12/14/2015 – Three players finished with 5.5/9 points, leading to a very exciting three-way playoff. Due to the nature of the rules, Vachier-Lagrave and Giri first squared off, with MVL prevailing in a dramatic turnaround. He then faced Carlsen for the title. More playoff tension, but in the end Magnus Carlsen claimed both the London Classic title and the Grand Chess Tour. Express report.
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Considered a master of prophylaxis, Petrosian sensed dangers long before they actually became acute on the board. In his prime, Petrosian was almost invincible. Let our authors introduce you into the world of Tigran Petrosian.
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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.
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. Below are the four most-watched boards.
Round 9 Sunday 13 Dec, 14.00-21.00
Viswanathan Anand
½-½
Anish Giri
Michael Adams
½-½
Fabiano Caruana
Levon Aronian
½-½
M Vachier-Lagrave
Magnus Carlsen
1-0
Alexander Grischuk
Hikaru Nakamura
½-½
Veselin Topalov
Playoff
Tiebreak regulations:
Three Players: The two players placed lowest on tiebreak shall contest a two game Rapidplay match at a time limit of Game / 25 mins + 5 secs / move throughout. Lots shall be drawn to decide which player has White in the first game. If the two game Rapidplay match is drawn the players shall contest an Armageddon Game. The successful player in that game shall then play the player with the highest tiebreak in accordance with the procedure for two players specified in Regulation 6.
Match one
Player
G1
G2
G3
Total
M. Vachier-Lagrave
0
1
1
2.0
Anish Giri
1
0
0
1.0
Game one: For many, the appearance of the Berlin in game one was synonymous of groans, but Anish Giri's play as black was nearly exemplary to the very end as he made it almost look like a walk in the park. MVL eventually conceded after 43 moves, and will have a significant mountain to climb as he faces a must-win with black in game two. The stakes could not be higher: the overall winner will not only win the London Chess Classic tournament, he will win the entire Grand Chess Tour.
Game two: At the top, the players are quick to point out that if White refuses to fight, there is very little Black can do about it. Anish Giri showed how true that can be as he chose the Fianchetto line against the Gruenfeld and was content to kill any of MVL's ambitions in their tracks. The Frenchman did his best but was never able to generate any play, until late in the endgame, MVL began to see a light at the end of the tunnel. What had seemed like a done deal in favor of Anish Giri was suddenly no longer obvious, and in the mad time scramble the Frenchman pulled off his miracle.
Armageddon: Being described as the most solid player of the Grand Chess Tour is a mixed blessing as Anish Giri found out. In the Armageddon game, the young Dutch player had White, which meant a draw was effectively a loss. MVL's renowned blitz skills came to the fore as he did more than hold with black and dominated the game to reserve a seat for a showdown with the World Champion.
Match two
Player
G1
G2
G3
Total
Magnus Carlsen
1
½
1.5
M. Vachier-Lagrave
0
½
0.5
Game one: It was a strange choice by MVL, who played his pet Sicilian, but somehow went for a line that allowed a form of Maroczy bind. This was the sort of position Carlsen lives for and the ensuing middlegame seemed all in his favor as he built a huge position. Incredibly, just when it seemed only a matter of time, the World Champion began to falter at the finish line and a number of inaccuracies saw a huge advantage dissipate and the game seemed destined for a draw. Then Magnus pulled off his magic as he played one simple move that confused his opponent, and showing that even the very best can err in basic endgames, MVL lost.
Game two: It became clear fairly soon that MVL was still not recovered from his shock loss in the previous game, and a number of dubious positional moves that left grandmasters perplexed eventually led to a worse and even lost game. Magnus felt no need to push the point, content to draw, winning both the London Chess Classic and the Grand Chess Tour.
Video of round nine
Replay games of round nine and playoff (with times per move)
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.
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Videos: Robert Ris shows new ideas in the Sicilian Four Knights. English expert Mihail Marin checks 1.c4 e5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 Bc5 starting from So-Caruana (Superbet Chess Classic 2021). "Lucky bag" with analyses by Nielsen, Praggnanandhaa et al.
Smyslov cultivated a clear positional style and even in sharp tactical positions often relied more on his intuition than on concrete calculation of variations. Let our authors introduce you into the world of Vasily Smyslov.
Caro-Kann Powerbase 2021 is a database and contains a total of 9549 games from Mega 2021 or the Correspondence Database 2020, of which 745 are annotated.
The major part of the material on which the Caro-Kann Powerbook 2021 is based is taken from the engine room of playchess.com: 736 000 games. To that imposing corpus we have added another 58 000 games from Mega and from correspondence chess.
1...e5 against the English is a theoretically sound response with good chances of equality or better in all variations, and in this video series I provide a complete Black repertoire based on this move.
London System PowerBase 2021 is a database and contains in all 7482 games from Mega 2021 and the Correspondence Database 2020, of which 206 are annotated.
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