Catching Up on my World Chess Columns
It has been a while, so here's your chance to engage in some binge reading. Here's what you may have missed, from earliest to most recent:
1. The Ice King: Giri Wins the Reykjavik Open. Anish Giri is the star of the column, but I offer a pretty thorough review of the top finishers, covering eight games in all. (This includes a startling last round crush of Alexei Shirov at the hands of FM John Pigott, aged 59 or 60.)
2. Wei Yi Wins Third Consecutive Chinese Championship. It was a weak event by Chinese standards, but that's not the 17-year-old's fault. As usual, he won a number of great attacking games, and I present two of them. There's also a third game in which he shows off his technical chops.
3. The Always Entertaining Bundesliga. Team events are easily overlooked, especially when it's the Bundesliga. It doesn't meet every weekend, and it takes more than half a year to complete the season. Only one game is covered in this particular column, but it's an entertaining and instructive battle between Borki Predojevic and Levon Aronian, won by the latter.
4. A 'Hobbyist' Dominates the Four Nations Chess League. The United Kingdom's version of the Bundesliga also finished this past month, and in this column I look at three games by the winning team's best player: Matthew Sadler. Despite having given up full-time chess a long time ago in exchange for a "real" job, he has reached a new peak rating for his career and continuing to play strong and entertaining chess.