Steinitz Memorial: Carlsen and Kosteniuk lead after six rounds
Magnus means business Magnus Carlsen burst out of the blocks to grab the lead in a fiery Day 1 of the super-strong FIDE Steinitz Online Memorial. The Norwegian bullied his way to the top of the standings after six rounds of blitz as the tournament celebrating Wilhelm Steinitz, the first undisputed World Chess Champion, got under-way. Having goaded Peter Svidler on Twitter before the event started, Carlsen’s Round 1 encounter with the Russian ended in a draw – but only after a thrilling topsy-turvy game. Svidler could have won but missed a forced mate on move 37. Carlsen then made a shocking error of his own by missing a winning knight fork on 49.Nc2. But that draw just sparked Carlsen into life. The Norwegian made up for his blunder in the next game with a trademark grind to dispose of Le Quang Liem and take the lead. GM Peter Leko, commentating live on chess24, said: “I think in the last three years Magnus has made incredible steps forward in his preparation.” Round 3 saw a rejuvenated Carlsen going for a London System “beauty prize” against Mamedyarov after the Azerbaijani got into trouble early. Although Carlsen wobbled before he could pull off a quick win, he went on to secure victory and stay ahead of the pack. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Jeffery Xiong, playing on his first online super-tournament, also had a big win in Round 3 against Alexander Grischuk. Disaster then struck for Carlsen in Round 4 as the World Champion played a howler against Anton Korobov that left him with a hopeless task. “It does happen, it does happen to the very best as well. This is blitz,” said Leko. With four rounds gone, Korobov, Xiong and former World Rapid Champion Daniil Dubov caught up with Carlsen at the top on 2.5/4. Carlsen, however, wasn’t phased as he bounced back immediately with a smooth win over the Spaniard David Anton. Round 5 saw Dubov, the young Russian, dispatch fellow countryman Grischuk to keep the pressure on at the top. Xiong fell back with a tricky draw against Xiangzhi Bu and Korobov lost to drop out of the race. Then in the final round, Dubov’s unbeaten streak ended as he collapsed against Xiangzhi while Carlsen played out a draw against Grischuk to move into the lead. Carlsen goes into Day 2 a half-point ahead of the chasing pack. Kosteniuk dominates the women’s section Alexandra Kosteniuk, of Russia, was in blistering form as the FIDE Online Steinitz Memorial tournament kicked off with a series of hyper-aggressive games. The former World Women’s Champion went on a hot streak of five straight blitz wins as she demolished the field in the Women’s section. However, in a dramatic final game, Kosteniuk was pegged back to a draw by the promising 23-year-old Chinese Grandmaster Tingjie Lei. “It was a very high-quality game,” enthused GM Peter Leko, after the first of three days of blitz sessions. Kosteniuk leads a point and a half clear at the top of the table with Zhongyi Tan second on 4. The tournament is broadcast with commentary in multiple languages at www.Chess24.com/watch Schedule (all times are CEST): Friday, May 15th Saturday, May 16th Sunday, May 17th Rounds 1-6 Women:15:00 – 18:15 Rounds 7-12 Women:15:00 – 18:15 Rounds 13-18 Women:15:00 – 18:15 Rounds 1-6 Open:18:30 – 21:30 Rounds 7-12 Open:18:30 – 21:30 Rounds 13-18 Open18:30 – 21:30 More information at Chess24.com: FIDE Women’s Steinitz MemorialFIDE Open Steinitz Memorial
Rating analytics: Born in the same year – five-player teams
