Chess (#1210)
Carlsen won the psychologically important encounter with Karjakin
 "Chess (#1210)")
The chess circuit has fallow periods when nothing happens. It also has periods when several high-quality events clash. It's a pity that organisers refuse to coordinate. Anyhow, Dortmund saw Maxime Vachier Lagrave storm through with 5.5 from 7 games. It was a phenomenal performance (Elo 2947) by "the Frenchman with two names", who pushed his ranking from #4 (Elo 2798) to #2 (2811). Vachier Lagrave beat Fabiano Caruana, Ruslan Ponomariov, Evgeny Najer and Rainer Buhmann to outscore Vladimir Kramnik, Caruana and Lenier Perez-Dominguez (all 4) who shared 2nd-4th. The Danzhou GM saw Ian Nepomniachtchi (nicknamed "Control V") win with 6 from 9 and a 2847 performance. However, Nepomniachtchi lost to P Harikrishna (5) who shared 2nd-3rd with Wang Yue (5).
Magnus Carlsen bounced back from a first-round loss to Hikaru Nakamura and scored three wins in succession to lead the Bilbao Masters. Carlsen has 11/18 (soccer scoring) after six rounds of the six-player double RR. Nakamura has 8/18. Weui Yi has 7/ 18 while Anish Giri, Wesley So and Sergei Karjakin are all on 5/18.
Carlsen won the psychologically important encounter with Karjakin. The Bilbao mini-match is the last time they meet before the title match. Incidentally there is no clarity yet about sponsors, schedules, et cetera, for New York in November.
The Women's Grand Prix at Chengdu ended with a tie between India's #1 and #2, Koneru Humpy and Dronavalli Harika, respectively. Both scored 7 from 11. Harika played (+3, =8) through unbeaten. Humpy recovered from two losses to Harika and Anna Muzychuk to score 5 wins. Ju Wenjun, Antoaneta Stepanova and Anna Muzychuk shared 3rd-5th (6 each). China also hosts a match with Ding Liren Versus Alexander Grischuk. Grischuk leads 1-0.
The Indian Challengers in Noida was kept non-rated in the hope of attracting strong participation. As always, it was hard-fought. The top nine from this Swiss 13-rounder join the top six in the premier Round Robin. Ravi Teja (10/13) won with Dhulipalla, Praneeth Surya, Abhijit Kunte, Abhishek Kelkar sharing 2nd- 5th (all 9.5) and S Nitin, R R Laxman, Shardul Gagare and the top seeded Aravindh Chithambaram (all 9) also made the cut.
The Diagram, White to Play (White: Carlsen Vs Black: So, Bilbao Masters 2016) sees Carlsen make a pawn sacrifice with a Kt retreat. That suddenly creates a big attack. White played 18.Nd2! Rxa4 19.Nc4 Bf8?! [Black must try 19...Be7 not disconnecting the back rank but white is better after 20. Ba3]
The play continued 20.Be3 Kd7? 21.Qc3 Nxe4 22.Nxb6+ cxb6 23.dxe4. That Kd7 is a tasty target. Black's desperate offer of queen exchanges is rebuffed with 23...Qc4 24.Qd2+ Kc7 25.g4 Bg6 26.Rfd1 (1-0). Lines like 26.- Bc5 27. Qd7+ Kb8 28. Bxc5 wins in multiple ways.
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player
Magnus Carlsen bounced back from a first-round loss to Hikaru Nakamura and scored three wins in succession to lead the Bilbao Masters. Carlsen has 11/18 (soccer scoring) after six rounds of the six-player double RR. Nakamura has 8/18. Weui Yi has 7/ 18 while Anish Giri, Wesley So and Sergei Karjakin are all on 5/18.
Carlsen won the psychologically important encounter with Karjakin. The Bilbao mini-match is the last time they meet before the title match. Incidentally there is no clarity yet about sponsors, schedules, et cetera, for New York in November.
The Women's Grand Prix at Chengdu ended with a tie between India's #1 and #2, Koneru Humpy and Dronavalli Harika, respectively. Both scored 7 from 11. Harika played (+3, =8) through unbeaten. Humpy recovered from two losses to Harika and Anna Muzychuk to score 5 wins. Ju Wenjun, Antoaneta Stepanova and Anna Muzychuk shared 3rd-5th (6 each). China also hosts a match with Ding Liren Versus Alexander Grischuk. Grischuk leads 1-0.
The Indian Challengers in Noida was kept non-rated in the hope of attracting strong participation. As always, it was hard-fought. The top nine from this Swiss 13-rounder join the top six in the premier Round Robin. Ravi Teja (10/13) won with Dhulipalla, Praneeth Surya, Abhijit Kunte, Abhishek Kelkar sharing 2nd- 5th (all 9.5) and S Nitin, R R Laxman, Shardul Gagare and the top seeded Aravindh Chithambaram (all 9) also made the cut.
The Diagram, White to Play (White: Carlsen Vs Black: So, Bilbao Masters 2016) sees Carlsen make a pawn sacrifice with a Kt retreat. That suddenly creates a big attack. White played 18.Nd2! Rxa4 19.Nc4 Bf8?! [Black must try 19...Be7 not disconnecting the back rank but white is better after 20. Ba3]
The play continued 20.Be3 Kd7? 21.Qc3 Nxe4 22.Nxb6+ cxb6 23.dxe4. That Kd7 is a tasty target. Black's desperate offer of queen exchanges is rebuffed with 23...Qc4 24.Qd2+ Kc7 25.g4 Bg6 26.Rfd1 (1-0). Lines like 26.- Bc5 27. Qd7+ Kb8 28. Bxc5 wins in multiple ways.
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player