CHESS #1352

The first leg of the Grand Chess Tour is in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and it’s the first time a reigning world champion plays in Africa. Magnus Carlsen heads the 10-player field, with a prize fund of $150,000. It’s the usual format of nine rapid games (double-scored) and 18 blitz games. The sponsors include Vivendi SA, Canal+ Group and the Pullman Abidjan Hotel — another sign that changes in Fide are paying dividends. After three rapid rounds, Carlsen shares the lead with Wei Yi (both 5 points) with Hikaru Nakamura (4) in third place.

Meanwhile, Nihal Sarin and Harikrishna played the Tepe Sigeman at Malmo, Sweden. Harikrishna (2730) was the top-seed. Nihal (Elo 2598) was the second lowest-rated in the eight-player round-robin (average 2664 rating). Gawain Jones (5) won with Hari (4.5) second, and Nils Grandelius (4) third. Nihal (3) lost to Grandelius and Hari, and won impressively versus Parham Maghsoodloo (3). He will cross 2600 here, becoming the second-youngest player to make it past that “strong GM” threshold. 

Baskaran Adhiban is top seeded at the 54th Capablanca Memorial in Havana, Cuba. Vassily Ivanchuk and Sam Sevian ( both 3.5) share the lead after five rounds in the six-player double round-robin. Adhiban’s (2) doing badly with two losses against one win.

Leela Chess Zero or lc0 as “she’s” known, created history by winning the World Computer Chess Championship at Chess.com. So, Leela is now the world’s second-strongest blitz engine. Just amazing for a crowd-sourced neural network developed on off-the-shelf hardware with the first release in January 2018.

Project Leela was driven by Gary Linscott, who was also associated with Stockfish, the open source engine Leela dethroned. Last year, Leela lost an epic 100-game match 49.5-50.5 to Stockfish in the TCEC (Top Chess Engine Championship) at longer time controls. This year, it beat Stockfish 51-49 in the (blitz) WCCC finals. Three of the four finalists were neural nets including Leelenstein and Antifish.  

In the Diagram, White to play (White: Nihal Sarin Vs Black: Parham Maghsoodloo, Sigeman 2019), White has the sharp manoeuvre 30. Bh2! With Kt1-g3 and king-side slaughter.  That can’t be stopped and instead, he first injected the cunning 30. b3!? Kg8? This is precisely what white wants.

Now there’s the deadly 31. Rd6!! cxd6 32. Rxd6 Rc6. The queen is trapped with Nh6+ and b3 controls c4. Two rooks are outgunned due to the exposed king. The game ended 33. Rxe6 Rxe6 34. Qd2 Nf4 35. Bxf4 exf4 36. Qxf4 Nxf5 37. Qxf5 Rxe4 38. Qg6+ Kf8 39. Qxf6+ Kg8 40. Qg6+ Kf8 41. Qf6+ Kg8 42. Ng3 Re1+ 43. Kh2 Bb8 44. Qg6+ Kf8 45. Qxh5 R1e4 46. Qh8+ Kf7 47. Qh7+ Kf8 48. Qxb7 Rf4 49. Qb6 Kg7 50. Nh5+ (1-0). 

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player