Cup Fever

John Henderson • September 1, 2017

It’s the calm before the storm of arguably the strongest knockout tournament of all-time, as almost all of the world’s elite players get ready to rumble in the FIDE World Cup that gets underway in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi this coming Sunday. The behemoth 128-player event not only has a $1.6 million prize fund (and $120,000 first prize), but it will also directly qualify two players into next year’s Candidates tournament that will ultimately determine World Champion Magnus Carlsen’s next title challenger.


And the cast-list is indeed mightily impressive, with Carlsen heading a field that also includes the rest of the new FIDE September top 10 of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Viswanathan Anand, Wesley So, Alexander Grischuk and Hikaru Nakamura. The only top grandmasters missing will be Veselin Topalov, Leinier Dominguez, and Dmitry Jakovenko.


Also included is Carlsen’s last title-challenger and the 2015 World Cup winner, Russia’s Sergey Krajakin; Anish Giri, the young Dutch former top 10 star; Wei Yi, the teenage Chinese champion; Peter Svidler, the seven-time Russian champion and 2011 World Cup winner; Boris Gelfand, the 2012 title challenger and 2009 World Cup winner; and not forgetting Hou Yifan, the world’s strongest female player.


Carlsen heads the FIDE rating list now for the 75th time – but this time, the Norwegian has a new rival for the #1 spot, with the dramatic rise of the in-form French star, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who on the back of his Sinquefield Cup victory climbs from 8th place to 2nd, swapping places with the plummeting Wesley So.


FIDE September Top 10
1. Magnus Carlsen 2827 (+5); 2. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 2804 (+15); 3. Vladimir Kramnik 2803 (=); 4. Levon Aronian 2802 (+3); 5. Fabiano Caruana 2799 (-8); 6. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2797 (=); 7. Viswanathan Anand 2794 (+11); 8. Wesley So 2792 (-18); 9. Alexander Grischuk 2788 (+5); 10. Hikaru Nakamura 2781 (-11)


And earlier this week, MVL overwhelmed another American, Jeffrey Xiong, the current world junior champion, in his first round match-up of the 2017 Chess.com Speed Chess Championship. MVL beat Xiong, 19-12, and he now joins Karjakin, Nakamura, Grischuk, Caruana, So and Ian Nepomniachtchi in the next round. The final first round match-up will see defending champion Carlsen playing Gadir Guseinov on 5 October.


GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave – GM Jeffrey Xiong
Chess.com Speed Ch., (5m+2spm), (1)
Sicilian Najdorf
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nc3 cxd4 5.Nxd4 a6 6.Be2 e5 7.Nf3 Be7 8.Bg5 Nbd7 9.a4 Qb6 10.a5!? Being a speed game, MVL rightly opts to “go for it”, reckoning that his active piece play might well be worth the sacrificed material. And defending b2 with 10.Rb1 wasn’t really an option anyway, as after 10…h6 11.Be3 Qc6! Black has heavy pressure on e4 and will be following up with …Nc5 and …Be6 and an excellent Sicilian set-up. 10…Qxb2 11.Bd2 Qb4 12.Nd5 Qc5 13.Bb4 Qc6 14.Nxe7 Kxe7 15.Nxe5!? It may well not be completely sound, but in blitz, this kind of bolt out of the blue can be a winner because, for the sacrificed piece, MVL has lots of pressure while Xiong has to accurately figure out how he gets his king to safety before White can bludgeon a route through to his indisposed king. 15…Nxe5 16.Qd4 Ke8 17.Bxd6 All the engines will tell you here that Black is much better – but in reality, in human terms and in this speed-play scenario, this is a tough position to play as the Black king is stranded in the middle of the board, and this makes it difficult to develop the kingside rook. 17…Ng6 18.f3 Be6 19.c4 Rd8 20.c5 Nd7 The g7 pawn is insignificant here. If Black can somehow break the stranglehold of the dominant bishop on d6, then his game will ease. 21.Rd1 f6 22.0-0 For now, being a piece down is not a problem for MVL, as Black’s position needs to unravel first to make it count – but if Black does unravel successfully, then he’s winning. 22…Kf7? Calamity! With his digital clock metaphorically ticking down, and Xiong so preoccupied with the job of getting his kingside rook into the game, he overlooks a simple winning shot from MVL. He had to play 22…Ne7! followed by …h5, with the idea of playing …Bg4 if White throws in f4. 23.f4! (see diagram) The simple threat of f5 regaining the piece with interest, gives MVL a vital extra tempo to bust the position wide open. 23…Nxc5 What else is there now? If 23…Ngf8 24.f5 Ba2 there are many ways to win, but the most obvious to my eye is 25.Bc4+ Bxc4 26.Qxc4+ Ke8 27.Rd5! and Black is left paralyzed, waiting for White to move in for the kill with Rfd1 followed by e5. 24.f5 Ne5 25.fxe6+ Nxe6 I suppose it was too much to ask for the spectacular finish of 25… Kxe6 26. Qxe5+!! fxe5 27. Bg4#. 26.Qxe5 1-0

