Garry Kasparov still has the magic!

Photos by Lennart Ootes

The entire world was looking forward to this ultimate blitz event where Garry Kasparov was going to lock horns against three of the best players in the world. This is what the event was all about:

• It is a four player sextuple Round Robin. Each player will play against the other six times. 18 rounds of chess divided equally over two days.
• The time control is 5 mins + 3 seconds delay (not increment)

The criteria for selection was the top three finishers of the US Chess Championships 2016 -
Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So. It couldn't have got better.

Garry Kasparov is not going to keep his winnings for himself!

On the first day we witnessed nine rounds of action packed blitz chess! And this is how the standings looked like at the end of the day:

While many expect Nakamura to win this tournament hands down, Wesley So's performance was quite unexpected. Wesley and Hikaru lead the tournament and are followed by Kasparov just half a point behind. Caruana is currently on the last spot, but that is only because he lost all of his last three games. Instead of going through the key moments round by round, let's have a look at the players individually and how they performed. It is of course natural to start with the star attraction of the event, Garry Kimovich Kasparov!

Garry Kasparov

That will to win, the fire in his eyes, the intent in his moves!
Garry Kasparov was back doing the thing he does best - play chess!

The last time we saw Garry at the chess board was exactly a year ago against Nigel Short. Prior to that he had played some exhibition matches against Anatoly Karpov. But Short and Karpov are nowhere close to the level of Nakamura, Caruana and So. It was surely alien territory for all the viewers as well as Kasparov himself. How was he going to fare? He silenced all his critics when in the first round he began with a win over Wesley So.

Kasparov - So

Wesley played the move f6 which turned out to be a critical mistake. Garry jumped on his opportunity and played the strong 21.Bd5+! with the neat point being that 21...Kh8 lost to 22.exf6! and the queen is not hanging on e2 as 23.fxg7 is a mate! Wesley had to sacrifice an exchange with 21...Rxd5 and after 22.cxd5 it was quite easy for Kasparov to score his first win!

While the first round win was surely a confidence booster for Garry, a bigger test awaited him in the second round in the form of Hikaru Nakamura. It was really interesting to see Kasparov essaying the King's Indian Defence with the black pieces. It was a battle between one of the greatest exponents of the KID that our game as ever seen (Kasparov) against the present day King's Indian expert (Nakamura). Garry played the opening confidently, gained a comfortable position, but Hikaru fought back and the players reached the following position.

Nakamura - Kasparov

In the above position Kasparov played his knight from d5 to b4, let go of it, then suddenly noticed that 27.Bc5! would lose the game. So he picked his knight again and moved it to f4. "I was not sure whether I had left the knight. In blitz it is difficult to tell," said Garry in his interview with Maurice Ashley at the end of the day. "I looked at Hikaru and the arbiter. If they would have claimed I would have resigned the game."

That moment when Kasparov picked up his knight on b4 after having let go of it.
You can see Hikaru's face that says that he has seen it!

Kasparov's reaction when this topic of leaving the piece was brought up

This is what Hikaru had to say about the incident: "It's Garry after all. Maybe I am not treating this event as seriously as he is. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. You hate seeing games decided on blunders like that. So that's the reason why I let it pass." It was truly a great gesture by Nakamura.

Garry came to the event with a very smart decision of avoiding the Berlin by playing the Scotch and the Vienna. In the four games with white when he opened with 1.e4 and his opponent's replied with 1...e5, he scored 3.5/4.

When was the last time you saw the Vienna in top level chess?!

It wouldn't be incorrect to say that Garry was the best player of the day. He made the best moves in most of his games and had dominating positions in all of them. But making the best moves come at a cost - time! And he made huge mistakes in three completely winning positions.

So - Kasparov, Round four

Kasparov, who is Black, is a complete pawn up and has a great position. Over here he blundered big time with the move 25...Nc3?? Wesley just moved his rook to 26.Rc1 and it was all over. Kasparov had to resign.

Wesley played Rc1 and Garry had to stretch out his hand in resignation

Kasparov - So, Round seven

Kasparov has completely outplayed So and is clearly winning here. But in this position he blundered with 41.b7?? The knight on d6 was hanging and Wesley was once again lucky. After 41...Qxd6 Kasparov had to resign.

Nakamura - Kasparov, Round eight

It was Kasparov's (Black's) turn to play. The game had been topsy turvy until this point. Nakamura was winning, then Kasparov was and in the above position after 43...Kxd8, the game would end in a draw. But Garry played 43...Rd5?? and after 44.Nxf7 he couldn't captured the d3 knight due to Ne5+ fork. 

The best part about having Garry back on the board is that he brings the human element with him!

Three whole knights! That's what I blundered today! Yet I am just half a point behind the leaders!

Of course not all of Kasparov's games were filled with mistakes. He also played some sublime chess and here we present two of his finest games of day one. The first one against Nakmura is special because of the simplicity with which Garry finishes off the game and doesn't give his opponent any chances.

This next game will definitely remind you of a 23-year-old Garry Kasparov trying to stamp his authority on his opponents:

Look at how hard Garry is trying to figure out the best way to win. He knows that this is the critical position.

Wesley So

After Wesley lost his first two games at the event it seemed as if he would be the one who would have to fight really hard in order to avoid finishing at the bottom of the table. But as it so happened, at the end of day one he finished on the top! He was given two lucky points by Kasparov, but he did play some excellent games as well, like this one against Hikaru Nakamura:

Wesley played his first game with his jacket on against Garry Kasparov, but he soon realized
hat in blitz it is just a big liability! Jacket came off and the points started pouring in!

Have a look at this amazing defensive effort by Wesley So:

No way through! That was a weird fortess!

If you see the broadcast you will realize that one thing that separated Wesley from the rest was his sheer calmness on the board. The minimum fuss with which he made his moves was exemplary. This was perhaps one of the reasons why he performed so well.

Hikaru Nakamura

Nakamura was definitely the favourite going into this event. He is the number two ranked blitz player in the world behind Magnus Carlsen and sports a massive blitz Elo of 2883. But today was not his day as he wasn't able to convert better positions and very often slid into completely losing situations. It was only his resourcefulness that helped him score points from absolutely impossible situations. Have a look at this one:

Here's another endgame where Nakamura began with a pawn less but ended up winning the game:

Many of the players would have agreed to a draw but Nakamura kept trying

Such endings can only be lost in blitz!

Fabiano Caruana

Fabiano showed some excellent chess at the start of the day. However, towards the end he ran out of steam and finished the first day on the last spot with 3.5/9. But just to show what he was capable of, here's his nice win against Hikaru Nakamura:

One of the reasons why we are able to enjoy this event is thanks to
the excellent commentary by Jennifer Shahade, Yasser Seirawan and...

...and Maurice Ashley

Watch all the action from day one

Day two action begins at 1 p.m. local time in Saint Louis on 29th of April. This would be 7 p.m. CET or 6 p.m. GMT. The games can be watched live on the official website.

Links Official tournament site The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.