2009 was a tough year, also for the chess world. Sponsors left, prize funds were lowered and in one (quite important) event the list of participants counted just four players. But it was also an interesting year, with successes for rising stars as well as experienced grandmasters. Let’s look back at the chess year that’s behind us, in our traditional annual survey.

Like we did on December 31 last year, the year before and the year before that, here’s our annual survey of 2009.

One of the first strong round-robins finishing in the new year is always Reggio Emilia. In 2009 the Chinese rising start Ni Hua clinched the title in the small Italian town convincingly. He ended 1.5 points ahead of number 2 Zoltan Almasi! In a very strong period Ni Hua collected enough rating points to pass the 2700 barrier, which got him an invitation for the London Chess Classic at the end of the year.

Another early winner was Peter Svidler, who won the Aker Chess Challenge in Gjovik, Norway. In the final he defeated Magnus Carlsen, who at that point had no idea yet that 2009 would go down into history as the year he would rise to the absolute top. Vassily Ivanchuk is known for his many ups and downs, but he started his chess year well with a 3.5-2.5 rapid victory against Peter Leko. Our next two items in January both provoked many comments. In the column ‘The new founding fathers in chess?’ we compared remarks by Henrik Carlsen (representing his son Magnus) and Vladimir Kramnik on the world championship cycle and their ideas for a future set-up. It was interesting to see that Kramnik’s opinion seemed diametrically opposed to Carlsen’s. The next day we reported about a 14-year-old chess player from Australia who had been caught cheating with a Playstation Portable, but instead of just bringing the news, we asked our readers the question whether cheating is always newsworthy.

The year 2009 made clear once more that successful chess players are getting younger and younger. Just before Corus the big news was that a 9-year-old player in India had beaten a GM. We’ll probably hear more about Hetul Shah soon. But of course the Corus Chess Tournament itself confirmed this trend much better: the headline of our final report, ‘Youth triumphs at Corus 2009′, said enough. It had been a wonderful success for Sergei Karjakin, Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So.

Also for the ChessVibes team 2009 was quite an interesting year. We tried some new things, and the first was launched just before Corus. We’re still quite proud of our very first product, ChessVibes Openings, which reached it’s 52nd issue this week! I’m not an objective person here, but when I try to forget that I’m the publisher and pretend I’m only a chess player, I must say IMs Merijn van Delft and Robert Ris have done an awesome job in keeping track of the opening developments, every week, without taking a single week off. Great stuff guys!

February was the month of Linares (as always) and the month of Kamsky-Topalov. To start with the latter: it was a controversial match for several reasons. The history of how the match finally got there is a story in itself, and how it was organized in Sofia was another matter. For the journalists who had travelled to the Bulgarian capital it was a disappointing event (they were well quarantined off from the players, taking a back seat to local television) and for several online spectators as well. They became victim of what seems like a war between the Bulgarians and Chessbase, who were threatened with legal actions if they would continue broadcasting the match at Playchess. This situation would repeat during the MTel Masters in May. Our column about copyright and chess moves provoked 127 comments. We’d almost forget that Topalov won the match after volatile play from both players. The Bulgarian thus qualified for next year’s World Championship match against the reigning champ, Viswanathan Anand.

Linares saw a slightly surprising, but no less deserved winner in Alexander Grischuk. The Russian grandmaster won on tiebreak after finishing shared first with Vassily Ivanchuk, and after Sergei Karjakin he was the second qualifier for the Bilbao Grand Slam Final in September. However, arguably the biggest news story of February was Shakhriyar Mamedyarov accusing Igor Kurnosov of cheating, just after their game in round 6 of the Aeroflot Open. As far as we know thus far Mamedyarov hasn’t apologized to Kurnosov, despite the fact that almost anybody in the chess world agrees on the simple rule that, despite feeling pretty sure about it, one should never express such accusations without proof (and comparing moves with Rybka’s choices can never be called proof).

Every year in March the crème de la crème of elite chess gathers for 11 rapid and 11 blindfold games: the Amber tournament. This year the tournament was held in Nice for the second time, and again Macauley Peterson and I made daily videos. Levon Aronian successfully defended his title. Vladimir Kramnik won the blindfold section on tiebreak, finishing shared first with 7/11 together with Carlsen and Aronian. The rapid section also ended in a tie, between Anand, Kamsky (!) and Aronian.

In 2009 I visited less tournaments and so I created less videos than the year before. However, one I quite like was created close to home, early April: about Amsterdam chess cafe the Laurierboom. If you’ve missed it you can still watch it here. In the same month a sad incident involved one of our editors, IM Robert Ris. He was one of the victims of tournament organizer Gabor Pali, who damaged both the hotel and the participants of a closed round-robin financially. The Barcza Memorial was cancelled after one round when it became clear that Pali never paid anyone and wasn’t planning to.

Later in April, the 4th FIDE Grand Prix started in Nalchik, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, and I was there to do videos. It was quite a nice event, but also tough and long. After 13 rounds, Levon Aronian won his second tournament in two months. He had been leading together with Peter Leko with one round to go, in which they were paired against each other. The Armenian beat the Hungarian nicely. One of the participants was Sergei Karjakin and during the tournament he announced that he and his family would move to Russia and become Russian citizens. “I need to train with good coaches” was his explanation, and in fact his coach in Nalchik was former second of Garry Kasparov: Yuri Dokhoian.

