London going as expected

The London Super Sixteen rapid tournament has started. The main event of the London Chess Classic takes place from December 11th to December 15th at the Olympiad Conference Center in London, England. The tournament brings together many of the best players of the World as well as two qualifiers from the Open section of the London Chess Classic.

Players were divided into four groups initially, to play a double round robin between them and determine two qualifiers to the knock out stages.

Round 3

Nakamura played the Larsen (1.b3) against Gelfand following the logic of Lawrence Trent from yesterday's commentary: it's a better move than 1.b4. The game became somewhat wild after Nakamura sacrificed some material but when the dust settled an equal endgame was reached. Jones obtained a seemingly winning position against Polgar but through mistakes he managed to lose.

A little chit-chat before the game didn't help Jones convert his advantages

Howell missed a golden opportunity to beat Caruana with black as he was simply two pawns up. He made it too hard on himself and ended up drawing. Short outplayed Sutovsky through most of the game in a Spanish and ultimately a blunder by the Israeli cost him the game in a situation that was already bad.

Anand demolished Istratescu with good tactics and sound positional play, while Adams uncorked a beautiful tactic with 14.Nd5! and was probably winning at some point, but his follow-up was not the best, he let go of his advatange and McShane crawled his way back into a draw.

Sadler made an easy draw with Kramnik by not risking too much while Rowson faced a powerful exchange sacrifice by Svidler. Black quickly got a winning position and never let go of the throttle.

Interestingly all groups in round three ended with a black win and a draw!

The audience!

Round 4

Polgar spoiled a slight edge against Gelfand and had to settle for a draw while Nakamura outplayed Jones from an equal endgame to share first with Gelfand in the group, and it seems unlikely they do not go through.

Howell played another good game, this time against Short, but his atrocious time management left him in a bad situation and Short fully exploited this, with some tactics he turned the game around and won a piece. Sutovsky lost his fourth game in a row and was simply demolished by Caruana.

Adams had the smallest of advantages for a long time against Istratescu, but a blunder by the French player on move 27 allowed Adams to win a pawn and subsequently convert the game. Istratescu, like Sutovsky, qualified from the Open and neither player has scored a single point in the rapids. Anand demolished McShane:

McShane felt the power of Anand's wrath

Sadler still has realistic chances to advance if he pulls of a big upset tomorrow

Svidler took revenge on Kramnik for his round one loss, and this time he against found himself with two pieces against a rook. In this case however the Russian Champion annihilated his opponent with the two bishops. Sadler also reversed the result from round one and took out Rowson.

Svidler took out Kramnik, he now shares first with the other Russian in group b

Highlights of Day 2 by Daniel King

Standings

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Schedule

Photographs by Ray Morris-Hill

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.