The Sinquefield Cup took place from September 9th to 15th at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. It brought together the top two players in the world as well as the top two Americans in a double round robin. In the first round Magnus Carlsen faced Gata Kamsky, who played the Bf5 variation of the a6 Slav – something Carlsen certainly was not expecting. Kamsky quickly got an advantage on the clock and a solid but passive position – very much his style.
Gata Kamsky vs Magnus Carlsen in round one of the Sinquefield Cup 2013
Tryfon Gavriel, also known as "Kingscrusher" on the Internet, is a FIDE Candidate Master (CM), British Regional Chess Master, and has run a popular Youtube channel for many years. He also does the weekly "Kingscrusher Radio show" on Playchess.com on Tuesday evenings at 21:00 GMT. Kingscrusher is also the Webmaster of the correspondence style chess server Chessworld.net. Here is his analysis, recorded a day after the game was played.
"Tigran Petrosian would be proud of this game", says Tryfon in conclusion.
The Sixth FIDE Grand Prix in Paris was staged in late September and was the tournament that determined the last qualifiers for the Candidates tournament for the next World Chess Championship cycle. After nine rounds American GM Hikaru Nakamura was in the sole lead, with 6.0/9 points (and a 2862 performance). Fabiano Caruana and Boris Gelfand were half a point behind. In round ten Gelfand used some powerful preparation and a strong follow-up to take down Nakamura and steal the leading position from him.
"Is Boris Gelfand the strongest Sicilian Najdorf player in 2013?" asks Tryfon Gavrie in his 24-minute analysis and evaluation of Gelfand's performance in this key game of the tournament.
"What a game, what a vicious game from Black!" says Tryfon in conclusion. "I would personally vote Boris Gelfand the strongest, most fierce Sicilian Najdorf player of 2013."
This is how the Paris Grand Prix ended:
