First, Second, Third, Fourth: Snapshots from the 2022 Norway Chess Tournament

Magnus Carlsen once again showed why he is and has been the World’s #1 player for over a decade, and the World Champion for nine years. While the race for first in the recently completed Norway Chess tournament was closely contested, it was Carlsen who kept his nerve when it mattered most, while Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (second), Viswanathan Anand (third), and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (fourth) all had their lapses when it mattered most. It’s not that Carlsen’s play was perfect by any means; rather, he made more of his opportunities than his opponents did with theirs, especially in the critical moments.

We begin with the Anand-Carlsen “match” in round 5. First, a little explanation is in order. The scoring system in the tournament was unusual. The players would contest a classical game with 3-1-0 scoring (three points for a win, one point for a draw, and no points for a loss), with a further twist. In case of a draw there would be an Armageddon blitz game, with the players keeping the same colors, with a further half point going to the winner (or to Black in case of a draw). Anand played very well against Carlsen in their classical game, and was on the way to a well-deserved win…until he let it slip. Carlsen held the draw and forced an Armageddon game, which Anand, to his credit, managed to win. Nevertheless, that cost Anand a point and a half - and two and a half points relative to Carlsen. That result alone would have been enough for Anand to win the tournament, had everything else remained the same.

Next up, round 6. Carlsen was pressing for a long time against Mamedyarov, who defended well and kept the game within the bounds of a draw. It wasn’t an easy defense, but he was doing a fine job…until a mental lapse on move 46. Mamedyarov blundered a critical pawn to an elementary tactic, after which Carlsen converted his advantage to a victory with little difficulty.

In round 8, two more critical results followed. Anand was still doing well, but with White in the classical game against Mamedyarov made an absolute howler of a blunder, and resigned without waiting to see Mamedyarov make the winning move. It was a nice tactic, and one that could be overlooked by mere mortals at any time. It’s not even that hard to see a great player missing the trick in a blitz game. But it is surprising to see one of the all-time greats, and a legend when it comes to chess calculation, miss it in a classical game. Errare humanum est!

Meanwhile, Carlsen was suffering against Vachier-Lagrave somewhat analogously to the way Mamedyarov suffered against him in the earlier game. He too had a momentary lapse…but MVL failed to take advantage of it, and they went to Armageddon. In this game too Vachier-Lagrave had the advantage, but content with a draw (he had Black, and in Armageddon a draw is as good as a win for the second player) he chose a very impractical way to force it. The game could have been saved, but without enough time to think he failed to do so, losing another half a point. Had MVL won the classical game and everything else remained the same, he would have come in clear first rather than fourth.

The margins in top-level chess can be razor-thin. My hope for the coming Candidates tournament - starting tomorrow! - is that the player who wins, wins convincingly. It’s not that I don’t want to see a competitive event - I do. But for the sake of the sanity of the runner(s)-up, I hope that he or they won’t be torturing themselves for the rest of their lives with the question, “What if I had only found that one move?”

To see the games mentioned above, and a discussion of the critical moments therein, click here.

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: Anand Leads After the Rapid

Viswanathan Anand enjoyed a great performance in the rapid section of the 2022 Superbet Rapid & Blitz, though the last game may leave a sour taste in his mouth going into the blitz. He won his first five games before giving up a draw in the last round of day 2, and today opened with an impressive win over David Gavrilescu and an interesting draw with Fabiano Caruana. Unfortunately for the former World Champion, he lost a crazy, up-and-down game to Richard Rapport in the last round, and finished only half a point ahead of him. (Or rather, a point ahead, given the 2-1-0 scoring for the rapid.)

Interestingly, he could easily have finished half a point (or rather, a full point) back, had Rapport finished off his winning advantage against Wesley So in the penultimate round. Had he won that game, and still defeated Anand in the final game, he would have finished with six wins in a row.

Here are the standings, both normal and doubled-up, after the rapid. The next two days will see blitz round robins scored in the usual 1-.5-0 system.

1. Anand 7/9 (14/18)
2. Rapport 6.5 (13)
3. Duda 6 (12)
4. So 5.5 (11)
5. Aronian 5 (10)
6. Caruana 4.5 (9)
7-8. Wojtaszek, Shevchenko 3.5 (7)
9. Korobov 2.5 (5)
10. Gavrilescu 1 (2)

Finally, here are Anand's games from today.

