Category : Tournaments

Match Strategy

I write this in the deserted Holiday Village Hotel where yesterday the European Club Cup finished. I am the last man standing as all the participants have left and the whole hotel resort looks like a ghost town.

I was the captain of the women team Caissa Pentole Agnelli. Unfortunately we didn’t have a good tournament. We missed our big chance in the penultimate round, when playing the lower-rated team from Maribor we had superior or just winning positions on all 4 boards and yet managed only 2-2. Had we won we would have shared 2nd place going into the last round with everything to play for. But it wasn’t meant to be.

In this post I would like to explain my reasoning and strategy I had for one of the clutch matches that happened as early as Round 2. We played last-year’s champions and this year runner-ups, the team from Monaco. Last year they destroyed us, in spite of having good positions on all boards, so this year I wanted us to be more cautious.

On Board 1 we had Sarasadat Khademalsharieh, the Iranian superstar, facing Humpy Koneru. Sara is a sound positional player who prefers technical positions so we thought that simply playing her lines and the positions she obtains from them would suit her well. Bearing in mind that in team competitions it is usually considered that a draw with Black is good, we didn’t expect that Koneru would try for more, so I felt safe on that board – some pressure if it happens, if not, then a draw without a risk. And that is exactly what happened.

On Board 2 we had Pia Cramling against Elisabeth Paehtz. The board pairings from Board 2 to 4 were exactly the same as the previous year, when we lost all 3. I didn’t mind that, since I knew that our players were good and what happened last year was a mid-match collapse that will not happen again.

Lisa again played the Slav against Cramling and this time it wasn’t an Exchange, but the line with 4 Qb3. We expected it, and Lisa was well-prepared to obtain a solid and safe position. This year I wanted her to keep it solid, as last year she went for complications when the match started going wrong and lost. After a lucky blunder by Lisa on move 18, meaning that taking the exchange led to some positional compensation, which Cramling declined to take advantage of, the game was uneventful and we drew safely.

On Board 3 Olga Zimina was facing Monika Socko. Olga lost an atrocious game last year with White, being ouplayed in an equal endgame from the English Opening, so this year I wanted something more “central.” We decided upon the Catalan, with the fresh idea of 7 Be3, as in the game Caruana-Anand and also some others as our opening surprise. But Socko avoided it by playing 6…c5 before 6…a6, so it transposed back to the usual lines. We didn’t get anything out of the opening there, but I was happy with the resulting position as I knew Olga wouldn’t get in any danger. She pressed a little, but Socko defended well and the game was drawn.

On Board 4 Deimante Daulyte-Cornette was playing Marina Brunello. This was the board where I expected a more dynamic fight, as it fits Marina’s style. In an expected Najdorf we thought that the resulting positions would be to Marina’s liking where we fancied our chances. I was influenced by last year’s game where Marina got a great position in the Najdorf and outplayed her opponent, only to lose after trying to win too hard and blundering once the match turned bad for us.

However, on this board we ran into some preparation by our opponents. White played the fresh idea by Vachier-Lagrave, the move 8 Bg5 in the fianchetto Najdorf that he used to beat Wei Yi in the recent FIDE Grand Prix in Hamburg. We didn’t particularly prepare for it, so it was a surprise, but I thought that since Marina plays the Najdorf all her life she would find a good reaction to it. It turned out this wasn’t so easy.

We practically lost without a fight after Marina couldn’t find an appropriate reaction to the dangeous threats. This game decided the match and we lost 2.5-1.5.

We lost because we got caught in the opening and our own opening surprise didn’t materialise. After the match I was thinking whether our strategy was sound. In view of last year’s encounter it was definitely an improvement and we didn’t collapse, the match was under control except for Board 4. Perhaps we could have prepared better there, but it is difficult to prepare everything (and on 4 boards too!).

Eventually the match strategy to keep it solid on the first three boards, having in mind our players’ stylistic preferences and the opponents we were facing, and have a dynamic fight on the last one, where we had an excellent Sicilian player, backfired. Normally we are always well-prepared in the openings, but this time we got caught and that caused us the match. If that didn’t happen perhaps the strategy would have justified itself, who knows. For me, the lesson to learn is to prepare better when more is at stake on a single board.

