September was a great month for chess.
The world's top-rated chess player Magnus Carlsen played his first official tournament in America (part one of this article described that event), his last event before the world championship match against the titleholder Vishy Anand in November. The Chinese GM Hou Yifan regained the women's world title. The FIDE Grand Prix winner Veselin Topalov relaxed in the Czech town of Novy Bor while the last GP event in Paris spilled into October with a nice but sad victory for Fabiano Caruana.
With three wins and three draws, the Chinese GM Hou Yifan matched Carlsen's result from Saint Louis after six games of the Women's World Championship 10-game match against the Ukrainian title holder Anna Ushenina in Taizhou, China. Hou regained the title by winning Game 7, scoring overall 5.5-1.5.
At the age of 12, Hou dreamt of overtaking the all-time best woman Judit Polgar. In 2010, Hou became the youngest women's world champion at the age of 16. She defended the crown next year against Humpy Koneru of India. In 2012 she was knocked out in the second round of the Women's championship, but became a challenger by winning the 2011-2012 FIDE Women's Grand Prix. Now at 19, she is a university student and her ambitions are more modest. She prefers to by happy and healthy.
Nakamura went straight from Saint Louis to Paris to participate in the last FIDE Grand Prix tournament. Things were looking up for him when he met Fabiano Caruana, one of two players with a chance to qualify for the 2014 Candidates by winning the event alone.
The loss must have been devastating for Caruana. Nakamura, on the other hand, moved to the lead by adding a win against Vassily Ivanchuk, who overstepped time in a roughly equal position. Hikaru could win it all, I thought, but there was one problem: his opponent was the 45-year-old Boris Gelfand, the 2012 world championship challenger. He was Nakamura's "angstgegner" and no matter what Hikaru did against the Israeli GM, it usually turned out badly. Yet again, he could not overcome the psychological barrier.
There was an additional twist: Hikaru has never beaten Gelfand with the white pieces in a major tournament and it was his seventh loss in Paris.
The win helped Gelfand to share first place with Caruana with 7/11. Nakamura
and Etienne Bacrot finished a half point behind the winner.
Caruana almost made it to the Candidates, but he needed to win it alone.
The Azerbaijani GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov clinched the last spot instead.
The winner of the FIDE Grand Prix Veselin Topalov went to Novy Bor, a Czech town of glass artists, to play a six game match against Viktor Laznicka. It was an equal fight at first, but the Czech GM lost due to his habit - the time trouble.
Topalov won 4-2 and took home a nice glass trophy. Laznicka's downfall began in the following position:
Images by Anastasiya Karlovich from Taizhou, Alina l'Ami from Paris and Vladimir Jagr from Novy Bor
Original column here – Copyright Huffington Post
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