CHESS#1301

Magnus Carlsen went unbeaten and scored 6 points from 9 games with three wins, against Anish Giri, Veselin Topalov and Radek Wojtaszek

Magnus Carlsen took the Gashimov Memorial in Shamkir for the third year in a row. That’s pretty impressive since it’s always been a Super-GM. This time, the number of decisive games was woefully low. But Carlsen did enough to pull ahead of the field.

The world champion went unbeaten and scored 6 points from 9 games with three wins, against Anish Giri, Veselin Topalov and Radek Wojtaszek. He was happy to conclude a quick last round draw with Ding Liren. That was a 2885 performance rating for Carlsen. It was a decent performance from him, and the win against Giri was a very impressive effort. China’s #1 came in second, scoring 5.5. This takes Ding to #6 on the world rating list. Sergey Karjakin (5) landed third. Nobody else played with any degree of consistency.

Meanwhile, Carlsen’s challenger and world #2, Fabiano Caruana, played brilliantly at the US Championships and logged 8 points (six wins, one loss, four draws) from 11 games with a 2837 performance. But Caruana was outscored by Sam Shankland who played the tournament of his life to score 8.5 (performance 2885, six wins, five draws).

Both Caruana and Shankland logged three successive wins at the end. But the 26-year-old from Berkeley managed to stay in front of the 25-year-old from Brooklyn.  Shankland could have killed it off earlier if he had converted big edges against Caruana and Nakamura.

Wesley So (6.5) took third place. Nakamura started horribly and scrambled to 50 per cent to tie Alex Lenderman and Ray Robson (all 5.5). The “wonder-kids”, Jeffery Xiong (5) and Awonder Liang (4.5), both landed minus scores while showing flashes of talent.

The US women’s championship saw an incredible performance from debutant 15-year-old Annie Wang. Wang (8) led, until she suffered a last-round loss. That allowed Nazi Paikidze (8) to force a play-off. The teenager proceeded to win the first game of the playoff but Paikidze equalised in Game 2 and then won the armageddon.

From the Diagram, BLACK TO PLAY (White: Giri Vs Black: Carlsen, Shamkir 2018), Carlsen gives a masterclass in cashing in on long-term compensation. White has a pawn. Black has play against an open king, and shattered pawns. 

Carlsen played 24. — Qh6 25.Rbd1 Nd5 26.Rg1 Kh8 27.Bf1 Rf4 28.Ne5 Rdf8 29.f3 Rh4 30.d4 Nf4 31.Qd2 Bxb3 32.Rb1 Bxa4 33.Bb5 Bxb5 34.Rxb5 Qe6 35.Qb2 Bd8!

Now black’s a pawn up. He’s used the f-file and pivot square f4 very well. Now, Bd8 threatens Bc7 hitting h2. White defended with 36.Ng5 Qe8 37.Rb3 Bxg5 38.Rxg5 Ne6 39.Rg4 Rxg4 40.fxg4 Qd8 41.Rh3? [41. Rf3 hangs on for a while] Qd5 42.Kg1 Qe4 43.Qb4 Rf6 (0–1). The engines suggest sharper lines but Carlsen just kept pushing unhurriedly until Giri cracked under the pressure.

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player