Magnus Carlsen wins Leuven with three-point lead

The Leuven tournament of the Grand Chess Tour is running from June 28 to July 2 in Leuven, Belgium. It is a combination of Rapid and Blitz games. The ten participants are Magnus Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Viswanathan Anand, Wesley So, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Levon Aronian, Vladimir Kramnik, Anish Giri, Vassily Ivanchuk, and Baadur Jobava. They will play nine rapid games, three a day, from June 28–30. Each day the games will start at 14:00h, 15:30h and 17:00h European Standard Summer Time. The Blitz tournament is on July 1-2, with nine rounds on each day, starting at 14:00h. The total prize fund is $150,000!

Note that the event is using the Bronstein mode: the players have 25 minutes for all the moves of a rapid game, and a ten second delay per move. This means that the clock does not run for ten seconds – the point is that you cannot accumulate time by playing very quickly in the Bronstein Mode.

Day five

All photos by Lennart Ootes

For five day, the residents and chess fans of Leuven were treated to some of the best chess in the world, all in an exciting and dynamic format

To be honest, I didn't follow today's games live. It was the case of too much of a good thing. I was simply tired of watching them play, probably as tired as Magnus Carlsen was of winning and Baadur Jobava was of losing. So, I spent the first half of the day outdoors, away from the computer, and made a point of not even checking the results on my cellphone.

A young fan is invited to make the inaugural move in the game between Magnus Carlsen and Vishy Anand

When I came home, looking over the games, I found the superlative quality I had expected, and share here a few that caught my fancy. Please, take a look.

Vassily Ivanchuk had a great day, scoring 6.5/9, only to be outdone by Carlsen himself (7.0/9)

Vassily Ivanchuk - Levon Aronian

While Maxime Vachier-Lagrave placed an excellent third place in Leuven, after coming second in Paris, had he shown the same blitz acuity in Leuven as he had in Paris, he might have been challenging Carlsen once more for the top honors

Vachier-Lagrave tried to make a push to catch So in the race of second place, but ultimately came short by just half a point in the combined standings. That key half-point may have been lost in the following game.

Magnus Carlsen - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

Down goes Kramnik! Jobava finally wins one for his army of fans. It wasn't very pretty, but I'm sure Baadur was happy to take it.

Baadur Jobava - Vladimir Kramnik

After his super win in the Rapid phase, losing to Magnus Carlsen by three points in the combined standings has to be a bitter pill for Wesley So to swallow, even if he did come clear second

Along with his old rival Kramnik, Vishy Anand seemed to run out of gas toward the end. However, in the following game a lot of credit is due to Aronian's imaginative play.

Levon Aronian - Vishy Anand

Ian ended his Leuven campaign on a sad note. A win in the last round would have vaulted him two spots up in the final standings, good for an extra $5000 in prize money, and two Tour points. Ian surely picked the wrong spot for yet another opening disaster.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave - Ian Nepomniachtchi

I'm very much impressed with the way Anish Giri handled this tournament. Being a wild-card invitee, Anish has no stake in the Tour, but he made another step toward reasserting himself as a dangerous competitor. Watch out for Giri in the Geneva Grand Prix that starts in a few days – he's not out of the running yet.

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Time to look at the standings after the first two legs of the 2017 Tour. I think it's already over as far as the first place goes. Carlsen totaled 25 points, and I cannot see Magnus ever relinquishing his lead whatever his much publicized struggles in Classical might be. Even a bad Carlsen will rack up some points from the two remaining events to put it out of reach for anybody else. If anything, I expect him to win the Sinquefield Cup and make it official with one tournament to spare.

Group shot of all the players (click image for full-size)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems this year's tour only offers two overall prizes: $100 thousand to 1st, and $50 thousand to 2nd. It is not very inclusive, and it'll put a good half of the field out of the running way before the finish line. For that 2nd prize I see a three-man race between So, Vachier-Lagrave, and, who else, Nakamura.

The first two, and, more importantly, Carlsen along with them, are done with Rapid/Blitz events. In absence of some of the best speed players, the St. Louis Rapid/Blitz, scheduled to be held right after the Sinquefield Cup, seems a golden opportunity for Hikaru to take home the maximum haul of 13 Tour points. Of course, Fabiano and others may have their own ideas. We shall see.

Final rapid crosstable

(Click for full size)

*Note: All rapid games are worth double
**Note: FIDE Rapid ratings are used in crosstable.

Final blitz crosstable

(Click for full size)

*Note: FIDE Blitz ratings are used in crosstable.

Combined standings

Links

• Official tournament site
• All Rapid games in PGN or Replay them directly here (many analyzed)
• All Blitz 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.