Ding Liren and cold stand between Carlsen and Lindores Abbey Chess Stars 2019 victory!

Ding and Carlsen in the lead

When the Lindores Abbey Chess Stars 2019 tournament was announced the first question on everyone's mind was — is this tournament going to be serious? The event was announced at a short notice, it was being organized inside a distillery, and there were only six rounds of rapid chess. But as I stood in the playing hall on day one and the proceedings began, I realized that when you get players like Carlsen, Anand, Ding Liren and Karjakin together, you cannot have light-hearted chess!

Master Class Vol.8: Magnus Carlsen

Scarcely any world champion has managed to captivate chess lovers to the extent Carlsen has. The enormously talented Norwegian hasn't been systematically trained within the structures of a major chess-playing nation such as Russia, the Ukraine or China.

The settings inside the distillery, where the players are just a meter away from the washbacks

First of all, all four of them prepare extremely hard in the first phase of the game. Hence, when they begin a duel, it is always a battle that spans across some previous game played, or some new ideas that are home-cooked.

When Powerplay chess and ChessBase India come together! IM Sagar Shah and Daniel King recap day one of the Lindores Abbey Chess Stars 2019

My Career Vol. 1

The first DVD with videos from Anand's chess career reflects the very beginning of that career and goes as far as 1999. It starts with his memories of how he first learned chess and shows his first great games (including those from the 1984 WCh for juniors). The high point of his early developmental phase was the winning of the 1987 WCh for juniors. After that, things continue in quick succession: the first victories over Kasparov, WCh candidate in both the FIDE and PCA cycles and the high point of the WCh match against Kasparov in 1995.
Running time: 3:48 hours

Let's take for example the first round game between Sergey Karjakin and Vishy Anand. Vishy is a now a well-known expert of the Queen's Gambit Declined. He goes for classical lines and in those classical lines which have been played for hundreds of years, he has a modern wrinkle up his sleeve. You cannot just expect to go to the game with no novelty and surprise Anand. But Karjakin is your man for new opening ideas! When the duo sat opposite each other, they literally blitzed out their first 20 moves.

This was the same position that was reached in Mamedyarov - Anand at Wijk Aan Zee in 2018. The Azeri GM had moved his bishop back to h4. Sergey decided to test Anand's sacrifice. Instead of Bh4, he played the move Nxe4. Vishy thought for a while, most certainly trying to recollect his analysis, and played ...♛a6! After 0-0 ♛xc4 ♕d5 ♛xd5 ♖xd5 ♝f8, Karjakin surprised Anand with ♗f6!

Anand now had a difficult choice to make. His e5 pawn is hanging. He could take on f6 and then after ♘xf6+ ♚g7 ♘xe8 ♜xe8 ♖xe5, play this position where White has a rook and two pawns for two minor pieces. Objectively Black should be able to hold this, but in a practical game, White's play is much easier. Vishy decided to avoid this variation and instead went for ♜ac8. Karjakin consolidated his position and was cruising towards victory. But just when it seemed all over, he made an error, which allowed Anand back into the game.

With seconds ticking down Vishy had to find the move ...♜e7. This would have pinned the knight and would have given Black excellent drawing chances. But when you are low on time, there could be nothing more natural than taking the pawn with ...♜xh3. Karjakin replied with 51.♘e5 and White was back again in the driver's seat.

The video of the complete game between Karjakin and Vishy Anand

Karjakin mixed up some ideas at this point. He remembered the line in the Catalan where black can go to g4 with his knight and sacrifice on f2. In fact this is precisely how Sergey had drawn his game against GM Vidit Gujrathi at Tata Steel Chess India in November 2018. But this was a different position and ...♞g4 was a mistake. Instead Karjakin had to go for the move ...♞h5. What he was afraid is that after ...♞h5 ♗e3 his knight would get trapped with g4. While this is a realistic threat and playing ...f5 is possible. Black has a much stronger move at his disposal.

The main point is that after g4 fxe5 gxh5 ♛xh5 Black is a piece down, but has good amount of pawns in return and also excellent coordination. After Sergey missed this, Ding didn't really give his opponent any chances. He found this nice idea of tucking his king back to c1.

At this moment Genna Sosonko, one of the commentators, narrated an interesting story of how Steinitz in the year 1867 came to Dundee, quite near to where the tournament is being played in Lindores, and introduced the move ♔e1-e2 in the King's Gambit. Somehow Ding Liren's king manoeuvre was quite reminiscent of Steinitz's idea.

Ding Liren's defensive play was top-notch after Karjakin's incorrect sacrifice

The Catalan: A complete repertoire for White!

The Catalan is one of the most solid openings for White. It forms part of the large and strong fianchetto family in which White builds his strategy mainly around the bishop on g2. Grandmaster Victor Bologan covers all of Black’s replies to the Catalan, some of which can even transpose to other openings such as the Tarrasch System and the Queen’s Indian. Suffice it to say that the Catalan rules!

Magnus Carlsen had a slow start to his campaign at the tournament. He drew his round one game against Ding Liren after getting a clear opening advantage. Against Karjakin, he was surely worse after the opening, but managed to hold on. One of the reasons why Carlsen was not able to give his best on the board was because of the temperature inside the playing hall. Being a distillery, the first thing that has to be ensured is that the air is flowing. This is a pre-requisite when it comes to a distillery. But when it comes to a chess tournament, this can make the players quite cold and uncomfortable. This is exactly what happened to Carlsen. At the press conference he was clearly dejected and said that he didn't enjoy the cold temperature inside the venue.

"It was very cold" - @MagnusCarlsen, at the press conference after day 1 of the Lindores Abbey Chess Stars 2019. In spite of not being comfortable, Magnus leads the event with 2.0/3. pic.twitter.com/DnvP1PzXau
— ChessBase India (@ChessbaseIndia) May 26, 2019

A personal heater was arranged but Carlsen was not satisfied

In the third round Carlsen was up against Vishy Anand. Encounters between these two are always exciting. Although Magnus has had an upper hand against Vishy lately, you can never discount the Madras Tiger. After a loss in round one to Karjakin, he drew his game against Ding Liren and seemed to be in good frame of mind for his game against Magnus. After the opening Anand clearly had the upper hand.

The way Anand had played the opening was quite exquisite. He had developed his bishop to b4, dropped it back to d6, then to f8 and had given it a nice spot with g6 and ♝g7. All of Carlsen's pieces are developed, but they lack space. The most precise way for Anand increase his advantage would have been to play his pawn to ...c4. Now the pawn on c5 is no longer weak. True, the d4 square is lost, but it is not the most relevant. The e3 pawn remains weak and also the b2 pawn would become a weakness in the future. Vishy instead played the move ...d4? Perhaps, he didn't expect Carlsen's reply.

After ♘a4, White is no longer worse. Vishy can still hold the balance with accurate play, but he was clearly affected by his error and lost the game quite quickly.