The Champions Showdown: Mostly Blowouts After the Rapid Stage

After three days and 12 rapid games, four of the five matches of the Champions Showdown in St. Louis are practically over, barring major comebacks from those who are trailing. The rapid games count double, and the 12 games are equal in value to the 24 blitz games coming over the next two days. Here are the standings so far:

Caruana 18 - Harikrishna 6

Nakamura 14 - Duda 10

So 16 - Navara 8

Topalov 15 - Dominguez 9

Rapport 18 - Shankland 6

Fabiano Caruana came out smoking against Pentala Harikrishna the first two days, going 3.5-.5 (7-1) each of the first two days. His first (and so far only) win in the rapid came in the first game today, but Caruana won in game two and drew the remaining games to maintain an enormous lead.

Richard Rapport won the first three games of the match against Sam Shankland to put heavy pressure on the American. Shankland stopped the bleeding for a while, (barely) drawing the last game on day 1 and the first three games of day 2. He suffered a very unnecessary loss in the last game of day 2, but started day three with a win. Unfortunately for him, the series of six games with even results was punctuated by three more losses, bookending the start of the match.

The match between Wesley So and David Navara was closely contested at first. Navara won game 1, and although So finished the first day at +1 Navara struck back at the start of day 2 to equalize the scores. But then So took over, winning four in a row (= an eight-point lead), setting the margin that is present going into the blitz.

Veselin Topalov and Leinier Dominguez were equal after two days, with one win by each player and six draws, but day three was a disaster for Dominguez and a triumph for Topalov. Dominguez drew the second game and lost the rest, and trails by six points heading into the blitz.

The closest match is the one between Hikaru Nakamura and Jan-Krzysztof Duda, and if Duda had won the last game instead of losing it it would have been tied. With Duda having finished as the runner-up in the World Blitz Championship a couple of months ago, it would be premature to claim that the match is over - though I'd still expect Nakamura to pull out match victory.

Chess as a Weapon against Loneliness & Suicide?

Hopefully. There's no rigorous evidence offered in this story, let alone proof, but it's at least hard to see how this small-scale UK enterprise could hurt. Hopefully someone in academia will put this to the test to show that the social benefits of face-to-face chess do help those suffering from moderate and maybe even severe loneliness. (Better still, maybe someone has already demonstrated this about chess and/or relevantly similar activities.)

HT: cmling

Carlsen vs. Svidler this Sunday

It's a gimmick, of course, on Chess24, celebrating their 5th anniversary and undoubtedly trying to bring in new viewers. Caveat emptor therefore, but it's a nice gimmick. More here.

The Aeroflot Open Starts Tomorrow (Likewise the Champions Showdown)

In fact, the Aeroflot Open should have started today (Tuesday), but apparently there was a bomb threat. So it will start tomorrow (Wednesday), with a double-round at some point to catch everything up. It's not as strong as Gibraltar or the Isle of Man when it comes to top Open Swisses, but it's still an impressive field. There are six 2700s (Wei Yi, Vladimir Fedoseev, Wang Hao, Daniil Dubov, Vladislav Kovalev, and Rauf Mamedov), and a contingent of players who are near 2700, some of whom who have surpassed that figure in the past. Strong, mixed events like this are typically valuable both as sources of attractive games and of interesting opening novelties, so it's worth keeping an occasional eye on this tournament despite the higher-profile Champions Showdown. That also starts tomorrow - see the preview here.

TCEC Season 14 Superfinal

Stockfish has won the last three TCECs (Top Chess Engine Championships), but this time around it's in a genuine battle against Leela Chess Zero (Lc0). It's not clear that it should participate in TCEC, as its architecture is completely different from that of other engines, but I suppose it's an interesting experiment until Lc0 surpasses and crushes all the conventional programs.

For now, it's neck and neck, and after 80 games of the 100-game Superfinal the match is tied at 40 apiece. The action is here.

The Next Big Event: The 2019 Champions Showdown

Hopefully everyone is enjoying Valentine's Day with someone they love. (Unless you're a little kid, in which case all that romantic stuff is icky. For you, be happy - the day is almost done!) Here's some good chess news to go along with your romantic bliss: a very high-level rapid & blitz event starts in less than a week.

It's the 2019 Champions Showdown in St. Louis, and it features the United States' Fab Five (note the extra pun, free of charge) taking on five challengers from the rest of the world (ROW). There will be three days of rapid play and two days of blitz, and these are the matchups:

• Fabiano Caruana vs. Pentala Harikrishna
• Hikaru Nakamura vs. Jan-Krzysztof Duda
• Wesley So vs. David Navara
• Leinier Dominguez vs. Veselin Topalov
• Sam Shankland vs. Richard Rapport

I'm pretty excited about the event, and it will be nice to see Caruana and especially the long inactive Dominguez back in action. I think the Americans will be favorites on every board, though I wouldn't be shocked to see the ROWers win one or two of the first, fourth, or fifth matches.