April-May was also the period of the lengthy debate on the K-factor. At the President’s Cup, a rapid event held in Baku, Azerbaijan was crushed by the ‘FIDE World’ team led by Anand and Kramnik. Pavel Eljanov had a very good year, and among his successes was his victory at the Bosna tournament. We had an exclusive interview with the Ukrainian. In a crucial last-round encounter, Alexei Shirov defeated Magnus Carlsen to win this year’s MTel Masters. Also with him we had an exclusive interview, this time on video. Together with Gelfand’s victory at the ACP World Rapid Cup it was a good month for the older generation.

Vassily Ivanchuk, who had scored badly in Nalchik and Sofia, used a medicine that only works for him: play more chess! He defeated David Navara 5.5-2.5 in a rapid match in Prague (and a month later he would win in Bazna). In a similar (rapid) format, Viswanathan Anand defeated Peter Leko 5-3 and in yet another rapid event which I visited in Leon, Spain it was Magnus Carlsen who finally grabbed a first prize.

To China’s growing number of strong grandmasters, another name was added this year. 16-year-old Ding Liren won the Chinese Championship after a surreal finish which involved an incident related to the zero-tolerance rule. Russian rising star Alexander Motylev ended first at the Poikovsky tournament. In a year with mixed results, Ivan Cheparinov had one big success: his first place at the Ruy Lopez tournament in Zafra, Spain.

On the day that Michael Jackson passed away, the rapid match in Paris between Armenia and France ended in a 19.5-12.5. On July 1st, 2009 the new FIDE Laws of Chess were introduced (and to our surprise this received little attention in other media). In a very Drawful Dortmund Vladimir Kramnik clinched his 9th (!) title.

After winning the US Championship earlier in the year, Hikaru Nakamura collected even more rating points in San Sebastian. The American grandmaster won the tournament using his speciality: blitz chess. He beat Ruslan Ponomariov 2-0 in the tiebreak (here on video).

After an earlier, partly successful attempt with a Silverlight game viewer, we introduced ChessTempo’s game viewer in Javascript and we’re still quite happy with it. It’s Javacript and so it works like a charm in almost any browser, including the special version of Safari running on iPhones. (And that was how the voluntary guard at the London Chess Classic was following the games: on his phone, via the live page of ChessVibes!)

A great result for the new generation was scored by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who won Biel at the end of July. His game against Morozevich was one of the gems of 2009. Nakamura continued his fanastic year so far by winning the Chess960 section of the Rapid World Championships in Mainz. Success and failure were closely connected in Mainz: on the second day of the unofficial Rapid World Championship, eleven times winner Viswanathan Anand failed to qualify for the final. An era came to an end. This one was won by Levon Aronian; Mamedyarov took the Ordix Open title.

A much more important result for Aronian, however, was his second place at the Grand Prix in Jermuk (where Ivanchuk emerged as the winner). With this result, Armenia’s number one player secured overall victory in the FIDE Grand Prix Series with one tournament still to be played. Also in August, ten world famous chess champions gathered in Zurich, where Kramnik won the rapid tournament. By now traditionally, the month ended with the Rising Stars vs Experience tournament in Amsterdam. Again Macauley and I made daily videos at the event, where the Experience team won and Jan Smeets qualified for Amber 2010.

September started with chess reaching main stream media, but as so often it wasn’t a story that improved the reputation of the royal game. At the Kolkata Open in India, French top GM Vladislav Tkachiev showed up drunk at the venue and fell asleep several times during a game. Eventually he had to be carried off. Later Tkachiev would apologize.

Then, on September 7th, a long period started in which Magnus Carlsen would make the headlines. On that day his cooperation with Garry Kasparov was made public. “The goal is to make the Norwegian, who currently ranks as the fourth-best chess player in the world, the world’s best during the course of the coming year. (…)” was written in the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang. Who would have guessed that just four months later this goal would be reached? No doubt “the world’s best” needs to be read as “World Champion” by now! In any case, we had an exclusive interview with Carlsen about the matter and later we published Kasparov’s side of the story.

Levon Aronian scored yet another success in Bilbao, where he won the second Grand Slam final. Winning four games in a row, he eventually finished five points ahead of Grischuk (one and a half according to the classical system). With our Dutch roots it wasn’t too difficult to have the scoop on the ‘Tiviakov story’: the already seriously weakened Dutch Championship lost its top seed after the third round. Tivi had prearranged a draw for his last-round game on Sunday and had told the organizers that he couldn’t attend the closing ceremony and possible tiebreaks. This was not accepted, after which Tiviakov decided to withdraw immediately. ChessVibes spoke with all people involved.

Also in September, I had the opportunity to get one player before the camera (and even ask a few questions) whom I had never seen playing before. No-one less than Garry Kasparov himself played chess again! His opponent was his old nemesis Anatoly Karpov, and the two played a rapid and blitz match in Valencia, Spain. Unfortunately Karpov wasn’t up to the challenge; Kasparov won easily (9-3).

