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The 7th London Chess Classic, England's premier tournament, took place at its traditional venue of Kensington Olympia from Friday December 4th to Sunday December 13th. The main event, the strongest ever held in the UK, was a nine-round ten-player super tournament played at a rate of 40 moves in two hours, followed by the rest of the game in one hour, with a 30-second increment from move 41. The overall prize fund was $300,000, with the winner getting $75,000.
This was the standing aftr nine rounds of the 2015 London Chess Classic:
The rules of the event meant that there had to be a playoff between the top three players. Reporters, photographers, chess fans and most of all the players, Anish and Maxime, had only thirty minutes to get ready for the tiebreak match. Just when everyone decided to grab a quick bite or refresh themselves with a tea or coffee, a very important guest made an appearance at the tournament venue. Hoards and hoards of people gathered around him as Jennifer Shahade did an interview for the online viewers. Can you guess who he was?
Of course, none other than the mastermind behind the Grand Chess Tour,
the thirteenth World Champion Garry Kasparov
Garry spoke on various topics, including the Grand Chess Tour, the rapid tiebreak playoffs, Kirsan Illyumzhinov and plans for the next year’s GCT. One of the important points he proposed was to have the final tiebreak on the next day – the winner of Giri and Vachier-Lagrave should take on Magnus on the 14th of December and not immediately, as that would give them enough time to recuperate and regain their energy. However, technically this was not feasible and the winner had to be decided that night, no matter how long the games went on!
Arbiter Albert Vasse made Maxime choose the colour for the first game, and the Frenchman
got the white pieces. When the arbiter asked Anish if he was fine with that,
the 21-year-old replied with his typical sense of humour – “No!”
The tiebreaks had begun and the spectators were in for a treat
The Berlin Wall is considered as a super solid opening, often extremely drawish in nature. In the first game of this rapid match Anish proved how it could actually be a dangerous weapon if White plays too naively. MVL exchanged a lot of pieces and by the 20th move had an extremely unpleasant position. Anish played the next phase of the game to perfection, winning a pawn and then converting his advantage with consummate ease. The Dutch GM was 1-0 up in this two-game match.
Before the tiebreaks began I had asked MVL what is the most important quality that a chess player must have in order to become a world class GM? Without much hesitation the 25-year-old French grandmaster replied: “self-confidence.” A point down against the super solid Giri and a must-win situation with black is something that would discourage many a strong players, but not Maxime. He did not lose faith in his abilities and in an equal endgame kept posing minute problems to his opponent. The time was ticking down and Anish started to show nerves. Things went out of control, and in a drawn position Giri blundered a piece and the match was equalized.
The ChessBase cloud function Let's Check shows us instantaneosly the chances Giri missed:
49.g4! was a nice move but difficult to find in time pressure. After 49.Kc5?! White is in trouble.
59.Rh7 would have preserved excellent drawing chances, but after 59.Rh8? White was lost
It was all even at 1-1 and time for the Armageddon. Maxime won the toss and chose the black pieces. This meant that he had five minutes, Anish got six, (three second increment after move 61) but a draw would mean that MVL would advance. Most of the top players prefer to have the draw odds, and choose black. The one minute advantage is not too much. After winning with black in game one and having a completely drawn position in game two, the situation had turned 180 degrees for Giri in a matter of minutes.
“Go for something unusual”, Tukmakov advises his protégé
In the end the blitz game was a pretty one-sided affair where MVL easily equalized and then snatched the initiative. At no point did Giri have the chance to play for a win. In the end Anish overstretched and had to resign.
Expletive deleted: the moment when Anish gave up and Maxime advanced to the finals
A pretty sad result for Anish, who otherwise had a wonderful tournament, gaining ten Elo points and climbing to a live rating of 2794 and world number three spot! But this is not the last event of the year for the Dutch grandmaster as he gets ready to participate in the Qatar Masters Open beginning from 20th of December.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave had thirty minutes to recover before he faced the World Champion to determine the winner of the London Chess Classic 2015. There was much more at stake. If Maxime lost the match then he would have to settle for the third position in the tournament. This was surprising because he had already beaten Giri. But the rules clearly mentioned that the playoff will only decide the winner, all other spots would be resolved by the tiebreak rules as laid down prior to the event, like number of wins, personal encounter, Sonneborn-Berger, etc. Things would get trickier if MVL won the tiebreaks. He would then receive 12 points in the Grand Chess Tour, which would be added to his prior tally of 12 points. This would make it a total of 24. Magnus would then get 10 Grand Chess Tour points (as he would finish second) and adding it to his previous 14 points also gives 24! It meant that if Maxime won the playoff he would win the London Chess Classic, but the Grand Chess Tour points would be tied and another tiebreak would be required on Monday between the two players to determine the winner! Amidst all this confusion and calculations the first game of the rapid match began.
Magnus had the white pieces and was clearly the player with the higher energy level
After getting a typical small edge from the opening it seemed as if Carlsen would win the game without much ado. However, Maxime’s strategy of playing fast and not losing time on the clock began to bear fruit. Carlsen got a little nervous and botched up a major chunk of his advantage. Finally it all boiled down to a theoretical rook endgame where the French GM had to find a study like idea to save the draw. He wasn’t able to do so and the World Champion took the lead.
Going in to game two Henrik Carlsen and Peter Heine Nielsen ensure that nothing goes wrong
In the second game of the match Maxime chose the English Opening and tried to maintain as much tension as he could. The World Champion played with great care and very soon got a tangible advantage. In the rest of the game Vachier-Lagrave had absolutely no chance of creating any counterplay and had to agree to a three-fold repetition in a position which was most probably lost for him.
At 11.38 p.m. Maxime resigned and Magnus Carlsen became the London Chess Classic winner as well as the Grand Chess Tour champion. No pictures were allowed when the game was in progress. Our photographer waited with her camera and captured the exact moment of resignation.
Poor Maxime! He finished third at London and fourth in the GCT Standings.
The final tragedy: he didn’t qualify for the 2016 edition of the Grand Chess Tour.
Alexander Grischuk stood by his friend’s side right to the bitter end
After all the drama and tension, nearing the stroke of midnight, Malcolm Pein presents
Magnus both the London Chess Classic and the Grand Chess Tour trophies.
The World Champion went back home richer by US $150,000.
|
Rank
|
Player |
Norway
|
Saint Louis
|
London
|
Total
|
|
1
|
Carlsen, Magnus |
4
|
10
|
12
|
26
|
|
2
|
Giri, Anish |
7
|
6
|
10
|
23
|
|
3
|
Aronian, Levon |
2
|
13
|
7
|
22
|
|
4
|
Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime |
5
|
7
|
8
|
20
|
|
5
|
Nakamura, Hikaru |
8
|
8
|
3
|
19
|
|
6
|
Topalov, Veselin |
13
|
4
|
1
|
18
|
|
7
|
Caruana, Fabiano |
6
|
3
|
6
|
15
|
|
8
|
Anand, Vishy |
10
|
2
|
2
|
14
|
|
9
|
Grischuk, Alexander |
3
|
5
|
4
|
12
|
|
10
|
Adams, Michael |
N/A
|
N/A
|
5
|
5
|
|
11
|
Hammer, Jon |
1
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
1
|
|
12
|
So, Wesley |
N/A
|
1
|
N/A
|
1
|
Photos by Amruta Mokal of ChessBase India
