Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Finishes: Carlsen Still the Winner

A little joke for in the title, with an implicit nod to a very old SNL gag. As it was already known two rounds ago that Magnus Carlsen had won the tournament, it isn't exactly news, but what else is one to say at the end of the event?

One thing that can be said is that after losing his matches in rounds 7 and 8, he finished with a bang, defeating Wesley So 2.5-.5. Overall, it wasn't an especially smooth performance, but even so it was good enough to win with relative comfort (thanks to the headstart from the preliminary events).

For So, who started the event in second, also with a comfortable margin over his closest pursuer, it was a very poor tournament. He won two matches in the rapid portion, in rounds 1 and 3, won two matches in the blitz playoff (in rounds 5 and 8), and lost one match in the blitz playoff (in round 4). The other four matches were lost in rapid, and as a result he not only failed to catch up to Carlsen, he failed to maintain second - or even third place. (Only Anish Giri and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov had a worse tournament, if one excludes the headstart.)

Teimour Radjabov had already passed So in round 8, and with his 2.5-.5 win over Maxime Vachier-Lagrave he finished the event with an exclamation point, winning his last six matches without needing a single blitz playoff. Had there not been any headstarts and everything else remained the same, he would have won the tournament going away.

Levon Aronian also won his final match, against Mamedyarov, with a 2.5-.5 score, and leapfrogged So into third place. That was where he started the event, and while he was passed by Radjabov he in turn surpassed So.

Hikaru Nakamura started and ended the day in fifth, defeating Jan-Krzysztof Duda 3-1. Black won the first three games of the match, and in the last game Nakamura took a trip to the landfill, excavating 1.e4 e6 2.Qh5 out of the sewage. Of course White was worse in the opening and into the middlegame, but that isn't really why people play 2.Qh5, is it? It's tempting to say that this is just showing off or the chess equivalent of extending a certain digit at one's opponent, but let's give Nakamura the benefit of the doubt and assume the primary motivation was a genuine chess idea.

Here's a guess: Nakamura went for a King's Indian Attack setup, and because after Black played ...Nf6 White retreated the queen to e2 we might wonder why this isn't just a loss of time. In fact, it IS a loss of time, but perhaps Nakamura thinks that Black would and should go for a different setup - one not involving ...Nf6 - in case White plays the King's Indian Attack against the French in the usual way; that is, with 1.e4 e6 2.d3 d5 3.Nd2 etc. It's true that 3...Nf6 is the main move here, but there are other setups, like 3...c5 4.Ngf3 Nc6 5.g3 Bd6 6.Bg2 Nge7. Another point is that White must commit to Nd2 in the usual move order, while in the game White delayed the development of his knight for a long time, and when it finally moved it went to a3.

The point isn't that 2.Qh5 against the French is either tricky or good - it's neither - but it forces Black to solve some fresh problems, and at a shorter time control that can be difficult, especially against a player as fast as Nakamura.

Finally, in the battle for sixth, Vladislav Artemiev won game 4 after three draws to defeat Giri.

Here are the final standings. The overall score is given first, with the pure tournament score (out of a possible 27 points) given in parentheses:

1. Carlsen 31.5 (15)
2. Radjabov 27 (21)
3. Aronian 24 (16)
4. So 23.5 (11)
5. Nakamura 21 (17)
6. Artemiev 17.5 (14)
7. Giri 14.5 (9)
8. Vachier-Lagrave 13.5 (11)
9. Duda 12 (12)
10. Mamedyarov 9.5 (9)

Tournament website here. The next big event is the U.S. Championship (play starts Wednesday) and has all the top Americans in action except for Nakamura and Aronian (whose transfer from the Armenian federation is not yet complete). The Russian Championship starts a couple of days later, but with many of their best players not participating that event is far less interesting than it could and should be. (Ian Nepomniachtchi won't be participating, for good and obvious reasons, but neither are Alexander Grischuk, Sergey Karjakin, Daniil Dubov, Evgeny Tomashevsky, Vladislav Artemiev, and Peter Svidler.)

Meltwater Champions Tour Final, Penultimate Round: Radjabov in Second

As noted yesterday, Magnus Carlsen clinched first place in the Meltwater Champions Tour Final with two rounds to spare. Wesley So was close enough, entering the tournament, that he could have contended for first if he had been in better form, while Teimour Radjabov, who has played extremely well, was just a bit too far back entering the event to catch up. But he has come awfully close, and with yet another match win today (over Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, 2.5-1.5 in the rapids) while Carlsen lost again (to Levon Aronian, 3-1) Carlsen's margin of victory is getting smaller and smaller. Moreover, with Wesley So only managing to overcome Jan-Krzysztof Duda in the blitz tiebreaks (3.5-2.5 overall), Radjabov has passed him to take over clear second place.