Kaspars Migla is the creator and founder of a chess website chessratings.top. In his column, he analyzes FIDE standard rating changes, career-highs, rating distribution by country, continent, region, and other rating-related statistics. In this edition, he focuses on the particular years that produced the greatest number of chess talents. More than ten years have passed since Magnus Carlsen topped the world rating. When looking at the list, we see not only the World Champion’s actual rating but also the year he was born – 1990. The portal chessratings.top made an attempt to find out whether this year is a special one and focused on the results of other highest-rated players born in 1990. In this research, we took five active players born in the same year and formed hypothetical teams by analogy with Chess Olympiads. We also compared 1990 with other years (both open and women sections) to see how players born earlier have been performing. Are there any other strong players born in 1990 apart from Magnus Carlsen? The answer is a definite yes! We are saying it with confidence because an average rating of the top-5 active players born in 1990 is whopping 2780.6. It means that a hypothetical “team 1990” has the highest rating compared to any other team consisting of players born in the same year. Below you can see the top-5 of teams comprising five players born in the same year (the first figure is the current ranking): Team 19901. Carlsen, Magnus (NOR) 28634. Nepomniachtchi, Ian (RUS) 27845. Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime (FRA) 277817. Karjakin, Sergey (RUS) 275222. Andreikin, Dmitry (RUS) 2726Average rating: 2780.6 Team 19879. Radjabov, Teimour (AZE) 276518. Nakamura, Hikaru (USA) 273625. Vitiugov, Nikita (RUS) 272228. Wojtaszek, Radoslaw (POL) 271934. Tomashevsky, Evgeny (RUS) 2706Average rating: 2728.6 Team 19836. Grischuk, Alexander (RUS) 277714. Dominguez Perez, Leinier (USA) 275847. Jakovenko, Dmitry (RUS) 268453. Sargissian, Gabriel (ARM) 268264. Bacrot, Etienne (FRA) 2673Average rating: 2714.8 Team 199410. Giri, Anish (NED, 2764)23. Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi (IND, 2726)33. Yu, Yangyi (CHN, 2709)48. Predke, Alexandr (RUS, 2684)65. Robson, Ray (USA, 2673)Average rating: 2711.2 Team 19922. Caruana, Fabiano (USA) 28353. Ding, Liren (CHN) 279182. Adhiban, B. (IND) 2659136. Heimann, Andreas (GER) 2633143. Yilmaz, Mustafa (TUR) 2630Average rating: 2709.6 Since the players born in 1990 reached an optimal “chess age” (30), many may take team 1990’s leading position for granted. That is not the case though. In reality the year 1990 was simply rich in chess talents. The same applies to 1983 and 1987. Looking at the same list but as of May 2010, we see the same teams in top-3 but in a different order: 1. Team 1983 2. Team 1987 3. Team 1990. Check out the leader as of May 1, 2010. Team 1983 7. Grischuk, Alexander (RUS) 27609. Eljanov, Pavel (UKR) 275118. Ponomariov, Ruslan (UKR) 273321. Jakovenko, Dmitry (RUS) 272526. Jobava, Baadur (GEO) 2715Average rating: 2736.8 Let’s rewind nine more years – Team 1969 was the best squad as of April 2001 (the ratings were not calculated in May): 3. Anand, Viswanathan (IND) 27947. Ivanchuk, Vassily (UKR) 273118. Dreev, Alexey (RUS) 268556. Piket, Jeroen (NED) 2628165. Korneev, Oleg (RUS) 2572Average rating: 2682 Garry Kasparov (born in 1963) was the rating leader back then (2822), but “his” team 1963 stood only third, trailing team 1975 (lead by Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov) and team 1971 (headed by Michael Adams). In the crosstable below, you can see the top teams year by year from 2001 to 2020 with their average rating and age. Carlsen’s team 1990 has been dominating since 2013, whereas team-leaders’ average rating increased by almost 100 points, from 2688.6 to 2780.6. It is also worth mentioning that nine years ago, in 2011 the chess elite was the youngest ever! Year Top team year Av.rating Av.age 2001 1969 2688.6 32 2002 1975 2682.6 27 2003 1969 2683 34 2004 1975 2679.4 29 2005 1969 2692.8 36 2006 1983 2701 23 2007 1983 2707.4 24 2008 1983 2711 25 2009 1983 2735.8 26 2010 1983 2736.8 27 2011 1990 2744 21 2012 1987 2743.4 25 2013 1990 2757.4 23 2014 1990 2773.4 24 2015 1990 2766.8 25 2016 1990 2771.4 26 2017 1990 2776.8 27 2018 1990 2773.4 28 2019 1990 2777.6 29 2020 1990 2780.6 30 When it comes to women there is no such a gap between