Superbet Rapid & Blitz: Caruana Goes 8/9 on Day 1 of the Blitz; Anand Still Leads Overall

With one exception, the players who finished in the top six of the rapid of the Superbet Rapid & Blitz were in the top six of today's blitz, the first of a double-round robin. But within that top six, the order was topsy turvy, far closer to the reverse than a repetition of the original order. To refresh your memory, here was the top six after the rapid:

1. Anand 14 (of 18)
2. Rapport 13
3. Duda 12
4. So 11
5. Aronian 10
6. Caruana 9

And here are the scores from the first blitz round-robin:

1. Caruana 8(!!) out of 9
2. Aronian 7
3. Duda 5.5
4-5. Anand, So 5
6. Wojtaszek 4.5
7-8. Gavrilescu, Rapport 3.5
9. Shevchenko 2.5
10. Korobov 1

Here then are the overall standings for the top six:

1. Anand 19
2. Duda 17.5
3-4. Caruana, Aronian 17
5. Rapport 16.5
6. So 16

It was a great performance by both Caruana and Aronian - so good, in fact, that they are now in third and second on the blitz rating list, just ahead of Magnus Carlsen and only behind Hikaru Nakamura.

On the previous days, I looked through all of the games, but was otherwise occupied today. Readers, if any games especially caught your attention, please mention the game(s) in the comments - thanks!

Superbet Rapid & Blitz, Day 1: Anand Goes 3-0 and Leads

There is some strange scheduling in the chess world, as two rapid events with super-GMs started on the very same day, today. Here in the Superbet Rapid & Blitz, which is part of the Grand Chess Tour, the field includes Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, Richard Rapport, Levon Aronian, Viswanathan Anand, and Jan Krzysztof Duda. That's three current Candidates, two other players who have been as high as #2 in the world (and were former Candidates as well), and a former World Champion (and #1-rated player).

Meanwhile, the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour has an event, the Chessable Masters. Who've they got? At the top, there's the current World Champion and world #1 (Magnus Carlsen), world #2 and Candidate Ding Liren, and there are also former Candidates and world #2 players Anish Giri and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. It's a pity for us as chess fans that the two events are cannibalizing from each other - it would have been nice to see the events merged while shedding some of the lower-rated players. And it's also a pity for chess commentators, who must either stay up all night trying to cover the events deeply, or else must pare down their coverage for the sanity's sake. I'm choosing the latter tonight, but if a day's action really grabs me, I may well go the extra mile.

Anyway, this post will stick to the Superbet tournament. As noted in the headline, Anand got off to a 3-0 start, rejecting even a metaphorical application of Richard Lamm's infamous suggestion that old people have a duty to die and get out of the way. (To be fair, his indefensible statement was that old people who were terminally ill had this supposed duty.) Anand isn't likely to get another crack at the (Classical) World Championship, but he hasn't exactly forgotten how the pieces move, and with wins over Radoslaw Wojtaszek (his former second), Wesley So, and Anton Korobov, he's rolling. The wins were just "good for rapid", they were good games, period, especially the last one, against Korobov.

Aronian, Caruana, and Duda are tied for second with 2/3. Aronian drew with Rapport and Wojtaszek (with some good fortune), but beat Caruana in a good game in the first round. Caruana came back with wins over Duda and (by a very long way) bottom seed (and early cellar-dweller) David Gavrilescu. Duda also beat Gavrilescu, and Rapport as well.

Two more days of rapid await us, followed by two days of blitz. Meanwhile, here are three games from the first three rounds, with my comments.

Superbet Chess Classic 2022, Round 8: So & Aronian Still Lead Entering the Final Round

Full points have been hard to come by in the Superbet Chess Classic, and for the fifth time in eight rounds only one game finished with a winner. That game was not critical to the race for first, but one of the games that was crucial could very easily have finished with a winner. Let's recap the round:

First, the win. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov had a chance for an edge early against Leinier Dominguez, had he played a4-a5 before Black played the equalizing ...a6-a5. After that, the game seemed headed for a draw, though Mamedyarov seemed to be playing, without justification, for more. Mamedyarov's 40th move was objectively losing, and though he caught a break when Dominguez erred in turn on move 41, he immediately returned the favor with a further mistake on move 43. Dominguez replied correctly, and this time there was no hope of another "amnesty", so Mamedyarov resigned, falling into a tie for last place.