Soon it was Carlsen, Carlsen, Carlsen again. For a while it was the only name to be heard in the chess world, but it was fully deserved. By winning the Pearl Spring Grand Slam tournament with a devastating 8 out 10 and an unbelievable 3002 performance rating, dropping just four half points with the black pieces in ten games against the world’s best, Magnus took home € 80,000 and a total of 28.8 rating points. In doing so he broke the magical 2800 barrier.

It was also a period chuck full of strong chess tournaments, that lasted until the rest of the year. There was the European Club Cup, the European Team Championship, Hoogeveen (with videos!), the Anand-Karpov rapid match, the World Youth (another victory for Vachier-Lagrave).

The next big event was the biggest event of 2009: the Tal Memorial. For a tournament with Anand, Aronian Carlsen, Kramnik, Leko, Gelfand, Ivanchuk, Morozevich, Svidler and Ponomariov we couldn’t resist the temptation – we just had to bring live coverage. It was quite successful, and we repeated the service during the semi-final and final of the World Cup, and the London Chess Classic. Unfortunately we couldn’t welcome enough subscribers to continue it as a paid service in 2010, but we will do our best to find other ways to fund it. Because it’s just too much fun not to have it. Before I forget, Vladimir Kramnik won this super-tournament in Moscow, and Magnus Carlsen took the (world) blitz title. (Not long afterwards, Carlsen unofficially ‘lost’ that title to Hikaru Nakamura at the BNBank tournament.)

For the chess fan who still had some appetite left for top chess, there was the World Cup, which lasted no less than 23 days. Few of you will hear something new when I mention the semi-finalists: Karjakin, Malakhov, Gelfand and Ponomariov. The latter two played the final and 41-year-old top seed Boris Gelfand eventually took home the first prize of US $120,000. In London Magnus Carlsen finished a fantastic second half of 2009 by winning the Chess Classic with three wins and four draws, in a wonderfully organized event where it was a joy to work and create a few more videos.

At the end of month and the year, Korchnoi and Spassky played a match in Elista that ended in 4-4 and Alexander Grischuk won the Russian superfinal.

Before I end this survey I’d like to mention the many thought-provoking columns by Arne, his book reviews, the ‘Beauty in chess’ series by Michael, the weekly endgame studies by Yochanan and the reports written by Merijn and Robert. Enough material for a second look, on a free New Year’s Day perhaps!?

With this we come to an end of this annual survey, and of the chess year 2009. The ChessVibes team thanks you for your support and your comments, and we wish everyone a healthy 2009, with happy chess and good vibes!

• I manager dei due giocatori, Silvio Danailov e Aruna Anand, hanno recentemente chiuso gli accordi ad Atene.
• Il periodo di gioco è : 23 Aprile ( 1° round) - 12 Maggio (spareggi)
  
• 12 partite a cadenza classica + 4 eventuali spareggi rapid in caso di parità
• 2 Milioni di euro la borsa

Anand - Kramnik  2008  ( mondiale in Germania )

Game 1 - Slav Exchange (replay)
Game 2 - Nimzo Indian Saemisch (replay)
Game 3 - Queens Gambit Meran (replay)
Game 4 - QGD (replay)
Game 5 - Queens Gambit Meran (replay)
Game 6 - Nimzo Indian (replay)
Game 7 - Slav Defence (replay)
Game 8 - QGD Ragozin (replay)
Game 9 - Anti-Meran Gambit (replay)
Game 10 - Nimzo Indian (replay)
Game 11 - Sicilian Naidorf (replay)

Topalov - Kamsky  2009  (sfida dei candidati in Bulgaria)

Game 1 Gruenfeld 1/2:1/2 (replay game)
Game 2 - Ruy Lopez 0:1 (replay game)
Game 3 - Gruenfeld Botvinnik 1/2:1/2 (replay game)
Game 4 - Ruy Lopez Chigorin 1:0 (replay game)
Game 5 - French Tarrasch 1:0 (replay game)
Game 6 - Caro Kann 1/2:1/2 (replay game)
Game 7 - French Tarrasch 1:0 (replay game)

In a spectacular first round of the M-Tel Masters, top seed Veselin Topalov lost with Black against Magnus Carlsen. 2008 winner Vassily Ivanchuk made a big mistake in the opening and went down very quickly against Shirov while Wang Yue missed a win against Dominguez; the two drew the longest game of the round.

The 5th M-Tel Masters takes place May 12th to 23rd in a glass pavilion on the square in front of the National Theatre Ivan Vazov in Sofia, Bulgaria. It’s a six-player double round-robin with Carlsen, Dominguez, Ivanchuk, Shirov, Topalov and Wang Yue playing. The time control is 90 minutes for 40 moves per player and 60 minutes per player till the end of the game. “Sofia rules” will again be used, so draw offers can be made only through the chief arbiter in the case of a threefold repetition, perpetual check or a theoretically draw position.

Round 1

Although the tournament is being held for the fifth time already, apparently technical problems can still pop up as uninvited guests anywhere, and at any moment. Just like at the President’s Cup in Baku last week, the live broadcast of the first round in Sofia was a disaster, as no single move was transmitted on the official website the whole day. Only after the round had finished, the games became available for download.

