Anand wins rapid and leads in Saint Louis
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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Pictures from the Facebook page of the Saint Louis Chess Club
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?
The commentary team was in awe as blunders and brilliancies walked hand in hand in most of the games!
Hikaru Nakamura bounced back (as usual) in the second round of the round robin. Here, he won a pawn with an old tactical motif.
Focused: Vishy Anand
In the first rapid round robin, Caruana finally managed to win a game — against Topalov.
But he then lost again to Nakamura in the second round robin.
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 spectators enjoyed the creative play of the top players.
Standings at the end of the rapid games. The fifth and final day will see blitz action.
Standings:
| Rank | Name | Rating | Classical | Rapid | Blitz | Total Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GM Viswanathan Anand | 2779 | 3.5/6 | 4.5/6 | - | 8.0 |
| 2 | GM Hikaru Nakamura | 2779 | 3.0/6 | 3.5/6 | - | 6.5 |
| 3 | GM Veselin Topalov | 2760 | 3.5/6 | 1.5/6 | - | 5.0 |
| 4 | GM Fabiano Caruana | 2823 | 2.0/6 | 2.5/6 | - | 4.5 |
Games
The commentary was top-notch in its mix of high-quality analyses and delightful anecdotes. Enjoy!
Topalov talks about his plans for the future and his dissatisfaction with the quality of his rapid games.
Follow the games live on playchess.com
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
Discussion and Feedback
Join the public discussion or submit your feedback to the editors
About Anand:
We all can only say a very big THANK YOU to Kramnik.
Because he did the great work and resurrected Anand after he lost 2013 some metallic objects which he had to clean from dust every Saturday.
And you Vishy ... Never lay down again and dont stand up anymore after you got hit ... OR, Vishy, you will sleep with the fishy (The Godfather)
Hehe!
- - -
Since you got back to live, you showed the chess world (and your son) what you are made of.
I got the impression that 3-4 years before 2013 your games was played without the fun to play. You played this annoying games because you signed a contract to perform in a event.
This is now different. In your games is the young and tricky Vishy back, smile.
And with a lot more experience.
And that is sooooo good!
We all can only say a very big THANK YOU to Kramnik.
Because he did the great work and resurrected Anand after he lost 2013 some metallic objects which he had to clean from dust every Saturday.
And you Vishy ... Never lay down again and dont stand up anymore after you got hit ... OR, Vishy, you will sleep with the fishy (The Godfather)
Hehe!
- - -
Since you got back to live, you showed the chess world (and your son) what you are made of.
I got the impression that 3-4 years before 2013 your games was played without the fun to play. You played this annoying games because you signed a contract to perform in a event.
This is now different. In your games is the young and tricky Vishy back, smile.
And with a lot more experience.
And that is sooooo good!
Caption: Vladimir could have used this glass without making the trips!
Nakamura's Lust to win a Point in a Theoretical Draw Over Clock against Anand was absolutely Pathetic ... He lost my respect there ... Anybody interested do watch that game video and you will know what kind of shameless players can be... this is also lesson for organizers to keep incremental time control in blitz chess instead of delay time over clock
Believe me, man, I was trying to exercise levelheadedness and sangfroid and all that and calculating this and that, but the queen was right there trying to pwn me!
Topalov: "Hillary was better than Donald!"
Caption: I'm telling you, my reaction was, "Oh #&@! I hung the c4 bishop. Now what the hell do I do?!"
Topalov: Keep your glasses. I do not need them to see my blunder!
Caption: I was doing Karate over the board.
Caption: I don't know why Kasparov is so critical of us, remember when he pushed that pawn to loose his last professional game at Linares against me!
CAPTIONS: i) do you know how i hallucinated ii) see, this is pandora's /blunder's box!!
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