London Rd7: Three decisive games!

The 7th London Chess Classic, England's premier tournament, takes place at its traditional venue of Kensington Olympia from Friday December 4th to Sunday December 13th. The main event, the strongest ever held in the UK, is a nine-round ten-player super tournament played at a rate of 40 moves in 2 hours, followed by the rest of the game in one hour with a 30-second increment from move 41. The overall prize fund is $300,000, with the winner getting $75,000.

Watch it live on Playchess!

When the games are running, clicking on the above link will take you to our live broadcast. It is free and open to all – as a Premium Account member you have access to the Live Book, Chat, chess engine analysis – all in your browser, on a notebook, tablet or even your smartphone. And the Let's Check function will show you what the most powerful computers in the world think of the current position, as each move is being played.

London Chess Classic Round 7: Three decisive games!

By IM Sagar Shah

The seventh round had already started. Nine players were in their seats, four games were in progress – one of them had even reached move 13, but there was one guy who hadn’t come to playing hall yet. Nakamura waited for the World Champion to arrive. Games between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura have held special interest for the chess world ever since Naka announced that he was the biggest threat to the Norwegian. Magnus rushed to the playing hall and climbed the stairs to take his seat and make the first move. The World Champion had arrived only five minutes late to the game but as a spectator it seemed like eternity. He shook hands with his opponent and settled down on his chair. Who would have known that in order to score his twelfth classical win against Hikaru, Magnus would have to sit and grind down his opponent for the next seven hours!

Nakamura cleaned his glasses, opened the can of RedBull and waited for the games to begin

After five minutes the World Champion arrived and we were off ...

... but first Magnus was thronged by photographers and journalists.

While everyone took off early from work, the World Champion continued his grind. He was rewarded
with the full point and he is the only one to have beaten a player apart from Topalov and Anand.

"And then, when I was 21, I went 'woosh', all the way to the top!" Vishy, who celebrated
his 46th birthday on Friday, shares life experience with Anish, who is 25 years younger!

It was a brutal Sicilian Najdorf that led to Anand’s loss in the seventh round

Vishy Anand came to the game in good spirits even though he had lost the previous game to Alexander Grischuk. MVL kept faith in his favourite Najdorf Defence and essayed it once again. Anand played the opening quickly and seemed well prepared. However, Maxime found this highly interesting plan with Bg5-f4 followed by f5! Anand defended well for a while, but on move 24 he made a crude oversight and simply slumped to a defeat. A great win for Maxime who now leads the London Chess Classic by half point.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave leads the tournament with 4.5/7 and is now world
number seven with a live rating of 2785

Levon Aronian at the start of the game against Veselin Topalov,
that would give him his first win in the London Chess Classic 2015

Topalov’s dismal form at the Classic continued as he lost his game in just 27 moves to Levon Aronian. The variation chosen by the players is popular at the highest level – however one glance at the position and you will realize how concrete things have become when it comes to opening theory. From the first eight moves, Topalov made six moves with his knight which started from f6-d5-b4-d3-f4 and ended up on e6. Aronian’s play was simple and logical, while the Bulgarian struggled to find good moves. In the end his chances were desolate. Veselin resigned in a position that had equal material but was completely lost for him. With this win Levon moves to a score of +1 and joint second position in the event.

Enchanted – Levon in an interview with Jennifer Shahade

A great sporting gesture by Topalov, who gave a lively interview
in spite of having one of those nightmarish events

Nothing much happened inAdams vs Grischuk – the game ended in a draw

What Sasha need during the game: coffee or tea, beer or apple juice...

Super solid Michael Adams has seven draws out of seven rounds

Come on Anish, a win is what we*re looking for! Giri’s coach Vladimir Tukmakov
and Anish' wife Sopiko Guramishvili at the start of the round

Anish, who was black, faced the Trompowsky, launched against him by Fabiano Caruana

All I wanted was an interesting game of chess!

1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5!? That is not how you get an opening advantage!

Game of the Day Round six

ChessBase are offering free copies of the newly-released Fritz 15 and ChessBase Magazine 169, to the online audience of the 7th London Chess Classic. All viewers can vote online for the best game of each round of the Classic, and one randomly-drawn person will win a prize each day. Winners so far: Round 1: Lee Phillips [Anand v Carlsen] Round 2: John Bottomley [Carlsen v Carauna] Round 3: Robert Bell [Topalov v Giri] Round 4: Andrew Offord [Nakamura v Anand] Round 5: Nicolas Chiffot [Anand v Topalov] Round 6: Maria Antonia Navarro Coll [Giri v Carlsen]

Tournament standings

IM Lawrence Trent became Fabiano’s manager in June 2015. We caught up with the English International Master and asked him about the work he has to do as Caruana’s manager.

Luke McShane had a tough 20 board simul, as he lost one game and drew a few others

Luke is considered the world’s strongest amateur. In spite of not pursuing the sport professionally, every now and then he comes up with scintillating performances. We asked Luke what was the secret behind his success and the way he worked on the game:

The Gibraltar chess festival will be held from the 25th of January to 4th of February 2016. For many years now, Gibraltar event has been one of the strongest open tournaments in the world. And this year’s edition is even more special as the former World Champion Vishy Anand will be playing there. Stuart Conquest was in London and told us about what the chess fans can expect from the 2016 Gibraltar Chess Festival:

Check out the official website of the Gibraltar Chess Festival

FIDE Open

GM Benjamin Bok of Netherlands played a fine game to beat Alex Lenderman in the final round of the FIDE Open and win the title with an impressive score of 8.0/9. The tournament was held simultaneously with the elite event. With a performance of 2771 Bok goes back home richer by £5,000. Benjamin beat no less than four grandmaster opponents: Alexander Cherniaev, Keith Arkell, Eric Hansen and Alex Lenderman.

The winner of the FIDE Open: Dutch GM Benjamin Bok

Evgeny Postny, who led this event from the start, had to settle for the second spot with 7.0/9. Six more players joined him on the same score. Third to seventh positions went to Rinat Jumabayev, Eric Hansen, Jonathon Hawkins, Jahongir Vakhidov and Daniel Sadzikowski respectively. A detailed report on this event will soon follow on our newspage.

Final standings after nine rounds

Results and standing or al 168 players

Super-Rapid

The weekend will witness a super-rapid event which has ten rounds and a time control of 25 minutes + 10 seconds increment per move. Top players like Matthew Sadler, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, David Howell, Alex Lenderman and many other grandmasters will fight it out for the top prize of £2,500. Here’s the starting list of the tournament.

Photos by Amruta Mokal of ChessBase India

Schedule of the London Chess Classic 2015

Live commentary on Playchess

Links Official tournament site Download all LCC games + KO games + Open games 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 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.