In the other two matches, Anish Giri defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 2.5-1.5, while Hikaru Nakamura beat Vladislav Artemiev 3.5-2.5 in the blitz tiebreaks. Here are the standings, with a round to go:

1. Carlsen 28.5
2. Radjabov 24
3. So 23.5
4. Aronian 21
5. Nakamura 18
6-7. Artemiev, Giri 14.5
8. Vachier-Lagrave 13.5
9. Duda 12
10. Mamedyarov 9.5

Three players are in the running for second - remember that winning the match in the rapids gives that player 3 points, while winning in the blitz playoff or the Armageddon gives him 2 points (a blitz/Armageddon loss gives a player 1 point, a loss in the rapids gives 0). Here are the final round pairings:

Carlsen - So
MVL - Radjabov
Mamedyarov - Aronian
Duda - Nakamura
Artemiev - Giri

(The first-named player has White in the odd-numbered games.)

Carlsen Wins the Meltwater Tour Final with Two Rounds to Spare

As detailed a few posts back, Magnus Carlsen entered the Meltwater Tour Finals with a headstart, earned by his superior performance in the earlier tour events. Only Wesley So was close enough to have any sort of realistic shot of catching Carlsen; for the other eight players, it was a battle for money and prestige.

The event has been strongly contested, and if I'm not mistaken every player has won at least one match and lost at least one match. Carlsen hasn't played terribly, but had So been in great form, he would have had good chances to leapfrog Carlsen. The most impressive player so far as been Teimour Radjabov. He lost the first three matches, to Vladislav Artemiev, Hikaru Nakamura, and Anish Giri in blitz playoffs, but since then he has come on like a truck. Rather than wait for something bad to happen in blitz, he has won all his matches in the rapid games, defeating, in order, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Levon Aronian, Wesley So, and now even Carlsen himself.

Unfortunately for Radjabov, it's too late to fight for first, but he's only half a point out of second. Here are the standings - remember that each match is worth a total of 3 points (if a player wins in the rapid portion, he gets 3 points and the loser gets none; if he wins in the blitz/Armageddon playoff, he gets 2 and the loser 1):

1. Carlsen 28.5
2. So 21.5
3. Radjabov 21
4. Aronian 18
5. Nakamura 16
6-7. MVL, Artemiev 13.5
8. Giri 11.5
9. Duda 11
10. Mamedyarov 9.5

There have been 166 games played so far; here are 16 of them, with varying degrees of commentary by yours truly.

Meltwater Champions Chess Tour: Rules and Round 1 Pairings

I offered brief details the other day, but now it's time to paint the full picture of how things work, and stand, in the Finals of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. Ten players are participating in a round-robin that's a modified version of the regular tour events. Each round is a four-game rapid (15'+10") match, with the winner getting 3 points and the loser 0. If it's tied 2-2, then there are two 5'+3" games, and if it's still tied after that there's a 5'+0" vs. 4'+0" Armageddon game. The player who wins the playoff (if one is needed) gets 2 points for match victory, the loser 1. Thus the maximum possible score for the tournament is 27 points.

Simple enough, but recall that the results in the earlier tour events have some carryover. For every 20 points' difference in the tour standings, a player receives an extra point. So there are pre-tournament standings, which look like this:

1. Magnus Carlsen 16.5
2. Wesley So 12.5
3. Levon Aronian 8
4. Teimour Radjabov 6
5. Anish Giri 5.5
6. Hikaru Nakamura 4
7. Vladislav Artemiev 3.5
8. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 2.5
9. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov .5
10. Jan-Krzysztof Duda 0

The maximum possible score is therefore not 27 (except for Duda), but as high as 43.5 points (if Carlsen runs the table).

Ok, on to today's pairings:

Carlsen - Duda (already won by Carlsen, 2.5-.5)
So - Mamedyarov (currently 1.5-.5, So)
Aronian - MVL (currently 2-1, Aronian)
Radjabov - Artemiev (1-1)
Giri - Nakamura (1.5-1.5)

Tournament site here.

Missing Chess? Fear Not...

For those who have found the past week unbearable in the absence of some super-GM event, I have two bits of good news for you. First, there is (and has been) an event with a fair number of super-grandmasters: the European Club Cup. Players like Alexander Grischuk, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Andrey Esipenko, Sam Shankland, Peter Svidler and others are participating - including one Magnus Carlsen, though just a little. He has only played in three of the six games so far, with wins over an FM and an IM and a draw against Mamedyarov. He was lost at several stages in that game, but escaped.

Speaking of Carlsen, he'll be in action against only fellow members of the elite starting Saturday when the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Finals get underway. Ten players are participating; in order of their tour rankings going into the event they are Carlsen, Wesley So, Levon Aronian, Teimour Radjabov, Anish Giri, Hikaru Nakamura, Vladislav Artemiev, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Mamedyarov, and Jan-Krzysztof Duda. (Chess24 gives short profiles of the players you might find interesting.) I don't recall all the details of the scoring system, but do recall that the differences in the players' total tour points going into this event gives them a headstart over their rivals if they have more tour points. Thus Carlsen, who comes into the event leading the overall tour with 339 points, gets a (nearly?) four point advantage over So, who is in second with 261. (Every 20 point advantage is good for an extra point.) The tournament isn't using 1-.5-0 scoring, if I recall correctly, so it's not quite as bad as it sounds. But it's still significant, and it is therefore hard to see Carlsen failing to win, or to see So failing to take second, as he is 91 points ahead of the third-placed Aronian. But who cares? The pleasure is in seeing them play.