Chess (#1163)

The Sinquefield Cup started with a bang. Every game was decisive in the first round. Veselin Topalov, who has famously said, "Many players can beat (Magnus ) Carlsen", demonstrated he was one of that elite bunch when he beat Carlsen for the second time in a row.

In Norway, the world champion lost on time in a winning position. In St Louis, Topalov out-calculated Carlsen in a tactical slugfest. But the game of the round was Levon Aronian's marvellous attack against Fabiano Caruana.

Things calmed down after that frenetic start. But the event is being hard-fought. Five rounds in, Carlsen and Aronian lead with 3.5 each. Topalov shares 3rd-4th with Anish Giri (both 3). Hikaru Nakamura and Maxime Vachier Lagrave are at 50 per cent (2.5 each from 5 games) with the rest on "minus" scores. Topalov  had an excellent win against Nakamura but he suffered a loss to Caruana in the fifth round.  It remains to be seen if the Bulgarian can regain lost momentum.

Carlsen rebounded from the  opening loss with the help of some luck in round 2, when he won a time scramble against Caruana after he was seriously worse. After that however, Carlsen has disposed of MVL and Wesley So in typical fashion in long endgames where he nursed a small edge to victory.  

Aronian is playing well after a long period of lost form. He recently trained with Carlsen (there are some hilarious shots of them racing animal floats) and that stint may have helped him pull out of the rut.

In January 2014, the Armenian GM was world #2, rated 2812. He is now #11 with 2765. A good performance here will pull back some of that lost Elo. Both his wins have been very aesthetic.

Sadly, Viswanathan Anand seems to be in poor form. He started with two losses against Nakamura and Alexander Grischuk, and he hasn't logged a win yet. At these levels, a minor error may cost a point. But  Anand's losses came from drifting into inferior positions with a string of small mistakes.

At the Diagram, WHITE TO PLAY, (White: Aronian Vs Black: Caruana, 3rd Sinquefield, Saint Louis 2015), white must exploit king-exposure. He played 25.Ne4! Nd4 26.Qh5! Nxc2 27.Nxg5 Bf5 28.Rf1! No need for fancy calculation. Black's extra rook on a5 is a joke.  

Black could get mated with 28...Bg6 29.Rf7+ Bxf7 30.Qxh7+ Kf6 31.Ne4+ Ke7 32.d6+. He defended with 28...Qf6 Now one win is 29. Rxf5 Qxf5 30. Ne6. Aronian inverted with 29.Ne6+ Rxe6 30.Rxf5 Qg6 Now 31.Rg5! is easy - Aronian finished beautifully with 31.dxe6 Qxh5 32.Rxh5 Nd4 33.e7 Ra8 34.Rxe5 Re8 35.Re4 Nf5 36.Be6 Nd6 37.Bd7 Nxe4 38.Bxe8 Kf6 39.Bg6! (1-0). A piece up.

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player