A team "from" Baden-Baden with no German players beat a team "from" Solingen without any German players, to win the 2017-2018 German league competition known as the Bundesliga. (Maybe each team had a German player as their last substitute, whose job it was to provide beer and munchies for the leading mercenaries players.) Baden-Baden generally romps to victory, as they are typically stocked with 2700-2800 players from top to bottom. But this year it was close, requiring a playoff, and not only did Solingen make it close in the playoff; they also beat B-B in the regular season. Baden-Baden won on boards 4 and 8, with Peter Svidler and Rustam Kasimdzhanov beating Jan Smeets and Predrag Nikolic, respectively on the way to a 4.5-3.5 team victory. The most notable result was Solingen's one victory: Anish Giri's impressive win over Fabiano Caruana on board 1.
More here.
A remark about a bit of trash-talk from Peter Heine Nielsen. In the article linked above, they show a selfie by Giri with Caruana back in March, which only praises Caruana after his win in the Candidates. There's nothing self-aggrandizing in it at all. For some reason Nielsen, who is a second for Magnus Carlsen and a very strong (but not Grand Chess Tour level) GM, tweeted this: "Two of my favorite players: Their tournament victories includes Candidates, Olympics, London Chess Classic, Sinquefield Cup, Dortmund and Zurich!" The "joke", of course, is that all of those events were won by Caruana, and none were won by Giri. This might have been funny if Giri's selfie tweet had involved any bragging, but there wasn't. So the joke makes no sense, especially since Nielsen's chess career, as impressive as it is not only to most chess players, but even to most grandmasters, would barely register as a smudge on Giri's résumé.
To elaborate: Nielsen has never so much as played in the Candidates, the London Chess Classic, the Sinquefield Cup, or in Zurich; and in his one and only appearance in the elite round-robin in Dortmund (in 2005), he finished dead last. While we're at it, how about Tata Steel (Wijk aan Zee)? Nielsen never played in the main event, while Giri has played in it each of the last eight years, starting from the age of 16. He finished second in 2014, tied for second in 2015, and tied for first this year before losing to Carlsen in a playoff.
Maybe there is a broader context at play here. Certainly Giri is known for poking at other people (himself included), incluing Nielsen's boss (Carlsen). If that was part of the overall picture, then the joke might have been more appropriate. If the full context was just Giri's selfie and tweet, however, the joke was pretty stupid.
Saturday, May 4, 2019 at 5:01PM