Isle of Man, Final Round: Carlsen Draws Quickly to Clinch Clear First; Nakamura, Anand Tie for Second

As at least one chess blogger suggested yesterday, a draw between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura was very likely, and it would quite possibly be a short draw. Sure enough, it took just 18 moves and less than half an hour for them to repeat moves and call it a tournament. Carlsen thus clinched clear first with 7.5/9, while Nakamura guaranteed himself at worst part of a four-way tie for second.

Viswanathan Anand joined the tie by beating Hou Yifan with surprising ease. It's not so surprising that Anand would beat Hou, especially with the white pieces, but it is surprising given the insipid line he chose against her Petroff. He was able to build from a tiny initiative, and after a brief flurry of complications won a pawn, which he converted in a queen and rook ending.

The other players who could have caught Nakamura drew their games. This was not so surprising in the all-2700 clash between Richard Rapport and S.G. Vidit, but it was much more surprising that Pavel Eljanov couldn't defeat the hitherto little-known and much lower-rated Indian GM S.D. Swapnil. He was close for a while, but couldn't put him away. So all four players finished with 6.5 points, and were caught by five others, including Vladimir Kramnik, Fabiano Caruana, Mickey Adams, Emil Sutovsky, and Alexei Shirov.

It was a good comeback for Kramnik, who repaired some of the damage done earlier in the tournament, but still lost 8.4 rating points overall. On the other hand, it was a great event for his surprise conquerer, James Tarjan, who demonstrated his fine eye for cheapos once again in defeating Alexandra Kosteniuk today. He finished with 5.5 points, gained 30 rating points, and had an excellent TPR of 2671 - which was 11 points higher than Kramnik's.

The top TPR of the tournament belonged to Carlsen, of course, who achieved an outstanding 2903 TPR. (Caruana and Nakamura were tied for second, with 2831 TPRs, and Anand was next at 2806. Then Swapnil and Aleks Lenderman finished with 2768 TPRs - big congrats to both of them.) Carlsen added 11.4 points to his rating, and what was recently a tenuous gap between him and his closest pursuers has expanded again, and he is 36.4 points ahead of world #2 Levon Aronian.

The full results are here, and a final selection of games from this tournament is here.

Isle of Man, Round 8: Carlsen Crushes Caruana, Leads Nakamura by Half a Point Entering the Last Round

And since they haven't played so far, that means that they're paired for the last round. If Hikaru Nakamura can defeat Magnus Carlsen, he takes clear first; if not, Carlsen takes clear first. Nakamura's career record against Carlsen is extremely bad, as just about everyone knows, but it hasn't been that bad the last couple of years. However, he'll have the black pieces tomorrow, and I suspect he'll be satisfied with a draw, even a quick draw, unless he gets a really promising position out of the opening. The young Nakamura would try to win at all costs, but these days he's less willing to burn his bridges against anyone and everyone. With a draw, the worst he would do is share 2nd-5th places, in which case he makes a little less than £12,000, and a maximum of £25,000. If he wins, he makes £50,000, but if he loses, it'll be in the low four figures - not exactly cab fare, but it will feel like it. It's possible that Carlsen will feel ambitious, but I doubt it: better to pocket the money and clinch the victory - his first victory in a classical tournament this year.

Enough speculation; time for a recap. Fabiano Caruana had White against Carlsen today, and surprised the champ with 15.g4. After a long thought Carlsen played 15...Qe7, which was apparently a surprise for Caruana. White was better for a while, but starting with 22.Bc2 he lost the thread, and Carlsen was all over him. Caruana was already lost when he played 35.Qe3??, which lost on the spot to 35...Bf4. A very convincing victory by Carlsen, and a game Caruana would like to forget.

Nakamura had an easier time of it with White against Emil Sutovsky. Sutovsky played the Queen's Gambit Accepted, which isn't his normal repertoire choice (that would be the Gruenfeld). Nakamura was surprised by 8...c5, but not impressed by it. Once Nakamura spotted 16.d5 he understood that Black was busted, and he went on to win comfortably.

The remaining game featuring players who could have kept pace with Nakamura was S.G. Vidit-Pavel Eljanov, which finished in a short, probably correct draw. Maybe White could have kept a pull with 29.Qc6, but after 29.Qxf7+ Kxf7 30.Rd5 Rc8 they called it a day.

