There is a photo online of Magnus Carlsen at this week’s Sinquefield Cup in St Louis, taken immediately after his seventh-round defeat by Russia’s Alex Grischuk. Norway’s 24-year-old world champion is slumped over the back of his chair, holding his head in disbelief.
They were heading for a routine and peaceful draw in a simple endgame when Carlsen suddenly made a bizarre g2-g4? advance badly weakening his pawn front. He could still draw a pawn down until another blunder enabled Grischuk to create zugzwang, compulsion for the opponent to make a losing move, then launch a winning advance to queen. In the eighth round, Carlsen was winning in the endgame against Hikaru Nakamura until another strange decision enabled the US champion to draw with a rook against two bishops.
Carlsen had been co-leader on 4/6 but finished behind Armenia’s Levon Aronian, 32, who regained the form that made him world No2. Final leading scores were Aronian 6/9, Carlsen, Nakamura, Anish Giri (Netherlands) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France) 5.
There are two ways of looking at Carlsen’s fresh setback. He has lost eight tournament games in 2015, a negative for a reigning world champion matched only by Vlad Kramnik in 2005 when the Russian was suffering from arthritis. This is not good news for Carlsen’s status in the ultimate Valhalla contest against the other all-time legends from Emanuel Lasker through Bobby Fischer to Garry Kasparov.
A more positive view is that Carlsen, despite his early loss to Topalov and his late reverses, still managed a recovery from his disaster at Stavanger in June, dropped only a few rating points, and remains 30 ahead of his nearest rival. The London Classic at Kensington Olympia in December will be the third and final event in the $1m Grand Tour, and the arithmetic is such that despite his Stavanger and St Louis mishaps Carlsen still has a realistic chance to be the overall winner.
Meanwhile, Aronian is enjoying his resurgence, but he is as yet unqualified for the eight-player 2016 Candidates tournament, which will decide Carlsen’s next challenger. If Aronian fails to reach the final at the 128-player $1.6m World Cup which starts in Baku on Thursday, there will be pressure on the Armenian government – which backs chess, has flown its Olympiad gold medal team home in the presidential jet and has chess taught in schools – to bid for the Candidates and thus give Aronian the host nation’s wildcard place in the tournament.
Nakamura won the most dazzling game at St Louis. A profusion of sacrifices overran Wesley So’s king and drove it to its doom on the open board. So made his first 20 moves instantly, but by then his position was already difficult.
Wesley So v Hikaru Nakamura
1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 d6 5 Nf3 O-O 6 Be2 e5 7 O-O Nc6 8 d5 Ne7 9 Ne1 Nd7 10 f3 f5 11 Be3 f4 12 Bf2 g5 13 Nd3 Ng6 14 c5 Nf6 15 Rc1 Rf7 16 Kh1 h5 17 cxd6 cxd6 18 Nb5 a6 19 Na3 b5 20 Rc6 g4 21 Qc2 Qf8 22 Rc1 Bd7 23 Rc7? Bh6 24 Be1 h4 25 fxg4 f3 26 gxf3 Nxe4 27 Rd1? Rxf3 28 Rxd7 Rf1+ 29 Kg2 Be3! 30 Bg3 hxg3 31 Rxf1 Nh4+ 32 Kh3 Qh6 33 g5 Nxg5+ 34 Kg4 Nhf3 35 Nf2 Qh4+ 36 Kf5 (see puzzle diagram)
3406 36...Rf8+ 37 Kg6 Rf6+! (moves of the g5 knight also mate quickly) 38 Kxf6 Ne4+ 39 Kg6 Qg5 mate. 39 Kf5 Nd4+ 40 Kg6 Qg5 is a move longer.
