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.)

Aimchess Quarterfinals Finish; Semis Set

The quarterfinals are over, and we're down to the final four of Vladislav Artemiev vs. Alireza Firouzja in the battle of the youngsters, and Magnus Carlsen vs. Levon Aronian in the battle of the 30-somethings.

Firouzja had the most difficult time in the quarters, though it certainly didn't seem like it through the first five games. On day one he won the first two games against Wesley So and then clinched the first mini-match with a draw, and on day two he drew the first game and won the second, after which a single draw in the remaining two games would suffice to clinch overall match victory. It didn't happen. So crushed Firouzja in game 3 of the second mini-match and with Black in round 4 ground out a win in a rook ending to win that mini-match and force a two-game blitz playoff. In the first of those games, So enjoyed a winning advantage, but could not figure out how to put opponent away. That game finished in a draw, and in the second Firouzja bounced back to win and advance to the next round.

Artemiev had some trouble as well. After drawing with Leinier Dominguez in the first game, he lost game 2 and only drew the third game with the white pieces. No matter: he won on demand in the fourth game to split the first mini-match. On day two, the first two games were drawn, but then Artemiev won - again with Black - to take the lead. Now Dominguez would have to win on demand, with Black, to split the second mini-match and force a blitz playoff - and he came close. He revved up a dangerous attack with the sequence 21...Rc6, 22...Rh6, and 23...Rxh3, and at the end of a wonderfully complicated line found himself with a serious advantage. Unfortunately for Dominguez, his 36...Bc7 allowed Artemiev to equalize, though the position was still challenging for both sides, and then a couple of moves later 38...Qe6?? was an outright blunder. Having no competitive choice but to keep playing, Dominguez struggled all the way to move 83, but the outcome was never in doubt, and it would have required "miracles" for him to save half a point, never mind get the win he needed.

The world champion faced Jan-Krzysztof Duda, a strong and very tricky opponent for most players. For Magnus Carlsen, well, not so much. On day 1 he won games 1 and 3 with White and drew game 2 with Black to clinch the first mini-match, and on day 2 he did exactly the same thing, except that his wins in games 1 & 3 came with Black.

As for Aronian, day 1 saw four decisive battles, with Aronian winning games 1 and 3 with White, Mamedyarov winning game 2 with White, but Aronian winning game 4 with Black to take the first mini-match. On day Aronian started with a win, and clinched match victory with two draws.

So, again, it's Artemiev-Firouzja and Carlsen-Aronian, starting later today (Thursday).

Event website here.

COVID At the World Cup **UPDATED**

Greeeeeeat. According to Chess24's Facebook page (HT: Allen Becker), Levon Aronian forfeited the first game of his World Cup match with Bobby Cheng due to a possible COVID infection, though he still may able to return for game 2. And Fabiano Caruana won the first game of his match with Indonesian GM Susanto Megaranto when the latter was forced to resign after move 15 because he - Megaranto - had a positive COVID test. (And now we have to see if Caruana will wind up testing positive.)

Unless the players have been wearing masks and engaging in social distancing - and even then there are no guarantees - this could turn out to be a disaster. What is FIDE going to do if everyone ends up testing positive in a week or so?

**UPDATE** It isn't clear if Aronian had (and has) COVID, but he does have (at least) tonsilitis. From his Facebook page (HT, once again, to Allen Becker):

Dear all, with great regret I have to inform you about my withdrawal from the FIDE World Cup 2021. Having a high fever and tonsillitis, despite my great desire to play, I have to be rational and put mine, and the health of other players first.

I want to personally thank the FIDE President Mr. Dvorkovich for taking all possible actions to help me in any issues I got.

Please take care of yourself, and hopefully the tournament will continue without any misfortunes.

I promise to get healthy soon and come back to the magical world of 64 squares!

Goldmoney Asian Rapid: Reversals of Fortune in the Semi-Finals

That was surprising! Magnus Carlsen and Ding Liren won their first mini-matches in the Goldmoney Asian Rapid against Levon Aronian and Vladislav Artemiev, respectively, as noted a few posts back. But both lost today, both in the second mini-match and in their subsequent tiebreaks. The latter match was more competitive, but for Carlsen it was as if he left his mind asleep in bed. Aronian won games 1 and 4 of the second mini-match (the other games were drawn), and then won both of the blitz games in the tiebreak to advance. (How many times has Carlsen scored just 1 out of 6 in professional competition?)

The final between the "Ar"s starts tomorrow.

New In Chess Classic 2021: Carlsen Wins

And about time, too - it has been quite a while since he won an event. This is slightly bad news for Ian Nepomniachtchi, who will contest a world championship match with Magnus Carlsen late this year.

