St. Louis Rapid & Blitz, Finale: Aronian Wins; Karjakin and Nakamura Tie for Second

The St. Louis Rapid & Blitz tournament is now history, and a bit of chess history that will likely be remembered on account of Garry Kasparov's participation. He was the star of the show coming into the event (though not the favorite), and he played very well on the event's final day. But the hero of the event was Levon Aronian, who won by a healthy three point margin and played the best chess throughout the tournament.

Aronian won the rapid portion by half a point (a point on the 2-1-0 scoring system used for that portion of the event; the rapid games counted double compared to the blitz games) over Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana, and took second in the blitz a point behind Sergey Karjakin. Nakamura took third in the blitz, while Karjakin did poorly in the rapid, finishing two points behind Aronian (in normal scoring; four points behind on 2-1-0 scoring). Karjakin was great in the blitz, especially on the first day when he went undefeated with a monstrous score of eight out of nine. He won his last five games, and started the final day with two more wins, closing to within a point of Aronian.

Round 12 proved critical. Karjakin had White against the tailender, David Navara, while Aronian had White against Le Quang Liem. Karjakin was outplayed by Navara (who had defeated Aronian in the previous round!) and lost, while Aronian was worse in his game but won on time (and in a position where the Bronstein delay should have sufficed for Le to make reasonable moves). In the next round Karjakin had White again, against Aronian, but got nothing; in fact, he had to play accurately to hold the balance and draw. Karjakin lost again in round 16, to Nakamura, and that put paid to his hopes of winning first. In any case, Aronian finished strongly, finishing the tournament with 3.5/4, including wins in the last two rounds.

Nakamura also finished with 3.5/4 to catch Karjakin (including the win noted in the previous paragraph), but losses in rounds 13 and 14 likewise put an end to any of his dreams of taking first. Still, it was a good tournament overall for the first three finishers, and Ian Nepomniachtchi's fourth place was a good result for him as well, especially after his poor finish in the Sinquefield Cup the week before, where he tied for last.

As for Kasparov, his performance on the first day of the blitz wasn't anything to write home about, but day two was another story. He lost a strange game to Karjakin in round 1, and it was strange for two reasons. First, 21...Qf6 was a mistake, and it seemed during the video that he realized it was a mistake because of 22.Bxh5. It may be that he thought he let go of the queen before returning the queen to e7 (a la his game vs. Nakamura last year and, much, much earlier, against Judit Polgar), and so he decided to just be done with it and make the move. It seems clear from the video that he didn't let go, but perhaps he wasn't sure. Good sportsmanship on his part, if that's what happened, but a shame (if that was his reason) since he didn't actually let go. The second strange thing is that while he was worse from start to finish, there was one momentarily exception, and it was a biggie: 31...e4 would have won, or at least have given him a winning advantage. It's surprising that two superstars missed the move, but that's blitz. (And part of the problem was that the move wasn't there the move before; it was only Karjakin's 31.Re1-f1 that made it possible.)

Anyway, after that loss, Kasparov went undefeated the rest of the event, and won against Caruana in round 12 (with Black), Nakamura in round 13 (with White), and Leinier Dominguez in round 17 (with Black in a Najdorf). The last game was especially good, and left me pining for Kasparov's return and wishing that Friday had been the start of the tournament and not its finish. If Kasparov had won against Navara in the last round he would have made it a four-way tie for fifth-eighth, but because he drew he finished half a point behind Dominguez, Caruana, and Le. Anand finished a couple of points behind Kasparov, and Navara finished another point back.

Final Blitz Standings:

1. Karjakin 13.5 (out of 18)
2. Aronian 12.5
3. Nakamura 10.5
4. Nepomniachtchi 10
5. Kasparov 9
6. Le Quang Liem 8.5
7. Dominguez 7.5
8. Anand 7
9. Navara 6
10. Caruana 5.5

Final Overall Standings:

1. Aronian 24.5 (out of 36)
2-3. Karjakin, Nakamura 21.5
4. Nepomniachtchi 20
5-7. Dominguez, Caruana, Le Quang Liem 16.5
8. Kasparov 16
9. Anand 14
10. Navara 13

The day 4 video can be watched here, day 5 here. And here are all the games (unannotated). And the video for yesterday's "Ultimate Moves" competition is here.

Sinquefield Cup, Day 1: Aronian, Vachier-Lagrave, and Karjakin Start with Wins

It was not a dull first round at the Sinquefield Cup - despite the presence of two Closed Ruys and two Giuoco Pianos out of the five games. As long as players are willing to fight, the games will get interesting, and so they did.