The second ECC where I am coaching the same team was another great learning experience. Every match and the preparation for it is a valuable insight into the nuances of team competitions. I enjoy this type of work, devising a strategy for the match, starting with who plays, analysing our and our opponents’ repertoires, deciding what to play and then seeing it all unravel in the playing hall is very exciting. I do get frustrated because of the fact that I am only an observer once the match starts, but that is the nature of the captain’s work.

In the end, I would like to thank my players Sara, Lisa, Olga, Marina and Elena for their efforts. We did what we could and hopefully the third attempt, next year in Austria, will be a charm!

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Snapshots from the European Club Cup 2019

As I already said in my last post, I am currently in Ulcinj, Montenegro, for the European Club Cup. I am coaching the Italian women team of Caissa Pentole Agnelli, just like last year.

So far the tournament is going turbulently for us, we have won 3 matches and lost 2. With two rounds to go there is everything to play for, though it has to be admitted that the first place is almost certainly out of reach.

In today’s Round 5 I noticed quite a few crazy games that I wanted to share. I don’t know if it’s the constant storms with strong winds and rain that (finally) affected the players so they started to play in stormy ways, but the fact remains – today’s games were quite crazy. You can see for yourselves below.

Saric-Suleymanly, after 51 Bg8.

The engine displays 0.00 in this totally irrational position with 5 pawns for the rook. It reminds me of the famous Game 13 of the match Spassky-Fischer. In both games the side with the pawns won after the side with the rook missed a draw.

Zimina-Djukic, here White played 28 g4!

The above position was from our match. In a crazy game White took on g7 with the queen and continued to play for mate before taking back the material. Eventually Black resigned before being mated.

Velikic-Pogonina, after 27 f4

Another position where White is a rook down for some vague compensation. In fact here Black took on f4 and proved that the compensation was non-existent.

My time here is very restricted: after waking up in the morning the board pairings come out, after which we start preparation; then lunch, after lunch there is approximately one hour before we go to play; after the match it’s dinner time, then the team pairings come out after which we have a short team meeting to discuss the next match. When all this is finished, it’s already time for a short stroll or bed.

I even wonder how I found the time to write this post!

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A Technical Win

The Spanish Division de Honor, their Premier League, took place in Melilla from 30 September to 6 October.

I was present during the tournament and had a chance to observe the games as they happened in the playing hall. As it turned out, every round was more or less marked by Ivanchuk’s games.

In Round 1 he beat Cheparinov following the Fischer-Reshevsky game in the Classical Dragon from 1961 (which, to remind you, was an improvement over the Alekhine-Botvinnik game from Nottingham 1936), then he was lost in mere 15 moves after experimenting in the opening against Iturrizaga. And in Round 3 he produced the following technical masterpiece.

In spite of the inaccuracies at the end, mainly caused by lack of time, an impressive technical performance by Ivanchuk. It appears easy, yet it is anything but. With hindsight, I also admire his opening choice – to play an equal position but one where the long-term advantages are in his favour. This made his play easier and this translated to practical advantage which he managed to convert.

All in all, a complete masterclass by one of the best players in chess history.

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World Cup 2019 Impressions

A huge knock-out tournament like the World Cup inevitably produces excitement and this excitement comes in many forms: unexpected streaks and winners, wild games, new opening ideas to name just a few.

In this post I’ll write about the things that made an impression on me, in no particular order.

Kiril Alekseenko

Apart from going far, losing only to Ding Liren in Round 4, his White preparation in the Giuoco Piano brought him 2 wins in the classical games, against Nguyen in Round 1 and Harikrishna in Round 3. He was very close to beating Ding Liren in the second classical game, again thanks to his preparation. He also put pressure on Ding in the second rapid game where he was in a must-win situation. The highlight of his performance was the 2-0 against Harikrishna. The young Russian shows good promise.

