Anand wins rapid and leads in Saint Louis

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:

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).

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

Official website