Winning starts with what you know
The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.
The Paris tournament of the Grand Chess Tour is running from June 21-25. It is a combination of Rapid and Blitz games. The ten participants are Magnus Carlsen, Wesley So, Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, Alexander Grischuk, Sergey Karjakin, Veselin Topalov, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Etienne Bacrot. They will play nine rapid games, three a day, from June 21–23. The games start at 14:00h, 15:30h and 17:00h European Standard Summer Time. The Blitz tournament is on June 24 and 25, with nine rounds on each day, starting at 14:00h. The total prize fund is $150,000!
Note that the event is using the Bronstein mode: the players have 25 minutes for all the moves of a rapid game, and a ten second delay per move. This means that the clock does not run for ten seconds – the point is that you cannot accumulate time by playing very quickly in the Bronstein Mode.
All photos by Lennart Ootes
The tournament in Paris had been highly unpredictable, with leaders at times convincing, and at others not, and surprises throughout, and while the world champion did ultimately raise the winner’s trophy, nothing could have been less certain.
In the first game on Sunday, Magnus Carlsen, who had seen his lead cut in half by the end of Saturday's session, started off with a loss. It was a wild game against Caruana, in which he was better, then worse, then lost, then winning, only to make the last blunder. It was the first warning sign, as Magnus' play on the last day was uncharacteristically slow and error-prone.
Magnus Carlsen suffered a setback from the very first game on Sunday, as he lost to Fabiano Caruana
Hikaru Nakamura had made inroads against his lead, and had been the dominant player in the first volley of blitz games on Saturday, and although Calrsen’s margin over the American remained untouched, a new contender began to emerge. Top French player, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, playing in front of his home crowd, surged forward to the sheer delight of his fans.
Carlsen scored wins over Etienne Bacrot and Veselin Topalov, which helped him maintain his lead, but things soon began to unravel.
In a way, Grischuk's inability to put the winning game away can be viewed as payback for his win on time on Saturday. Yet, it was alarming to see Carlsen getting in huge trouble from an innocent-looking position. In the meantime, Nakamura also experienced tough setbacks losing to two tail-enders, So and Bacrot. After 14 blitz rounds, and only four left, things still looked quite comfortable for the world no. 1. In the combined standings Magnus Carlsen stood at 23 points, Vachier-Lagrave was in second, two points behind with 21 points, and in third was Hikaru Nakamura with 20. With a two-point lead and only four rounds left, he seemed relatively safe, but then the whole tournament went topsy-turvy after the next game.
Sergey Karjakin got a little back as he inflicted a second defeat on the world champion
A forgettable event for Sergey Karjakin who finished on just 50%
A bit of revenge for Sergey Karjakin, but Carlsen's main concern was Vachier-Lagrave, who won his game, and had narrowed the gap to just one point. In round sixteen they faced each other.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave drove the French crowd wild as he surged ahead to not only catch Magnus Carlsen, but even lead
A concerned Carlsen watches the game between Alexander Grischuk and the rising threat, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
With just two rounds to go, Magnus Carlsen had now seen Maxime Vachier-Lagrave catch up to him, and anything could happen. This giant mix might have included another player at the top, but it was not meant to be. Indeed, the most tragic episode of Round 16 was Hikaru Nakamura's undeserving loss to Mamedyarov. At the end of a long, drawish rook endgame Hikaru thought he was forcing a trade of the last pair of pawns, but he did it the wrong way by underpromoting his pawn to a knight. One intermediate check later he found himself in an awkward position with his king and after another mistake ended up losing a heartbreaker.
Honestly, I feel bad for focusing on blunders too much. If anything, the participants of such a grueling event deserve nothing but praise for their resilience. Just look at Nakamura's comeback in the very next game, the penultimate round:
Hikaru Nakamura knew he had lost control of the event ewas was now fighting to secure at least bronze, and to do so he only needed to beat Magnus Carlsen. Only...
Magnus Carlsen was in a world of pain, as he lost three of the last four games and entering the last round was actually trailing Maxime Vachier-Lagrave by half a point
The shocker was not over though, and round seventeen had Magnus’s fans all gnawing away at their fingernails, while Maxime’s were all cheering. The reason was the News Alert – Tournament Has New Leader. Magnus Carlsen had just suffered his third straight loss, this time to Hikaru Nakamura, and the score was now Vachier-Lagrave – 23.5 pts., followed by Carlsen, half a point behind. While Nakamura knew he was not in contention for gold anymore, he faced the prospect of being surpassed for a spot on the podium, since after 16 rounds, Grischuk had caught up with him and threatened to steal third. This vital win over Carlsen was enough to help keep him just one step ahead of his new rival.
For the live French commentary, it was pure joy and excitement as their local hero did the unthinkable
The production room of Canal+
In the last two rounds MVL (short for Maxime Vachier-Lagrave) faced two tough Russians, who played for pride, and a bit of prize money. It's no shame Maxime couldn't keep his winning streak going. Still, his result in the Blitz was nothing short of extraordinary, 13/18, good for a 2947 performance. In the updated Live Blitz rating list he's only 9 points behind Carlsen.
Of MVL's many great wins I selected the following game.
What about Carlsen? At the last moment, when the chips were down, the World Champion did what he does best. He buckled down and got the job done. First he left no chance for the struggling Wesley So, catching up with the Frenchman, and forcing a playoff to decide the title. The stage was cleared as the two set off to decide the winner in a mini-match of two 10-minute games.
The drawing of lots to determine the colors of the playoff
In the first one Magnus Carlsen beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in a powerful demonstration of grit and quality.
Game one of the playoff
In the second game, he surprised the Frenchman with a mainline Ruy Lopez Marshall with black, repeating the line played between MVL and Aronian a couple of weeks earlier in Norway, and soon got a strong edge, which he maneuvered into a forced draw. With this, Magnus Carlsen not only won the Grand Chess Tour Paris tournament, but protected his immaculate playoff record: though not often mentioned, Magnus Carlsen has not lost a playoff or tiebreaker since 2007!
Carlsen joins the French commentators who congratulate him on his victory
All well that ends well, some say. However, even a cursory analysis of Carlsen's play in the Blitz leaves me scratching my head. First there is his blitz result in which he lost 45 rating points due with his 10/18 score, though this is hardly a disaster, considering the volatility of Rapid and Blitz ratings.
What bothers me most is how his points were distributed throughout the event. He started 4/4 Saturday, and if you exclude that, Carlsen then went 6/14 the rest of the way, including just 4/9 on Sunday.
Perhaps even more disturbingly, a big chunk of his points came against the bottom three finishers, 6/6 total, which also means that he only scored 4/12 against better blitz players? Magnus also lost four micro-matches, against MVL (0-2!), Nakamura, Karjakin and Grischuk (all .5-1.5); he also split with Caruana and edged Mamedyarov by a minimal margin. At the risk of sounding like Maurice Ashley, I might ask Magnus, what's up with that?
Carlsen will have a chance to answer that just two days from now, when the Leuven stage begins Wednesday. I can't wait.
You could hardly cut it any closer, but in the end Magnus Carlsen secured his first tournament win of 2017
Finally, I'd like to mention Hikaru's gutsy last round win with black against Karjakin. It enabled Nakamura to finish third overall and grab some Tour points that might come in handy when they count the chickens after the London Classic in December.
Hikaru Nakamura showed grit as he staved off his challengers and secured third
A photo of the players and organizers (click on image for full-size)
(click for full-size)
*Note: All rapid games count double in combined standings
(click for full-size)
You can use ChessBase 14 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.