Anish Giri

Giri’s World Cup was notable for lack of notable things he did. The Armageddon win against Najer in Round 2 was the highlight of his tournament, but you would expect him to overcome Najer at an earlier stage. The same could have been said about his next match, but here he had no chance, as strange as it may seem. Read the next player for more.

Giri is slowly becoming one of the elite players who “deserve” to be in the Candidates but cannot qualify for different reasons. Luckily for him he will get there thanks to statistics, being the average highest-rated player for the year after Ding Liren, who qualified by making it to the final. In order to secure this Giri withdrew from the Isle of Man Grand Swiss, even with a signed contract, making sure he doesn’t lose any rating there. Not a courageous decision, to say the least.

Speaking of Giri’s game, I cannot escape the feeling that something substantial is missing there. He has fantastic opening preparation, calculates well, plays great chess (he’s changed a lot since his drawing days), he sharpened his game, but in spite of all this there is something that prevents him from moving forward. He often cannot overcome his opposition (the match with Najer started with 6 consecutive draws) and is struggling to win games. I can only guess it is something psychological, lack of breakthrough force or the internal intent that is bent out on winning, maybe lack of killer instinct. The only way I see him making progress is if everything falls into place for him as it did for Leko in 2002 when he won the Dortmund Candidates and qualified to play Kramnik.

Jeffery Xiong

For me, Xiong was the revelation of the tournament. His uncompromising aggression brought him farther than anyone expected. Beating Giri and Duda by playing courageous and ultra-aggressive chess was a feast to watch.

When I said above that Giri didn’t have a chance in this match I meant that Giri couldn’t adapt and handle such open aggression. Nobody in the elite does it so Giri wasn’t used to this type of high-tension tactical approach. The decisive game of the match was typical.

Xiong did the same to Duda before going down in flames in the same way in the second classical game against Radjabov, who was the first one who managed to navigate crazy complications better than him!

Teimour Radjabov

Quite a surprise this one. I never dreamed Radjabov could make it to the final and qualify for the Candidates, let alone win the whole thing. After his wunderkind years and the total collapse in London Candidates in 2013 I always considered Radjabov a very content wealthy young man who plays chess only because he has nothing else to do in his life. And even this often seemed against his will, as his games were mostly uneventful draws and he apparently lacked the ambition to try for anything at all.

In Khanty he didn’t seem any different at the beginning. But then he started winning games with White in technical style (the only exception is the second game against Xiong that I mentioned) and things started to go his way. It is no surprise that solidity is highly valued in knock-out events – another super-solid player, Ding Liren, was the other one who made it to the final.

In the final he showed better nerves. Coupled with his fantastic calculation he didn’t panic when low on time and just kept on playing good moves.

I cannot say how this will affect Radjabov. Will he motivate himself and wake up his ambition after the 6-year hiatus? Or will he come to Yekaterinburg to make draws and go home semi-content?

Vachier-Lagrave

The Frenchman failed again at the last hurdle. Last year it was Aronian in the semi-final, this year it was Radjabov.

I think his stubborness in the openings, especially the Grunfeld, has lately been causing him more trouble than bringing him benefits. The losses to Radjabov and Jakovenko plus some games in the match with Yu Yangyi proved that he can be caught in the opening and the players have started targeting him there with more success. A bit more versatility in the opening, finding a back-up to the Najdorf and the Grunfeld will be huge for him and I think will help him make the final step.

The fact he won the match for 3rd place is some comfort at least.

The Chinese

They are not coming, they’re here for some time now. Both Ding Liren and Yu Yangyi were impressive, each on their own slightly different scale.

Ding Liren seems to have reached a different level, doing what Carlsen mentioned some time ago – winning elite events. At least he showed this by winning the Sinquefield Cup before this event. However, losing a second final in a row in the World Cup shows that he has the stability and quality to reach two finals, but also that he suffers from nerves. In the tie-break he collapsed and lost a game that was impossible to lose with White and then didn’t take his one chance with Black. He will be very disappointed, but there is psychological work to be done here!