The Daily Update: Anand Leads Superbet, Wei Yi Continues to Lead Chessable Masters

The news from the two super-elite rapid events is similar to yesterday's. Viswanathan Anand and Wei Yi continue to lead the Superbet Rapid & Blitz and the Chessable Masters, respectively. Both remain undefeated and scored very well today, earning just half a point less today than they did yesterday.

In Anand's case, that means he has a remarkable 5.5/6, finally being held to a draw by Jan-Krzysztof Duda in round 6. Only Richard Rapport is within a point of Anand (and they have yet to play), while Duda and Wesley So are two point behind. (Or more likely, four points behind. My recollection is that the rapid games count double, while the blitz games count once each - but there will be twice as many of them.)

As for Wei Yi, he added another 3/4 to his total today, and leads with 6.5/8, a point ahead of Anish Giri, Magnus Carlsen (who lost to Praggnanandhaa after making an elementary blunder), and - surprise - David Anton. All that really matters, however, is to be in the top eight, as scores do not carry over into the elimination rounds. (Scores only count for getting into the elimination rounds, and for seeding therein.) So here are the remaining four players who would qualify if the prelims ended today: Ding Liren (5 points), Praggnanandhaa and Pentala Harikrishna (4.5 points apiece), and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (4 points). Nils Grandelius also has four points, but his tiebreak score is inferior to Mamedyarov's. They still have seven rounds to play over the next two days, however, so everyone is at least theoretically still in the running.

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.

Other Items of Interest: NBC x 2 (NoBody Castles, NBC Sports)

A week ago I mentioned the no-castling match between Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik. Where we left off at the halfway point, Anand led 1.5-.5; since then, Anand comfortably drew games three ("comfortable" understates it; he was winning and then some) and four to win it, 2.5-1.5.

The aforementioned match hasn't received much attention, but this will give chess a nice boost in the U.S. (at least it couldn't hurt, unless we get a replay of Elista 2006): NBC Sports will cover the World Championship in November and December.

Anand Leads 1.5-.5 in No-Castling Match

The match between Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik is at the halfway point, and Anand won a very entertaining game 1 with White and comfortably held game 2 with Black. (Note that 39...Ke5?? was not actually played; it was a DGT "move" executed to indicate the drawn result.)

No-Castling Chess Between Kramnik and Anand, Starting July 14

Once upon a time, when chess was slowly making its way west from India to Europe, the rules were somewhat different. One of the differences was that castling was not permitted--or rather, it's better to say that no one had yet dreamt up the idea of castling. That innovation was one of many ways the game was changed to speed up the action. But what if we got rid of it? Vladimir Kramnik has been proposing various chess variants over the last few years, and he'll put it to the test against the greatest player from the land where chess (probably) started (India) - his great rival Viswanathan Anand.

They'll play a four-game match in Dortmund starting July 14; let's hope it's a good one. More here. (HT: Tyler Cowen)

Cheating vs. Anand in a Charity Simul

What is most shocking about this story is that it's likely to give billionaires, hitherto known and beloved as paragons of virtue, a bad name. Facetiousness aside, how especially awful is it to cheat in an event for charity, against one of your personal heroes, a player (Viswanathan Anand) who is universally respected for his sportsmanship?

HT: Ross Hytnen and Allen Becker

Kasparov and Anand to Play the Croatia Grand Prix

This rapid & blitz event, part of the 2021 Grand Chess Tour, takes place in Zagreb, Croatia from July 6-11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexander Grischuk, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, and Anish Giri are participating as full tour players; Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Ivan Saric, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Anton Korobov, and Jorden Van Foreest are participating as wildcards. Nine of the eleven players are participating in both events; unfortunately, Kasparov is only playing in the blitz, leaving Saric to take his place in the rapid.

Based on his performances in recent years, Kasparov is unlikely to do very well unless he will have spent more time preparing than usual. He's sure to have plenty of extremely interesting opening ideas and to play dynamically, but his pattern is to play too slowly and throw away his hard work and success in the first part of the game once he falls (far) behind his opponent on the clock and runs short of time. By the end of his events, he's typically in good form and has learned to manage the competitive situation, but it's a day or two too late. So I hope for the sake of the good chess he can produce, and for youngsters who think that he is some fossil from the past who cannot compete with today's players, that he puts in the kind of prep that's necessary to succeed.

It would be nice to see Anand play well, too, but my prediction is that it (the overall event) will be a three horse race between Nepo, MVL, and Giri. My prediction: Nepo.