On the other end of the tournament table there's Levon Aronian, who entered - and exited - the round tied for first with Wesley So. Aronian's position was computer-okay against Ian Nepomniachtchi both before and after his decision to give up a couple of minor pieces for a rook and a pawn, but that material imbalance is generally much more dangerous for the side picking up the rook and pawn. So it was here: a single, but significant, error on move 33 (33...c6?) handed White a winning advantage after 34.b5 and 36.b6. Black should not be able to keep his pawn on b7 safe, at least not without losing the farm on the kingside, and while both sides made inaccuracies and errors Nepo was well on his way to victory. Humanly speaking, Aronian was resilient in defense, but with 75.Nh4+ White could still have proved a decisive advantage. Instead, 75.Ne5? gave Aronian the chance to prove the draw, which he managed after a study-like series of only-moves.

As for the other co-leader; well, he took the day off. So had White against Alireza Firouzja, but when the latter played the King's Indian against him rather than the Gruenfeld, he played the toothless 7.dxe5, 8.Qxd8 line. The game was as good as dead after White's 16th move, and the remainder was necessary only for the sake of satisfying the Sofia rules.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave could have caught the leaders with a win, and with White against bottom seed Bogdan Deac it looked like a great opportunity. When Deac played a touch inaccurately against MVL's surprising 11.Be3 the Frenchman's fans had even more reason for optimism, but a return inaccuracy and Deac's nice 16th move returned the game to equality. From there Deac played very well, and never gave White any further opportunities for anything but a draw.

Finally, Fabiano Caruana obtained a serious advantage out of the opening against Richard Rapport. Neither player appreciated how good White's position would be after a2-a4 or a3-a4 (on moves 19, 20, and 21), and failing to play that or to take advantage of several opportunities, Caruana let Rapport escape. After Black's 25th move, he finally equalized, and from there on played flawlessly to hold the draw.

One round remains, and it looks like Aronian, who saved lost positions in this round and back in round 3 against Firouzja, has an excellent chance to win the tournament. He will have White in the last round against Mamedyarov, while So will have Black against Dominguez and MVL (half a point behind) will be Black against Firouzja. (In case of a tie for first, there will be a playoff after the round.)

Today's games, with my comments, are here; these are the final round pairings:

• Aronian (5) - Mamedyarov (3)
• Rapport (3) - Nepomniachtchi (3.5)
• Deac (4) - Caruana (4)
• Firouzja (4) - Vachier-Lagrave (4.5)
• Dominguez (4) - So (5)

Superbet Chess Classic, Round 6: Aronian Drubs MVL, Catches So in First

After the rest day, the players in the Superbet Chess Classic came out ready to do battle, and in terms of the number of decisive games and the games' length, it was one of the most fighting rounds of the tournament. There was only one short game, and it was Levon Aronian's massacre - with Black! - of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

That was a genuinely odd game, as Aronian chose a line he has used many times before. It was Vachier-Lagrave who tried something unusual, Aronian replied with good moves that would have come up in MVL's prep with the computer, and then MVL went from one error after another: first an inaccuracy, then a series of three errors of increasing magnitude. We all have days where it would have been better to stay in bed; this was such a day for Vachier-Lagrave.

The win allowed Aronian to catch Wesley So in a tie for first. So only managed a draw, thanks to Richard Rapport's fine prep. Rapport found a nice pawn sac that always gave him equality (in the sense of a more or less certain draw, not in the sense of ever having winning chances), first in the form of the bishop pair, and then thanks to the opposite-colored bishops.

The day's other winner was Leinier Dominguez, who upset Bogdan-Daniel Deac's Cinderella story in a long, very up-and-down game. At one point Deac enjoyed a winning advantage, but for most of the first half of the game it was a roughly balanced battle between Dominguez's bishop pair and Deac's extra pawn. In the second time control, both sides made multiple, serious errors, but the overall trend was in favor of Dominguez's two bishops against Deac's rook and pawn. It's rare that the side with the rook can survive that material imbalance, and while there were a couple of subtle tactical opportunities that would have allowed the improbable to occur, the usual result ensued.

