CHESS #649

In his path-breaking research on the ratings of chess-players, Arpad Elo discovered something that made intuitive sense. Talented young players don't increase smoothly in strength. Their ratings can suddenly jump several levels. Then they lose ground or plateau, before making another abrupt jump. A good example is Ian Nepomniachtchi, who has swung past 2700 after nearly two years of stagnation at low 2600-levels.

What is remarkable about Magnus Carlsen is that he had a phenomenally long linear growth phase that took him to no:1 in Jan 2010. Carlsen's rating climbed from 2528 in July 2005 to a high of 2826 in July 2010. (He didn't play any games between Aug-September)

 

Now the long-expected slump has come. Carlsen lost three games at the Olympiad. Then he started the Bilbao Masters disastrously with consecutive losses against Kramnik and Anand. As a result, he could lose about 25-30 rating points in the next list, and drop in the rankings. Of course, Carlsen has a chance to pull back since he's playing a Super GM at Nanjing soon.

Bilbao is one of those Super GM events that is probably best seen as a sequence of mini-matches. It is incredibly strong with Carlsen, Anand, Kramnik and Shirov, playing double-rounders under the patented Bilbao scoring (3 for win, 1 for draw) which is supposed to encourage decisive play.

At the time of writing, Kramnik is in the lead with 9 points (2 wins, 3 draws) after 5 rounds. Anand is second with 7 (1 win, 4 draws). The world champion needs to squeeze a win from the last round to catch Kramnik. Carlsen is third (1 win, 2 draws, 2 losses), ahead of Shirov (2 loss, 3 draws). The play has been, as you would expect, very high quality and hard-fought, with positions drawn by exhaustion.

The Diagram, WHITE TO PLAY, (Kramnik Vs Carlsen, Bilbao Masters 2010) is the point at which a classic grind transforms into tactical knockout. White is pushing hard with d-file control, a dominant Kt and threats against targets on b6, h6, f7. Now he switches direction 36.Rg2! f6 37.Nc4 Ra7 38.f5 Rc6 39.a4 Rb7 40.Rg6 h5 41.Rdg1 Ke8

The Kt has become even more dominant. Black's bishop is crippled, the rooks have penetrated by switching to the g-file and white's more active king could also play a role. But how does white break through? . 42.Ne5! Very efficient 42...Rc8 43.Rg8+ Bf8 44.Ng6 Rf7. If 44...Kf7 45.Nxf8 Rxf8 46.R8g7+ picks up a rook. 45.Rd1 (1-0) Black is tied hand and foot. The threat of Rd6 wiping out the pawns cannot be stopped and there is a chance of losing the piece for example, 45. — Rb8 46.Rd6 and white wins as he pleases.

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