CHESS#1306

The Altibox Norway Super GM ended with a surprise winner in a very tight finish. Challenger Fabiano Caruana started badly with a loss to World Champion Magnus Carlsen, in Round One. 

But the Italian-American GM fought back into contention. His resilience brought wins against Viswanathan Anand, Sergey Karjakin, and finally, Wesley So in a dramatic last-round battle.

Caruana ended up champion with 5 points from eight games. Second place was shared between Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, and Anand (all on 4.5). 

Wesley So had thrown the tournament open with a win against Carlsen in Round 6. This was the Filipino-American’s first win against the world champion in 37 encounters!

So played workmanlike chess and Carlsen seemed out of sorts, getting crushed without a fight. If So had won in the last round against Caruana, he would have been champion instead of taking fifth place. 

Viswanathan Anand won against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in Round Seven, and lost in Round eight to Caruana and won against Karjakin in Round Nine to share second spot.

One problem was that the field was unbalanced after Ding Liren was forced to withdraw with a hip injury caused by a bicycle accident. 

That meant byes for everyone, which caused complications in assessing the lead. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov for example, completed his tournament in round eight, scoring 3.5 from 8.

The other reason for a tight finish was simply a low decision ratio. Only Caruana managed to score “plus two” — win two games more than he lost. Going into the last round, Carlsen, Nakamura, Caruana and So were tied for the lead with 4 points each, having played seven games each.

The Karpov International at Poikovsky concluded a little earlier with Dmitry Jakovenko scoring 6.5 points from nine rounds to win a pretty strong event. Jakovenko won four games and drew the rest. 

Ian Nepomniachtchi and Boris Gelfand (6 each) tied for second position. Nepo lost a key game to Vlad Fedoseev (5) while he beat Gelfand. Vidit Gujrathi (5.5) came fourth unbeaten, and gains a little Elo. 

In his most memorable game however, he was on the receiving end of a spectacular drawing combination. The Karpov Memorial was remarkably combative, with 24 decisive games out a total of 45.

The Diagram, White to Play (White: Vidit Gujrathi Vs Black: Gelfand, Karpov Poikovsky 2018) is hard to assess. White has a material edge but both kings are exposed in what has been a crazy game all through.

Black’s threat is Qf1. The ice-cool 58. Kg2 wins. Instead, white played 58.Re6?! Qf1! 59.Qe3 Bg5 60.Qd4 [Now it’s black to play and draw, like in a study. Take a few minutes to figure it out ]

Black found 60.-- g3+ 61.fxg3 hxg3+ 62.Kxg3 Bf4+! 63.Qxf4 Qg2+! 64.Kxg2 (1/2-1.2) 

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player