The Qatar Open, which nears its closing rounds this weekend, is the strongest ever of its kind. The 77 grandmasters are headed by Magnus Carlsen, the first time that a reigning world champion has competed in such an event since Boris Spassky at Vancouver 1971. And it produced an immediate massive shock, as Carlsen was held to a history-making draw in the opening round by the Georgian women’s champion, Nino Batsiashvili, 28.
He recovered in the next few rounds and will have noticed that the teenager widely canvassed as his eventual successor, China’s Wei Yi, 16, lost his first-round game, the highest rated player at Doha to do so. Despite all he has achieved, Wei Yi seems less impressive than Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov were at the same age. At 16 and a half Fischer was already competing in the eight-player world championship candidates tournament.
All the games from Qatar can be viewed live and free online, starting at midday. England is represented by the new British knockout champion and England No2, David Howell, who won his first two games, and by the 17-year-old Haberdashers Aske’s sixth-former Ravi Haria, who had a fine start with the better of a draw against India’s No3 grandmaster, Krishnan Sasikiran.
Even with only three rounds left it is not sensible to make predictions since the winning total is likely to be at least 7.5/9 and a single reverse can be fatal. At Qatar 2014 China’s Yu Yangyi came through at the end, upsetting the favourite, the former world champion Vlad Kramnik, who is again prominent this year.
Another player whose progress is being keenly watched by many fans is Anish Giri, the 21-year-old Dutch champion who is now up to world No2, was unbeaten in the 2015 Grand Tour and has emerged as the favourite to win the 2016 Candidates in Moscow and so qualify to challenge Carlsen for the global crown. Unlike the champion, Giri won his opening round by a crushing attack on his Indian opponent’s castled king, surviving a glitch en route.
Despite meeting a much lower rated rival, Giri still unleashed a shrewd opening novelty. The first eight moves are well-known but White normally goes 9 Qh5. Instead Giri followed a 2002 Russian championship game where White’s 14 Nc3 Qd8 15 d4 exd3 16 Qxd3 lead to a quick queen swap and a later draw. White’s 14 b4! is sharper and when Black missed 14...Ne5! in reply White was clearly better with two bishops plus pressure against the doubled f pawns.
Giri erred by 21 Rc1? (f3!) and Black’s shot 22...Nxf2! could have kept him in the game if he had found the follow-up 24...Ng4! Missing that, he succumbed to Giri’s attack and at the end 30...Kh7 31 Qh4+ Kxg6 32 Rf6+ leads to mate.
Anish Giri v Sunilduth Narayanan
1 c4 Nf6 2 Nc3 e5 3 Nf3 Nc6 4 e3 Bb4 5 Qc2 O-O 6 Nd5 Re8 7 Qf5 d6 8 Nxf6+ gxf6 9 Qc2 e4 10 Ng1 d5 11 a3 Bf8 12 cxd5 Qxd5 13 Ne2 Bf5 14 b4! a5? 15 Nc3 Qe6 16 b5 Ne5 17 Nxe4 Nd7 18 d3 Bxe4 19 dxe4 Nc5 20 Bb2 Rad8 21 Rc1? Nxe4 22 Bd3 Nxf2! 23 Bxh7+ Kg7 24 O-O Nd3? 25 Bxd3 Qxe3+ 26 Kh1 Rxd3 27 Rxf6 Kg8 28 Rcf1 Qe2 29 Qc4 Rd7 30 Rg6+ 1-0
3422 (by Werner Keym) The obvious answer is black king at d3 and mate by 1 0-0-0 but this is a false trail. With White to move, the BK could not have reached d3 legally last move because it would have come from an illegal double check at c4, d4, e4 or e3. Equally the black queen could not have reached h2 legally last move since g3, g1 and h1 all check the white king. However, it is legal for the black king to be at d3 if it is Black’s move in the diagram, when the mate in one is Black’s 1...Qg1. The black king can also be at c6 with White to move, when the mate is 1 Qb5. So the puzzle answer is two solutions, d3 with Black to move or c6 with White to move.
