CHESS#1265

Speed chess is a young person’s game. The St Louis Rapids & Blitz demonstrated that. Two greats, Garry Kasparov (54) and Viswanathan Anand (47), landed near the bottom of the table. Both former world champions were renowned for their fast-format skills. But as age catches up, they’re obviously more prone to blunders in short controls.

Levon Aronian won the rapid with 6 points from 9 games ahead of Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura (both 5.5). Anand and Kasparov ( both 3.5) came in at the tail-end of the 10-player round. Anand had a winning position versus Aronian when he made a simple miscalculation. He suffered losses to Aronian, Nakamura and Sergey Karjakin.  Kasparov, playing his first tournament in 12 years, suffered losses to David Navara, Caruana, and Ian Nepomniachtchi.

The two old rivals drew all their games versus each other. Kasparov’s classic comment about his own form “I was too democratic. I made quite a few good moves but I spread them evenly across games rather than concentrating them.”

The blitz section saw Karjakin set the early pace with 8/9 but Aronian caught up. In the end, Aronian won the blitz as well, scoring 12.5 from 18 games with Karjakin second on 12. Kasparov and Anand (both 7) trailed again. It was a great result for the Armenian GM who obviously topped combined scores.

Earlier, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won the classical Sinquefield Cup at the same venue. MVL scored 6 points from 9 games to outpace Magnus Carlsen and Anand (both 5.5) who shared second place. The French GM won a key last-round encounter against Nepomniachtchi to stay ahead of Carlsen who beat Aronian in that round in another crucial battle. MVL went through unbeaten with a victory against the world champion to score a great result.  

In other news, R Praggnanandhaa has just crossed Elo 2500 in the week when he celebrated his 12th birthday. He narrowly missed a first GM norm by scoring 6.5 from 9 games at the Vissingen tournament, Holland. If he logs the GM title inside the next seven months, Pragga would beat Sergey Karjakin’s record to become the youngest-ever GM.  It’s a tall task but not impossible.

The diagram, BLACK TO PLAY (White: Nakamura Vs Black: Aronian, Levon Sinquefield Cup 2017)  illustrates that rare creature — an endgame mating attack.

Black played 33. —  Nxf3+!! 34.exf3 Ra2+ 35.Bg2 Rg7 36.Rg1 Rg3 37.Kh1 Bh3 38.Bf1 e2 39.Bxe2 Rxe2 40.Nd5 Rxf3 ?! (It’s easier to go 40. — Bg2+  41. Rxg2 Rexg2 42. Nf4 Rb2 43. Rc3 b5). The game ended 41.Rg6 Re6 42.Rcg1 Rxg6 43.Rxg6 Bd7 44.Kg2 Rg3+ 45.Rxg3 fxg3 46.Kxg3 Kf7 47.Kf4 Ke6 48.Nb4 Be8 49.Nd3 Kd5 50.Nf2 Bd7 51.Ke3 Ke5 52.Ne4 Bc6 53.Ng3 Bd5 (0–1). 
 

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Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player