Caruana wins Rapid, Carlsen tops Zurich

The «Zurich Chess Challenge 2014» will be the first encounter between the newly crowned World Champion, Norway’s Magnus Carlsen, and the former title holder, India’s Viswanathan Anand after their recent match in Chennai. From Wednesday, 29 January to Tuesday, 4 February 2014, they will compete in the 3rd Zurich Chess Challenge along with four other great chess stars: Levon Aronian (Armenia), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Fabiano Caruana (Italy) and Boris Gelfand (Israel).

Rapids - Round One

Carlsen won his first game in the rapid, and it was the only rapid game he won

Round one started with a bang. With three decisive results and many interesting games it was difficult to pay attention to a single board. Interestingly all of the games started 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3.d5, but after that Black chose three different moves in the different boards! First up, Carlsen played a Benko Gambit against Gelfand:

Aronian chose a dubious but solid set-up against Anand. Surely at some point the passivity of Black's position put him in an inferior position, but Anand underestimated Aronian's possibilities of breakthrough in the queenside and he let the Armenian blast the position open, which exposed Anand's stranded king on c2. Withing a few moves White's position turned from slightly better to completely lost.

Lastly Caruana smashed Nakamura's Benoni, no questions asked. The Italian played a model game in the Fianchetto system.

Rapids - Round Two

Things continued spicy in round two. Caruana and Gelfand played an interesting game that ended in a draw but it paled in comparison to the other two games.

Aronian scored a very important win in round two, putting real pressure on Carlsen

In a fantastic positional duel Aronian smashed Carlsen. A well played Catalan set-up allowed him pressure on the light squares that proved to be too much for the World Champion. With precise strikes Aronian got a decisive advantage, and although he missed his opportunities to finish off the game he still held the advantage firmly on his side. Slowly but surely he converted a winning endgame and took the full point.

Lastly Nakamura made Anand look like an amateur:

Rapids - Round Three

Round three was a little more quiet. Carlsen spoiled a clear advantage against Nakamura and had to content himself with a draw, but surely the advantage should have allowed him to at least put much more pressure on his opponent than what happened in the game. Gelfand was in some problems against Aronian as he lost a pawn against the pressure of the Black pieces, but the opposite colored bishops allowed him to mount an initative and regain his lost pawn, entering a completely drawn endgame.

The fans were amazed at the level of fighting chess displayed

Anand lost his third game in a row, as Caruna outplayed him in a model Sicilian. The Indian had chances to draw the game at a couple of junctures, but he was simply not in form to calculate the draws out.

Rapids - Round Four

This was certainly a decisive round. With Aronian on Carlsen's toes it was still possible for the Armenian to catch him in standings. Anand and Gelfand played a ridiculously long game in which more than half of the game was spent with Black's queen chasing White's king around with no success. Literally more than half the game was that.

Caruana had a smashing performance in the rapid
unfortunately for him his classical start was bad

Caruana took advantage of a miscalcaultion by Carlsen, obtained two pieces for a rook and then proceeded to outplay his opponent and win the game. This seemed to pave the way for Aronian who had good chances against Nakamura, but the American proved to be too resourceful:

Rapids - Round Five

Anand never found himself in Zurich

Carlsen forced a draw against Anand without any incidents so as to not risk the tournament lead. With this draw he clinched first place no matter what the other boards did. Aronian had no real chances to win against Caruana and if anything the Italian was better in most of the game, just not by much. To finish the tournament off Nakamura outplayed Gelfand and won a nice game full of tactical resources. The Israeli flagged in an already hopeless position.

With this handshake the tournament concludes!

Arianne Caoili keeping track of the action

Daniel King shows the game Caruana vs Nakamura and Caruana vs Carlsen

Rapid Standings

Classical Standings

Final Tournament Standings

Carlsen still won, despite today's results

Despite Carlsen's poor performance in the rapid, scoring only 2.0/5, his superior standing in the classical tournament, which counted for double, allowed him to top the leaderboard a point ahead of both Aronian and Caruana. The three of them were far and away superior to their opponents, especially Anand and Gelfand who had relatively poor showings in both events.

Farewell Zurich, thanks for a magnificent event and this fantastic view:

Replay rapid games

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Cristian Chirila - Guest Commentator Former World u-16 Champion and currently a grandmaster finishing his studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, Cristian is an ambitious chess player. Find out more about Cristian, including his chess lesson services, biography and games here.

Maria Emelianova - Photographer Maria Emelianova is 26 years old, born in Ekaterinburg, Russia, Women FIDE Master, with a 2113 Elo rating. After finishing school Maria moved to Moscow to study at the university, so chess was forgotten for some time. She worked for about a year with Alexander Roshal in the chess magazine "64". Her carrier as a chess photographer started at the Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk. "It was just a hobby, but somehow became an interesting job," says Maria, who works with a Canon 1DX. "Now I am finishing my studies at two universities in Moscow, and am looking forward to a future in the big world of chess."

Schedule and Pairings

The event is a six player round robin, with a rate of play of 40 moves in 120 minutes, then 20 moves in 60 minutes and the rest of game in 15 minutes, with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61. Special rule: in case of a draw before move 40, an additional rapid game will be played (which does not count for the overall result).

• The blitz will be used to determine the colors
• The classical time control gives two points to wins, one for draws and none for losses
• The rapid time control gives one point to wins, half to draws and none for losses

The winner will be the one who scores the most points between the classical tournament and the rapid.

Schedule of Commentary

Schedule and results

Rapid Schedule

Links Official tournament site All Games in PGN The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.