The 42 Paradox

By John B. Henderson • October 2, 2023
Well, well, well. After rampaging his way through many of the finals and opponents throughout the 2023 Champions Chess Tour, Magnus Carlsen’s “final boss” reign came to a screeching halt in what proved to be an enthralling AI Cup Grand Final on Friday, as the favourite was beaten not once but in three games, and over two matches, by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who sensationally grabbed the last remaining spot in the Champions Tour Final in December. Earlier, Carlsen had defeated MVL in the final of the winners’ bracket, before the Frenchman gained the right to a rematch in the double-elimination contest by beating Ian Nepomniachtchi in the final of the losers’ bracket. In the Grand Final, buoyed up and firing on all cylinders, MVL beat Carlsen by a 2½-1½ score.

We'll Meet Again

By John B. Henderson • September 29, 2023
The self-proclaimed “final boss of chess” does what the final boss of chess does best of all: Magnus Carlsen beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the final of the AI Cup winners’ bracket, the sixth and final leg of the 2023 Champions Chess Tour regular season, to reach yet another Grand Final in the novel double-elimination contest. But it wasn’t without an epic bare-knuckle street fight from both players, as MVL proved to be a worthy opponent for what looked to be an unstoppable Carlsen, who narrowly prevailed in the Armageddon to take the match 3-2. "This is the sort of thing that happens when you play Sicilians in every game," said a magnanimous Carlsen in victory after four fighting Sicilians left the match tied at 2-2.

Tiers For Fears

By John B. Henderson • September 27, 2023
Fans were treated to arguably the greatest online rivalry in chess history recently, with the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship Grand Final showdown between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura seeing the Norwegian narrowly snatch victory by a solitary win to end the American speed maven’s hopes of a sixth successive victory. But Carlsen’s narrow win left the salivating fans feeling they’d been denied seeing this epic gladiatorial speed contest going into overtime - but they didn’t have to wait long for the rivalry redux, as a couple of days later, both Carlsen and Nakamura went head-to-head yet again in the opening day of the AI Cup, the sixth and final leg of the 2023 Champions Chess Tour regular season.

Bossing It

By John B. Henderson • September 25, 2023
Magnus Carlsen more than lived up to his self-proclamation of being “The Final Boss of Chess” with a revenge-is-sweet narrow victory over fellow chess influencer Hikaru Nakamura, as he denied his long-time arch-rival a sixth successive Chess.com Speed Chess Championship title last Friday. Last year, it was Nakamura who narrowly squeaked home by one point - this time, in yet another thrilling match consisting of three different speed limits - 5+1, 3+1 and 1+1 (more commonly known as ‘bullet’) - between the two speed titans, it again ended with the same scoreline, though this time seeing Carlsen triumph by a solitary win after two pulsating hours of thrilling play, as he took the $150,000 2023 Speed Chess Championship presented by Coinbase, 13.5-12.5.

Death, Taxes, Magnus & Hikaru

By John B. Henderson • September 22, 2023
With a smorgasbord of online chess events out there now, the granddaddy of them all is surely the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship , with a $150,000 prize fund that determines just who is the best blitz and bullet players. It has become the perennial fan-favourite with arguably the best viewing experience - and the fans are set for yet another spectacular finale later today, as the two rivals who dominate the roll of honour, Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, get set for another explosive showdown in the 2023 final. Friday’s final and commentary, free to view, starts at 14:00 ET (11:00 PT; 20:00 CEST; 23:30 IST) on Chess.com. Carlsen and Nakamura have won each edition since the inaugural Speed Chess Championship event in 2016 - Carlsen won the first two speed titles before taking a hiatus, only for Nakamura to rule the roost, winning four more times.

A Messi Kid

By John B. Henderson • September 19, 2023
India today is a land of amazing young talents and prospects in chess, with the country seemingly having a never-ending production line of prodigies rolling off the factory conveyor belt. But for some countries, such as Argentina, prodigies only seem to come around with all the regularity of Halley’s Comet . One of the first notable post-war chess prodigies was Oscar Panno from Buenos Aires, who became the first world-class player born in South America. In 1953, at the age of 17, he became only the second World Junior Champion , having won the coveted youth title ahead of a strong cadre of future elite-level Grandmasters such as Boris Ivkov (who in 1951 was crowned the first World Junior Ch), Bent Larsen, and Fredrik Olafsson.

The Great Rook 'n' Roll Swindle

By John B. Henderson • September 14, 2023
“Chess is a cruel game. We all know that feeling when your position has gone awry and everything seems hopeless. You feel like resigning. But don’t give up! This is precisely the moment to switch to swindle mode. Master the art of provoking errors and you will be able to turn the tables and escape with a draw or sometimes even steal the full point!” So wrote David Smerdon, an Australian chess grandmaster and one of his country’s leading behavioural economists, on the back cover of his witty and wickedly entertaining, not to mention the much-lauded and deserving 2020 ECF Book of the Year winner, The Complete Chess Swindler (New in Chess).

No Country For Young Men

By John B. Henderson • September 11, 2023
With the top teenage talents being overshadowed in the Tata Steel Chess India Rapid in Kolkata by a dominant performance from seasoned veteran Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, there were hopes of a homeland comeback in the follow-on Blitz tournament - and one looked to be on the cards, only for another “old guy”, this time Alexander Grischuk, crashing the teenage party by capturing the second, even faster speed title. Early doors, all eyes were firmly on Rameshbabu “Pragg” Praggnanandhaa, with his flying start of a perfect 5/5 on the opening day of the two-day double-round contest. But that was as good as it got for the 18-year-old Candidate-qualifier, who could only finish the day on 6.5/9, and despite being the sole leader, he held what looked a very slender half-point lead over nearest rivals Santosh Vidit and Grischuk, ominously the only unbeaten player.

My Indian Summer

By John B. Henderson • September 8, 2023
The past couple of years have proved to be a major one for India - not only a global player with world leaders descending this week in New Delhi for the G20 Summit and recently successfully landing a spacecraft on the moon but now also a fully-fledged chess superpower, with many exciting young talents set to make the country a dominant force for the foreseeable future. Many would even speculate that Indian Chess could well turn into a hegemony, in much the same way as the Soviets dominated the chess scene in the 1945 post-war period until its collapse and ultimate dissolution in 1991. The latest big chess tournament to be held in India coincides with the G20, with the fifth Tata Steel Chess India Rapid & Blitz - a spinoff from the larger Dutch super-tournament, the Tata Steel Chess Masters in Wijk aan Zee - taking place 5-9 September in Kolkata.

Me & The Kids

By John B. Henderson • September 4, 2023
The fifth and latest leg of the Champions Chess Tour , the Julius Baer Generations Cup more than lived up to its name with the world No.1, Magnus Carlsen, after overpowering Alireza Firouzja in the winners’ final, to effortlessly cruise his way into the Grand Final, declaring: “It’s just me against the kids now!” After three clean kills that included a brace of back-to-back 2½-½ victories over Iranian Amin Tabatabaei and his old title foe Caruana, Carlsen proceeded to sweep Firouzja 3-0 to reach the Grand Final of the contest - but it wasn’t lost on the “old man” that non of his old rivals were left in the competition, and that meant that Denis Lazavik (16), Nodirbek Abdusattorov (18), and Firouzja (20) were the only three left standing to see who would go forward to meet him in the Grand Final.
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