As we start 2020, it’s time to look back at some of the highlights of 2019. First up is the top 5 chess stories of the year (according to me);
5. Grand Chess Tour comes to Africa
Grand Chess Tour expanded with several new stops this year, and maybe the biggest new development was the rapid and blitz tournament held in Ivory Coast back in May. Africa hasn’t made big waves in the chess world and we haven’t seen the influx of top players as we have from the other continents. A big tournament with the top players might prove to be a much needed push for the local chess community, and of course it ended with a dominant Carlsen victory…
4. Wesley So becomes the first Fischer Random World Champion
In 2019 the first official world championship in Fischer Random Chess (Chess 960) was sanctioned by FIDE. The final leg of the tournament was held in Norway and saw the home crowd witness the “massacre” of Magnus Carlsen against Wesley So. The American dominated both the semifinal and final and won convincingly. In an otherwise pretty uneventful year for So, the title certainly made his 2019 something very special. Adding a new official chess title should perhaps be the biggest story of 2019, and as we have seen since in rapid and blitz, this kind of title could grow to become prestigious in the coming years. For me however, the whole process of finding the 4 finalists was just to uninspiring and difficult to follow. Several online tournaments were held over at chess.com, but in the end it all seemed to chaotic and was never really covered by the media in a way fitting a world championship. I bet the format will be tweaked in the coming years, perhaps (hopefully) becoming closer to what we see in rapid and blitz championships.
3. Ding Liren had Carlsen’s number
Ding Liren again stole many chess headlines this year, especially in the second half of the year when he seemed to have an unusual strong hold over Magnus Carlsen. In 2018 Ding Liren had a very strong year and went on a 100 games undefeated streak, but in 2019 he capped his performance by beating Carlsen in the playoff for the win in the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis (the first defeat in a playoff for Carlsen in 12 years or so). Ding continued to dominate and went on to defeat first Carlsen and then MVL to win the overall Grand Chess Tour at the London final. You’d think in any other year such a performance by the current world #3 would be the biggest story of the year.
2. The race for the Candidates
Inbetween championship years the focus for the top players will almost always be to secure a spot in the upcoming candidates tournament and earning the right to challenge Magnus Carlsen. FIDE had made several changes in the qualifying cycle so when the dust settled at the final Grand Prix in December we had a list of 8 players, and of course who ended up qualifying, who just missed out, sparked lots of discussion.
Fabiano Caruana was already in the candidates as the last challenger and while Carlsen seemed rejuvenated by their match, Caruana spent most of 2019 “licking his wound” and slowly rebuilding for the upcoming year.
The Chess World Cup had two qualifying spots up for grab, and when the event was over in early October we had one favourite and one surprise. Ding Liren lost in the final against Teimour Radjabov, but both secured their spot in the Candidates. This also meant that Anish Giri basically locked up his spot via rating (he basically sat on this rating points and cruised to a spot the rest of the year).
The introduction of a new Grand Swiss tournament ended with a surprising winner, Wang Hao. This also meant that the final two spots from the FIDE Grand Prix was a hard fought battle between some of the biggest names in chess. In the end, it was the the two Russians Nepomniatchi and Grischuk who would qualify. Finally the wild card was award to the fairly unknown Kirill Alekseenko (as he finished runner-up in the Grand Swiss as Caruana already was qualified). This selection caused some uproar as fan favourite Maxime Vachier-Lagrave again missed out on the candidates, the Frenchman finished third in both the World Cup and the Grand Prix seres and was the highest rated player behind Giri. The Russians hosts of Yekaterinburg of course picked Alekseenko – oh well, better luck next time MVL!
1. The Year of Carlsen
Even when he had a dip in form during the second half of 2019 (after an absolute crazy good first half) you simply can’t deny that 2019 was Carlsen’s year, and was made clear with him grabbing the triple crown winning both the rapid and blitz championship the last week of 2019.
In the end Carlsen won 10 major tournaments in 2019. He reached his own rating record from 2014 (but didn’t manage to surpass it), again putting about 50 ELO-points between himself and Caruana. And while he did uncharacteristically lose a title match vs So (Fischer Random) and got knocked out by Ding Liren twice, he went through 2019 undefeated in classical chess and is currently sitting on a 107 long streak of games undefeated (his last defeat came in July 2018 against Mamedyarov). Away from the chess board things didn’t go as well. His involvement in what can be best describe as an attempt at a coup of the Norwegian Chess Federation, creating a new chess club and paying the membership fees to gain votes at the upcoming assembly had many harsh critics back in Norway. In the end the federation rejected the sponsor-deal Carlsen wanted. He also had a conflict with the federation concerning the possibility of a world championship title match in Norway, and in the possible Norwegian organizers withdrew their bid. All in all, he didn’t gain any friends in the Norwegian chess community or in the public (who only read headlines). It ended with him symbolically quitting the federation, but in reality nothing changed for his playing status. And when the year ended his success at the chessboard again was at the forefront of the Norwegians conscious. Add in his remarkable success in Fantasy Premier League Football, something that made international headlines and Carlsen again ended up in 2019 as an excellent ambassador for chess – cementing his bid for “Greatest of all time” for each year that passes (look out Kasparov!)
Tabletop Cave 