That said, the liveliest game was the one non-1.e4 game. Levon Aronian played the English against Ian Nepomniachtchi, and while the line was one Nepo said that he himself had prepared to play with White, he apparently couldn't remember what to do against it with Black. His decision on move 11 to sac his b-pawn was iffy, and 14...Bxc3 only made things worse. His position went further downhill after 16...Be6, which can fairly be described as the losing move. Aronian had no trouble from there, winning more material every few moves until Nepomniachtchi gave up on move 29, down a bishop and a pawn.

The other two wins came from the Italian Game. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was better against Wesley So much of the way, but So was mostly okay until he played 32...f5. Opening the board favored MVL and his bishops, and left So in a precarious position. The decisive error came on move 40, when So played 40...Kd8? instead of repeating with 40...Kf6. The upshot was that he trapped his own rook, so that in the final position the otherwise desirable 43...Nxb6 would be met by 44.Bxb7, collecting the aforementioned rook.

The other Italian victory was Sergey Karjakin's win over Peter Svidler. White didn't achieve an opening advantage, but often a playable, interesting position is victory enough. Karjakin's 16.c4 was visually pleasing, creating a row of White pawns from a4 through e4, and more importantly it gave Black a host of moves and plans to choose from. Svidler burned a pretty fair amount of time on this move (and about an hour in total from moves 13-17, inclusive), and chose a mistaken idea starting with 16...exd4. White's queenside clump of pawns on the a- and b-files soon proved decisive, and although it wasn't the best move it's fitting that the game finished with 39.a7, moving the pawn next to his adjacent passer on b7.

The other games were drawn. The marquee matchup between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana (with Caruana playing White) was a well-played and well-fought draw in a Closed Ruy with 6.d3. Only the game between Viswanathan Anand and Hikaru Nakamura may deserve a little bit of criticism, as Nakamura was meaningfully better (with Black) in a 4.d3 Anti-Berlin when the draw was agreed. It isn't as though Nakamura hasn't displayed his fighting prowess at the chess board for around two decades, so if he is in need of some slack for the draw, we should speedily and wholeheartedly give it to him.

Here are the round 2 pairings:

Carlsen (.5) - Karjakin (1)
Aronian (1) - Caruana (.5)
Nakamura (.5) - Vachier-Lagrave (1)
Svidler (0) - Anand (.5)
Nepomniachtchi (0) - So (0)

Chess.com's 2017 Speed Chess Championship: Matches 2 & 3

This past week there were a couple more matches in Chess.com's 2017 Speed Chess Championship: Sergey Karjakin vs. Georg Meier and Wesley So vs. Anish Giri. The first match was an utter blowout in terms of the score, but on a game-by-game basis the players were well-matched. Karjakin (the reigning world blitz champion) did everything a bit better than Meier, and while Meier also had his chances Karjakin was far more efficient in converting his opportunities.

The So-Giri match was another story altogether. It went back and forth all the way and came down to the wire. I won't offer any spoilers: it's entirely up to you whether you want to see the result first or relive the drama for yourself.

The Karjakin-Meier video is here, and So-Giri is here. The next match is a ways off: Alexander Grischuk vs. Richard Rapport takes place July 20. One last bit of info: the winner of the So-Giri match jumps from the frying pan into the fire, and will get Magnus Carlsen next, assuming the world champion gets past bottom seed Gadir Guseinov on October 5.

Shamkir: Mamedyarov Leads After Five Rounds

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov has been a beast in Shamkir, and enjoyed a half-point lead going into yesterday's rest day. His win over Pavel Eljanov in round 3 was huge, as Eljanov had led with 2/2. In fact Mamedyarov was a bit lucky, as Eljanov enjoyed a winning position after the first time control, and would have been on the way to victory with 44.e7. The position was very tricky though, and White's error allowed Black to equalize. The game remained complicated and equal for another ten moves or so, until Eljanov's 54.Qe4, which was the beginning of his slide into a lost position. (56.Rd5 was the fatal error.)

In round 4 there was only one decisive game, which was Vladimir Kramnik's wild victory over Pentala Harikrishna. Kramnik's 24.Rd5 followed by 25.Rxe5 randomized the position, and although his rook sac wasn't completely sound such an evaluation is a bit too academic. A computer would have eaten Kramnik's lunch, but in the realm of flesh and blood it's much more difficult to work through all the craziness as time ticks away. In the lead-up to the time control, Harikrishna lost his way (the sensible-looking 36...Kf8 was a serious error; apparently only 36...Qb3 maintained equal chances), and Kramnik won.

