Grand Chess Tour - Paris: Magnus Carlsen dominates

The Paris tournament of the Grand Chess Tour is running from June 21-25. It is a combination of Rapid and Blitz games. The ten participants are Magnus Carlsen, Wesley So, Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, Alexander Grischuk, Sergey Karjakin, Veselin Topalov, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Etienne Bacrot. They will play nine rapid games, three a day, from June 21–23. The games start at 14:00h, 15:30h and 17:00h European Standard Summer Time. The Blitz tournament is on June 24 and 25, with nine rounds on each day, starting at 14:00h. The total prize fund is $150,000!

Note that the event is using the Bronstein mode: the players have 25 minutes for all the moves of a rapid game, and a ten second delay per move. This means that the clock does not run for ten seconds – the point is that you cannot accumulate time by playing very quickly in the Bronstein Mode.

Day two

All photos by Lennart Ootes

Yesterday Magnus Carlsen was the beneficiary of a couple of blunders. In Day Two he hardly needed any. First, he faced his co-leader, Wesley So, and finally produced a really good game.

In the very first round of day two, Magnus Carlsen showed just how good he was feeling, and played a majestic game against Wesley So

Wesley So vs Magnus Carlsen

Actually, Round Four featured some of the best games of the tournament so far. Hikaru Nakamura delighted his fans with the following performance.

Hikaru Nakamura has managed to keep pace with the world champion, and trails by only half a point

Hikaru Nakamura vs Etienne Bacrot

In the next game Nakamura made an important step forward by winning with black against Grischuk. For a long time Hikaru was on the defensive, but his magic held, and eventually Alexander drifted into his customary time trouble. Nakamura seized his chance in the notorious rook and bishop against lone rook endgame. Alarmingly so, this isn't the first time the Russian fails to defend such endings. I recall his loss to Gata Kamsky in the Istanbul Olympiad in 2012. Perhaps, a remedial session at ‘What Every Russian Schoolboy Knows’ is in order.

Another contender who emerged from the pack today is Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. His forceful, yet elegant play is well-suited for faster time controls.

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov vs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

I was looking for Fabiano Caruana to bounce back today from his dreadful 0/6 (remember, the points count twice in the rapid) performance yesterday. After all, in spite of three losses, he had built inspired winning positions in two of the games, so the potential for a big score was certainly there. However, it just wasn't meant to be.

An indecisiveness in Fabiano Caruana's decision making is getting him into constant time trouble, and he ended the day on a terrible 0.5/6, or 1.0/12 since each rapid game is worth two points

Sergey Karjakin vs Fabiano Caruana

Once again, Fabiano is getting the positions, but he is leaving himself with too little time to convert. I'm afraid this is no accident, because it happens all the time. It's beyond the pale for a player of Fabiano's caliber to sink to a 2703 Rapid rating. Is he really over 200 Elo weaker than Magnus Carlsen? Of course not, and there is no way Magnus, or anyone else who walks this planet, should be expected to score 77% against Fabiano in any kind of chess. So you say, it's just rapid, wait till they meet in classical time control tournaments? The problem is, losing is contagious. First you start by losing from good positions, then you graduate to losing all-around bad games.

Here is a case in point:

Fabiano Caruana vs Shakhriyar Mamedyarov

The next game shows how unwise it is on the part of  Magnus Carlsen’s opposition to cut him any breaks when he's struggling. Sooner rather than later Magnus' confidence comes back, and he begins to steamroll through his competition.

Veselin Topalov has been unable to get into gear so far

Magnus Carlsen vs Veselin Topalov

Magnus and Hikaru concluded a productive day at the office by playing a long, but largely uneventful draw in their head-to-head game. It's interesting how similar Carlsen's strategy was to his game from Round One against Grischuk. In both games Magnus accepted a small structural weakness early, only to frustrate his opponents with a measured and calm defense.

It was a long but uneventful game between the two leaders, Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen

If things continue this way tomorrow I expect Carlsen to wrap up the rapid chess part of the tournament rather easily.

Next to the championship-level chess, demonstrated today by Carlsen, Nakamura and Mamedyarov, the following example looks like a pick-up blitz game from the Sokolniki Park in Moscow.

Sergey Karjakin vs Alexander Grischuk

This is how Alexander Grischuk rose to +1, and Sergey Karjakin sank to -2. Alexander can still do well in the tournament, although we shouldn't forget that he's a wild card in this year's Tour, and this might be his only appearance in top level events for the foreseeable future. Unless he qualifies for the Candidates, that is.

With one loss, and two draws, day two was not the best for world no. 2 Wesley So

Karjakin's struggles in Rapid chess are well-documented. He looked totally out-matched in the tie-breaks of the World Championship match in 2016, but then again, he was facing Carlsen, of course. On the other hand, even though Sergey played poorly in the World Rapid in Doha at the end of 2016, he came back to win the World Championship Blitz title just a few days later. Is this his game plan for this event as well? Botch the rapids and clean up in the blitz?

What else to talk about? How about more Caruana misery:

Fabiano Caruana vs Etienne Bacrot

Etienne Bacrot was one of the wild-card invitees, and was certainly happy to put an end to his equally miserable losing streak, by beating Fabiano Caruana

With two thirds of the way through the rapid I can see a line separating the field in two distinct halves. The players with a plus score will, in most likeliness, finish in the top half; while the bottom half seem destined to languish there.

One undefined variable is top French player, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who so far has played better than his 50% score indicates. As a parting gift, I'd like to present his nice win over Veselin Topalov, the game I didn't have the time to properly annotate.

At 50%, top French player Maxime Vachier-Lagrave has been a bit of a question mark. He is certainly capable of fantastic results in rapid and blitz, but so far he has not been able to do better than break even with two wins and two losses.

Veselin Topalov vs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

No, this is not a picture of the NASA flight control center, this is the inside of the Canal+ studios where the competition is being held. Every night at 11pm, a one-hour show summarizing the day's action is broadcast on the famous cable channel. Canal+ was the first cable channel in France.

Standings after six rounds

Links

• Official tournament site
• All Rapid games in PGN or Replay them directly here (many analyzed)

You can use ChessBase 14 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.