Shamkir Chess 2019: Round 9

Round 9

World Champion Magnus Carlsen heads the field in the 6th edition of the Shamkir Chess tournament in memory of Vugar Gashimov, a 10-player round-robin  from March 31st to April 9th. He'll be joined by Ding Liren, Anish Giri, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Viswanathan Anand, Alexander Grischuk, Teimour Radjabov, Sergey Karjakin, Veselin Topalov and David Navara.

Round-up show

The tournament is once again a 10-player round-robin and sports a total prize fund of €100,000, with €30,000 for first place. The time control is a leisurely 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30 seconds per move increment starting from move 61.

Round 8: Carlsen clinches

Live games and commentary

Master Class Vol.8: Magnus Carlsen

Scarcely any world champion has managed to captivate chess lovers to the extent Carlsen has. The enormously talented Norwegian hasn't been systematically trained within the structures of a major chess-playing nation such as Russia, the Ukraine or China.

Current standings

Round-up show

IM Lawrence Trent reviews the highlights of the eigth round
All round-up shows from videos.chessbase.com

Results of Round 8

Players

My Career Vol. 1

The first DVD with videos from Anand's chess career reflects the very beginning of that career and goes as far as 1999. It starts with his memories of how he first learned chess and shows his first great games (including those from the 1984 WCh for juniors). The high point of his early developmental phase was the winning of the 1987 WCh for juniors. After that, things continue in quick succession: the first victories over Kasparov, WCh candidate in both the FIDE and PCA cycles and the high point of the WCh match against Kasparov in 1995.
Running time: 3:48 hours

Magnus Carlsen is back for the fourth time. In his three previous visits to Shamkir he has left with the winner's trophy each time. (Mamedyarov won the other two.)

The players list closely resembles the 2018 roster, but now has six members of the world's Top 10, with Vishy Anand replacing Radoslaw Wojtaszek while Rauf Mammadov is traded up for Alexander Grischuk — making his Shamkir debut. So, there will be a former World Champion and a host of challengers and candidates joining the current World Champion!

The 2019 field

Schedule

Round 1: March 31st, 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EDT)
Round 2: April 1st, 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EDT)
Round 3: April 2nd, 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EDT)
Round 4: April 3rd, 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EDT)
Round 5: April 4th, 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EDT)
Rest day: April 5th
Round 6: April 6th, 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EDT)
Round 7: April 7th, 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EDT)
Round 8: April 8th, 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EDT)
Round 9: April 9th, 12:00 CEST (6:00 AM EDT)

Venue

Shamkir is the eighth largest city in Azerbaijan, about 40 kilometres northwest of Ganja — the location of the nearest airport.

Links

• Official site: ShamkirChess.com
• All stories on Shamkir Chess 2019