Nihal Sarin wins Gazprom Brilliancy Prize
Nihal Sarin became the winner of the Gazprom Brilliancy Prize, a special trophy awarded to the best game from the FIDE Online World Cadets and Youth Championship (December, 20) by the General Partner of the competition. His victory over Francesco Sonis received 5 votes out of 9. One of the most talented players of his generation, Nihal Sarin won not only the Gazprom Brilliancy Prize but also the title in the U18 category, beating Shant Sargsyan in the final. FIDE had invited a panel of 9 popular streamers and YouTubers to be the judges for the Gazprom Brilliancy Prize, asking them to pick a favorite game. Five out of nine judges chose Sarin’s game as their top choice, announcing their votes in their respective channels: Daniel King / Powerplay Chess Nihal Sarin Sagar Shah / Chessbase IndiaNihal Sarin Levy Rozman / Gotham ChessNihal Sarin Fiona Steil-Antoni / FionchettaNihal Sarin Georgios Souleidis / The Big GreekNihal Sarin Maria Emelianova / PhotochessEdiz Gurel Michael RahalD Gukesh James Canty IIIAmirreza Pour Agha Bala Manuel Lopez MicheloneD Gukesh
FIDE approves hybrid competitions valid for rating
A few weeks ago, the FIDE Council approved a new set of rules to be applied to official online chess competitions. The document also established the framework for “hybrid” events, a format where the games are played online, but the participants are physically present in a public place like a club, federation headquarters, hotel, et cetera. In this format, all games are played under the supervision of an arbiter present on site. Considering that the conditions under which a hybrid tournament is played are very similar to those of “over the board events”, having these events rated has always been a possible – and desirable – outcome. After receiving some additional input from the Qualification Commission, and adding some minor amendments to the first version of the regulations, the FIDE Council has approved that hybrid competitions are officially rated in equal terms with traditional games. As stated in point 0.2 of the newly approved regulations, “The tournaments to be rated shall be pre-registered by the federation that will be responsible for the submission of results and rating fees. The tournament and its playing schedule must be registered one week before the tournament starts. The QC Chairman may refuse to register a tournament. He may also allow a tournament to be rated even though it has been registered less than one week before the tournament starts. All tournaments played under Hybrid conditions as described in 2.1 must be approved individually by the QC Chairman.” The requests will be examined on a one-on-one basis, and FIDE’s Qualification Commission reserves itself the right not to rate a specific tournament. This is a precautionary measure to protect the rating system from any unforeseen circumstance, as we enter uncharted territory. In that eventuality, the organizer of the tournament has the right to appeal to the QC. The best way to prevent this from happening is that organizers send requests with as much notice as they can, and include as much detail as possible, to the Qualification Commission: qualification@fide.com. This will ensure that there is a margin to make whatever adjustments are considered necessary so the event can be rated. These regulations are the result of a joint effort by a dedicated task force, in which several FIDE Commissions were involved. This included the Rules Commission, Arbiters and the Qualification Commissions, Fair Play, and the FIDE Commission for people with Disabilities. During the final stage, the Global Strategy Commission was responsible for consolidating all the inputs. The last bit was added to the document by the Qualification Commission, and it gives a green light to what many members of the chess community had been asked for: the possibility of rating chess games played through the internet.
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Tata Steel 2021: Nils Grandelius shoots ahead
Nils Grandelious became the sole leader of the Tata Steel Masters 2021 after two rounds of exciting chess. One could hardly predict such a feat given that a month ago the Swede was not even among the participants. In Round 2 Grandelius beat Jan-Krzysztof Duda in a very convincing manner after the Pole misplayed the opening. Nils drove a pawn-wedge on f3 and obtained a menacing attacking position. To save his king, Jan-Krzysztof gave up a piece and threw in the towel just ten moves down the road. The winner of Tata Steel 2020 Fabiano Caruana scored a full point after beating Alexander Donchenko and now sits on +1 together with Magnus Carlsen and Anish Giri. The game was decided on a short stretch between moves 17 and 20. After playing four suboptimal moves (it seems 20.e6 was the last straw) Alexander fell under a crushing attack by Fabiano, parted with an exchange but only postponed the inevitable. All other encounters were drawn. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave got an extra pawn and very promising position against Alireza Firouzja but was not precise enough when converting his substantial advantage. After 30.Nc4 Alireza regained a pawn, traded most of the pieces, and reached a draw. David Anton gained a half-point in the game with the World Champion. The Spaniard was hovering around equality throughout the opening and the middlegame but eventually found himself a pawn down in an unpleasant ending, the type of position that is very hard to handle against Magnus. To his credit, Anton held his ground and earned a hard-fought draw. As Carlsen pointed out after the game, he missed a defensive idea 55.Kf5. Magnus was going to meet it with 55…Re1, but it fails to 56.Rxg5 Rxe3 57.Kf4! In the Dutch derby Jorden Van Foreest vs. Anish Giri, the former spurned repetition but ended up in a slightly worse endgame. Nevertheless, White’s position was solid enough to seal a draw in a rook endgame. Arian Tari put tremendous pressure on Radoslaw Wojtaszek and was very close to the victory but the Pole managed to wriggle out of a fix in an endgame with opposite-colored bishops. Pentala Harikrishna did not get anything out of the opening with White against Andrey Esipenko. Moreover, the Indian had to demonstrate some accuracy in an endgame to secure a draw. Standings after Round 2: 1. Nils Grandelius – 2; 2-4. Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, and Anish Giri – 1½; 5-10. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Pentala Harikrishna, Jorden Van Foreest, Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Andrei Esipenko, David Anton – 1; 11-13. Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Alireza Firouzja, Arian Tari – ½; 14. Alexander Doncheko – 0. Photo: Jurriaan Hoefsmit – Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2021 Official website: tatasteelchess.com/