the youngest age group and all the others. Interestingly enough, the team of the current rating leader Hou Yifan (CHN, 2658), who was born in 1994, did not “qualify” for the top-3. Team 19914. Ju, Wenjun (CHN) 25609. Harika, Dronavalli (IND) 251510. Tan, Zhongyi (CHN) 251021. Girya, Olga (RUS) 246942. Ding, Yixin (CHN) 2422Average rating: 2495.2 Team 19872. Koneru, Humpy (IND) 25868. Dzagnidze, Nana (GEO) 252426. Batsiashvili, Nino (GEO) 245738. Munguntuul, Batkhuyag (MGL) 242847. Zawadzka, Jolanta (POL) 2419Average rating: 2482.8 Team 198515. Zhao, Xue (CHN) 248618. Pogonina, Natalija (RUS) 247519. Paehtz, Elisabeth (GER) 247350. Ushenina, Anna (UKR) 2416117. Lujan, Carolina (ARG) 2346Average rating: 2439.2 In May 2010, when legendary Judit Polgar was still active, two teams (see below) had an average rating of 2500+. None of the current team-leaders managed to climb that high. Team 19761. Polgar, Judit (HUN) 268222. Xu, Yuhua (CHN) 248427. Zhu, Chen (QAT) 247635. Gaponenko, Inna (UKR) 246536. Skripchenko, Almira (FRA) 2464Average rating: 2514.2 Team 19855. Kosintseva, Nadezhda (RUS) 255314. Pogonina, Natalija (RUS) 250117. Zhao, Xue (CHN) 249320. Paehtz, Elisabeth (GER) 248532. Ushenina, Anna (UKR) 2468Average rating: 2500 Team 1976 was the best in 2001 with an average rating exceeding a 2500 mark: 1. Polgar, Judit (HUN) 26764. Zhu, Chen (CHN) 25387. Xu, Yuhua (CHN) 250124. Skripchenko, Almira (MDA) 244161. Gaponenko, Inna (UKR) 2373Average rating: 2505.8. It is time to apply the same principle to various countries. Probably chess historians know whether there was a team at Chess Olympiad with all players born in the same year. It is highly unlikely but not impossible, at least theoretically. Moreover, one such hypothetical team would have a chance to be in a contest for medals. We are talking about the country replete with talented players born in 1990, namely, Russia. Russia 1990Nepomniachtchi, Ian (RUS) 2784Karjakin, Sergey (RUS) 2752Andreikin, Dmitry (RUS) 2726Popov, Ivan (RUS) 2636Lintchevski, Daniil
FIDE announces Checkmate Coronavirus project
The Coronavirus pandemic has caused an unprecedented global crisis. In support of efforts of national governments and people around the world, the International Chess Federation, FIDE, has decided to promote an online international chess initiative supporting spending long hours at home. The goal of the initiative is also to promote the ideals of unity and solidarity, which must be manifested in such challenging times. From May 18 until June 16, FIDE will join forces with major internet chess platforms in organizing more than 2,000 online tournaments. “Checkmate Coronavirus” tournaments will be played at lichess.org, chess.com, chess24.com, and FIDE Online Arena. There will be almost 80 tournaments a day aimed at all chess players, regardless of age, country, or level of play. There will also be a prize draw with 1,500 special prizes. Inspired by the Olympic motto (not to win but to take part), we want to give a winning chance to everyone and to reward involvement and participation. The major prize will consist of at least 64 one-week invitations to the 2021 Chess Olympiad in Moscow with flight and lodging expenses fully covered. Other prizes include souvenirs, tickets to chess workshops, and mini-matches with grandmasters. On our website (www.checkmatecoronavirus.com) you can find a full schedule where you can choose the tournament type and preferred platform. On www.checkmatecoronavirus.com you can also check out if you have won any of our special prizes. Remember, the more tournaments you play – the bigger your chances to win! Join this worldwide chess initiative! Take part in the biggest official event in terms of participation and non-stop games running, by any sports federation, ever! And remember – you can play any time on any platform. Your results do not matter, you can win great prizes anyway! Stay safe and play chess online! Let’s checkmate coronavirus!