Not only did this help Kramnik's tournament standing, bringing him into a four-way tie for second (with Eljanov, Michael Adams, and Veselin Topalov), it also vaulted him ahead of Wesley So into second place in the live rating list. In round 5, So fixed that, very impressively outplaying Kramnik himself. It was play like this that got So into second place on the rating list in the first place, and the win put him back there.

Topalov also lost - was demolished, in fact - by Sergey Karjakin in an impressive attacking game. Only Eljanov and Adams remain within half a point of Mamedyarov, but with four rounds left almost anything is still possible. Here are the pairings for round 6, which starts in a few hours.

• Kramnik (2.5) - Mamedyarov (3.5)
• Adams (3) - Harikrishna (1.5)
• Wojtaszek (2) - Radjabov (2)
• Topalov (2.5) - Eljanov (3)
• So (2.5) - Karjakin (2.5)

The games mentioned above can be replayed here, but sans annotations (unfortunately).

Sergey Karjakin Wins World Blitz Championship

And did so on tiebreaks over Magnus Carlsen, too! As in the 2015 championship both players were dominant on day 1, but this time both players stayed hot to the very end, and their huge score of 16.5/21 left them two points ahead of their closest pursuers: Daniil Dubov (bronze medalist on tiebreaks), Hikaru Nakamura, and 2015 world blitz champion Alexander Grischuk.

It's noteworthy that Karjakin won their head-to-head game, and it's also interesting that Vassily Ivanchuk defeated Carlsen yet again, though he finished out of the running for medals and couldn't back up his earlier win in the rapid championship.

There's a nice report on day two of the event here, and I'll close with a couple (or maybe four) bits of information: Anna Muzychuk won both the rapid and the blitz events in the concurrent ladies' event(s), and the 2017 World Rapid and Blitz titles are to be contested in July, in Munich, Germany.

Super-Prodigy Watch: Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu

The Chess Classic is the main event in London, but it's only one part of a larger chess festival. There's also the British Knockout Championship (it's up to the final match between Nigel Short and David Howell, tied after three consecutive draws) and an Open event too. One of the players in the latter is an Indian named Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu*. Oh, and he's 11 years old, having become the youngest IM in chess history earlier this year, when he was still just 10 years of age. He lost an ending he should have drawn to a GM in round 4, and then today overpressed and lost to an FM, so his chances of achieving a GM in this event are almost certainly gone. Nevertheless, he has excellent chances of breaking Sergey Karjakin's record for the youngest GM in history, as he still has more than a year to do it.

For further reading: his Wikipedia page is a good place to start, and the links therein - especially Leonard Barden's article - are worth your time as well.

* And some people think typing "Nepomniachtchi" is annoying, or even "Monokroussos". Never assume things can't get worse, or at least more challenging!

A Post-Match Interview With Sergey Karjakin

This one is more of the standard fare, but still worth a quick read if you haven't spotted it already.

Karjakin vs. Kasparov in the Media

Just a mild war of words, possibly motivated in part by their differing attitudes towards Vladimir Putin.

2016 World Championship, Game 16: Carlsen Wins, Retains His Title

Magnus Carlsen finished in style with a beautiful queen sac, putting away the very game challenger to win the playoff 3-1 and the match overall by a 9-7 score. Sergey Karjakin had to take extra chances to try to win with Black, and while it backfired it was the right strategy. (The game, with my notes, is here.)

Congratulations to Carlsen on the win and Karjakin for making a tremendous fight of it. He had his chances in the match, and if he had spotted his opportunities in games 9 and 10 he would almost certainly have been the champion. But Carlsen missed opportunities too, and in the end his dominance in the rapid portion made him the deserved winner of the match.

2016 World Championship, Game 15: Karjakin Collapses

Psychological advantage or not, Sergey Karjakin didn't make enough good moves in game 15 to keep the balance (or take the lead). It was another Ruy, but this one took a sharp turn early on. Karjakin chose the wrong plan with 18.Ne4 and 20.f3. He got a bit of a reprieve when Carlsen played 29...Bxf6 rather than 29...gxf6, when Black would add the g-file to his attacking assets. Still, his position remained difficult after 30...e4, and as usual he was very short of time. His 36.Qe1 was the losing move, practically speaking, as the way to hold equality on move 37 was impossible without a computer's help. He didn't find the right move there, and his 38th move was an outright blunder, losing on the spot.

So Karjakin must win the last game with Black to keep the match going; not likely, but if anything is clear about him it's that he is a great fighter.

The game, with my analysis, is here.