The St. Louis Rapid & Blitz tournament is now history, and a bit of chess history that will likely be remembered on account of Garry Kasparov's participation. He was the star of the show coming into the event (though not the favorite), and he played very well on the event's final day. But the hero of the event was Levon Aronian, who won by a healthy three point margin and played the best chess throughout the tournament.
Aronian won the rapid portion by half a point (a point on the 2-1-0 scoring system used for that portion of the event; the rapid games counted double compared to the blitz games) over Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana, and took second in the blitz a point behind Sergey Karjakin. Nakamura took third in the blitz, while Karjakin did poorly in the rapid, finishing two points behind Aronian (in normal scoring; four points behind on 2-1-0 scoring). Karjakin was great in the blitz, especially on the first day when he went undefeated with a monstrous score of eight out of nine. He won his last five games, and started the final day with two more wins, closing to within a point of Aronian.
Round 12 proved critical. Karjakin had White against the tailender, David Navara, while Aronian had White against Le Quang Liem. Karjakin was outplayed by Navara (who had defeated Aronian in the previous round!) and lost, while Aronian was worse in his game but won on time (and in a position where the Bronstein delay should have sufficed for Le to make reasonable moves). In the next round Karjakin had White again, against Aronian, but got nothing; in fact, he had to play accurately to hold the balance and draw. Karjakin lost again in round 16, to Nakamura, and that put paid to his hopes of winning first. In any case, Aronian finished strongly, finishing the tournament with 3.5/4, including wins in the last two rounds.
Nakamura also finished with 3.5/4 to catch Karjakin (including the win noted in the previous paragraph), but losses in rounds 13 and 14 likewise put an end to any of his dreams of taking first. Still, it was a good tournament overall for the first three finishers, and Ian Nepomniachtchi's fourth place was a good result for him as well, especially after his poor finish in the Sinquefield Cup the week before, where he tied for last.
As for Kasparov, his performance on the first day of the blitz wasn't anything to write home about, but day two was another story. He lost a strange game to Karjakin in round 1, and it was strange for two reasons. First, 21...Qf6 was a mistake, and it seemed during the video that he realized it was a mistake because of 22.Bxh5. It may be that he thought he let go of the queen before returning the queen to e7 (a la his game vs. Nakamura last year and, much, much earlier, against Judit Polgar), and so he decided to just be done with it and make the move. It seems clear from the video that he didn't let go, but perhaps he wasn't sure. Good sportsmanship on his part, if that's what happened, but a shame (if that was his reason) since he didn't actually let go. The second strange thing is that while he was worse from start to finish, there was one momentarily exception, and it was a biggie: 31...e4 would have won, or at least have given him a winning advantage. It's surprising that two superstars missed the move, but that's blitz. (And part of the problem was that the move wasn't there the move before; it was only Karjakin's 31.Re1-f1 that made it possible.)
Anyway, after that loss, Kasparov went undefeated the rest of the event, and won against Caruana in round 12 (with Black), Nakamura in round 13 (with White), and Leinier Dominguez in round 17 (with Black in a Najdorf). The last game was especially good, and left me pining for Kasparov's return and wishing that Friday had been the start of the tournament and not its finish. If Kasparov had won against Navara in the last round he would have made it a four-way tie for fifth-eighth, but because he drew he finished half a point behind Dominguez, Caruana, and Le. Anand finished a couple of points behind Kasparov, and Navara finished another point back.
Final Blitz Standings:
1. Karjakin 13.5 (out of 18)
2. Aronian 12.5
3. Nakamura 10.5
4. Nepomniachtchi 10
5. Kasparov 9
6. Le Quang Liem 8.5
7. Dominguez 7.5
8. Anand 7
9. Navara 6
10. Caruana 5.5
Final Overall Standings:
1. Aronian 24.5 (out of 36)
2-3. Karjakin, Nakamura 21.5
4. Nepomniachtchi 20
5-7. Dominguez, Caruana, Le Quang Liem 16.5
8. Kasparov 16
9. Anand 14
10. Navara 13
The day 4 video can be watched here, day 5 here. And here are all the games (unannotated). And the video for yesterday's "Ultimate Moves" competition is here.
Monday, August 21, 2017 at 4:53PM
On Why Kasparov Won't Return to Chess
In a post-event interview with Maurice Ashley and the St. Louis commentators, Garry Kasparov made it clear that he's not returning to tournament chess. The St. Louis event was a one-off, motivated by his desire to show gratitude to Rex Sinquefield and to give a boost to the work he's doing with the St. Louis chess club. Kasparov emphasized that the tension was very difficult for him to handle, and this seemed clear both in play during the event (watch the video of his win over Fabiano Caruana on day two; he keeps it together, but the stress is obvious) and over the event as well (his continued - and understandable - lament over the pain of his loss to David Navara in the rapid portion was considerable).
There are hints in this direction in his book Deep Thinking as well. At the start of chapter 10, which covers the end of the match he lost to Deep Blue in 1997, Kasparov writes, "Since I am now in my mid-fifties and must take care with my blood pressure" (p. 197). Combine that with his admission - which will come as a surprise to exactly no one who remembers him during his career - that he is a (very) sore loser, and it makes plenty of sense for him not to return to competitive chess. From the start of chapter 7 (p. 113):
Switching to humblebrag mode, Kasparov rounds off his discussion of being a sore loser like this: "If I was never a good loser, it was partly because I never had the chance to get good at it." And for a while at least, if he were to come back to competitive chess, he'd have to spend a bit more time "getting good" at it.
And there's this. Kasparov explicitly refuses to join the argument over whether chess is a sport, but in certain respects it is very sport-like. For instance:
All of us are familiar with the pain of brutal losses, and the farther we've gone up the food chain in chess and the more competitive we are - and maybe especially if we've ever been "little Kasparovs" in our little fiefdoms - the more painful such losses can be. As we got older we may mellow a bit, but it's also true that our bodies aren't as resilient as they used to be. It's a pity for chess not only that Kasparov won't come back to the game in a consistent fashion, but also that he's not even up for a follow-up in the near future, to build on the work and practice he has just had while it's fresh. A pity, but understandable. As Clint Eastwood famously said, "A man's gotta know his limitations", and Kasparov knows his.