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11/14/2016 – Day four of the Champions Showdown in Saint Louis brought the rapid tournament. The shortened time-control led to excitement and oversights: Viswanathan Anand, for example, tried a faulty combination against Hikaru Nakamura and succeeded because the American failed to find the refutation. After winning twice against Topalov in the rapid Anand now leads the overall standings. Studio guest Garry Kasparov was at his nostalgic best as he commentated the games. Illustrated report.
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Champions Showdown 2016: Anand wins the rapid games and leads in Saint Louis
In this 2-minute video the players share their thoughts on the format of this tournament
Garry Kasparov was back in the studio to commentate the games together with Tania Sachdev, Yasser Seirawan, and Alejandro Ramirez.
Kasparov offered insights to the games and was at his nostalgic best. When talking about the rapid time-control, he said, "I remember when I first played with Nigel Short in London in February 1987. There were six games, 25 minutes each. It was a special format for television — each game would last one hour, so they had enough time for commentary and advertising. There were no draws — I won four games and he won two. There was a lot of blood spilled on the stage. From there we went to Brussels. It was the first meeting of the Grandmasters Association (GMA). ... I showed the tape of the rapid match there. ... They were quite concerned. What's going to happen with chess? Again, you don't blame them because it was quite unusual. 25 minutes?! I mean, come on, Botvinnik was still there!"
Kasparov does not believe that that chess is dying: "This is the secret of the success of the game of chess over the centuries. It can always adjust. It moved from one country to another — absorbing its cultural and social traditions. For example, chess in Japan is called Shogi, which is different from the European chess."
Rapid Games
With a score of 3.5/6, Anand and Topalov went into the rapid leg of the tournament in joint lead. With 3.0/6 Nakamura was just half-a-point behind while Caruana had still to win a game and was struggling with 2.0/6. He decided that he needed to brush up on his skills with fast time controls and chose to do so before the start of the rapid games on day four.
He crashed a local rapid tournament at the Saint Louis Chess Club in the evening before day four!
Rapid Round Robin 01+02
Before the start of the rapid tournament, each commentator was asked to predict the winner of the rapid. Kasparov bet on Nakamura, the others on Caruana or Topalov.
Topalov played interesting chess throughout the day. In the past, he was less comfortable with shorter time-controls.
But in the first game of the rapids he let Caruana (who was playing with Black) off the hook: first in the middlegame, and then by failing to pick up the knight in the diagram position with Rd4+.
Anand-Nakamura, position after 23.g3.
The commentators were wondering about this move when Garry pointed out that Vishy did not want to calculate a lot of lines here but decided to make a quick move to restrict the black pieces.
In this position Anand pushed forward with 50.b6?? Do you see why he allowed the knight fork? And do you see what is wrong with this idea?
We invite the readers to find a suitable caption for this picture of Topalov.
While choosing your caption, bear in mind this complicated battle that occurred in the final round of the day. Topalov fought with passion as Nakamura counter-attacked with an uncompromising attitude. But then something weird happened that left even Anand scratching his head:
The 2016 Champions Showdown shall be an exhibition event featuring four players (Viswanathan Anand, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and Veselin Topalov). Over five days, the Players shall complete two Classical Round Robins (G/60 +5” delay), two Rapid Round Robins (G/15 +5” delay) and four Blitz Round Robins (G/3 +2” delay).
Day
Date
Time
Showdown in Saint Louis
Wednesday
9-Nov
Arrival
Thursday
10-Nov
1:00 PM
RR1: Round 1
3:30 PM
RR1: Round 2
Friday
11-Nov
1:00 PM
RR1: Round 3
3:30 PM
RR2: Round 1
Saturday
12-Nov
1:00 PM
RR2: Round 2
3:30 PM
RR2: Round 3
Sunday
13-Nov
1:00 PM
Rapid (6 rounds)
Monday
14-Nov
1:00 PM
Blitz (12 rounds)
Tuesday
15-Nov
Departure
Place
Prize
1st
$60,000
2nd
$40,000
3rd
$30,000
4th
$20,000
Total Prize Fund: $150,000 USD
When:
November 10th, 2016 1:00 PM CST through November 14th, 2016 12:00 AM CST
Location:
Chess Club & Scholastic Center of Saint Louis 4657 Maryland Ave Saint Louis MO 63108 United States
Priyadarshan BanjanPriyadarshan Banjan is a 23-year-old club player from India. He works as an editor for ChessBase News and ChessBase India. He is a chess fanatic and an avid fan of Vishy Anand. He also maintains a blog on a variety of topics.
The Sniper is a universal opening framework which can be played against all main first white moves - 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.c4, 1.f4 and 1.Nf3. Black plays 1…g6, 2…Bg7 and 3…c5 against practically anything!