Vidit and Eljanov has 6/8; here's how the other six-pointers got there. Viswanathan Anand defeated Laurent Fressinet with Black in a Giuoco, Richard Rapport beat Ivan Sokolov when the latter blundered in an equal position, S.D. Swapnil defeated Nigel Short in one long game while Hou Yifan beat Sebastian Bogner in another. Hou is now one win away from surpassing her previous career best rating of 2687. Unfortunately for her, this will be difficult, as she'll have Black against Anand in the last round.

Leading last round pairings:

Carlsen (7) - Caruana (6.5)
Anand (6) - Hou (6)
Eljanov (6) - Swapnil (6)
Rapport (6) - Vidit (6)

Lower boards of interest: Vladimir Kramnik overcame S.P. Sethuraman with great difficulty, but overcome he did to reach 5.5 points. He'll have Black against Gawain Jones in the final round. Varuzhan Akobian and Aleks Lenderman had a spectacular draw that Akobian should have won. Both players are also on 5.5 points, and will face Caruana and Peter Leko, respectively. Jan Timman finally lost a game, to David Howell, blundering horribly in a slightly worse position. Alexei Shirov showed a little of his trademark "fire on board" style, outfoxing Alexandra Kosteniuk in a complicated middlegame. He too is at 5.5 and will have White against Howell in the last round. Finally, Tarjan rides again, drawing Vishnu Prasanna (2543) with Black. He'll finish the tournament with the white pieces against Kosteniuk (2552).

Some games (with varying degrees of commentary) here; tournament site here.

Isle of Man, Rounds 5-7

But mostly rounds 6 and 7. My comments about round 5 will be limited to the difficulties experienced by two members of the semi-old guard: Vladimir Kramnik and Boris Gelfand. Kramnik's travails were already noted in the preceding post, while Gelfand's suffering began in that round. After a solid 3-1 start, he lost in round 5 to S.P. Sethuraman, and from a position that would normally be impossible to lose. He was clearly better in a rook and bishop ending with even material, but hallucinated his way into a lost bishop ending a pawn down.

In round 6, he doubled down on this, losing to Anna Zatonskih from a winning position. To her credit, she made things tricky in time trouble and devised a dastardly trap, but normally Gelfand would have cashed in on at least one of the winning positions he enjoyed in the game. After this, he took a bye to stop the bleeding.

Speaking of players who needed byes, Hou Yifan took one after playing her fourth female opponent in a row, and has bounced back against the men, winning in round 6 and 7. She has five points and plays Sebastian Bogner in round 8.

Another player who has bounced back a bit is Kramnik, who won with White in round 6 (no problem there - he has gone 3-0 with White, albeit against much lower-rated opposition) and then finally won a game with Black in round 7, employing the Benko Gambit for the first time in his life (or so said the commentators at one moment; is should be checked to see if he transposed into one via a King's Indian or a Benoni). Despite all his miseries in the tournament, he has 4.5 points and will play Sethuraman in round 8.

James Tarjan, one of the players who contributed to Kramnik's earlier sorrows, has continued to play well. He bounced back from his unnecessary loss to Niclas Huschenbeth in round 4 by drawing with Sabino Brunello (2555), beating Pavel Tregubov (2589), and drawing with Rasmus Svane (2595). His 4-3 score is good for a 2654 TPR.

Still one more member of the old guard deserves some praise: Jan Timman. Like Tarjan, he's both 65 and has the initials "J.T." More relevantly, he has also had success against elite players. No wins over 2800s, but four draws against players who are or have been rated over 2700. That's a fine result, and he has gone undefeated so far. He gets another 2700 in round 8, David Howell.

Two noteworthy norm aspirants are Aman Hambleton and Ramesh Praggnanandhaa. Hambleton is well-known for his mighty beard, which he intends to keep until he achieves his third GM norm. He had been in the running until he lost a defensible ending to Gabriel Sargissian in round 6. Praggnanandhaa is a 12-year-old who has already achieved a 2500 rating (and is already the youngest IM ever, achieved at the age of 10 years, 10 months, and 19 days), but has no norms. If he can achieve them in the next five months or so, he can break Sergey Karjakin's record for the youngest GM ever. He was in the running until round 7, but his loss to Varuzhan Akobian probably put an end to his hopes in this tournament. He's playing an untitled 2384 in round 8, which seals it.

