LCC Super Rapid Play Open day one

6th London Chess Classic – 6-14 December 2014

Super Rapid Play Open (rounds 1-5) – 6 December 2014

Report by John Saunders

At the halfway stage of the London Super Rapidplay Open, the six overnight leaders on 5.0/5 are Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Fabiano Caruana (Italy), Valdimir Kramnik (Russia), Anish Giri (Netherlands), Matthew Sadler and David Howell (both of England). Just behind on 4½ are Vishy Anand and Mickey Adams of the elite group, plus Simon Williams and Nick Pert of England and Eric Hansen of Canada. The final five rounds will be played on Sunday 7 December, starting at 12 noon UK time.

Some of the names on the leader board already indicate that this is the open rapidplay to end all open rapidplays. A reminder of the star names turning out...

The Supers: Nakamura, Adams, Anand, Kramnik, Caruana, Giri

Those are the sort of names you don’t see every day in an open competition. But for the immensely strong Qatar International – which only finished on Thursday and featured both Kramnik and Giri – you could justifiably call it unique. But in this high-stakes global Swiss tournament poker game, the London Super Rapidplay Open ‘saw’ Qatar’s Kramnik and Giri, and ‘raised’ them Caruana, Anand, Nakamura and Adams. I think that counts as a bit more than a ‘full house’.

The Rapid tournament with Super-GMs to amateurs

Given that the London Chess Classic is as much about the development of children’s chess as it is about super-GMs, the tournament started with another novelty: pairings of the super-elite players (who will start playing their own closed Classic event on Wednesday) and six under 18 players from the host nation. Of course, nobody expected any shock results, with rating differences of around 1,000 points in some cases; it was just a once-in-a-lifetime chance for promising juniors to sample the atmosphere of big-time chess, rather like the way children accompany adult players onto the pitch to take part in the formalities before the start of a big international soccer match.

The clash of top players vs amateurs in the first round

Naturally the super-GMs didn’t get where they are today without being able to dispatch sub-2000-rated players and most of the games were pretty effortless on their part. One player, Theo Slade, aged 14, who comes from the same part of the world as England’s number one player, played a steady Adams-like game to reach a minor piece endgame against Hikaru Nakamura with material equality. Not at all a bad effort but the American had the advantage of the two bishops and delivered a master class in how to exploit this positional advantage.

Elsewhere round one pairings were as per normal. There were no major surprises in the first round, except that Danny Gormally was unable to grind out a rook and knight versus rook against an English amateur, Tony Stewart.

With GMs of the strength of Jon Speelman and Jonathan Parker lurking as low down as board 40 and beyond, the second round was also a massive win for the higher rated. The only concessions of significance were Nigel Short’s draw with Johan Salomon of Norway, while Russian GM Alex Cherniaev lost to Astrit Zymberi, an untitled 40-year-old Albanian, rated 2116.

Daniel Prill, a young German player rated 2193, seemed to be fine against Vishy Anand (above) going into a rook and pawn endgame but then this happened...

Round four saw the first half points conceded by the London Classic’s aristocracy. Vishy Anand was held by the appropriately-named Jacek Stopa, an IM from Poland, while Mickey Adams was the one who had to do the stopping, fighting his way to a draw against Jahongir Vakhidov, a 2560-rated GM from Uzbekistan. Further down the board order, Loek Van Wely was beaten by someone rated 222 points below himself. But this hardly rated as a surprise as the player in question was a former Candidates’ semi-finalist who was once ranked fourth in the world, namely Jon Speelman. Jon is what I like to call a ‘super-grandmaster emeritus’. He’s still got it – and is quite prepared to use it, too.

The start of an incredible game between IM Ali Mortazavi and Super-GM Fabiano Caruana

Michael Adams

The centrepiece of round four was undoubtedly Hikaru Nakamura’s lucky escape from the clutches of English IM James Adair after the American had lost a piece to a schoolboy error in the opening. James seemed to be cruising to victory with his extra piece but he then lost concentration and let slip first the win and then the draw. I suppose this underlines what a lottery rapidplay chess can be. One can only have the deepest sympathy for the young Englishman.

Round five, and the big guns were starting to point menacingly in each others’ directions. This was a remarkable round for the host nation, with players on the top six boards facing (in most cases) world-class opposition. This could be the nearest thing we ever see to an ‘England versus the Rest of the World’ match. With Nakamura, Kramnik, Caruana and Giri forming the nucleus of the ‘world team’, the hosts were never going to get out alive, but wins from Messrs Sadler and Howell against lesser-known names ensured the ‘match’ was only lost by 2-4. Elsewhere, Simon Williams, who himself had conceded a draw to well-known English organiser Adams Raoof in an earlier round, turned giant-killer himself, beating Alex Lenderman, who outrates him by some 200 points.

There was a real buzz around Olympia today, with 400 players taking part in this stellar tournament, many of them young children who had scarcely played a tournament before in their lives. Those of us very long in the tooth can remember when 1,000 players turned out in London-based weekenders, back in the heady days of the Fischer boom, and this came close to that. It shows we are heading in the right direction. Incidentally, even our overworked tournament director Malcolm Pein somehow found time to play three of the five rounds.

Sunday should see a tense denouement to this fascinating competition. Do follow the action on our website, and remember that there will be live chess all the way through next week, with live commentary from Wednesday when the Classic proper starts.

As is standard at the London Classic, spectators will of course be able to enjoy the action on the official website.

All photos by Ray Morris-Hill

Elite Event 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.