re1 Nd7 11 c3 Bd6 12 d4 Nf6 13 Qd3 g6 14 Bd2 Rxe4 15 Rxe4 Bf5 16 Ng5 h6 17 Qc4 hxg5 18 Re2 Qd7 19 Qb3 c5 20 Be1 Bd3 21 Rd2 c4 22 Qd1 Ne4 23 Rxd3 cxd3 24 Qxd3 Re8 25 Rd1 g4 26 c4 f3 27 gxf3 Ng5 28 fxg4 Qxg4+ 29 Bg3 Bxg3 30 hxg3 Re2 0-1
Andrew Bak v Shreyas Royal, Bradford v Kent Juniors, 4NCL Division 2 2019
England’s youngest chess hope Shreyas Royal, aged 10, won this 4NCL miniature from an opening trap worth knowing. Much better than 8 Bxf6? is 8 Qd2! Nxe5 9 0-0-0 which the former British champion Julian Hodgson played in 1988. As it went, 9…Ba3! is strong and sparked the further mistake 10 bxa3? (10 Qc1) after which Black’s queen-knight duo swiftly overran the white king.
1 d4 Nf6 2 Nc3 d5 3 Bg5 Nbd7 4 f3 c6 5 e4 dxe4 6 fxe4 e5! 7 dxe5 Qa5 8 Bxf6? gxf6 9 exf6 Ba3! 10 bxa3? Qxc3+ 11 Kf2 Nxf6 12 Bd3 Rg8 13 Nf3 Qc5+ 14 Kf1 Ng4 15 Qe2 Ne3+ 0-1
3602 1…Ne2! 2 Kb4 Nd4 3 Kc5 Nxf5 4 Kb6 Nd6 5 Kc5 (if 5 Kc7 b5 and queens) Nc8! and the black king eats White’s last pawn then strolls to the queen’s side to mop up.