Carlsen's rival, as was almost always to be expected a few years ago in blitz events in particular, was Hikaru Nakamura. It was a well-contested match, but the champ came out on top, winning the first day's mini-match 3-1 (two draws, then two wins) and drawing the second day's match to clinch overall victory. The second day's match started well for Nakamura, who won the first game and drew the second, but Carlsen won with Black in the third game and gave Nakamura a draw in a dead won position in the fourth game. (To be fair to Nakamura, he was in a dead lost position because he had to take absurd risks to scrape up even the most meager of winning chances.) Congrats to the champ!

Congratulations also to Nakamura for an otherwise successful tournament, and to Shakriyar Mamedyarov, won a truly weird match against Levon Aronian to take third place. On day 1, all four games finished in wins for Black--mostly brutal and short wins at that. On day 2, Mamedyarov won games 1 and 3 - again with Black! - while Aronian "failed" to win his one black game, game 2, only managing a draw. By heroically managing the one draw with White out of seven games over the two days, "Shakh" pulled out overall match victory.

More on the event here, or at the official site. I'm not sure what the next major online rapid or blitz event is going to be, but the Grand Chess Tour for 2021 will kick off with a classical event in Bucharest from June 3-15, featuring most of the Candidates (Caruana, Ding, Nepo, MVL, Grischuk, and Giri), plus Aronian, Mamedyarov, So, and Radjabov.

Chess and Politics: Armenia and Azerbaijan

Here's an interesting but somewhat rambling article that seems to at least mention practically everything in contemporary chess: the Queen's Gambit, women in chess, Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, online chess, how much the top chess streamers are making, that Kasparov, Levon Aronian, and Teimour Radjabov* all had Jewish fathers, etc. The focus, though, is on the tension between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and some of the ways this has played out in the lives of Kasparov, Aronian, and to a lesser degree Radajbov. It's a sad state of affairs, but worth your time, especially if you're unfamiliar with the always simmering tension between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

* A minor note: the piece refers to Teimour Radjabov as once the youngest player to earn the grandmaster title. This is not true, though some made the claim at the time, too: the record-holder when Radjabov earned the title was Bu Xiangzhi, who was born in 1985 and became a grandmaster aged 13 years, 10 months and 13 days. Radjabov, born in 1987, earned the title at the age of 14 years and 14 days. (See here and here.)

Catching up on the Airthings Masters: The Aronian-Rajdabov Final Starts Tomorrow (Saturday)

While Levon Aronian and Teimour Radjabov are obviously great players, it's still surprising that they're the finalists of this 15'+10" tournament, rather than, say, Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, or Wesley So. Are the times a-changing?

When I first mentioned the event it was the day after Christmas, after the first of three day of the preliminary stage of the tournament. Because it was set up so that eight of the 12 players would qualify for the knockout stage, it was unsurprising that the early action featured a lot of draws and safe chess. Day two was even worse, with only three decisive games out of 24. Only on day three did the energy increase, with eight of the 16 games finishing with a winner. Here's how things wound up, in tiebreak order:

1-3. Carlsen, So, Nakamura 6.5 (of 11)

4-5. Nepomniachtchi, Radjabov 6

6. Aronian 5.5

7-10. Vachier-Lagrave, Dubov, Harikrishna, Grischuk 5

11-12. Giri, Anton 4.5

Vachier-Lagrave and Dubov made it; Harikrishna and Grischuk did not. This would have been especially painful for Grischuk, as he lost in the last round, with White, to MVL.

The quarterfinals (and the semis) were two-day affairs. Both days consisted of four-game mini-matches, and if the overall score was 1-1 a blitz tiebreak followed by an Armageddon game, if necessary, would determine the winner.

The pairings followed by usual KO format: 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, etc., so the pairings were Carlsen vs. Dubov, So vs. MVL, Nakamura vs. Aronian, and Nepo vs. Radjabov.

In the Carlsen-Dubov match, Carlsen won game 1...and that was it! Dubov won game 3 and the first day's match was split, while Dubov won games 1 and 3 to go with a draw in the second game, and the top seed was shown an early exit.

How about So? Day 1 was a disaster for him. He managed to draw his black games, but lost twice with the white pieces to go down 3-1. He came back on day 2, winning the first game and drawing the next three to equalize the match. It was on to the blitz tiebreak, and the pattern repeated itself: Vachier-Lagrave won first, but So won the rematch to force an Armageddon game. So enjoyed an edge with White, but couldn't convert it, and with the draw MVL won the match and advanced to the semis.

