Sinquefield 05: Is he human!?

2014 Sinquefield Cup This super-GM double round robin tournament is being played from August 27th to September 7th. It is billed as the strongest tournament in the history of chess. The players – Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Fabiano Caruana (Italy), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France) – are the world's number 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 9, the average rating is 2801, making this the first ever Category XXIII tournament! The prize fund is US $315,000 in total, with the winner getting $100,000, the runner up $75,00, and the rest $50,000 – $20,000. The venue is the Chess Club and Scholastic Center at 4657 Maryland Avenue, Saint Louis, MO 63108. Tickets cost $15 per round, $65 for five rounds and $100 for all ten rounds.

Round Five

It is almost unprecedented. Fabiano Caruana's spectacular start to the tournament has attracted the attention of every person in the chess world. When asked about Caruana's start on the event, the sponsor of the tournament, Rex Sinquefield, commented that "Had you bet on that, somebody would have taken you away and locked you up, because you'd be certifiably insane.". And that was before today's round.

Karjakin started 4-0 in the 2013 edition of Norway's super tournament in Stavanger, but was unable to win the fifth game. Shirov started 5-0 in the 2010 edition of Wijk Aan Zee, but his opposition was far below what Caruana has faced here.

A big crowd gather just before the start of the game

The Internet Broadcast provided by Maurice Ashley, Jennifer Shahade and Yasser Seirawan have been asking the player's if the tournament "was over" after Caruana started with a 3.0/3 start. Almost unanimously people said it was too early to tell.

After 4.0/4 the answers did not change much. But after today both Topalov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave admitted that the tournament was probably over in terms of fighting for first place. A massive 2.5 point advantage going into the second half of the tournament, combined with Caruana's fine play so far, just seems to make the Italian player unreachable. Oh, and he did it by playing with one more black than white.

Nakamura, Hikaru 0-1 Caruana, Fabiano
The line chosen against Caruana's Slav was not the most testing, but somehow Caruana made a slight error and Nakamura's pair of bishops must have given him some pressure. However in the middlegame things went wrong for the American: he underestimated Caruana's counterplay and swiftly Black's pieces jumped into action. White found himself against the ropes, jettisoned a pawn to save the ship but it was too late.

Nakamura's calculation has been off in this tournament,
not what the American has us used to

The combined power of Black's extra pawn and his excellently placed pieces plus the awkwardness of White's dark-squared bishop was sufficient to give Black a decisive advantage. Caruana missed a shot at one point to finish the game swiftly, but his advantage was still good enough to win a very long game.

Caruana actually made a mistake today, but his position was still good enough to win

This has become Caruana's typical thinking pose, with his ears covered pressing on his eyeglasses

Nakamura meanwhile tends to cover his eyes when he senses that he is in trouble

Aronian, Levon 0-1 Carlsen, Magnus
Something else unheard of has happened in Saint Louis: Aronian has lost a third time in a row. He has been reportedly complaining of problems with his nose (he had an operation recently) and we can only hope that he finds swift recovery on the rest day.

Carlsen played a good game, but it is more accurate
to say that Aronian lost rather than Carlsen won

In today's game Aronian obtained very little from the opening, and Carlsen equalized quite comfortably. When the Armenian sensed that he was in danger of falling into a worse position he cleverly sacrificed a weak pawn to gain some counterplay, and it should have been sufficient for a draw. However he lost his way and kept giving Carlsen more and more chances. A complicated rook endgame was reached, one in which Topalov (who joined us in the live commentary at Lester's Sports Bar next to the Chess Club) assessed as "probably drawn".

Aronian will need to find his shape back for the second half of the event

Yet an inexplicable and fatal mistake allowed Carlsen to win a second pawn thanks to a basic skewer, and the game was simply over after that.

Topalov, Veselin 1-0 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime
MVL returned to his Najdorf after the disastrous result with the Caro-Kann against Caruana. He obtained decent counter-chances in a topical line of this opening, and a complex middlegame was reached.

MVL made the strange decision to go for a position with opposite colored bishops, but one in which Black simply did not have any activity. Even trading queens was not a viable option; Topalov explained how the endgame should be technically winning due to Black's weak queenside pawns.

Topalov had a risk-free advantage after the opening, a dream position to push for a win

The Frenchman made it even easier for the Bulgarian as he underestimated a strong rook maneuver that installed White's rook on the seventh rank. MVL resigned in a position that many would have played on, but to be fair the result would not have changed.

MVL's choice of defensive set-up was not the best today. He must have
underestimated how weak his position became in the endgames.

Select from the dropdown menu to replay the games

Commentary provided by Grandmaster Varuzhan Akobian, who is doing live commentary for the Saint Louis Chess Club at the World Chess Hall of Fame, across the street from the Chess Club.

Standings

Photos by Lennart Ootes and Kevin Duggin

Pairings

Games start at 2 p.m. local time (21:00h CEST, 23:00h Moscow, Thursday 0:30 New Delhi, 04:00h Tokyo, 05:00 Canberra – check your location here).

Playoffs, if necessary, will be on the 7th at noon.

The games will be broadcast live on Playchess, with expert analysis (see schedule below).

Broadcast Schedule

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN 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 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.