Here are the specifics:

The event runs from February 20-24, and play each day starts at 1 p.m. local time (= 2 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CET). The first three days will be devoted to rapid chess, the last two to blitz. There will be 12 rapid games - 4 per day - and 24 blitz games - 12 per day. The rapid time control is 15' + 10" (an increment, thankfully, not the abominable Bronstein delay) and the blitz control is 3' + 2". The rapid games are scored 2-1-0, the blitz games 1-.5-0, with the prize money in each match awarding $36,000 to the winner and $24,000 to the loser. If the match finishes in a tie, that's it: the money is split and there's no playoff.

Thinking of Becoming a Professional Chess Player? You Might Want to Reconsider...

Here's some horrific news if you're a chess player: the list of the 50 best-paid players in 2018 based on FIDE events where at least one of the top 50 players took part. Thus winners of U.S. and other Swisses without super-GMs don't count. Another important omission is that appearance fees aren't included. Granted, these are unlikely to be huge, except when the top players are involved, but they do offer some help.

Even so, the figures are a horror: Peter Svidler made just under 27 thousand Euros last year, and Anish Giri less than 25 thousand. Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana both made over 700 thousand Euros, thanks in good part to their World Championship match, and then the next players on the list are Hikaru Nakamura (229k) and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (225k). Sergey Karjakin is next with 219k, and then Ju Wenjun is sixth (194k), thanks to her winning not one but two women's world championships in 2018.

The numbers are pretty bad, and with no retirement, a career at the top that certainly doesn't last until one's 60s, and more competition all the time it's pretty depressing unless the appearance fees are more widespread and more generous amongst non-GCT players than I thought. (No wonder Svidler does so much commentary.) The bottom line is that if you're not rated at least 2750 (or sponsored by your country and/or companies), you'd better supplement your playing career with commentary, writing, and/or lessons...or you might just find another career.

Sosonko & Shankland, Good News and Bad News

Jokes about Gennadi Sosonko as a sort of chronicler for the grim reaper have been going around for at couple of decades now. If Sosonko writes about you, there's a kind of good news, bad news to it: the good news is that if he does, you're somebody in the chess world; the bad news is that if he does, you're probably dead. (That may or may not be bad news for you, but it's at least sad for your loved ones.)

Sam Shankland may be the moderately grim reaper. If you lose to him in the last round of an event (or at least your last round), the good news is that you're clearly a really strong player. The bad news is that it might be your last serious game: he sent Judit Polgar into retirement in the 2014 Chess Olympiad (I can't believe it has been four and a half years! I initially wrote "2016", but then checked to make sure), and now he has sent Vladimir Kramnik out of professional chess as well. It's possible that there's no causal relationship between their losses to Shankland and their retirement, but you can't be too careful: make sure your favorite players don't face him in the last round of a major tournament.

2019 Gibraltar, Last Round: Artemiev Defeats Yu, Wins the Tournament

Some games are still going, but the first (and second) places in the 2019 Gibraltar Masters have been decided. Youngster Vladislav Artemiev won the tournament, defeating Yu Yangyi in a very complicated battle to take clear first. Yu had some pressure on the white side of an Advance Caro-Kann, and Artemiev did very well to survive what looked like a precarious position. Artemiev had already taken over the initiative, but it wasn't too serious until Yu got his knights jumbled up over moves 31-33. Once that happened he had to sacrifice material to bail out into a pawn-down rook ending, and while there are plenty of rook endings where the defender can escape with a draw, this wasn't one of them. The last two moves were a nice touch to expedite the win, and now Artemiev finished the tournament with 8.5/10 points, the £25,000 first prize, and a gain of 27 rating points (making him #20 in the world and the top-ranked player under 21 years of age) thanks to a 2941 TPR. It's an outstanding result, but whether it's an indication that he will break into the absolute elite remains to be seen.

Taking clear second was 19-year-old Indian GM Murali Karthikeyan. He defeated no less a player than Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the last round and is guaranteed clear second with 8 points. His performance wasn't as stratospheric as Artemiev's - his TPR was "only" 2747, and there were players in lower score groups with comparable and higher TPRs than his. Still, he had a great event, gained 24 points and £20,000 for his troubles - pretty nice for a week and a half's work. (Not counting the thousands of hours of hard work that went into giving him the necessary skill.) According to his Wikipedia page he has a "real" job, so it's even more impressive that he could achieve this. (On the other hand, it's potentially sad that such a talent has to have a non-chess job, but it's only sad in fact if he believes that it's something he must do for the sake of financial security.)

Three players finished with 7.5 points - and now that David Navara has only drawn against Hrant Melkumyan (a game he was winning, but that finished in a way that will make Sam Shankland wince if he sees it - compare this with that) I don't believe that anyone else can join the tie. If that's correct, then Nikita Vitiugov, David Howell, and David Anton Guijarro alone finished tied for third, with a big pile of players behind them tying with 7 points apiece.

Chess.com's Post on Kramnik's Retirement (Includes a Tweet Fit For a Donkey) **Updated**

It is a gracious post, of course, both in its original text and in the surveyed tweets. (Well, mostly so; there is one notable exception - a garbage tweet from the current owner of the game's highest title.) Hopefully there will be plenty of tributes, and some good books on his career - ideally by the man himself.

**Update** Magnus Carlsen says a little about Kramnik's retirement in the first few minutes of this video interview with Jan Gustafsson.