The Chinese are coming. Western chess is highly valued in Beijing, where sports officials long ago set up a national plan to establish their players at the pinnacle of the game. Already China has for decades dominated women’s events, where Hou Yifan is the all-time No2 while Tan Zhongyi is the latest in a long line of Chinese world champions.
Men’s chess has proved much tougher to crack. It is only a decade since China first briefly got a player into the top 10 in the rankings, and three years since the Chinese team won the 150-nation team Olympiad.
This week a fresh landmark came into sight when Ding Liren, 24, won the Moscow leg of the four-tournament Fide Grand Prix to give China’s No1 a serious chance of qualifying for the 2018 candidates, the event which will decide the next challenger for Magnus Carlsen’s world crown. Ding had a helping hand in the final round when Israel’s Boris Gelfand. the 2012 challenger, decided that only a win could keep his slim chances alive and went for broke with an unsound sacrifice which Ding easily rebutted.
After the Sharjah and Moscow Grand Prix legs, with Geneva in July and Palma in November still to come, there are probably only four realistic contenders for the two candidates spots. Every player takes part in three of the four legs and all three performances count.
Shak Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan) has 280 Grand Prix points, Ding 240, Alexander Grischuk (Russia) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France) both 211.4. Mamedyarov is best-placed after finishing joint first in Sharjah and second in Moscow. On the downside four grandmasters who played in the 2016 candidates in Moscow – Anish Giri (Netherlands), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Peter Svidler (Russia) and Hikaru Nakamura (US) – are likely to be eliminated.
Caution was the watchword in Moscow, where nearly 75% of the games were drawn. Ding won three games and the only other to match that was Hou, whose 5/9 total was the first plus score by a woman in an elite GM tournament since Judit Polgar.
She has jumped into the world top 100 and her 2666 rating is only 21 behind her personal best of 2015.
Michael Adams dropped out of the world top 20 after winning only one game, albeit a good one. The England No1 was well prepared for Ernesto Inarkiev’s favourite 9...Nb8 and when the Russian failed to play 14...a5 White took control. The blemish was 18 Qe2?! (f3!) when the game was level until Black weakened his king by 22...g6? (bxc3 23 bxc3 Bc4 24 Bc2 Bd5 is solid). Adams’s bishop pair then dominated the board, he avoided the trap 27 Nxg6? Qf6! and his queen and rook homed in for a mating attack.
Michael Adams v Ernesto Inarkiev
1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 O-O Be7 6 d3 b5 7 Bb3 d6 8 a3 O-O 9 Nc3 Nb8 10 a4 b4 11 Nd5 Nxd5 12 Bxd5 c6 13 Bb3 Nd7 14 Be3 Bb7?!15 a5! d5 16 d4! dxe4 17 Nxe5 Nf6 18 Qe2?! Qc7 19 Bf4 Bd6 20 Bg3 c5 21 c3 Rac8 22 Rfd1 g6? 23 Qe3! cxd4 24 cxd4 Nd5 25 Qh6 Qe7 26 Re1 f5 27 f3 Bxe5 28 Bxe5 exf3 29 gxf3 Rfe8 30 Rac1 Qf8 31 Qg5! Qf7 32 Kf2 h5 33 Bd6 Rxe1 34 Rxe1 Re8 35 Rc1! Re6 36 Bxd5 Bxd5 37 Rc8+ Re8 38 Rc7 Qe6 39 Be5 Rc8 40 Rg7+ Kf8 41 Qh6 Rc2+ 42 Kg1 1-0
3496 1 Kc3 Kd5 2 Kd3 Kc5 3 Ke4 Kc4 4 Rc6 mate.