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Alireza Firouzja played an even longer game, almost making it to 100 moves. Mamedyarov pressed throughout, but remains in last place after the draw. Fabiano Caruana and Ian Nepomniachtchi also drew their game after a characteristically thrilling Petroff. Semi-mandatory Petroff joke aside, Nepo had some pull when Caruana messed up his preparation, but not enough to make something out of it.

Here are the games, analyzed to varying degrees, and here's what's on tap for tomorrow's round:

• Nepomniachtchi (3) - Mamedyarov (2)
• Aronian (4) - Caruana (3)
• Rapport (2.5) - Vachier-Lagrave (3)
• Deac (3) - So (4)
• Firouzja (2.5) - Dominguez (3)

American Cup, Day 2: Aronian, Caruana, Dominguez, and Sevian(!) Win Their Opening Matches...

...but Levon Aronian has probably been eliminated from contention for the Candidates. He defeated Ray Robson in the first game - discussed yesterday - but mixed things up in the opening, allowing an obviously strong exchange sacrifice that gave Robson an enduring advantage. He fought for a long time, but eventually lost the game. That cost him 6.4 rating points, making the very unlikely hope of qualifying for the Candidates by rating a near-impossibility. Maybe if Ding Liren draws several more games or even loses one in his event Aronian will keep his very slim chances alive, but those chances are extremely poor.

The good news for Aronian is that he bounced back from the loss to win the playoff, remaining in the so-called Champions bracket. Robson will be in the elimination bracket in this double elimination event, so for now he's still alive.

The other day one winner, Sam Sevian, did not need a playoff to advance. He was never in trouble against Wesley So, and agreed to a draw from a position of strength.

The other two matches, however, did require a playoff after day one draws were followed up with draws today. Leinier Dominguez beat Sam Shankland in the second playoff game to stay in the Champions bracket, while it took Fabiano Caruana until the Armageddon game before he could eliminate Jeffery Xiong - barely. Xiong had Black and a completely won position and only needed to make his 60th move, after which there would be a two-second increment after every move. Xiong...lost on time making his 60th move.

Here's what happens next, on Friday. Aronian will play Dominguez and Sevian will play Caruana. They will play a single classical game, just as everyone did yesterday (Wednesday). In the Elimination bracket, however, we get something different: rapid matches that will finish in one day, between Robson and Shankland, and between So and Xiong. The losers of those matches will be done, while the winners of those matches will play the losers of Sevian-Caruana and Aronian-Dominguez, respectively.

No annotations today, but here are the games.

How Nakamura Qualified for the Candidates

This isn't the whole story, but its end - or rather, the end of the part that brought Hikaru Nakamura across the threshold, enabling him to qualify for the Candidates for the second time in his career. (The first time was in 2016.) Four players were still in the running for a Candidates slot going into the last game of pool play (the winners of the four pools go on to the knockout stage): Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Leinier Dominguez, Levon Aronian, and Nakamura. MVL was in Pool C, Dominguez in Pool B, and the two Americans, Nakamura and Aronian, were in Pool A.

MVL needed to defeat Sam Shankland to keep his hopes alive, but despite his excellent prep (paying careful attention to obscure email games!) Shankland defended like a boss and drew the game.

Dominguez would have retained a chance with a win or even a draw against Vincent Keymer, but a big tactical error in a worse position led to his getting knocked out of the hunt.

That left Nakamura and Aronian, who were tied for the lead in group A. Nakamura and Aronian had Black against Esipenko and Oparin, respectively, and they both got into trouble as well. Aronian in particular had a terrible game, losing speedily and brutally to Oparin. Oparin now led the group with 3.5 points, and with Esipenko on the attack might have won it. Esipenko missed a subtle chance to win, but still retained equality almost to the end of the game; had he done so, Oparin and Nakamura would have contested a playoff. Instead, Esipenko erred in probable time trouble, and Nakamura pulled out the win - of the game, the Pool, and of a Candidates spot, along with Jan-Krzysztof Duda.

Here are those four critical games, with my comments.

Vachier-Lagrave Wins World Blitz Championship in a Playoff vs. Duda; Firouzja Third

As with the Rapid, so with the Blitz: the event finished in a tie with more than two players, and so the "extra" players - or in this case, extra player, singular - was left out of the playoff. Alireza Firouzja was the unfortunate third wheel this time, while Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Jan-Krzysztof Duda went to battle for the title of World Blitz Champion (and perhaps unofficially, the title of the strongest player with a hyphenated name).

