London Classic: A tepid start

All games drawn

A soporific feel at the start of the London Classic lingers on. Same as in the opening round Friday, all five games today were drawn, and, honestly, not all of them were worth the price of admission.

I don't know how Karjakin feels about playing Carlsen these days. Only one year removed from their face-to-face titanic battle in New York, Sergey doesn't seem to have any momentum on his side. Three times they met in classical chess tournaments in 2017, and the score is +2=1 in favor of Magnus.

Today the World Champion played the bold g7-g5 on the black side of the Italian Game, but even that did not make the former challenger willing to, well, challenge. Queens got traded early, and then Karjakin neglected his last chance to make something happen by pushing f2-f4. A listless performance by Sergey, who hasn't really done anything in 2017 to make his fans believe he'll return to play Magnus again.

Sergey Karjakin hopes to be the next Challenger for Carlsen, but if so, he kept his ambitions in check in this game | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Back in 1966, Spassky lost a World Championship Match to Petrosian, when many felt he was ready to be crowned. Boris did come back by winning the Candidates matches again three years later, and then he beat Petrosian as well. Not to be forgotten, however, that Spassky appeared to be a hungry player right after the first match, as he famously won the 2nd Piatigorsky Cup, 1966 ahead of Fischer and all others.

There isn't much to say about Aronian's tournament yet. He had two Blacks at the start, and did what he was supposed to do, which is to not lose. Levon's Ruy Lopez appears to be holding up well. Both Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana tried the line from a successful game Vachier-Lagrave played against Aronian in the 2017 World Cup. The position, however, appears to be too short of resources to cause Black any real pain. Levon is ready to enter this line again and again. He will face Sergey Karjakin in round three with white.

Levon Aronian's first two games were with black, so a draw was nothing to be upset about | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Anand-Adams was another Anti-Berlin, leading to yet another symmetrical pawn structure where Vishy may have given more than a token effort, but it didn't change the outcome of the game. Such games have become a bit too common to my taste, but unless White finds some other ideas, I cannot blame Black for playing for the result.

This brings to mind the old talk of changing the scoring system in favor of Black, say .4-.6 or some such imbalance, in an attempt to spice up the game. In my opinion, the effect could be quite opposite. In modern chess, it is Black who chooses the opening, and giving him an extra incentive to make a draw would be counterproductive.

Perhaps, a more radical measure, such as choosing openings randomly, should come into consideration. Imagine, you come to the game, and the computer tells you you must play the Scandinavian today!

It was an uneventful round in terms of results, but some players clearly tried harder than others | Photo: Lennart Ootes

MVL vs Nakamura was without question the highlight of the round. Now to the games that could have ended decisively. Lots of credit goes to Nakamura for venturing into the Dragon's Den today. Hikaru appears to be the one rocking the boat in London in the early going. It might seem a thankless task, as he was skirting disaster again today, but his fans are grateful.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 1/2-1/2 Hikaru Nakamura (Annotated by GM Alex Yermolinsky)

The Sicilian Dragon Vol. 1: Main Line with 9.Bc4

Volume one of the DVD deals with 9.Bc4, White's sharpest option, and shows how Black can counter this ambitious try by White with the main lines of the Soltis variation (12.h5), which was played by Magnus Carlsen regularly as well.

Hikaru Nakamura: "I completely misevaluated this endgame..."

Vachier-Lagrave: "The position is a complete mess and of course if you don't know everything exactly you have to spend a lot of time to navigate the complications..."

Nakamura discusses the game with Maurice Ashley | Saint Louis Chess Club on YouTube

Wesley So continues to baffle his fans. What more could today's opponent, Nepomniachtchi, do than open the game with the Old Benoni, the opening that has been all but discarded decades ago? Wesley was pretty much served a great positional advantage on a silver platter at the start of the game. Yet, he wasn't able to capitalize and went for the unforced move repetition already on move 24.

Wesley So 1/2-1/2 Ian Nepomniachtchi (Annotated by GM Alex Yermolinsky)

The ABC of the Czech Benoni

The Czech Benoni has never quite made it to the top of the charts as a reply to 1 d4. Perhaps it‘s the very nature of blocked central positions which put people off. Thus, after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e5 the first impression is that the Black position could become rather passive. However, players of the calibre of Nisipeanu, and Ivan Sokolov revived the opening by using the Czech Benoni with success.

In the last few months, Wesley So has struggled to recover the form he displayed in 2016. Every player has a dry streak, and it seems this has been his.

Wesley So, early in Round 2 | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Let's see now how the players are going to fare in a 7-round tournament. Time to leave the starting gates!

Round 2 commentary

Standings

All games

Links

• Round 1: A rest before the rest day
• LCC Kickoff with Pro-Biz and Carlsen 0-1 Kasparov
• Official Grand Chess Tour site
• Official London Chess Classic site