It was slightly ironic, since the game viewer had the same note as was shown during the Topalov-Kamsky match, saying it’s prohibited to broadcast the games live on other websites without the permission of the organizers. And, especially in a tournament that is famous for setting new standards, it was just unacceptable.

But let’s quickly go to the games, which many of you haven’t seen yet. Naturally everyone is curious to see how Alexei Shirov will fare at this tournament, since his last super tournament was the Tal Memorial in August last year, where he finished last with 3/11. In the first round of M-Tel this year he played against Vassily Ivanchuk, the winner of that Tal Memorial and of course of last year’s M-Tel.

However, thus far 2009 has clearly not been Chuky’s year. Not the fact that he lost with White, but the way he did it, in just 24 moves, makes you wonder if he doesn’t play a bit too much chess. In a variation of the 3.Bb5+ Sicilian where he invented an important novelty himself for Black in 2003, he must have mixed up something as he was soon worse, and then quickly lost.

A good start for Alexei Shirov

The next game, the clash between top seeds Carlsen and Topalov, was the second one that got a decisive result on the official website and thus made the fans eager to see the moves. It turned out to be a very strong game by Carlsen, who out-calculated Topalov in the middlegame.

An excellent first-round win for Carlsen

Co-editor IM Merijn van Delft expressed an interesting feeling: “M-Tel might be the beginning of a new era of chess in which all that’s left is concrete moves”. He was referring to both the concrete variations that justified Carlsen’s remarkable knight manoeuvre and the deep theorecal lines of the Grünfeld from Wang Yue-Dominguez. White should have won that game, by the way, but the Chinese blundered heavily in the end.

Game viewer

(Click here for more info on the new game viewer.) Click on the pairings at the top of the board to reveal a drop down list of all the games. Click on the arrow under the board just once, then the arrow keys of your keyboard also work.

The glass pavilion right in front of the National Theatre Ivan Vazov...

...covering against the sun, with a big sponsor logo on the side

Inside the glass cube

Shirov explaining the game to live commentator and former World Champion Antoaneta Stefanova from Bulgaria; host of the press conference on the left

A bad start for the world's number one

Carlsen and Topalov at the press conference

Wang Yue, missing an easy win in the endgame

M-Tel Masters 2009 | Pairings and results

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN

“Aronian’s saves were were based on a very distinctive style of slow-motion swindling”, writes Dr John Nunn in his exclusive eye-witness report on Amber 2009.

You can read Nunn’s piece in New In Chess 2009/3 (just out).

Other interesting stuff from this issue’s more than 100 pages:

– Garry Kasparov on Ivanchuk going “bleeping nuts”
– a future Women Grandmaster(?) in underwear
– Nigel Short on Timman’s weaknesses
– Magnus Carlsen on beating Grischuk
– Hans Ree: Vlastimil Hort’s many errors & inaccuracies
– the scandal that almost killed the Topalov-Kamsky match
– Jonathan Rowson: chess is a jealous lover
– and much more.

Please have a look at the latest issue of our flagship publication.

Con Aronian, Leko, Grischuk, Ivanchuk,?Karjakin?e Kamsky

Il 19 marzo la FIDE ha annunciato che dal 14 al 30 aprile?si svolgerà in Nalchik (Repubblica di Cabardino-Balcaria, Russia) la? quarta tappa del Grand Prix FIDE.? I cambiamenti in corsa del?regolamento, l'abbandono?di alcuni giocatori?ed il ritiro?di ben tre sedi ospitanti hanno indubbiamente minato la credibilità della manifestazione. Il Grand Prix, infatti, non è più valido per determinare un semifinalista del ciclo?mondiale?2008-2010, ma qualifica due degli otto giocatori che disputeranno?il Torneo dei Candidati del ciclo mondiale 2010-2011. A causa di questa modifica?recentemente ratificata dalla FIDE,?Carlsen e Adams hanno deciso di ritirarsi dalla manifestazione.

Ciò nonostante, il livello della quarta tappa del Grand Prix, che originariamente si sarebbe dovuta disputare a Montreaux, resta?altissimo: quattordici giocatori con una media elo di 2725! Per?fare un confronto che sia indicativo della qualità del torneo, è sufficiente ricordare come?la media elo del Corus-A 2009 (14 giocatori)?sia stata di?2716.

Tra i partecipati?a questa?tappa del Grand Prix, spicca la presenza?dei due?vincitori?dei?tornei del Grande Slam?che si sono disputati nel 2009: ?Karjakin,?che ha trionfato a Wijk Aan Zee nel Corus-A, e Grischuk, che si è aggiudicato?la XXVI edizione del torneo?Ciudad de Linares.

Karjakin e Grischuk, vincitori di Corus e Linares 2009

Non manca, poi, l'onnipresente Ivanchuk, recentemente scampato ad una possibile squalifica per aver saltato un controllo antidoping alle Olimpiadi di Dresda. Nonostante le voci che lo davano come possibile ritirato dal Grand Prix, ci sarà?anche Gata Kamsky, che comunque avrà il diritto di partecipare al Torneo dei Candidati in qualità di sconfitto del match?Topalov-Kamsky

L'onnipresente Ivanchuk

Partecipano al torneo anche il sesto?ed il nono?giocatore della lista elo fide?di aprile,?Aronian e Leko. Completano la lista dei partenti Gelfand, Bacrot, Svidler, Mamedyarov, Alekseev, Akopian, l'ex campione del mondo Kasimdzhanov e Eljanov.

I?partecipanti con l'elo più alto:?Aronian e Leko

Elenco dei partecipanti (in ordine di elo, aprile 2009)

Aronian, Levon ARM 2754
Leko, Peter UNG 2751
Grischuk, Alexander RUS 2748
Ivanchuk, Vassily UCR 2746
Gelfand, Boris ISR 2733
Bacrot, Etienne FRA 2728
Svidler, Peter RUS 2726
Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar AZE 2725
Karjakin, Sergey UCR 2721
Kamsky, Gata USA 2720
Alekseev, Evgeny RUS 2716
Akopian, Vladimir ARM 2696
Kasimdzhanov, Rustam UZB 2695
Eljanov, Pavel UCR 2693

Calendario di gioco

E' previsto lo svolgimento di?un girone?all'italiana di sola andata. Si gioca dal 15 al 29 aprile. I giorni di riposo sono due:?il 20 ed il 25.

Vista dell'albergo che ospiterà il torneo

Tempo di riflessione

120' x 40 mosse + 60'x 20 mosse +15' per finire finire la partita +30" per mossa dalla 61esima mossa.

Patta solo con le?regole di Sofia

I giocatori non possono parlare con il proprio avversario durante la partita.

I giocatori non possono, quindi, offrire la patta direttamente al proprio avversario

Si potrà reclamare la patta solo attraverso il capo-arbitro nei seguenti casi:

- tripla ripetizione della posizione

- scacco perpetuo

- posizione di patta teorica

- regola delle 50 mosse senza mosse di pedone e senza catture

Montepremi e punti per la classifica cumulata del Grand Prix

?Classifica del Grand Prix dopo tre prove (su sei)

NALCHIK (Cabardino-Balcaria, Russia)

Nalchik è la capitale della Repubblica di Cabardino-Balcaria, regione caucasica della Federazione Russa al confine con la Georgia.

La sede della quarta tappa del Grand Prix ha già ospitato il mondiale femminile 2008, che ha visto la vittoria della Kosteniuk.

?

Il monumento "per sempre con la Russia"

Un'immagine della finale del mondiale femminile 2008

SITI UTILI

sito ufficiale

partite in diretta

Modifiche al ciclo mondiale e ritiro di Carlsen dal GP di Megalovic

Grand Prix affondato? di Darkstorm

Tappe precedenti del GP:? Baku? Sochi? Elista di Runner e Megalovic

Levon Aronian won the 18th Amber tournament after a dramatic last round in Nice today. He had a narrow escape in his blindfold game against Topalov and drew his rapid game quickly to secure victory, since both Anand and Carlsen couldn’t catch him anymore. Just like last year the Armenian grandmaster was the strongest player in the combined tournament of blindfold and rapid chess held in Nice, France.

The 18th Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament, organized by the Association Max Euwe in Monaco, takes place from March 14 (first round) to March 26 (last round) at the five-star hotel Palais de la Mediterranée, splendidly located on the famous Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France. The total prize-fund is € 216,000 and this year’s field is stronger than ever with all the world’s best players taking part.

Round 11

Kramnik beating Leko - the effort was Rybka's

With “this is not completely a holiday tournament,” he answered the question whether he didn’t want to use it in a FIDE rated event. “Besides, it’s nice to go up at the end of the tournament.” The preparation ended only with 28.Ng3 (!) and according to Kramnik the last chance for Black was 33…Rxd6 34.Qxd6 Bc8 but it should be winning for White there too.

The next winner was his compatriot Morozevich, who had played strongly in the middlegame and finally was a pawn up in a queen ending against Kamsky. The Russian then won the ending at move 85.

One could say that it was something to be proud of for most of us mortals in a normal game, but the way Karjakin punished Ivanchuk for a small mistake was even more impressive. It should have been a draw, but 68…f4 was pushing it too much, according to Karjakin, who used all the tricks that were available in the ending to reach a winning position. The participants of the second blindold sessions praised his play while watching the game in the VIP room (as the time was way beyond 14:00 at that point).

After yesterday’s disaster Carlsen suffered another loss in his blindfold game against Radjabov. In an equal position he had to give a knight when suddenly his queen was threatened to get trapped, and then Radjabov couldn’t remember the position of Black’s rook on c7 anymore (otherwise he would have certainly played differently, e.g. 43.Ne6+). After the game the winner said he was lucky that the plan he went for also won.

Aronian, the leader of the tournament, then escaped against Topalov. Already under pressure, the Armenian GM allowed 25.Nxe6+! and then followed up with 26…a4? after which White was winning (the easiest with 33.Kd3). 38.fxg5? allowed counterplay and Topalov immediately started shaking his head after 38…Rf2. Then Aronian erred with 41…Rb1? when 42.Rb8+ and 43.Rxb6 seems to be winning again. Even at the very end White is winning of course, but there Topalov thought that Black’s rook was on f2 instead of f1. What can we say…

Wang Yue & Anand - both escaped with a draw!?

