The final of the inaugural world championship in Fischer Random Chess concluded on Saturday, crowning Wesley So as the first official world champion in this chess discipline with a crushing victory of Magnus Carlsen. As usual Carlsen entered the final being the favourite, but was basically outplayed by the strong American and only raking up 2 draws and 4 defeats.
One thing is to defeat Carlsen in a match, but another is doing it in such a dominating fashion. For a player that “peaked” back in 2017 when he reached world #2 on the rating lists and has struggled a bit since then, this experience must come as a massive confidence boost going into future events. Whatever happens in the future, So has secured his place in chess history. For Carlsen it started badly on Thursday. First not being able to finish So of in round 1 when computer programs said a win was possible, and then going down uncharacteristically. Friday went from bad to worse, losing game 3 and just playing “kamikaze coffeehouse chess” and being punished by So. So basically never played a bad move the whole event and settled for a draw by repetition in game 5 (the first rapid game of Saturday) where he again was clearly better than Carlsen before finishing off the punch-drunk Norwegian with a clean win in game 6. Going into the tournament Carlsen did mention he had some shaky confidence in rapid chess after his poor showing in St. Louis, but losing in such a way is basically unheard of.
For Carlsen, it was back in the saddle on Sunday when he played in the Norwegian chess series (second division) for his newly founded club Offerspill SK, winning against Anders Tryggestad (ELO 2365) and extending his unbeaten streak to 102 classical games. For the fresh world champion Romania will be the next stop (more on that later).
It was Nepomniachtchi who clinched the bronze medal defeating Caruana 12.5 vs 5.5. All in all a very entertaining event, and something that seemed to be popular both among the local spectators and the national TV audience (even though the home favourite ended up losing).
Hamburg Grand Prix
The chess calendar keeps on rolling with the third leg of the FIDE Grand Prix set to start in Hamburg on November 5. This 16-player knockout tournament is especially important for players like Vachier-Lagrave, Grischuk, Mamedyarov and Nepomniachtchi who are the four favourite to secure one of the top 2 spots and get an invitation to next years candidate tournament.
In Hamburg Grischuk will have his last chance to score points while Mamedyarov skips this leg (each player players 3 out of the 4 events).
Currently Mamedyarov and Grischuk leads with 10 points, just ahead of Nepomniatchi wiht 9 and Vachier-Lagrave with 8. The winner gets 8 points, the runner-up 5, the 2 semi-final losers 3 points and to advance to round 2 net you just 1 point. In addition players get 1 bonus point if you win a minimatch without needing a tie-break.
The 16 players playing in Hamburg are: Vachier-Lagrave, Grischuk, Nakamura, Nepomniachtchi, Yu Yangyi, Svidler, Radjabov, Topalov, Jakovenko, Navara, Wojtaszek, Wei Yi, Duda, Harikrishna, Vitiugov & Dubov.
If the favourites advance in each of the first rounds we are looking at getting a very crucial semifinal between Vachier-Lagrave and Grischuk (with the winner most likely securing a spot in the candidates).
Superbet rapid & blitz chess Romania
The Grand Chess Tour also continues this week with a stop at Romania for some more rapid and blitz chess. Again 7 of the permanent tour players will play alongside 3 wildcards.
The tournament will be played at Stejarii Country Club in Bucharest and feature the following players; Caruana, Aronian, So, Anand, Mamedyarov, Karjakin, Giri with the wildcards going to Vladislav Artemiev, Le Quang Liem and Anton Korobov.
The players will play 9 rounds of rapid chess, three each on November 6, 7 & 8, with an estimated starting time of 15:00, 16:30 and 18:00 (local time) before moving on the 18 rounds of blitz, 9 on November 9 and 9 rounds on November 10 (with any tiebreaks also being played on November 10). Start time for the blitz are also 15:00.
So fresh of his impressive victory in Norway is perhaps a slight favourite (if he doesn’t experience a mental dip after such a big win) and it will be interesting to see if any of the wildcards can make things difficult for the players aiming for the London final.
Between Aronian, Caruana and Karjakin on a tied for fourth place and down to So on 9th place there is just a difference of 2 GCT points so basically everyone still have a shot with a win in Romania. Also note that only Vachier-Lagrave is finished gaining points (he has already played 5 events) and Aronian, Anand, So and Giri only have played 3 events and can get points both in Romania and then when the GCT travels to India for the Tata Steel event in Kolkata between November 22 and 26.
Tabletop Cave 