Catching Up on Events: Russian Championship Qualifier, New Delhi, US Juniors

In the Russian Championship "Higher League" (English language coverage here), a qualifying event for the Russian Championship later this year, Alexander Morozevich is once again playing like the super-GM he has been for most of his career. His 8th round win over Artyom Timofeev propelled him into clear first, and with another win today in round 9 he maintained that spot. He has 7 points, putting him half a point clear of Timofeev and a point ahead of the next six players. Two rounds remain.

There's a very strong tournament in New Delhi, with one 2700 (Fabiano Caruana), three near-2700s (Viktor Laznicka, Krishnan Sasikiran and Wesley So), plus the talented juniors Parimarjan Negi and Hou Yifan (who is also the women's world champion). After three rounds of this 10 game double-round robin, Caruana leads with a perfect score, Laznicka is second with two points, and Hou is getting pushed around: she has as many points as we do.*

In the U.S. Junior, I last noted that Gregory Young's 4-0 streak had been broken with a loss in round 5, putting him in a three-way tie for first. It didn't last long: he won again in rounds 6 and 7, beating top seed Daniel Naroditsky in the latter game, and leads by a point and a half with two rounds to go. Naroditsky, Conrad Holt and Alec Getz are his closest pursuers.

* Alternative euphemism: she has castled queenside.

This Week's ChessVideos Show: Two Nice Wins Against the Caro-Kann

For this week's show, which is free (as always, though free registration is required in case you haven't signed up already), I show my last round game from the tournament I played in last weekend. As the title ever-so-subtly hints, it's a Caro-Kann, and along the way I show another game in the same opening.

The tournament game is a smooth positional win, while the parenthetical game is a short, fun, tactical affair. I hope you'll enjoy them both!

Other Events: Ponomariov Wins Ukranian Championship, and More

1. Ruslan Ponomariov made a very good impression on the audience in St. Louis during his recent match with Hikaru Nakamura, and so we, in conjunction with his many fans in Ukraine and elsewhere are pleased to see his success in the Ukranian Championship. Going into the last round he was in first, but by only half a point and facing his nearest challenger with the black pieces. He won that game, against Alexander Moiseenko, and took an undefeated clear first with 8.5/11. His TPR of 2852 pushed his rating to 2764 (and change), bringing him to #10 in the world, only 5.3 more rating points from taking over the 6th spot.

Pavel Eljanov finished a point behind at 7.5, and was also undefeated. Zahar Efimenko was undefeated as well at 7, tied with Moiseenko (whose only loss was to Ponomariov) for 3rd/4th.

2. The Russian Championhip Semi-Finals/Qualifier/"Higher League" has had some hop-scotching at the top. First Najer lead, then Sjugirov, and with a win over Sjugirov (with Black) in round 7 Artyom Timofeev is now leading with 5.5 points. Sjugirov, Galkin, and (in a rare tournament appearance these days) Morozevich have 5. 12 others are on 4.5, so there's plenty of jockeying for position yet to come in the final four rounds.

3. The US Junior Championship: Gregory Young was finally stopped in round 5, and is now "only" tied for first at 4-1 with Daniel Naroditsky; four players are a point behind with four rounds to play.

Bazna, Last Round: Carlsen, Karjakin Draw, Tie for First

In the battle of the 1990ers vs. the field, it was a rout. Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin, both born 11 years before the new millennium*, drew their game, tied for first, made progress on the rating list and left the rest of the field in their dust.

Their game was a fairly uneventful Rubinstein Nimzo-Indian. Karjakin equalized as Black without much trouble, and the game was drawn at move 30. Carlsen was declared the official first-place winner on tiebreaks, which seems silly to me, given that it was a double round-robin, but with only one first-place trophy it has to be decided one way or another. Their +3 scores gained them rating points, and now Carlsen is back atop the live ratings while Karjakin has moved into fourth place. They dominated the event, finishing two points clear of the field; in fact, no one else even managed a 50% score.

Hikaru Nakamura entered the round on 50%, and if he had been able to take advantage of Vassily Ivanchuk's bad form he could have finished on +1 and moved up to #5 on the rating list. Instead, Ivanchuk ground him down on the white side of an Exchange Slav, completing the odd bookends for both players. Ivanchuk won only his first and last games while Nakamura lost only in the first and last rounds. Nakamura finished at -1, Ivanchuk at -2.

Teimour Radjabov and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu also finished at -1 and -2, respectively, after their draw. Radjabov played a sideline in the Classical Caro-Kann that's considered harmless, and it was harmless today as well - at least against Nisipeanu's accurate, active play.

