Are Russia’s top grandmasters giving up on the world crown? Such a question would have been inconceivable 40 to 50 years ago, when the patriarch Mikhail Botvinnik was grooming his successors Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov. Or 25 to 30 years back, when K and K were locked in their marathon title matches. Or 15 years, when Vlad Kramnik took over from Kasparov.
Even just three years ago, Kramnik narrowly missed becoming the challenger, while Sergey Karjakin was the 2014 candidates runner-up and would have played a title match if Magnus Carlsen, as seemed possible, had refused to take part.
But now Kramnik is down to No9 in the ratings, Karjakin is No12. Realistically they can only qualify among the eight 2016 candidates via the World Cup, a 128-player knock-out with two-game mini-matches. That is a hazardous event for favourites, even though Kramnik won it in 2013.
If Russia is to have any representatives in the 2016 candidates, the most likely route is via the Fide Grand Prix series or the 2015 monthly rating lists, which each qualify two candidates. Evgeny Tomashevsky leads the Fide Grand Prix with just one event, in May, to go while Alex Grischuk is currently in second place behind Italy’s Fabiano Caruana in the average of January-March ratings. However, Grischuk is only narrowly ahead of Bulgaria’s Veselin Topalov, while a swing against Tomashevsky in the final Grand Prix event would eliminate him from contention. The risk of a wipeout remains.
Russia is still a very strong chess nation, where the game has substantial government and private backing. Chess remains part of popular culture, though much less so than in Soviet times. New talents still emerge, but increasingly they reach a ceiling at the level of the world top 50-100. The young top 10s – Netherlands’ Anish Giri, Wesley So of the US – and the fast rising stars – China’s Wei Yi, and Sam Sevian of the US – are from other nations.
This development is not just a historical accident. Now you can download a programme to a laptop or mobile which is stronger than the world champion, Carlsen, and which provides an instant top-class training partner. Hence, living in Moscow or St Petersburg no longer provides an inbuilt advantage, possibly the reverse since the main markets for silicon aids are in the West.
The potential crisis for Russia’s top men spilled over into the 64-player women’s world championship in Sochi on Monday. Russia had the most survivors, four, in the last 16, but the quartet all lost their first games in the two-game mini-matches, and after Wednesday’s tie-breaks only one of the home contenders, Natalia Pogonina, survived into the quarter-finals. In Soviet times all women world champions for 40 years were from the USSR, while even last year the Russian women’s team won Olympiad gold.
China’s world champion, You Yifan, has stayed away from the hazardous knock-out but has the right to challenge the winner next year. In her absence, India’s Koneru Humpy, whose early successes included winning the British Ladies championship at 13, is the top seed. Quarter-final and semi-final games are free to view online this weekend, along with rounds seven and eight of Britain’s 4NCL league, where Guildford, which has won every match so far, meets the surprise over-achievers Oxford.
The top seed brilliantly beaten:
Mariya Muzychuk v Humpy Koneru
1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 exd4 4 Nxd4 Bc5 5 Be3 Qf6 6 c3 Nge7 7 g3 d5 8 Bg2 dxe4 9 O-O O-O 10 Nd2 Bb6 11 Re1 Nxd4 12 Nxe4 Qf5 13 Bxd4 Nc6 14 Bxb6 axb6 15 f4 Be6 16 b3 h6 17 h3 Ra3 18 Qd2 Qa5 19 b4 Qa4 20 g4 Rd8 21 Qf2 Rxa2 22 Rxa2 Bxa2 23 b5 Na7 24 g5 hxg5 25 Nxg5 f6? 26 Qd2! Rf8 27 Bd5+ Bxd5 28 Qxd5+ Kh8 29 Qf7! 1-0
3383 1 Bf5! If (a) b6 2 Bc8 a5 3 Bd7 c5 4 Bb5 wins. (b) a5 2 Bc8 b5 3 Bd7 b4 4 Ba4 c5 5 Bb3 wins. (c) c6 2 Bc8 b6 3 Bb7 c5 4 Ba6 wins. (d) b5! (best) 2 Bd7 b4 3 Ba4 a5 4 Bd1! c6 5 Ba4 c5 6 Bb3 c4 7 Bxc4 a4 8 Bb5 b3 9 Bxa4 b2 10 Bc2 b1Q 11 Bxb1 wins.