Now let's turn to the leaders. Going into round 6 there were two tournament leaders, Pavel Eljanov - who won this tournament last year - and the world champion, Magnus Carlsen. Carlsen cheekily played Owen's Defense with Black, albeit against 1.Nf3 rather than 1.e4 (after the latter move it's considered somewhat dubious), and won with remarkable ease. That gave him the clear lead, and although he only drew against the fast-rising Indian star Santosh Gujrathi Vidit in round 7 (with difficulty, with White) he's still half a point ahead of his pursuers.

The most notable among them is perhaps Fabiano Caruana, who will have White against Carlsen in round 8. He drew in round 6 and defeated Gawain Jones in round 7, thanks largely to some fine preparation. He has 5.5/7, as does Hikaru Nakamura, Eljanov, Vidit, and Emil Sutovsky.

Another half a point back is a large group that includes Viswanathan Anand and Hou Yifan, along with the U.S. players Akobian and Aleks Lenderman. Lenderman remains undefeated after drawing his last four games; his TPR is 2793, 6th highest in the tournament. (The top two TPRs, by a long way, belong to Carlsen and Caruana at 2893 and 2873, respectively.) Unfortunately for American fans, Akobian and Lenderman are paired for round 8.

Here are the leading pairings for round 8:

• Caruana (5.5) - Carlsen (6)
• Nakamura (5.5) - Sutovsky (5.5)
• Vidit (5.5) - Eljanov (5.5)

Finally, here is a selection of games from the past three rounds.

Isle of Man, Round 4: Mostly Draws on the Top Boards

There are no more perfect scores, as the four players coming into the round 3-0 drew their games. Rustam Kasimdzhanov split the point with Magnus Carlsen, and Aleks Lenderman did the same against his World Cup victim (and defending Isle of Man champion) Pavel Eljanov. Lenderman had the best chances of the four to collect a full point, but in the end could do no better than draw with an extra pawn in a rook ending.

Most of the players with 2.5/3 drew, but three players made it to 3.5: Julio Grand Zuniga, Laurent Fressinet, and Santosh Gujrathi Vidit. A huge group of 28 players is another half a point behind.

In other stories: Vladimir Kramnik defeated a very low-rated player (by his standards) to get back to 50%, while James Tarjan played very well for most of the game against Niclas Huschenbeth before finally going astray and losing in a double rook ending. In her fourth consecutive game with a female opponent, Hou Yifan won to get back to +1, and in round 5 she is playing...no one. At first I thought she might have withdrawn in protest, but it seems she has taken a half-point bye for the round.

Some top pairings for round 5:

• Carlsen (3.5) - Granda (3.5)
• Eljanov (3.5) - Kasimdzhanov (3.5)
• Vidit (3.5) - Lenderman (3.5)
• Caruana (3) - Xiong (3)
• Anand (3) - Grandelius (3)
• Sargissian (3) - Nakamura (3)
• Adams (3) - Shirov (3)
• Sethuraman (3) - Gelfand (3)

Fressinet (3.5) took a half-point bye.

Adventures at the Isle of Man

This has really been an exciting and entertaining tournament so far, with some big upsets and great stories. We've already looked at some round 1 highlights, and we'll skip over round 2 to turn our attention to round 3.

The first and biggest story: Vladimir Kramnik lost again, to James Tarjan! Tarjan is a grandmaster and was a fine player in his day - more than 30 years ago! He gave up the game in his early 30s and became a librarian, only re-emerging in the last three years or so. His results have been very good for a 65-year-old who quit playing for 30 years, but not up to his old standard. But today the American GM notched the biggest scalp of his career, upsetting a player rated nearly 400 points above him.

When I was a kid I lost to Tarjan in an open tournament here in the U.S., and was he incredibly gracious to nobody me in the post-mortem. He was one of the nicest guys I came across, so I'm especially happy for him after his success today. Indeed, watch this video - you have to have a heart of stone not to be happy for the guy.

Watch live video from Chess on www.twitch.tv

This is good news for the U.S. in another way: Kramnik is now in a big hole in the race for the Candidates spots based on ratings. Unless something dramatic happens - and it might - those spots will go to Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So. More good news for the U.S.: Aleks Lenderman is 3-0, having defeated Francisco Vallejo Pons today when the latter failed to hold the notorious rook vs. rook and bishop ending.