Final Standings:

1-2. Carlsen (first on tiebreak), Karjakin 6.5

3-4. Radjabov, Nakamura 4.5

5-6. Nisipeanu, Ivanchuk 4

Tournament site here, games (with my comments) here.

* Yes, I know I'll regret bringing this up. Someday I'll learn my lesson - maybe at the start of the next decade, on January 1, 2021?

Bazna Round 9: Carlsen, Karjakin Tied for First, To Play in the Last Round

Magnus Carlsen entered today's 9th round with a half point lead over Sergey Karjakin, and with a comfortable draw with Black against Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu did his job. Unfortunately for him, Vassily Ivanchuk played an insanely poor game against Karjakin, and was destroyed in 22 pretty routine moves. They are thus tied for first going into the last round, and as if scripted they are paired in the last round, with Carlsen getting the white pieces.

In third in this strange tournament, at 50%, is Hikaru Nakamura, who was unable to achieve anything against Teimour Radjabov's Kalashnikov. With one round to go, then, here are the standings:

1-2. Carlsen, Karjakin 6

3. Nakamura 4.5

4. Radjabov 4

5. Nisipeanu 3.5

6. Ivanchuk 3

Final Round Pairings:

Carlsen - Karjakin

Ivanchuk - Nakamura

Radjabov - Nisipeanu

Tournament site here, games with my comments here.

Other Events: Ukranian Championship, Russian Championship Semi-Finals, US Junior Championship

Time for a quick check-in on some of the other important events taking place around the world.

In the Ukranian Championship, top seed and former FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov has led from round 1, but hasn't managed to put much separation between himself and the field. After 9 rounds (of 11) he is in clear first with 6.5 points, but Pavel Eljanov and Alexander Moiseenko are just half a point back. Zahar Efimenko is a further half a point back with 5.5 points, and as he and Ponomariov are yet to play the final standings are very much up for grabs.

The Russian Championship "Higher League" (an unhelpful way of referring to a qualifier for the actual Russian Championship later this year) is almost halfway through. After 5 of 11 rounds, Evgeny Najer is in clear first with 4 points, half a point ahead of 12 others including 2700s Nikita Vitiugov and Evgeny Tomashevsky. Twelve more players have three points, including former FIDE Champion Alexander Khalifman and erstwhile (and surely future) 2700 Alexander Morozevich.

An event without 2700s, but of possible interest to at least my countrymen, is the US Junior Championship. After four rounds (of nine) the leader is a surprise: Gregory Young. He's in the bottom half of the draw, but has gone 4-0 so far, and that includes wins over the second and third seeds. Daniel Naroditsky, John Bryant and Warren Harper are a point behind.

Bazna, Round 8: Everyone Draws, So Carlsen Still Leads

The antepenultimate round of the King's Tournament finished peacefully, with three draws by repetition.

The longest game was Nakamura-Karjakin, a 4.a3 Queen's Indian that saw White enjoy a middlegame edge. Somewhere around moves 22-28 Nakamura seems to have let Karjakin escape (not that the American was ever winning), and once Black played 30...Nd6 he was safe. In the final position White is set up to make progress on the queenside with a4-a5, but due to some tactical problems with his king he had no choice but to force a repetition.

Radjabov-Carlsen also ended in a draw by repetition. Carlsen has enjoyed some success on the white side of the QGD with 5.Bf4, so Radjabov decided to find out how Carlsen would handle things from the other side of the board. It turned out he had a pretty easy job of it with 5...0-0 6.e3 b6. It's rarer than 6...c5 and 6...Nbd7, but unless one of White's 7th move alternatives proves more successful than 7.cxd5 did in this game, it's liable to grow in popularity very soon. By the time the opening was over Carlsen had completely equalized, and while the way he decided to finish the game was both amusing and attractive, it was also unnecessary. Black was absolutely fine, and had just as much right to play on as White did. Rather than play on, Carlsen sacrificed a piece to force perpetual check, and that, with Karjakin's draw, kept him half a point ahead, in first place.

Finally, Ivanchuk-Nisipeanu, the battle of the tail-enders, was also drawn - again by repetition! In an English/Kan Sicilian/Hedgehog (of sorts) Nisipeanu found an interesting way to deal with the pressure against his b6-pawn: he sacrificed it on b5. Maybe Ivanchuk had one chance to battle for an edge after that, but missing it Nisipeanu used a series of small tactical tricks to keep his counterplay going. In the end Ivanchuk didn't want to play a pawn up with his king caught in the center, while Nisipeanu didn't want to play an ending with equal material but where White would have outside connected passed pawns, so they repeated moves to avoid their own evil fates.