Yu Yangyi is establishing himself as a clear Top-10 candidate and the will power he demonstrated in the match with Vitiugov was impressive. Losing the match for 3rd place to Vachier shouldn’t bother him too much. He played 34 (!) games in total in Khanty, playing the most tie-breaks than any other player (he only won one match in classical, against Nepomniachtchi), so fatigue was definitely an issue.

Nikita Vitiugov

The look of Nikita Vitiugov after the heart-breaking Armageddon loss to Yu Yangyi will haunt me for quite some time. A blank stare, failure to understand how could reality so abruptly change the script. Everything pointed to him winning that match, the tendency was clear, and then, without any warning, everything came down crashing. It felt as if a law of physics has been broken, as if gravity ceased to exist on Earth. Unimaginable.

What Vitiugov did before that was fantastic. It seemed he raised his level and his wins against Karjakin and So, both in classical, were amazing. The fact that Karjakin blundered in one move in a technically difficult situation only shows the level of complexity of the problems he had to solve during the game.

There were also other notable things like Eltaj Safarli (knocking out Shankland and Nihal Sarin, the latter in quite an amazing way), Svidler’s fear of the Frenchman (after qualifying and observing Vachier’s game together with the official commentators his comment along the lines of “He is not in good shape” after Vachier missed a move reeked of fear to me as he knew he was going to play him next and subconsciously wanted to cheer himself up!), Christiansen’s knocking out Wojtaszek 2-0 in Round 1, Nakamura’s Round 2 loss to Nisipeanu (after managing 1-1 against Bellahcene in Round 1 and winning the rapid) which in fact wasn’t surprising (Nakamura’s not in the Top 20 nowadays), the Yuffa-McShane match and probably a few more things.

Knock-outs are great for the public, but much less so for the players. Just remember Vitiugov.

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Opening Oddities from the World Cup 2019

One of the most exciting tournaments to watch, the World Cup in Khanty Mansysk, is well under way.

With every passing round the tension rises and as the usually say for knock-outs, the players with best nerves win. As I write this Round 3 finished and we already have players like Anish Giri, Sergey Karjakin and Hikaru Nakamura out of the tournament.

(I wouldn’t worry about Karjakin though – with the Candidates Tournament already announced to take place in Yekaterinburg, he can easily get the wild card spot.)

In this post I’d like to share some of the more original opening ideas the players have come up with. It is worth noting that especially in the shorter time controls these experiments paid out, at least out of the openings. Here they are in chronological order.

I always enjoy it when players come up with original ideas in the opening. Let’s hope they continue to do so!

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The Taimanov Syndrome in St. Louis

The legendary champion sits behind the board once a year to the delight of all chess fans. Last year and this one the discipline he chose was Fischer Random.

(Strangely enough the Americans prefer not to use the name of their great champion for the game he invented – this time it was Chess 9LX, the last two digits are Roman numbers, in case you were confused).

These outings haven’t been too delightful for Kasparov. Last year he lost to Topalov, this year before the match against Caruana he said it will be “fun.” I wonder where he got the idea.

For anyone who has played chess a bit more seriously the only fun is the winning. Sometimes even that isn’t fun. For Kasparov to say that playing would be fun, simply cannot be true. Yet he said it.

You should probably be able to recognise this position:

It is the position that haunted Mark Taimanov for the rest of his life. It is the position from the 3rd game of his match with Fischer. In that moment Fischer was leading 1-0, the second game was adjourned in a drawn position and here in the third Taimanov had great position. He spent a lot of time and instead of trusting his intuition and play 20 Qh3 he went backwards 20 Nf3 and the rest is history.

In his book and all interviews afterwards Taimanov lamented how things would have been different had he played 20 Qh3 (he believed he was winning, though analysis shows he wasn’t), how the match would have been completely different, how everything would have been different. He couldn’t get this position out of his head.

Kasparov suffered a similar fate to Taimanov’s at Caruana’s hands in Saint Louis. In Game 2 he was winning (clearly, unlike Taimanov) but he blundered and lost. What happened next was a complete repetition of the Taimanov syndrome.

