Grenke Classic 2017: Levon Aronian wins all the marbles!

Grenke Classic 2017: Levon Aronian wins all the marbles!

All photos by Eugeny Atarov

Excitement and drama at the 4th Grenke Chess Classic has almost come to an end with a round to spare. Levon ‘the terrible’ Aronian scored his 4th consecutive win, grinding down Women No.1 in the world and sensation of the tournament so far, Hou Yifan on the white side of a QGD to ensure clear first for himself after all the other games ended in a draw. This left Aronian with a point and a half ahead of the field.

The opening minutes are also the key ones for photos

Video highlights of round six

Although Aronian’s victory should not come as a surprise to anyone, it did happen in an unexpected way. First of all, Aronian’s resume and past results qualify him to win any tournament of any format at any time but it has been quite some time since we saw Aronian in such a sharp, well-prepared form where he would score back-to-back effortless wins. That is who Levon Aronian is: an artist who plays the game according to the 21st century model but still firmly believes in a classical approach of ‘themes’, ‘ideas’, and ‘truth’. This isn’t a matter of what he has said, but what his chess says.

This combination brought him his fourth consecutive victory and thus the title in a smooth QGD where Aronian gave up a pawn for two bishops in a queenless middle game and gradually ground down Hou Yifan. This highlighted a weakness in the Chinese ‘Wonder Woman’, showing she needs more training in holding balanced, yet somewhat passive positions. Hou Yifan decided to try to solve her problems by giving back the extra pawn but things went wrong for her as the time pressure approached and back-to-back mistakes left her with a losing position right after the time control. The result was sealed on move 42.

Levon Aronian vs Hou Yifan (annotated by Krikor Mekhitarian)

Levon Aronian comments on his game against Hou Yifan and the tournament

On paper, Carlsen and Caruana had a chance to catch up with Aronian  had they won their respective matches given the fact that Caruana is going to have white against Aronian in the final round. A result in favor of the American could lead to two-way or even three way tie if Carlsen kept pace in this speculative scenario. However, both 2800+ players failed to win their games with black, showing once again how hard it is to win a game with black even if you are rated more than a hundred Elo over another GM.

Carlsen faced a Veresov-Jobava style position from Naiditsch where the latter essayed a 5.h4!? move to close the books and engines as early as move five. Both players played a number of sensible and natural moves and in the ensuing middle game on move twelve Carlsen declined a repetition and opted for a long fight. The stratagem was to no avail as Naidtisch’s moves were too effective to be questioned and the position fizzled out soon. Still, this was not the end of it, and as the time control approached it seemed as if Carlsen was again going to create trouble for himself as his king seemed vulnerable to white’s queen and light squared bishop. Naidtisch was not in the mood to test Carlsen’s skill today and forced a draw almost immediately.

If you ever wondered what you would get if you crossed Jon Hammer with Peter Heine Nielsen, you can now lay that question to rest.

Carlsen maintains a tie for second but what kind of world champion would feel good about being second? It should be noted that the World Champion has not won a tournament in 2017 yet, which must be a little frustrating, and even if he is playing extremely well, everyone expects him to win games!

Caruana on the other hand tried hard for a long-time against another German, Mathias Bluebaum and had a tangible advantage for a long time. Nonetheless, his advantage never seemed quite enough to extract a full point and despite Caruana’s attempts until the end, Bluebaum managed the draw without too much trouble.

Finally, MVL tried hard to prove to Meier that the Rubinstein variation of the French Defense is not good for Black. However, his endeavors proved in vain as Meier was well prepared to sacrifice a pawn for active play while comfortably exerting pressure on white’s f2 pawn. MVL decided to give back the pawn to reduce the pressure but it only led to a dead drawn opposite colored bishop ending.

Georg Meier played a novelty in the French Defense and held MVL to a draw

In the last round, we will see a nice but tension-free game between Fabiano Caruana against Levon Aronian where the former seeks a win against the winner as a last hurrah. In another high profile match, the world champion faces MVL while Hou Yifan - Niaditsch may yet have a great impact on the final standings. In fact, even the Meier-Bluebaum game promises to be interesting since if either of them loses, they will be relegated to the last spot all alone and nobody likes to finish last!

Standings after six rounds

(click for full-size)

Pairings and schedule

Links

• Official tournament site
• All 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.