Posted December 3, 2021 in Campfire Digest

Campfire Digest – December 3, 2021

Good Morning, campers! Welcome to Campfire Chess Digest for Friday, December 3, 2021! As you read this, the 2021 World Chess Championship rages (if you can call it that) in Dubai between Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi. There’s no clear leader at this point but Nepo certainly put Magnus on the ropes a few times going into Thursday’s rest day.

Here’s some of the best chess action we’ve seen this week:

Anish Giri Annotates WCC 2021 Game 5

https://en.chessbase.com/post/world-championship-2021-g5-expert-annotations
After the sleeper draw that was Game 5 of the World Chess Championship, GM Anish Giri published a very nice annotated game outlining some of the missed opportunities for both players.

Hikaru Nakamura Departs the FIDE World Ranking List

https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-new-fide-world-ranking-list-december-2021
GM Hikaru Nakamura was nowhere to be found on the newly published FIDE World Ranking List because he has not been active in international tournament play for quite some time. He’s mostly traded those commitments for a life on Twitch these days.

Chess.com Remains Undisputed Clickbait Article Champion

https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-coms-holiday-gift-buying-guide
Ten ways to mate your opponent in five moves… Ten streamers you wouldn’t want to play blitz with… and the list goes on and on. Maybe we could start making a list of Chess.com’s most click-baity articles. In any case, this year’s “Buying Guide” for the holidays is no better than the website’s recent forays into Bitcoin, PogChamps, and other nonsensical stuff.

Levon Aronian Joins the US Chess Federation

https://chess24.com/en/read/news/levon-aronian-completes-transfer-to-usa
The United States continues to build an impressive roster of players with the recent addition of GM Levon Aronian. He joins the ranks of recent additions such as GMs Wesley So and Fabiano Caruana.

The World Chess Championship 2021 continues today in Dubai live via Chess24’s YouTube channel. Chess.com has a stream with GMs Hess and Caruana, but I recommend the Chess24 stream as its less headache-inducing.

Posted June 14, 2021 in News, Tournaments

Mamedyarov Victorious In Romania

The Superbet Chess Classic came to a dramatic end earlier today with GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov claiming ultimate victory in this leg of the Grand Chess Tour. All games in the final round were drawn, but Mamedyarov finished the tournament a full point ahead of Levon Aronian after forcing a draw against Anish Giri.

[table id=2 /]

There will be very little rest for many of the players as they travel from Romania to Paris for the second event in the Grand Chess Tour, the 2021 Paris Rapid and Blitz tournament. Participants include Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, and Peter Svidler. In the meantime, you can replay all of the games from the Superbet Chess Classic in Romania below.

Posted June 10, 2021 in News, Tournaments

Leader Standings Challenged in Superbet Round 5

GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan is quickly gaining ground on GMs Alexander Grischuk and Wesley So going into the fifth round of the Superbet Chess Classic in Bucharest with a score of 7.5 to So’s 8 and Grischuk’s 7.75.

[table id=1 /]

After getting off to a sleepy start, the games have started to get more interesting as well. It’s obvious that Anish Giri’s loss the other day affected him severely as he’s fallen to 8th place in the standings with a score of 5. Mamedyarov’s game and performance from Round 4 has certainly been of interest given his quick rise and challenge to the tournament’s current leaders.

Today was a rest day for the players, but tomorrow we get back to business as So and Grischuk work to maintain their leads. But…in chess, like life, anything can happen. You can read more in-depth analysis on Chess.com or The Week in Chess.

Posted June 7, 2021 in News, Tournaments

Giri Smoked in Superbet Day #3

I spent a good portion of this morning with the boards from the Superbet Chess Classic up while I worked my day job. I watched the full game between Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian. It had a few good moments, but was mostly a sleeper that ended in a draw. It wasn’t until I switched to Anish Giri’s game that things got very interesting.

In this position, Giri blundered with 31…Qc5, which allowed White a win with 32.Re7. I missed the move when it was originally made, but it was apparent when the inline analysis tool on Chess.com’s events viewer went from balanced to completely White. It was obvious that the game was over with no real way for Giri to escape. This is an interesting win, especially given that Constantin Lupulescu, the GM who beat him, was chosen to participate as part of the tournament’s local talent pool.

Obviously, Giri is human and nobody’s perfect. He’ll certainly shrug off the blunder and move on to the next drawn game… See the game itself on Chess.com or more commentary on today’s round from The Week in Chess.

Posted March 29, 2016 in Tournaments

World Chess Championship: Now We Know

Makeup of a Championship

The 2016 Candidates Tournament, which has been mined in controversy, is finally over. In a triumphant return to the world chess stage, Sergey Karjakin of Russia has earned the right to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the World Chess Championship in New York City. Karjakin finished the tournament with a solid win over American GM Fabiano Caruana. After holding a relatively balanced position for most of the game, Caruana blundered a critical rook move:

Carlsen remains a clear favorite to retain his title, but Karjakin has an opportunity to snatch it away from Norway and bring it back to Mother Russia, whose state-funded system dominated world chess for almost a century. Congratulations and praise poured out from the community following the win.

Vishy Anand, who challenged Carlsen in 2014 and looked poised to return to the championship at certain points in the tournament, showed an amazing depth of class by symbolically passing the torch on to Karjakin via Twitter.

Giri’s Drawing Streak

As if this tournament did not already have enough oddities and challenges associated with it, Anish Giri managed to draw every one of his games in the tournament, a staggering 14/14 drawn games! Family, friends, and fans watched as Giri went from a theoretical challenger to the world champion to the subject of memes and jokes spread across the blogosphere.

Nakamura’s Implosion

Perhaps nothing besides Agon’s coverage policy was as disappointing as Hikaru Nakamura’s performance in the tournament. The American GM, who was among the candidates high on the list to challenge Magnus Carlsen, literally imploded. He regained some ground in the later rounds, but it was not enough to catch Karjakin, Caruana, and Anand who had pulled well ahead of their competitors.

nakamura

GM Hikaru Nakamura will have to wait another cycle. (Image Credit: FIDE)


crosstable

Final Standings Crosstable (Image Credit: Chessbase)

Now the chess world turns its attention to Norway Chess as the next major tournament gets set to begin in just a few short months. Check out the entire collection of games from the 2016 Candidates Tournament below: