Every Loser Wins

John B. Henderson • February 9, 2023

New Tour, new format…many new confusions! 


The revamped $2m Champions Chess Tour proved to be slightly perplexing for the masses, but it also directly led to an early “Winners Final” in the Airthings Masters between two of the biggest rivals and influencers in the game, as Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura once again went head-to-head.


After crushing Alexey Sarana, Carlsen then faced a somewhat tricky and tense encounter with Arjun Erigaisi, before he eventually overcame the spirited challenge of the rising 19-year-old Indian star in an Armageddon play-off to make it through to the Winners Final.

Similarly, in the all-American clash, Nakamura - after ending Gukesh D’s spectacular run after the Indian teenager won the 'Play-In’ contest - also needed Armageddon to beat Wesley So to set up the showdown with Carlsen. And this is where it started to confuse many used to more conventional chess formats.


The Tour has adopted a double elimination format with one of either Carlsen and Nakamura set to lose in the Winners Final held earlier today and both facing each other once again! That proved to be a lacklustre affair even by the high standards of these two online ‘big beasts’, where, after a series of four draws, Carlsen went on to scrap home in the Armageddon play-off. 


Afterwards, Carlsen commented: “I think the chances are pretty high that I'll be facing him again and then I hope we both can play a bit better, because I think this was a match that was not representative of our levels.”


But every loser can win on the Tour. Nakamura now goes into the “losers bracket” to play a final in there, and if he were to win that and win again on Friday against Carlsen in the Grand Finale, he can still claim overall victory in the competition.


For now though, Carlsen is already in the Grand Final and will play for $30,000 and a spot in the Champions Chess Tour Playoff in December. His opponent is not yet known, but it could well be Nakamura again, if he beats the winner of So-Erigaisi on Thursday! 

GM Magnus Carlsen - GM Alexey Sarana

Airthings Masters Div 1 (1)

Catalan Opening

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.g3 Bb4+ 5.Bd2 Be7 6.Bg2 c6 7.Qc2 Nbd7 8.Bf4 0-0 9.h4!? A novelty early doors from Carlsen that totally flummoxes his opponent; the critical point being not capturing a pawn later on d5 when the storm hit. 9...b6 10.Nc3 Bb7 11.e4 dxe4 12.Ng5 c5 13.d5!? A common motif in the Catalan is to sacrifice the d-pawn to dramatically burst the game open - and here, Sarana takes on the persona of a rabbit caught in the coming headlights by failing to react. 13...exd5 14.cxd5 Nh5?! The critical point in the game, and Sarana balks and quickly regrets not taking Carlsen head-on with 14...Nxd5 15.Nxd5 Bxd5 16.0-0-0!? Nf6!? 17.f3!? when the game starts to go a tad "random", but after 17...exf3! 18.Bxf3 Bxf3 19.Rxd8 Bxh1 20.Rd1 Bc6 21.Be5 g6 and Black can't really be unhappy here, being slightly the better in this unbalanced position with the pieces more than a match for the queen. 15.Be3 f5 16.Ne6 Qb8 17.g4!! A touch of Carlsen magic - and much, much stronger than simply taking the rook. And on the whole, this uber-aggressive move was likely just missed by Sarana. The collapse now comes very quickly. 17...fxg4 18.Bxe4 Ndf6 19.Nxf8 Qxf8 20.0-0-0! What's not to like here for the World Champion? Magnus is both material up AND he has a huge attack. 20...Bd6? The engine at least wants to try to hang in there with 20...Nxe4 21.Qxe4 Nf6 but after 22.Qf5 Bc8 23.Qd3 White clearly stands better with Rhe1 coming and eventually the d-pawn pushing down the board. 21.Bf5 Re8 22.Rhe1 Kh8 23.Kb1 Just preventing any check tricks and clearing the path for the d-pawn push. 23...a6 24.Bg5 b5?! The last try to grimly hang on was with 24...Re5 25.Be6 Rxe1 26.Rxe1 and now 26...b5 27.Ne4 Nxe4 28.Qxe4 Qxf2 29.Bxg4 but White still has a crushing position. 25.Re6! In poker parlance, this would be termed as "coming over the top". 25...Rd8 26.Ne4! [see diagram] You don't need a computer engine to tell you who is better here - the visuals on the board is more than enough, as Carlsen invites all his pieces to the party. 26...Bf4 27.Bxf6 Nxf6 28.Nxf6 gxf6 29.Qe4 Be5 30.Qxg4 c4 31.Qh5 Qg8 32.Re7 1-0 Sarana throws the towel in as there's no way to stop the mate-in-5.

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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