Day 04 Recap
The first day of blitz was a rollercoaster day for many of the players, but the clear storyline was the surge of Alireza Firouzja – from finishing win-less and in the last place after the rapid portion of the 2021 Paris Grand Chess Tour to being tied for fourth after today’s 6.5/9 performance. Tomorrow, it will be a two-horse race to find out who will ultimately win between Wesley So and Ian Nepomniachtchi as they are so far ahead of the rest of their competitors. Vladimir Kramnik The former World Champion jumped into the action taking Etienne Bacrot’s spot in the blitz portion of this event. Kramnik had big shoes to fill in as Bacrot’s performance in the rapid was sublime. Unfortunately for Kramnik, he simply seemed out of form. Losing games on time and inattentive tactical moves showed he was a bit out of form. His lone win was against countryman and former second, Peter Svidler. Teimour Radjabov On a normal day, defeating Kramnik and Caruana with black indicates a good day. Not this time for Radjabov as he only scored 1/7 in the remaining games. It seemed like Radjabov was unable to keep up tactically today against any of his opponents. Fabiano Caruana Caruana has not been able to find himself in this leg of the Grand Chess Tour. With a full day of blitz left tomorrow, World #2 is already out of contention for first place in this event. The American will need a brilliant performance tomorrow to keep any hopes of winning the 2021 Grand Chess Tour. Richard Rapport Rapport had a very solid day today, drawing six of his nine games. His only win was against Kramnik, who forfeited in a lost position. Having missed the Superbet Chess Classic and with this performance in Paris, Rapport seems to also be putting himself out of contention for the 2021 Grand Chess Tour title. Levon Aronian 50% for Aronian keeps him in a tie for 6th with the Kramnik/Bacrot duo. Aronian played some excellent games today, like his win against Radjabov. Unfortunately, consistency wasn’t there and he suffered too many losses for him to seriously climb the standings. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave The Frenchman is typically one of the most dangerous blitz players in the World, and while we are used to him dominating or scoring highly in the blitz sections. Today, however, it was a topsy-turvy day for MVL who scored 50%, finding better form in the second half of the day. Peter SvidlerThe Russian star seemed to be fading away on the early part of the day: losses to Aronian and Kramnik to kick off the blitz was certainly not what he wanted. After a series of draws, however, inspiration came back to Svidler as he finished the day with a hat-trick and surged in the standings: his combined Rapid and Blitz puts him in an excellent third-place position. Wesley So Wesley So’s 5.5/9 was a solid score and combined with his rapid results he is still in the lead. The 2016 Grand Chess Tour champion lost his first game of the entire 2021 Tour against Aronian. An excellent win against Firouzja was the highlight of the day for the American, but he will need to do better than 5.5 tomorrow if he wishes to secure first place. Ian Nepomniachtchi The World Championship Challenger continued to position himself right behind Wesley So’s first place heels. The American’s lead is only because the Russian superstar scored an excellent 6/9 today – a score that could very well have been 7/9 if he had converted against Firouzja. Nepomniachtchi is only half a point behind So, and another day like this might be all he needs to take first place. Alireza Firouzja The Prince of Chess stole our hearts today. What a comeback story: the young phenom had been unable to win a single game in the rapid part of the event, but he started the blitz in blazing glory. A marvelous 5.5/6 certainly made him the attention of the commentators and the audience. His loss to So prevented him from realistically fighting for first place, but he is currently tied for fourth. The coverage of the 2021 Paris Grand Chess Tour final day continues tomorrow, June 22 at 7:00 AM CDT with live coverage from GMs Yasser Seirawan, Maurice Ashley, Cristian Chirila and IM Almira Skripchenko exclusively on kasparovchess.com/grand-chess-tour. Text: GM Alejandro Ramirez Photo: Grand Chess Tour, Lennart Ootes Official website: grandchesstour.org
Sam Shankland wins Prague Chess Festival Masters
Prague International Chess Festival 2021, a big chess forum that included Masters, Open and Futures tournaments, concluded last Sunday in the capital of the Czech Republic. American GM Sam Shankland emerged as the winner of the most prestigious Masters event scoring an impressive 5.5 out of 7 and picked 18 rating points. Thanks to this excellent performance Sam is returning to a prestigious 2700+ club. On his way to the victory, Shankland defeated the rating favourite Jan-Krzysztof Duda in their second-round encounter and earned the Award of Grandmaster Lubomir Kaválek for the best game of the festival which was awarded for the first time. Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland) finished just a half-point behind the champion; another Polish GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek came in third. Final standings Masters: 1 GM Shankland, Sam USA 2691 5½ 2 GM Duda, Jan-Krzysztof POL 2729 5 3 GM Wojtaszek, Radoslaw POL 2687 4 4 GM Nguyen, Thai Dai Van CZE 2577 3½ 5 GM Abasov, Nijat AZE 2665 3½ 6 GM Grandelius, Nils SWE 2670 2½ 7 GM Van Foreest, Jorden NED 2701 2½ 8 GM Navara, David CZE 2697 1½ In the other round-robin – Futures tournament – Jakub Vojta took the title whereas the narrowest possible victory (number of black pieces being the last tiebreak) in Open Swiss tournament goes to Polish GM Marcin Krzyzanowski. Chief arbiter IA Pavel Votruba, tournament director Petr Boleslav, silver Kamil Warchol, victorious Jakub Vojta, bronze Matouš Hlavina, Futures tournament manager Petr Pisk Final standings Open: 1 Krzyzanowski, Marcin POL 2503 7 2 Blohberger, Felix AUT 2475 7 3 Nasuta, Grzegorz POL 2512 6½ 4 Petr, Martin CZE 2489 6½ 5 Greenfeld, Alon ISR 2507 6½ 6 Plat, Vojtech CZE 2521 6½ 7 Kraus, Tomas CZE 2466 6 8 Sorm, Daniel CZE 2345 6 9 Neuman, Petr CZE 2394 6 10 Pavlidis, Anastasios GRE 2333 6 Futures tournament manager Petr Pisk, chief arbiter IA Pavel Votruba, tournament director Petr Boleslav, silver Felix Blohberger, winner of the Open Marcin Krzyzanowski, bronze Grzegorz Nasuta, Open tournament manager Jiří Petružálek Photo: official website Official website: praguechessfestival.com