The class of 1990, the most prolific year ever for the birth of top chess talent, has gone into overdrive this week. Players born in 1990 have already won the elite grandmaster tournaments at Dortmund, Germany, and Danzhou, China, while on Saturday afternoon, free and live to view online, the best of them all, the world champion, Magnus Carlsen, is expected to complete yet another tournament first prize at Bilbao, Spain.
It is not just Carlsen from 1990 who dominates the rankings. His next title match opponent, Russia’s Sergey Karjakin, has been battling it out with the Norwegian since they were children, when Karjakin became the youngest ever grandmaster at 12. Now the chess world awaits for definite news about their championship series venue. New York was announced many months ago, but since then there has been silence. The global chess body Fide’s commercial partner AGON claims that full details will be announced in about three weeks, just before the Fide congress at Baku. Sceptics remain, and this week Karjakin told an interviewer that he would far prefer a European venue.
Although he is the official challenger, Karjakin is only ninth in the rankings. The new No2 is France’s 1990-born Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, whose first prize at Dortmund this week was the finest success of his career to date. MVL, as he is known, has not yet competed in the official candidates series to choose a challenger but is now among the favourites for a title match in 2018. The Parisian is well known to many English club experts, as he plays top board for Guildford, whose team has dominated the UK’s 4NCL league for several seasons.
Over in Danzhou, Russia’s 1990-born Ian Nepomniachtchi demolished the home contingent in a tournament planned to highlight China’s growing status and potential. Like his contemporaries, Nepo competed in world under-10 and under-12 events which have emerged as an early indicator of the best talents.
The 1990 odd man out has been England’s David Howell, who has been preparing for the annual British championship which starts on Monday in Bournemouth, where the top seed is the England No1, Michael Adams. But there was still an English triumph this week in Iran, where the ambitious chess nation staged a World Stars match where its 10 best players took on a global select team.
Nigel Short took the opportunity to score an unbeaten 8.5/10 total. He was top of the individual classification, jumped back into the world top 100 where, at 51, he is the oldest player, and triumphed despite receiving news mid-tournament that his wife and son had been trapped at Istanbul airport at the height of last weekend’s abortive coup.
Carlsen’s quick Bilbao win against the tough Wesley So showed the world champion’s skill in creating opportunities from a seemingly harmless opening. When the American postponed castling to start a queen’s side advance. Carlsen established an outpost knight at f5. His 17 Qe1! removed the queen from a pin and set the trap Rxa4? 18 Rxe4 Nxe4 19 Qa5 Nb6 17 Nxd6+ with a clear plus.Then his pawn sacrifice 18 Nd2! stopped castling due to 19 Bh6! and set up complications which So failed to handle. The black king was trapped in centre board and at the end there was no defence to White’s imminent queen invasion.
Magnus Carlsen v Wesley So
1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 Nf6 4 d3 Bc5 5 Bxc6 dxc6 6 Qe2 Qe7 7 Nbd2 Bg4 8 h3 Bh5 9 a3 Nd7 10 b4 Bd6 11 Nc4 f6 12 Ne3 a5 13 Nf5 Qf8 14 bxa5 Rxa5 15 O-O Qf7 16 a4 Nc5 17 Qe1! b6 18 Nd2! Rxa4 19 Nc4 Bf8? 20 Be3 Kd7? 21 Qc3 Nxe4? 22 Nxb6+ cxb6 23 dxe4 Qc4 24 Qd2+ Kc7 25 g4 Bg6 26 Rfd1 1-0
3452 1...Qh8+! and White resigned. If 2 Kd5/e4 Qh1+ skewers White’sking and queen. If 2 Kf4 Bd6+! and now if 3 Qxd6 Qh2+ wins the queen, 3 Ke4 again allows Qh1+xc6, while 3 Kg4 Qh5 is mate. If 1...Qh8+ 2 Ke6 Qh3+ when if 3 Kf6/e5 Qf5 mate or 3 Kd5 Qh1+xc6 wins as before.