Standings After Round 8:

• 1. Carlsen 5.5
• 2. Karjakin 5
• 3. Nakamura 4
• 4. Radjabov 3.5
• 5-6. Ivanchuk, Nisipeanu 3

Round 9 Pairings:

• Nakamura - Radjabov
• Karjakin - Ivanchuk
• Nisipeanu - Carlsen

The games, with my comments, are here.

1992 Fischer Training Games

Before his "world championship" rematch against Boris Spassky in 1992, Bobby Fischer played a series of 10 training games against his old friend, the former super-GM Svetozar Gligoric. Well-known collector David DeLucia released three of the game scores last year (why not the other seven?), and they can be replayed on ChessGames.com - you'll find them at the end of the list on this page.

HT: Brian Karen

Bazna, Round 7: Carlsen Again Alone in First

Just a short report tonight, without games, as I spent all day Saturday in a one-day tournament. (I won it, as I did a blitz tournament the night before. Another fun event this weekend was watching the HBO documentary film "Bobby Fischer Against the World". Informationally, there's absolutely nothing new to those who have read, say, Frank Brady's book Endgame, but there are many pictures and video clips that you won't have seen, and they make it worth seeing.)

Back to Bazna! Two games of the three games were drawn pretty quickly. Karjakin failed to get anything against Radjabov's Schliemann, showing once again that while Black has no winning chances in the line 4.Nc3 fxe4 5.Nxe4 Nf6 6.Nxf6+ Qxf6 7.Qe2, White's are only very slightly above zero.

Nisipeanu-Nakamura was more interesting by comparison. In a 6.Be2 Najdorf, White eventually managed to achieve the stock aim of super-knight on d5 vs. a feeble dark-squared bishop, but the price of the achievement was a pawn. Perhaps Nakamura had some slight hopes of using the extra pawn in the long run, but this was cut short by a clever Nisipeanu combination to force perpetual check.

Finally, there was Carlsen-Ivanchuk, won by the youngster in his trademark technical style. Normally GMs hold when the only flaw in their position is the isolated d-pawn, but not this time. Carlsen ground away, won a pawn, and ultimately finished Chuky off in a knight ending. Carlsen is thus back in clear first with three rounds to go, and has solidified his grip on the top spot in the live ratings.

Standings After Round 7:

• 1. Carlsen 5
• 2. Karjakin 4.5
• 3. Nakamura 3.5
• 4. Radjabov 3
• 5-6. Ivanchuk, Nisipeanu 2.5

Round 8 Pairings:

• Radjabov - Carlsen
• Ivanchuk - Nisipeanu
• Nakamura - Karjakin

Bazna, Round 6: Karjakin Beats Nisipeanu, Shares First With Carlsen

The second cycle of the King's Tournament started today, with a colors-reversed rematch of round 1. In all three games, the player with the white pieces did half a point better than he did the first time around. Today, Nakamura drew with White against Carlsen, Radjabov drew with White against Ivanchuk, and Karjakin won with White against Nisipeanu.

Nakamura - Carlsen was a Breyer with 11.c4. The line had a flurry of popularity several decades ago, but now it seems to be of use mainly as a surprise weapon, as the variation 11...c6 12.Nc3 b4 13.Na4 c5 is extremely drawish. That's how the game went, and White never obtained a plus. At the end Carlsen was making dangerous inroads on the queenside, but the threat of a white counterattack on the kingside forced a repetition.

Radjabov - Ivanchuk was a Semi-Tarrasch with a rather slow-looking novelty, 15.h3. If there's anything to it, and not just a pragmatic response to an unexpected opening, then White will need to find some improvement before trading queens on move 19. After that Black had no problems at all, and the rest of the way it was Radjabov who needed to maintain the balance - not that it was too tough a job.

Finally, Karjakin - Nisipeanu was a good grind 'em down win for the youngster. Nisipeanu played the Schliemann (aka Jaenisch) and sacrificed two pawns for counterplay in the 5...d5, 7...Qg5 line. The counterplay was sufficient but Black needed to be accurate, and near the end of the time control Nisipeanu's play was inaccurate. Karjakin managed to consolidate an extra, passed pawn in a double-rook ending, and went on to win the game. As a result, he has caught Carlsen in first place in the tournament and surpassed Kramnik into fourth place in the live FIDE ratings. Not bad for a day's work!

Standings After Round 6:

• 1-2. Carlsen, Karjakin 4
• 3. Nakamura 3
• 4-5. Radjabov, Ivanchuk 2.5
• 6. Nisipeanu 2

Round 7 Pairings:

• Karjakin - Radjabov
• Nisipeanu - Nakamura
• Carlsen - Ivanchuk

Tournament site here; games, with my comments, here.