CHESS #1356

The experimental format of the Altibox GM at Stavanger, Norway seems to be a success in terms of spectator interest. The Armageddon format creates lots of excitement alongside the accompanying blunders. Magnus Carlsen has won, with a round to spare. The world champion and local hero scored 13 points, well ahead of Levon Aronian (9). 

As of now, third–fifth place is shared by Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So and Yu Yangyi (all 8.5). Ding Liren (8) was sixth, while Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Viswanathan Anand share sixth-seventh (both 7.5). Given the clustering, any of these players could vault into clear second place. Carlsen has scored six wins in Armageddon, with two classical wins —  this continues his incredible record in 2019 and it also underlines his even more incredible record of having won every tiebreak he’s ever played. 

This single event provides too small a sample to judge whether the Armageddon format used here, with 10 minutes for white, seven minutes for black, increment of three seconds after move 60, and draw odds for black is fair and balanced. This is a difficult problem to “solve”. In all games with equal time controls, white scores around 56-57 per cent — this of course, includes many draws. Now, those draws will convert to black wins but at the same time, the clock advantage should mean that black loses more games, either on time, or due to blunders caused by zeitnot. If the format is fair, the ratio should equalise to around 55 per cent, albeit with entirely decisive results. 

The Women’s Candidates has been Aleksandra Goryachkina all the way. The 20-year-old Russian GM leads with 8.5 points after 11 rounds. Her nearest rival is Kateryna Lagno with only 6. Given that only three rounds are left, Goryachkina is nearly mathematically certain of being the next challenger to Ju Wenjun. She’s played the tournament of her life with a rating performance of 2745. 

The Asian Continental features a strong field due to the five World Cup places that are up for grabs in the nine-round Swiss. The leaderboard after Round 7 starts with Karthikeyan Murali, Abhijeet Gupta and S. P. Sethuraman (all 5.5). The next pack of five includes Alireza Firouzja, Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, Sunilduth Narayanan (all 5). Baskaran Adhiban and Nihal Sarin (both 4.5) are also in with an outside chance of qualification. Gujrathi has recovered well after a shock loss to Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (4). 

The Diagram, White to play (White: Sasikiran Vs Black: Artemiev, Karpov Poikovsky 2019) is a classic attack. White played 25. g5! fxg5 26. Rd7!! Nxd7 [26. Nxh6+ also wins but this is lovely in addition to being strong) 27. Nxh6+ gxh6 28. Qe6+ Kg7 29. Qxh6+ Kf7 30. Qe6+ Kg7 31. Qe7+ Kg6 32. Qh7+ Kf6 33. Nxd7+ Ke6 34. Qg6+ Kd5 35. Rd1# (1-0). 

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player.