CHESS#1258

In the Paris leg of the Grand Chess Tour, Magnus Carlsen stumbled in sight of a win, and Maxime Vachier Lagrave caught up. But Carlsen won a tie-break. He had stormed the Rapid section with 7/9, useful since the rapid games count as double. 

Carlsen started with 4/4 in the blitz, a double round-robin. He still led by 2 points (combined) with four rounds to go. But he lost to Sergey Karjakin, MVL and Hikaru Nakamura in succession. So, MVL led going into the last round. But Carlsen beat Wesley So while MVL drew, forcing a tiebreaker (both on 24/36). Nakamura took third (23), with Alexander Grischuk fourth (22). 

Carlsen duly won 1.5-0.5, forcing a draw in game 2 from a superior position. It’s worth noting that Carlsen has won every tiebreak he’s ever played — that’s 8-0 so far, against Super GMs. Even somebody who doesn’t know the rules of chess will understand what that means in terms of nerves and the ability to shift gears. 

The second GCT has started at Lieven (Belgium). So leads with an amazing 5/6 at the time of writing. MVL and Carlsen share second (both 4). Viswanathan Anand (2.5) has been up-and-down, losing to So, Vladimir Kramnik and Levon Aronian, while beating Vassily Ivanchuk and Ian Nepomniachtchi. 

  

The World Teams at Khanty-Mansisyk concluded on a mildly disappointing note for India. Both teams missed medals by narrow margins to come fourth. China took the Open title in the ten-team event, drawing Turkey and the US and beating the rest of the field for 16 match points (+7,=2). Russia (15) took second, losing a vital match to China. 

The Russians were lucky against India where they won a match they could have lost. Poland (12) also edged out India (11), which lost narrow matches to the top three. If India had won that seventh round match against Russia, they could have taken silver. 

In the women’s event, it was Russia (16, with draws to USA, Azerbaijan), China (!3, loss to Russia, draws against, India, Ukraine, Azerbaijan), Georgia, India and Ukraine (all 12). Georgia had the best total score of 21.5, India 20 and Ukraine 19.5. In all honesty, the top Russian players, the top USA players and the strongest Chinese women weren’t playing. 

The Diagram, WHITE TO PLAY (White : So Vs Black: Carlsen GCT Rapid Paris 2017) sees wild complications. White’s in trouble- d3 will fall. He goes for broke 26.Ra6 Re6 27.Qa4 Qxd3 28.Bxh6!? gxh6 Objectively this is lost anyway. So decides to go down in flames. 

Play ended 29.Nc7 Nd4 30.Nxd4 Rxa6 31.Qxa6 Rd6 32.Nc6 Qf5 33.Nd5 Qe6! 34.Qa8 Rxc6 35.Re3 Ne8 36.Rg3+ Kh7 37.Rf3 e4 38.Rf4 Ra6 39.Rxf7+ Qxf7 40.Qxa6 Bg7 41.Qc6 Bd4 42.Kh2 Ng7 43.Ne3 Qf4+ (0–1).

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Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player