Kasparov mostly kept losing but it was all the 2nd game’s fault, if only he won, if only he didn’t blunder, the match would have been different. To make it worse, he kept getting winning positions but he also kept blundering, blaming it on that ill-fated Game 2. He said he couldn’t forget that game. A surprising thing to say by a player who often came back with a vengeance after a loss. Where did the psychological toughness go?

I am not sure how much Kasparov was saying what the public wanted to hear, or he was really fooling himself. He didn’t stand a chance in that match, irrelevant of that Game 2. Just like Taimanov would have lost that match to Fischer, Kasparov would have lost to Caruana. The fact that he was outplaying Caruana often means that Caruana wasn’t playing at his best, but even that sufficed to bludgeon the legend.

Time-troubles, age, lack of practice, these were the reasons given for the losses. Kasparov knew these would be present, so the real question is, why did he sit down to play and risk humiliation?

In 2016, when he decided to play blitz against America’s best players in the Ultimate Blitz Challenge, I asked him via Twitter why he was doing the same thing he criticised Fischer for in 1992 – coming back from retirement and risking a destruction of the legendary image he rightfully had. He never replied, of course, but I thought that perhaps the reason was the same as Fischer’s – money. But unlike Fischer, that money wouldn’t be from the prize fund.

I am sad that this happened to Kasparov. Perhaps even angry at him, for destroying his own image. He was my idol for as long as he played and I even briefly met him in Tromso in 2014. After the match Kasparov said that perhaps the suffering in the match was a sign from above to stop attempting to reverse time. I think he is right. Once retired legends should stay retired.

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Carlsen’s Comeback

I cannot but admire the man.

After the meltdown in the rapid and blitz he pulled himself together in the classical and basically closed down shop. Conservative, ultra-careful and safe he made 9 draws in a row. Curiously enough, the last draw followed a less well-known game by Fischer:

There was a curious story about this Fischer game I read somewhere (at this point of writing I cannot recall the details – where I read it, which analysis he wanted to refute). Fischer was trying to catch Matulovic in an improvement over existing theory at the time, but Matulovic improved on the bad analysis and caught Fischer instead!

In Round 10 more classical heritage appeared in Carlsen’s game, but this time to a better effect.

This position arose after move 19 in the Giuoco Piano, with Carlsen playing Nc4 previously and inviting …Bc4, bxc4. The position immediately draws comparison to the famous Liublinsky-Botvinnik game:

Botvinnik famously won by planting his rook on d4 and undoubling his c-pawns after White took the exchange.

Carlsen didn’t need to sacrifice an exchange, he planted a knight on d5 and this sufficed.

Then in Round 11 the Frenchman with two surnames continued the tradition (Grenke, Zagreb and now here) of losing in the last round to the World Champion, this time by committing a hara-kiri blunder in a double-edged position.

For me, this comeback was incredible. With these two wins Carlsen emerged shared 1st with Ding Liren, something which seemed not very likely, to say the least, from the way he was playing. He must be the only person alive to be able to pull this type of turnaround, to get beaten down (in the rapid and blitz), to stabilise, to take his chances and finish first!

The other big story was of course his loss in the tie-break. A first loss in a tie-break since 2007, after winning 10 of them in a row. But even this loss somehow falls into the picture of Carlsen not being at his best overall, yet finishing first. Losing the tie-break only meant that there was a guy who was better than him on that given day.

That guy is Ding Liren, one of the 3 players who manage to keep their rating steadily over 2800 for over a year. This stability is key. This is Ding Liren’s first super-tournament victory, one that undoubtedly sets a new level of expectation for him, and here I mean the Candidates Tournament next year. Together with Caruana, who, admittedly, doesn’t have a spectacular year (yet keeps his rating comfortably over 2800!), these two are the frontrunners for a match with Carlsen next year. But before that, they’ll fight it out in the Candidates, where I see them as the main contenders irrespective of who else plays there.

The move of the tournament was the final move of the tournament. In both blitz games Ding showed that he saw more than Carlsen and did it faster than his opponent.