The playoff began with a pair of blitz games: both drawn. In many events the next stage is an Armageddon battle, but not here. Instead, the players were to contest as many games as needed until one of them won a single game; in other words: "sudden death". That places a significant premium on luck: if one is fortunate enough to win the toss to get the white pieces first, they may very well win their white game without the opponent's getting a chance for his own white game. And that's just what happened: MVL got White, won, and that was it.

Having skipped to the end of the story, let's go back to its beginning - at least the beginning of the day's goings-on. The first noteworthy event was a non-event: Hikaru Nakamura no-showed against Daniil Dubov, self-quarantining after testing positive for COVID. As for the players who did participate, the day 1 leader, Levon Aronian, started off in terrific form and increased his lead. He defeated Bassem Amin in round 13 (the first round of the day), and after draws with Arjun Erigaisi and Ian Nepomniachtchi beat Anish Giri in good style. With five rounds to go he was in the driver's seat, leading Dubov by a full point and everyone else by even more, but then everything went awry. He lost a clearly won game against Vachier-Lagrave, and while he remained in clear first by half a point things got worse. He overpressed against Haik Martirosyan and lost, and then lost to Vladislav Artemiev as well. Remarkably, a win over the very young, very talented Javokhir Sindarov put him into a six-way tie for first entering the last round, but he lost to Firouzja.

As for Firouzja, he came on like a mac truck at the end, winning his last five games and seven of his last eight, but his slow start left him in trouble when it came to tiebreaks.

Another player who entered the last round tied for first was Dubov, who had in fact been leading going into the penultimate round, when he lost with white to Firouzja. In the last round he again had White, against Giri (who was a point behind), but incredibly offered him a draw after eight moves, which was accepted. As for Giri, he was in good shape after defeating Magnus Carlsen in round 15, but then he lost to Aronian in round 16 and then drew his last five games.

Carlsen was not part of the tie; he was half a point back entering the last round. That was impressive, considering that he started the day a point and a half out of first and started today's action rather poorly. He began with a win over Parham Maghsoodloo, but then drew with Martirosyan and then lost twice, first to Giri and then to Alexander Grischuk. At that point he was three points back, but that was when Aronian started losing. Carlsen scored 3.5 out of his next 4, capped by a win against Nepomniachtchi. In the last round, he was defeating MVL - which would have meant a playoff between Firouzja and Duda - but he slipped on one last banana peel, allowing his desperate opponent to force mate.

Duda was of course part of the tie for first entering the last round, as was his opponent, Vladislav Artemiev. If anything, Artemiev had an even worse start in the event than Firouzja, beginning with just half a point out of three. He righted the ship on day with a run of 7/8, and was undefeated today heading into the last-round game with Duda. Unfortunately for the young Russian, that final game was a bit of a disaster, and Duda - who won his last three games and seven of his last eight - made it into the playoff.

Finally, MVL. He got off to a decent score in the early rounds, going +4 from his first eight games, but then he lost in rounds 9 and 10 to Amin and Maghsoodloo, respectively. From then on he went undefeated. He won his last two games on day one, and then mostly alternated wins and draws today. He beat Boris Gelfand in round 13, drew Giri in round 14, beat Sindarov in round 15, drew with Martyn Kravtsiv in round 16, beat Aronian and Erigaisi in rounds 17 and 18, drew Dubov and Artemiev in rounds 19 and 20, and then won - swindled! - Carlsen in that critical last round battle.

Congrats then to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave for winning the blitz world championship, to Nodirbek Abdusattorov for winning the rapid world championship, and to Magnus Carlsen for not having persuaded anyone to join him in devaluing the classical world championship. (At least not to the extent that anyone would consider Abdusattorov or MVL some sort of co-champion.) Thus despite his best rhetorical efforts, 99.99+% of the world still considers him the world chess champion, and rightly so.

