Another week, another record attempt. The world champion, Magnus Carlsen, makes his first visit to Scotland this weekend, with serious chances to improve his all-time best 2919 rapid chess rating. The Norwegian’s six games in a double-round rapidplay, starting at 1.30pm both on Saturday and on Sunday, will be live and free on chess24.com with grandmaster commentary by Daniel King.
Carlsen will take on India’s former champion Vishy Anand, China’s world No 3, Ding Liren, and Russia’s 2016 title challenger Sergey Karjakin in the double-round Lindores Abbey Stars. The event is staged at the historic Lindores Abbey distillery in Newburgh, Fife, which will issue a limited edition of its Aqua Vitae spirit to mark the occasion.
Carlsen reached a rapid rating of 2903 earlier this month at Abidjan, Ivory Coast, just short of his record 2919 set in July 2017. He is 58 points ahead of his nearest rival, the US champion, Hikaru Nakamura, but will be expected to improve further. In the 28-year-old’s favour are his good personal results against the opposition trio, the better chances of decisive results in rapidplay compared with classical, and the higher gearing of rapidplay events, with a rating coefficient of 20 rather than 10 in classical.
Why Lindores Abbey distillery? The majority shareholders in the firm are Russian and are friends of the RCF president, Andrey Filatov, who has a significant record as a chess sponsor. Filatov was the main backer of the 2012 world championship match in Moscow where Anand retained his crown against Israel’s Boris Gelfand and he also paid for the restoration of the legendary Alexander Alekhine’s grave in Paris after it was damaged by a storm.
Carlsen is currently one of the most active world champions in chess history, to the delight of chess fans everywhere. One week after Lindores Abbey he will compete in two tough classical events, Altibox Norway in Stavanger starting 3 June and Zagreb, Croatia, beginning 24 June. His current classical rating is 2875 and the targets within reach are his personal peaks of 2882 (month end) and 2889 (daily calculation on 2700chess.com) and then a round 2900.
Meanwhile the Moscow Fide Grand Prix, a significant event in the long process to decide Carlsen’s 2020 world title challenger, has reached its semi-finals. Russia’s Alexander Grischuk defeated America’s Nakamura 1.5-0.5 on Friday, while Poland’s Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi go into Saturday speed tie-breaks after drawing both classical games.
Wojtaszek has been the big surprise, eliminating two opponents without the need for tie-breaks and thus gaining bonus points and the early lead in the Grand Prix series.
The Grand Prix also includes 16-player knockouts in Riga, Hamburg and Tel Aviv. Competitors play in three events, and at the end of the series the two who have accumulated most points earn the real prizes, places in the 2020 candidates which will decide Carlsen’s next challenger.
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Hikaru Nakamura v Teimour Radjabov, Moscow Grand Prix 2019
Nakamura, the US champion, an expert at exploiting small advantages, uses central space to effect in this subtle win where a routine Queen’s Gambit becomes a debate on whether White can prevent queen and rook exchanges on the open d file.
Key moves are 20 Bd3! to control e4 and 23 h4! where Harry the h pawn probes for later weaknesses around the black king. Radjabov misses the best counter 23…Ne7! with the idea of exchanges on d5 which open up e6 for Black’s second knight. Black avoids 26…Rd8? 27 Rxd8 Qxd8 28 Qb7! but White piles on the pressure by 33 Nh4! and 34 f4! supporting Harry’s earlier probe.
The final error is 35…e5? where Qc5! and Qe5+ would harass the white king, and Nakamura wraps up by 37 Ng6! (Thank you, Harry) and a deft king march to escape the black queen’s checks.
1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 d5 4 Nc3 Be7 5 Bg5 h6 6 Bh4 dxc4 7 e3 c5 8 Bxc4 cxd4 9 Nxd4 O-O 10 O-O Bd7 11 Qe2 Nc6 12 Rfd1 Qb6 13 Nf3 Rfd8 14 e4 Be8 15 e5 Nd7 16 Bxe7 Nxe7 17 Rd6 Qa5 18 Rad1 Nf5 19 R6d2 Nf8 20 Bd3! Bc6 21 Be4 Rxd2 22 Rxd2 Rc8 23 h4! a6? 24 h5 b5 25 a3 Bxe4 26 Qxe4 Qb6! 27 Kh2 Qa7 28 Qd3 Rc7 29 Ne4 Rd7 30 Nd6 Qb6 31 g4 Nxd6 32 exd6 f6 33 Nh4! Kf7 34 f4! Ke8 35 f5 e5? 36 Qd5 Qe3 37 Ng6! Nxg6 38 hxg6 Qf4+ 39 Kh3 Qf1+ 40 Kh4 Qe1+ 41 Kh5! 1-0
3620 1 Re4! Rxb4?? (Bc3 should draw) 2 Be1! Rc4 3 Rxd4! Rxd4 4 Bc3 wins the rook and the game.
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