Ding went for this position voluntarily. It appears that White’s winning, but the Chinese had the next move prepared: 40…Ne7! Carlsen could only smile and resign.

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Carlsen’s Meltdown

The main story of the Sinquefield rapid and blitz was Carlsen’s apparent inability to keep his composure.

Carlsen’s problem were his blunders. It has happened before that he starts with a loss or bad form, but this time he simply couldn’t manage to turn it around and in utter frustration he started to do odd things.

It’s not that he didn’t try to keep it contained. He tried to play more solidly (the French with a direct transposition to an endgame against Karjakin and the QGD against Ding Liren – he lost both) and then more sharply (transposing to a Dragon Sicilian against Yu Yangyi – he was brutally mated), but with equal (lack of) success.

Then came the most shocking thing for me – Carlsen’s own admission that he didn’t care anymore. I have never before heard a World Champion openly declare that he didn’t care about the remainder of the tournament (and Carlsen had a full day of blitz ahead of him).

The frustration was obvious, nothing seemed to be working, but to say that he didn’t care? That is giving up. How much did it have to hurt so that he saw no other way out but to give up?

Here’re a couple of examples of Carlsen’s frustration translated to chess moves:

If that was primitive, then this was too optimistic (to say it nicely).

There were other blows as well: getting mated by Yu Yangyi in a bad Dragon and losing to Dominguez in a Sveshnikov (a piece down on move 23). Additional pain must have been caused by his overall losses to Karjakin (2-1) and Caruana (2.5-0.5)

After such a long period of successes this was undoubtedly a shock to Carlsen’s system. Of all the players he is the one least accustomed to failures, but the strength of all champions has been their ability to overcome adversity. Carlsen has shown it before on more than one occasion. That is why I find this giving up so shocking.

Two rounds have already passed in the classical event in St. Louis. There have been 11 draws and 1 decisive result, Anand’s win against Nepomniachtchi. I expect it to continue in similar manner, with Carlsen more cautious than ever, not going after breaking records of reaching 2900. He is also human and a dent in his confidence is as bad as in anybody else’s.

In a way, and I’ll go off on a tangent here and speculate, I think that when the day comes, Carlsen will lose his title in a similar way Kasparov lost his to Kramnik. In frustration. Just to whom that may happen is the question, who will be capable to frustrate him like that? Though, what we can say for sure – nobody from the current players in St. Louis.

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Total Domination

Carlsen is winning everything.

I have to admit that I like that. I enjoyed watching Kasparov win everything in the 90s. Perhaps I feel that chess is a game of kings and it needs a proper king to rule and show his strength.

In 1959 the third round (from rounds 15-21) of the Candidates Tournament was held in Zagreb. It was in Zagreb that Tal overtook Keres and established a point and a half lead over his main competitor.

It is exactly 60 years later (thanks to efforts of the world-famous Croat Garry Kasparov) that an event comprised of only elite players returned to Zagreb. In 1959 there were 8 candidates, in 2019 11 players from the top of the rating list.

The results of both tournaments were identical. One player showed absolute superiority. If Tal brought dynamism and creating a mess to the fore, Carlsen’s current domination is a result of a successful reinvention of himself.

There are several factors that Carlsen changed that made him the irresistible force that he is right now. Here I would like to take a look at one of them. His Opening Preparation.

Ever since the match with Caruana the Sveshnikov Sicilian has been Carlsen’s main opening against 1 e4. The Sveshnikov offers rich dynamic possibilities in many lines and coupled with the thorough preparation made before the World Championship match, which included practice games and serious memorisation of all the prepared lines, it has been a fantastic choice for Carlsen.

However, there are a few lines in the Sveshnikov where Black’s counterplay is stymied and I’m surprised why they haven’t been tried against him more often. For example:

Carlsen’s choice of the Sveshnikov shows his changed approach towards his Black games. Fischer once said that a dramatic change in his career happened when he realised he could play for a win with Black too. Now Carlsen is doing the same.