World Blitz Championship, Day 1: Aronian Leads

For my taste, the games in the Blitz haven't been as interesting as those in the Rapid, but still: it's a world championship and many of the world's best players are participating. So there's plenty of interest and drama. Some of the greats who have been around are showing their prowess, while others are struggling. And there are plenty of fresh faces who are making their presence known in a powerful way. We saw this especially in the Rapid, which was won by the 17-year-old Uzbek GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, but while he's struggling a bit in the Blitz plenty of other youngsters are shining. Arjun Erigaisi (18), Parham Maghsoodloo (21 - not that new a quantity, but still a player in the up-and-coming category), Velimir Ivic (19), Luca Moroni (21), Haik Martirosyan (21), Javokhir Sindarov (16!), Alireza Firouzja (of course - he's 18), Hans Niemann (18), Nihal Sarin (17) - and on and on it goes.

Yesterday's heroes (the four players who tied for first in the Rapid event) haven't fared as well as they did yesterday. Abdusattorov lost five games today, including his last two. He's still at +1, having won six of the other seven games, but even if he goes 9-0 on Thursday - an unlikely proposition - he's still unlikely to win or even medal. Fabiano Caruana is only doing a touch better, with 7/12. He too will need a fantastic final day to have a reasonable chance at making the podium.

Ian Nepomniachtchi and Magnus Carlsen aren't in bad shape; both have 8.5/12, leaving them 1.5 points behind the leader. Remarkably, Nepo has gone undefeated - in fact, his only loss in the two events thus far was the second tiebreak game with Abdusattorov yesterday! - but seven draws is still a lot. As for Carlsen, he started off 4-0 but then lost convincingly to Bartlomiej Socko and then Vladimir Fedoseev. He bounced back with a couple of wins, but then lost again, to Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Two further wins ensued, and then he drew with Erigaisi. That was an exceptional defensive effort by his opponent, who was under pressure on the board and living off the increment for many moves, but held on nevertheless.

While Carlsen and Nepo are part of a big tie at 8.5, in a group of 12 players that includes Alexander Grischuk, Hikaru Nakamura, Fedoseev, Erigaisi, Daniil Dubov, Anish Giri, and Vladislav Artemiev, and the subsequent score groups are also well-populated, it turns out the score groups ahead of them are perfectly stratified. One player has 10 points, one player has 9.5 points, and one player has 9: Levon Aronian, Bassem Amin(!!), and Parham Maghsoodloo, respectively.

That Aronian would be in first isn't a huge surprise. He lost to a considerably lower-rated player in round 5, but after that went on a tear, scoring 6.5/7 the rest of the way with wins over great players like Maxim Matlakov, Alexander Grischuk, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Vladimir Fedoseev, and Daniil Dubov.

Amin's second place, by contrast, is amazing. He isn't known as a blitz specialist, and he started with 2.5/4 against lesser opposition. But then he caught fire, scoring 7 points in the remaining 8 games, drawing with Nepo and Duda while beating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and everyone else that got in his way. Still, with many of the top players yet to go the odds are that he'll fall back to the pack.

As for Maghsoodloo, he finished the day with an impressive 4-0 run over Merab Gagunashvili, MVL, Rauf Mamedov, and Duda.

Highlights...will have to wait, alas. But I'd certainly recommend checking out the games of the leaders and of the promising youngsters mentioned above.

Speed Chess Championship: One Semi-Final Set

Two quarterfinal matches of the 2021 Chess.com Speed Chess Championship were contested today, and neither was close. The first was between Ding Liren and Levon Aronian, and the second between Hikaru Nakamura and Anish Giri. (The results, and a brief comment or two about each match, will be given in the comments.) The winners will face off in one semi-final, and Nihal Sarin will play the winner of the last quarterfinal match, between Wesley So and Fabiano Caruana. That last match will be played on the next (and possibly final) rest day of the world championship match, which is this coming Thursday.

The U.S. Olympic Team: Win One, Lose One?

The good news: World #6 Levon Aronian has completed his transfer from the Armenian federation to that of the USA (well, mostly), allowing him to represent us in the 2022 Chess Olympiad. If current ratings hold, we'd have the #4 (Caruana), #6 (Aronian), #8 (So), and #15 (Dominguez) players in the world. That's the good news of the December 2021 rating list for the United States. The bad news? Hikaru Nakamura has dropped off, as - believe it or not - he hasn't played a rated classical game in two years. (He would have been #19). I realized he hadn't played in a classical tournament in a while, but two years!?

You know what this means, of course. Rex Sinquefield has to recruit Alireza Firouzja to play for the U.S. - it's his patriotic duty!