The days of grabbing the Chéron books are over: it’s all in the tablebase. The starting position is won for Black and theoretically speaking Anand gave away the win three times, while Wang Yue gave away the draw two times. We give the game again according to the “Nunn convention”: question marks change the evaluation of the position, exclamation marks are only moves to keep the evaluation the same.

It’s quite instructive. As GM Erwi l’Ami explained to me, the biggest mistake was not to go for 61…Ne4-c5, because the basic idea is to block the pawn with a knight as soon as possible, not with the king. After that a win in 62 moves isn’t relevant of course, but 70…Nb8 was the last practical chance. In a way 70…Nb6 is the wrong idea because the White king should be driven to a1, not to a8, where the c-pawn only gets in the way of the mating constructions, as was shown in the game.

Aronian, the glorious winner - again

After Kamsky and Morozevich finished their tournament with a draw, Karjakin was lucky for a second time against his compatriot Ivanchuk, who for a long time was two healthy pawns up. As happened to many players in this last round, Chuky just totally collapsed, missing several wins at move 37 and 38 and then blundering another half point away with 49.Be4+?? - poor man!

Aronian then drew quickly with Topalov to secure victory in the combined tournament, and accepted congratulations from many GMs and others. Anand and Carlsen, who had not chance to catch him anymore, did win their last games against Wang Yue and Radjabov respectively.

And so for the second year in a row Levon Aronian proved to be the strongest in the combination of blindfold and rapid chess. Both the blindfold and rapid tournaments ended in a three-way tie: Kramnik, Carlsen and Aronian ended on 7/11 in the blindfold while Anand, Kamsky and Aronian scored the same number of points in the rapid.

Videos of today’s round and the closing ceremony will be posted later on - naturally!

• Official website
• Chess.FM blog
• Games in PGN: blindfold | rapid

Beating Wang Yue 1½-½ today, Levon Aronian is back in sole lead at the Amber tournament with just one more round to go, tomorrow at 12.30. Anand blundered a queen today against Morozevich in the blindfold while Carlsen lost 1½-½ to Kramnik after playing far below his normal level in the first game.

The 18th Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament, organized by the Association Max Euwe in Monaco, takes place from March 14 (first round) to March 26 (last round) at the five-star hotel Palais de la Mediterranée, splendidly located on the famous Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France. The total prize-fund is € 216,000 and this year’s field is stronger than ever with all the world’s best players taking part.

Round 10

Kramnik scores an easy win against Carlsen

9.d5 was already surprise for the Russian and he said that after 10…exd5 White surely has to take back with the e-pawn. Then after 12…Qh4 13.Qf4 Qf5 Kramnik explained that 14. Qg3 is the only move. “I really don’t understand why he went 14.exf5 because 14…Bxf5 is the most natural move after which White can resign.”

For a while it was unclear what was happening in the other games, since the computer that is sending through the moves suddenly decided that it badly needed a reboot, and this meant that for the rest of the session, only the arbiter’s laptop screen was showing the moves, and nobody else in the world had a clue what was going on. As it turned out, Leko had blundered against Karjakin on move 46, allowing 46…Bc3!, and Ivanchuk also left the playing hall as a winner. The Ukrainian wasn’t sure about his plan with 19.c5. He tought 27…Nc4 to be wrong. A few moves later he won a pawn and then finished it off flawlessly.

Anand blundering terribly against Morozevich

The ending in Aronian-Wang Yue was probably drawn, but as Ivanchuk correctly predicted around move 45: “It’s probably winning because of the time”, where Wang Yue had about half a minute left against Aronian five. However, after the game Ljubojevic tried to convince a bunch of reasonable chess players (such as Kramnik, Radjabov, Topalov, Leko and Wang Yue himself) that Black was winning after 52…Ne7 as he’d be catching the bishop on g7. Most of the kibitzers didn’t want to agree with him, but were short of an argument.

The rapid tournament started with two not very interesting draws in Karjakin-Leko and Radjabov-Ivanchuk and so Kramnik-Carlsen was clearly the game that got all attention. The Russian had a small plus all the time thanks to his nice centralization, but the accurate 43…Qf7! held everything together.

Topalov-Kamsky: a highly entertaining win for Black

And so last year’s winner Levon Aronian has excellent chances to repeat his success, going into the last round a point clear of Anand and Carlsen. The chief arbiter changed the pairings so that tomorrow Anand, Aronian and Carlsen will play in the second session. It’s Wang Yue-Anand, Topalov-Aronian and Radjabov-Carlsen in the blindfold, at 14:00 CET, because the first session will start at 12:30 CET.

• Official website
• Chess.FM blog
• Games in PGN: blindfold | rapid

Armenia’s Levon Aronian won the Amber tournament for the 2nd consecutive year by winning both the blindfold and the rapid events. Vladimir Kramnik, arguably the world’s best blindfold player and Viswanathan Anand, arguably the world’s best rapid player, tied for 2nd.

I was glad to see Gata Kamsky get this nice win over Veselin Topalov after losing the blindfold. Kamsky came in second in rapid, but last in blindfold.