An illustration of this is that even in the rare cases when he’s not playing the Sveshnikov, this aggressive and counter-attacking approach is shown in the other lines he’s choosing. Here’s what he played against Caruana in Zagreb:

When playing White Carlsen mostly varies between 1 c4 and 1 d4, in both cases with clear preference for closed games. In Zagreb he played 1 d4 in all but one game (in which he played 1 Nf3) and here again he is showing a lot of new ideas in the openings. Quite a fertile ground for his new ideas has been the Vienna (perhaps understandably so as it has been one of Caruana’s main openings prior to the match):

Carlsen has also shown his approach in the Grunfeld, preferring the line both Karpov and Kramnik successfully used in their matches against Kasparov, the line with Be3. His last round win in Zagreb against Vachier was deceptively smooth.

I find it difficult to understand what Vachier’s preparation consisted of here, as he immediately ended up in a worse position, but that doesn’t diminish Carlsen’s own.

As you can see, Carlsen is playing the main lines now! Not only that, he’s also introducing new ideas in these main lines and this gives him even bigger practical advantage than the previous Carlsen-style of avoiding theory and going for offbeat lines.

I see this shift towards playing the main lines as the single biggest evolution of Carlsen’s general approach to chess this year. As the positions he’s getting after the opening and his current results suggest, he has hit the bullseye. The players will of course adapt to the new Carlsen, but for now he’s flying as high as ever. Personally, I hope it continues for a long time.

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Anticlimactic Altibox 2019

I don’t understand why people start with the premise that a draw is bad.

When the premise is erroneous then everything that follows cannot be right. The way too many attempts at tinkering with the format of chess tournaments has led to mediocre at best results. The rationale has always been that the change is in order to make chess more televised, but that never happened.

Norway Chess saw the last attempt at “making chess more exciting.” But if people don’t find chess exciting as it is, no “end of the world” change will make it more exciting for them.

Still, with private endeavours the organisers are free to do whatever they like and they pay the fiddlers, so they will play.

And played they did. Even until the end of the world. I’m glad we saw “the end” very early in the tournament, in Round 1. The video of the Armageddon game between Aronian and Grischuk speaks louder (pun intended for the Spanish commentary) than words.

I have always seen chess as a game with dignity. And where is the dignity when the noble game is reduced to panicky piece throwing and chasing with seconds left on the clock? Why are we reducing ourselves and our game to park hustling? Why do we expect that by dumbing down our game and making the players clowns we will be able to sell it to a wider, usually not very interested, audience? If we don’t respect ourselves, do we really expect the rest of the world will?

The format of the tournament followed the same idea. A win in the classical game is worth 2 points and a win in the Armageddon 1.5. So why sweat for hours for an extra half a point when you can make a quick draw, Grischuk’s 15-move draw with So an exquisite example, guarantee yourself half a point and then pray to the gods of television to give you the extra point, even by drawing with Black in a completely winning position.

Following up on the absurdity of the point system, Ding Liren scored an undefeated +2 in classical, the same results as winner Magnus Carlsen, and yet finished 6th (!) behind players who had 50% score in the classical. Surely the classical should weigh more? But probably not.

The most absurd was of course the draw with Black counting as a win. By trying to eliminate the draw the format in fact encouraged an even more bizzare occurence – the players offered draws in winning positions because a draw was in fact a win! That’s Armageddon indeed. If I can somehow understand the need for it after a lot of played games at different time controls in a World Cup, here it was just a mockery of the game and the players. I read a good joke in a forum that suggested that the draws in the Armageddon should be replayed with classical time control.

I am sure that there were many who enjoyed watching these games. I didn’t. Because I don’t like to see the game and the world’s best players dragged down and paid to perform to a whim. Does anybody still remember the “new classic“? That one was also inspired by the same ideals of making chess “more interesting” and we see now how it ended.

History has shown that there is no shortcut to making chess popular or interesting to the masses. It has always been the game of kings. Changing the rules, the formats or putting players in VR suits are cheap stunts that don’t work. What works is a long-term strategy of education and positive public image by emphasising the benefits of chess. By doing this long enough we will start to see our game become even more popular. Unless we shoot ourselves in the foot too often and induce the end of the world prematurely.

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