But back to feel-good stories of the Tarjan variety. You may recall that 70-year-old FM Zaki Harari had near-2700 GM Maxim Rodshtein beat in that round, but repeated moves rather than landing the knockout blow. Well, no problem: today he had another chance against a GM, Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant, and this time he won. Granted, she's not at Rodshtein's level, but it was still a major upset. Good for Mr. Harari!

A sadder story, of sorts, is the unbelievable saga of Hou Yifan. You might recall at the start of the year she was extremely irritated at getting paired with seven female players in the first nine rounds, and she protested in round 10 by playing an absurd opening (against her male opponent) and resigning after five moves. There was no evidence that anyone had cooked the pairings to give her a disproportionate number of female opponents, but she wasn't so sure, and was certainly unhappy about it.

Here we are, months later in a different location. Who do you suppose she has faced this time? Round 1: Alexandra Kosteniuk (draw). Round 2: Elisabeth Paehtz (win). Uh oh. Round 3: Nino Batsiashvili (loss). UH OH. If she doesn't withdraw or hire protestors to block access to the tournament hall, the absurdist drama will continue in round 4, when she's due to face Yuliya Shvayger. You've gotta be kidding. It's pretty incredible that between the two events she's facing 11 women in 14 rounds, even though they are heavily outnumbered by the male players in the tournament.

At the top, Magnus Carlsen leads the small group of players with 3-0 scores; today he defeated American youngster Jeffery Xiong, though the win wasn't quite as convincing as it might have seemed. In round 4 he'll have Black against Rustam Kasimdzhanov, a former FIDE World Champion and Fabiano Caruana's second. The other 3-0 pairing is a World Cup rematch, with Lenderman getting White against Pavel Eljanov, who happens to be the defending champion of this tournament. 19 players have 2.5 points, including Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, and Viswanathan Anand.

Some games here, with brief comments.

Isle of Man, Round 1: Caruana Beats Kramnik UPDATE: Harari-Rodshtein Miracle Save

There's plenty of chess remaining in this tournament (it's just round 1 at the Isle of Man), and Vladimir Kramnik is playing in at least one more event before the final rating tallies are in for the Candidates, but Fabiano Caruana helped himself a great deal today by defeating Kramnik in their round 1 matchup in the Isle of Man tournament.

An obvious question: why in the world are Caruana and Kramnik playing in round 1 of an open tournament? The answer is that John Saunders persuaded the organizers to have random pairings for round 1. The upshot is that all sorts of pairings resulted: GMs vs. IMs, higher-rated GMs vs. lower-rated GMs, Magnus Carlsen playing a 2100, and in this case, two players from the world's top five facing each other.

Pairings will return to normalcy tomorrow, but this experiment will have done its damage to Kramnik's chances. It's not just the loss, but all the low-rated players he'll face as a result of his so-called Swiss gambit. But congratulations to Caruana, who hasn't clinched a trip to Berlin but has greatly increased his chances of getting back there.

As for the game, have a look here. A few games remain in round 1, most notably Zaki Harari, rated just 2027, enjoying the better chances against Maxim Rodshtein (2699 on the Live List).

UPDATE: Rodshtein finally broke under the pressure, but in a totally won position with plenty of time on the clock Harari repeated moves. (At least it seems he had plenty of time, according to the transmission. Maybe it was inaccurate and Harari was living off the increment. But even if he was down to 31 seconds he could have done it - especially if he repeated once to gain a minute. In a low-pressure situation Harari probably would have found the right move in a 3-minute blitz game, maybe even in bullet) Harari repeated moves. He only needed to spot one good move, and it wasn't a difficult one, either. A real pity, but congrats to the massive underdog for gaining half a point and giving his elite opponent a real scare. Have a look.

Isle of Man Starts Today With Carlsen, Kramnik, Caruana, Anand, Nakamura, ...

It's an open event, but the Chess.com Isle of Man International is extremely strong - have a look here at the top 20 playing in the Masters event. The action starts at 1:30 p.m. local time (= 8:30 a.m. ET, or 90 minutes after the start time for the World Cup). It's a smooth transition from one super-event to the next.

In fact, this tournament, like the World Cup, is a big deal for the 2018 Candidates, as Vladimir Kramnik and Fabiano Caruana - who are playing - are competing with Wesley So - who is not - for two ratings slots in the latter event. So there's plenty at stake here in addition to the prize fund, bragging rights in a tournament with Magnus Carlsen, and all the other usual competitive aims the players may have.