But surely, you say, Nakamura would qualify for the next round? As you know from the headline, he didn't. (And don't call me "Shirley".) On day 1, Aronian's win in the second game was enough to win the first mini-match, and by winning the first two games on day 2 Aronian clinched match victory. (I'm not sure how exactly they scored the second day, as Nakamura could have split the second mini-match with two wins. Even if he had succeeded, he still would have lost the overall match, so those games weren't played.)

Finally, the Nepomniachtchi-Radjabov match came down to the wire. The first day finished with four draws, but day two had some blood. Radjabov won the first game with the white pieces, and in a must-win situation in game four Nepo ground out a win in an opposite-colored bishop endgame. The blitz playoff was even more dramatic, with first Nepomniachtchi and then Radjabov winning with Black. Finally, an Armageddon game, and since Radjabov had the black pieces the draw gave him match victory.

On to the semis. On day 1, Aronian won games 1 and 4 against MVL while Radjabov won games 3 and 4 against Dubov, and both day 1 winners finished ahead of schedule on day 2 as well. Radjabov won the first two games to clinch, while Aronian drew the first two games before winning game three to punch his ticket to the final.

The two-day final starts tomorrow, and if any of their games aren't interesting cheer up: there's a playoff for third place between MVL and Dubov as well.

Event website here.

Vachier-Lagrave Defeats Aronian in a Thrilling Quarterfinal

The Skilling Open might have led you to forget about Chess.com's Speed Chess Championship, but don't! It has resumed, and the second quarterfinal match occurred today. (You may remember that Wesley So defeated Jan-Krzysztof Duda 16-10 back on November 19.) Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Levon Aronian played a terrific match that was only decided in MVL's favor late in the bullet segment. The two seemed incapable of playing a dull game (which is surprising, considering how many Italian Games they played), and the level of play and the level of drama were high throughout. MVL pulled it out, 14.5-12.5, and I highly recommend playing through the games.

The remaining quarterfinal matches are scheduled for tomorrow - Thursday. Magnus Carlsen will put his U.S. fans to the test by starting his match with Vladislav Artemiev at 8 a.m. ET, while Hikaru Nakamura will play Vladimir Fedoseev at noon ET.

Aronian Beats Nepomniachtchi, 14-11

(I haven't abandoned the ship; it was just a busy week.) The Speed Chess Championship mushed along with two more matches this week, starting with the battle between Levon Aronian and Ian Nepomniachtchi on Wednesday. Nepo was a slight favorite, slight enough that Aronian's win in a well-contested match wasn't a big surprise.

Nepomniachtchi struck first, with a win in game two, but Aronian won the next two games and maintained the lead for a long time. After 14 games he was up 8-6, but Nepo finally showed some signs of life, winning the next two games. Aronian showed good nerves, however, winning the next game to close out the 3'+1" with a 9-8 lead, and then dominated the early going in the 1'+1" to extend his lead to four games. He was about to up five when he blundered and lost game 23, and after a loss in game 24 it looked like a miracle might happen.

It didn't. Aronian held with Black to win game 25, and did so as time expired, so that did it: a 14-11 victory that was well-deserved. (More on the match here, including video.)

Norway Chess, Round 10: Carlsen First, Firouzja Second, Aronian Third

The last round was a bit of an anti-climax, and a major source of "What if?" for Alireza Firouzja. Firouzja convincingly defeated Jan-Krzysztof Duda in the last round, while Magnus Carlsen played poorly and lost against Levon Aronian. As a result, Carlsen finished just one point ahead of Firouzja - a very slim margin. Had Firouzja held the "dead" drawn pawn ending to Carlsen in round 9 he would have won the event (assuming the same last round results, which is not a given), or even avoided the wholly unnecessary Armageddon loss to Carlsen in their "match" from the first cycle, they'd have finished in a tie for first. Even so, it was a fantastic event for the youngster, and not a bad result for Carlsen either, coming in first despite playing less than his best chess - though he also played some excellent chess.

It was a pretty good event for Aronian as well, who finished just a point behind Firouzja. In fourth, there was Fabiano Caruana, who only drew the classical game with Aryan Tari before defeating him in impressive style in the Armageddon game. Duda came in fifth, and Tari wound up in last, getting a good deal of experience from this very challenging event. ("Experience" has been defined as what one gets when not getting what one wants.)

It was an enjoyable event, and hopefully there will be another in-person event soon. Wrapping things up on this one, here is Carlsen-Aronian, with my notes.

Final Standings:

1. Carlsen 19.5 (out of 30)
2. Firouzja 18.5
3. Aronian 17.5
4. Caruana 15.5
5. Duda 9.5
6. Tari 3.5