In the last round, Anand had two knights against Wang Yue’s pawn, but could not convert the textbook win. What an exciting game which featured a piece sack by the Chinese player and stern defense by the World Champion.

Chessvibes had excellent coverage of the events.

Chessvibes: http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/levon-aronian-wins-18th-amber/#more-9639

With just two rounds to go at the Amber tournament in Nice, Anand, Aronian and Carlsen are sharing the lead with 11.5 points out of 18 games. Anand drew twice with Topalov today while Aronian and Carlsen scored 1½-½ against Morozevich and Karjakin respectively.

The 18th Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament, organized by the Association Max Euwe in Monaco, takes place from March 14 (first round) to March 26 (last round) at the five-star hotel Palais de la Mediterranée, splendidly located on the famous Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France. The total prize-fund is € 216,000 and this year’s field is stronger than ever with all the world’s best players taking part.

Round 9

After the second rest day, when many players and others went for a boat trip to the Saint Honorat island followed by a short visit to Cannes (the town famous for its annual film festival), the tournament today resumed for its last three rounds.

Anand and Topalov analyzing their blindfold game

After some interesting complications that included an exchange sacrifice by Topalov, the game ended in a perpetual check. What the players didn’t know is that most of the moves had been played before; nothing’s new anymore these days. Only 19…Ke7 was the novelty (19…Kg8 was Fritz’s choice against De Vreugt, Dutch Ch 2000, the year in which the computer program was allowed to play in the Dutch Championship) and Topalov admitted that his opening had failed there. Anand then missed 22…Qd5! and in the final position both players thought Black had to accept the draw, although the computer suggests the risky 25…f6.

With a better bishop and an active queen, Kamsky was clearly better against Wang Yue but the American couldn’t do much with these small advantages. Aronian escaped against Morozevich; the Armenian GM was better but then started to create complications which only favoured his opponent. Nobody was sure whether it was winning for White somewhere, though. 38.fxe4 suggests itself, but a definite conclusion can only be reached after some deep analysis.

Ivanchuk beating Kramnik in their blindfold game

Karjakin and Carlsen’s first encounter was quite an interesting draw that had started with a rare line of the Rossolimo Sicilian. White got the upper hand and then wisely went for the pawn instead of the exchange, because then Black would get excellent compensation: 17.Bxf8?! Qxf8 18.d4 c5! 19.d5 g4. In the game 21.Rd1 would have been quite good for White but also at the start of the ending White had the better chances, but after a few inaccurate moves Black suddenly got enough counterplay. Long before Radjabov and Leko had already played a dull draw.

Aronian had an easy win with White against Morozevich

Just like against Kramnik, Anand drew his rapid game against Topalov extremely quickly. It was a line of the Ruy Lopez the Bulgarian had looked at for his match against Kamsky and although he admitted White was slightly better in the ending, he didn’t think it was very dangerous. For your information: the world’s number one will feature in the round 9 video.

Kamsky had to be satisfied with a second draw against Wang Yue when he missed 22…b6 and Leko & Radjabov played another “solid draw”, as one of the GMs around managed to put it quite positively. Kramnik was slightly worse against Ivanchuk but didn’t think it was losing anywhere.

Carlsen then beat Karjakin in a difficult ending in which he considered 38…Kxf7 to be the decisive mistake - Black should definitely have gone for 38…Rxf8 39.Nd8 Ne7 with better drawing chances.

And so with just two more rounds to go, Carlsen is still leading the blindfold tournament comfortably, while Aronian leads by half a point in the rapid section. The two joined Anand in the lead in the overall standings and it looks like the World Champion has the easiest program ahead: he plays Morozevich tomorrow and then Wang Yue in the last round. Aronian will meet Wang Yue and then Topalov; Carlsen plays Kramnik and Radjabov.

• Official website
• Chess.FM blog
• Games in PGN: blindfold | rapid

Beating Kramnik 1½-½, Anand grabbed sole lead today at the Amber tournament in Nice. Carlsen also scored 1½-½, against Topalov, and now leads the blindfold tournament a point clear while Aronian, Anand and Kamsky are sharing first place in the rapid section. Monday is the second and last rest day.

The 18th Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament, organized by the Association Max Euwe in Monaco, takes place from March 14 (first round) to March 26 (last round) at the five-star hotel Palais de la Mediterranée, splendidly located on the famous Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France. The total prize-fund is € 216,000 and this year’s field is stronger than ever with all the world’s best players taking part.

Round 8

Anand and Kramnik discussing variations after their blindfold game

Kramnik apparently didn’t trust the line 18…Kxf8 19.Qh6+ Kg8 20.h5 but it’s unclear whether Anand had found a win for White there. In the game, Black’s rook had to go to the awkward h5 square. “That was unpleasant for Black, as his pieces don’t coordinate very well. 22.f3 was very nice; it fortifies the bishop, threatens d5 in some lines with g4 coming…” said Anand. Black’s last chance was 27…Qb3 but then the subtle 28.Kh2 looks winning too.

After Kamsky and Karjakin had drawn their game quickly (the American obviously focusing on the rapid tournament from now on), all attention went to Aronian-Radjabov, in which the Armenian played amazingly fast. He obviously knew the opening variation much better than his opponent, who at a certain point had just 30 seconds left, while Aronian had over 26 minutes - yes, more than he had started with! (In the blindfold games the increment is 20 seconds; in the rapids 10). Aronian kept on playing fast till the very end and won the rook ending easily.

Carlsen-Topalov: many mistakes

25.Nd5? was a blunder (Carlsen had missed the intermediate move 26…Rxf1+) and then he overlooked 30.Qxc4 & 31.Ne6 which does win material, although at first sight it looks like it doesn’t. 31.Qe7? was also wrong, but almost impossible to see how, in blindfold (31…Rg8! refutes it) and then “mutual blindness” made Carlsen play 40.Nd6? and Topalov, also believing that his king was on h8, not taking on e4. The resulting ending should have been a draw, according to Carlsen, but Topalov was the last to go wrong in this game.

Leko got far but eventually didn’t manage to tear down Wang Yue’s Berlin Wall and Ivanchuk, who was slowly outplayed by Morozevich, scored a lucky win when his opponent missed both 42…Rg8! (winning on the spot) and 44…Qg5! which forces White to give his rook for the f3 pawn by checking on d8.

The rapid game between Kramnik and Anand lasted just fifteen moves; in Bonn style the World Champion had surprised his opponent in the opening. Before he knew it, Kramnik was risking getting worse, and decided to offer a draw before it was too late. Naturally we have both players commenting on video.

Karjakin scoring the only win of the day in the rapid tournament, against Kamsky

Playing a bit frivolously in the opening, Aronian got into trouble against Radjabov but held his own in the ending. Carlsen and Topalov had drawn before that and so everyone was watching the last game still running: Morozevich-Ivanchuk. With everyone I mean a huge number of GMs including Cheparinov & Topalov, Carlsen, Sasikiran (also visiting the tournament), Fontaine, Kouatly (the latter two of Europe-Echecs), Carlsen, Leko, Nunn, Ljubojevic and Hort. Morozevich escaped with a draw after he had been slightly worse in the ending.

Tomorrow is the second and last rest day here in Nice. On the program: a visit to Cannes. After that an exciting final phase awaits us, with the World Champion defending a half-point lead in his last three rounds against Topalov, Morozevich and Wang Yue (in that order).

• Official website
• Chess.FM blog
• Games in PGN: blindfold | rapid

Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik are in shared first place with 9/14 at the Amber tournament. In the 7th round in Nice they both won 1½-½: Anand beat Karjakin while Kramnik defeated tournament leader Aronian. Scoring 2-0 against Wang Yue, Carlsen climbed to shared third with Aronian.

The 18th Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament, organized by the Association Max Euwe in Monaco, takes place from March 14 (first round) to March 26 (last round) at the five-star hotel Palais de la Mediterranée, splendidly located on the famous Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France. The total prize-fund is € 216,000 and this year’s field is stronger than ever with all the world’s best players taking part.

Round 7

Carlsen continued doing well in the blindfold tournament with an easy victory over Wang Yue, who refrained from the obvious 26.f4 but then found out that he had tricked himself. Topalov-Ivanchuk was about equal all the time; 26…Qd4! and 27…g5! were very nice moves but yielded Black only a symbolic advantage. Morozevich escaped with a draw against Leko, who had a big advantage. “It looked like I was completely winning but after the very tricky move 30.h4 it was not completely winning but just winning. I thought 30…Bg7 was the most precise but in fact it was probably the only legal move that was not winning!” the Hungarian said.

Radjabov & Kamsky both won their White games

The top match Kramnik-Aronian started with a draw in the blindfold; the Armenian GM surprised his opponent with the Grünfeld and, to use the words of one of the kibitzing GMs, “the guy is so practical, he can play anything.” Against Karjakin, Anand again made blindfold chess look deceptively simple; his bishop on d5 was a monster and didn’t have to move for the rest of the game to have decisive influence anyway. And don’t miss that nice little combination at the end.

Ivanchuk and Topalov drew again and amazingly quickly this time - it took them about ten minutes. After running with both kings to the queenside there was nothing to do else. Carlsen easily beat Wang Yue again, while Leko finally won. “It would have been more logical if I had one the other promising positions I had, instead of this one.”

Leko-Morozevich at the moment when Mororezich wants someone in the audience to be quiet and Leko making his last move, caught on video

Anand-Karjakin was theory for a long time (rare at this event!); 14…Nh5 was the novelty while the same variation was played two years ago in the same tournament between Anand and Van Wely, where the Dutchman had chosen 13…Qc7. The rest of the game was as sharp as the opening and we have to give credit to Karjaking for holding everything together against the world champ.

Kamsky then levelled the score against Radjabov with one of his trademark positional victories; the American is just so strong in positions with a slightly better pawn structure. Impressive.

An important game for the tournament was of course Kramnik’s win with Black over Aronian; according to the Russian it was a game “full of mistakes”, and he “wasn’t really happy with the level of play”. He thought 29.Nb4 to be the decisive mistake and did think he played quite accuretaly in the remainder of the game.

Carlsen is now the sole leader in the blindfold tournament while Kamsky tops the rapid! It’s an important phase for the tournament since tomorrow we’ll have Anand-Kramnik.