FIDE World Championship Dubai 2021: More than meets the eye
As the expert predictions emerge online on the morning of Game 5, there is a foreseeable sense of permanent deadlock about the match at this stage. While casual observers are quick to bemoan a start of four draws, the aficionado is more concerned about the complexity and fighting spirit behind the results. Chess is a game of complete information, innate balance, and now, computer encroachment. A draw is a correct result and the most likely at the top level. Like football fans, what often matters most to chess addicts watching a draw is drama and application. The feeling of continuing deadlock is due to a more worrying trend, the games are getting shorter, and the sense of nearly full-game preparation is rising. Live mood There is something very special about watching a world championship match live. Even in this day and age, with an overabundance of real-time coverage in all manner of channels, you can still get a better sense of what is happening by taking it in on the spot. The hushed reactions of the crowd; the traffic patterns of spectators in and out of the playing theatre as the complications on the board fluctuate; the expressions and secretive chats of any members of the players’ delegations; the growing excitement of the expert commentators – all of this blends with the ability to scrutinize the players themselves, and creates a cocktail of tension and atmosphere. A fascination with body language might be the first step to appreciating live classical chess, but a sense of the mood in the building, the collective buzz and hum – this can only be experienced live. It is palpable – enough so that in the middle of Game 4, most of the media suddenly surged out of the press box, convinced that the game was about to end in a draw. They had underestimated the champion’s work ethic, or misread his body language. He might have been frustrated, but he was there to put in a full shift, trying to extract water from the challenger’s stone of the day. The opening ritual Each game begins with the loud ringside introduction of the players, white first, by Master of Ceremonies Maurice Ashley. Today, for game five, the summons brings both players promptly from their backstage areas. His Excellency Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence and Commissioner General of Expo 2020, made the first move today, as ever, in the presence of FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich. Dvorkovich took the opportunity to congratulate the UAE on the Golden Jubilee of the national union and thanked the match hosts for their hospitality. The ceremonial first move was captured on camera, and as the Minister played 1.c4, there was a moment of anticipation for a new opening from challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi. The reset and official start, however, confirmed the expert forecasts, and the familiar battleground from games and 1 and 3 was revisited. Champion Magnus Carlsen was the first to deviate, choosing a new 8th move, but his opponent fired off moves at speed, showing the confident breakaway-train pace that he is famous for but has reined in during the match so far. Although it was hard to read any clear signs of surprise on the champion’s face, Nepomniachtchi raced out to roughly a half an hour edge on the clock, indicating that he was both still in his pre-game preparation and still in control. Pressure on the champ Official match commentator, former world champion Vishwanathan Anand, had one of the strongest opinions as Carlsen sank into thought on his 19th move. While there was general expert agreement that Nepomniachtchi had maintained the advantage of the first move, Anand said that not only did he not like the black position, he didn’t think Magnus did either. As the players hit move 20, it was the challenger’s turn to pause and contemplate, something he habitually does while twirling a captured pawn with the fingers of his right hand. Anand also had a slightly different take on the subject of nervous pressure. Drawing on his own vast experience of playing title matches, Anand believes that the nerves never stop jangling in a title match, since there is a constant, growing fear of error, and one misstep could determine the result. Diminishing returns The expert consensus was that the beginning of Nepomniachtchi’s deep thinks resulted in a surprising dispersal of his pressure, with commentators pointing to his 20th move as unambitious. This was followed by a sequence of material trades that steered the game once more towards a peaceful conclusion. Interest was piqued again as the champion appeared to choose a passive defence, but with precise play, Carlsen erected an impregnable fortress. Elite grandmaster (GM) Anish Giri echoed Garcia’s earlier observation, saying he felt the Norwegian had arrived tired for game five, and had been vulnerable today. A common talking point among commentators was whether the challenger’s conscious decision to adopt a cautious match strategy might have inhibited him from mounting a serious winning bid after he secured an early advantage. To all appearances, Nepomniachtchi had the upper hand in speed, preparation and position today, and even if his superiority was not deadly, it was likely a rare opportunity to have this trifecta in a title match. When the time control was reached at move 40, the champion was visibly relaxed, and confident that he no longer had anything to fear on the board. After brief reflection, Nepomniachtchi agreed, and initiated a repetition of moves that signalled the fifth consecutive draw of the match. A new detail Although the players exchanged a few words after the end of play, for the first time, they didn’t linger and have a longer discussion of the critical points in the game. Previous title challenger, US GM Fabiano Caruana, said he read Nepomniachtchi’s reticence and expression as a sign the challenger was angry with an opportunity missed, even if his advantage had never been decisive. Regardless of how he arrived, Carlsen was visibly subdued
Velammal Nexus School wins World School Chess Tournament at Expo 2020
293 teams and 2,637 players from 53 countries took part in the biggest online competition ever, the World School Chess Tournament, organized by the Spanish Pavilion. The qualifying stage of the tournament for schools with students of all ages up to the U-16 category, representing the countries participating in the World Fair was held online on Chess24 throughout 2021. Twelve top-qualifying teams from the preliminary stage came to UAE to play in the OTB finals at the Dubai Expo. The finals of the World School Chess Tournament brought together 118 young people from India, Mongolia, Peru, the Czech Republic, Hungary, the USA, Israel, Spain, Turkey and UAE. The Indian team Velammal Nexus School emerged champions after beating the Peruvian School Saco Oliveros in the final. GMs D Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa and Leon Mendonca, along with International Master V Pranav and V Rindhiya bested their opponents by a score of 3-2. Saco Oliveros from Peru had to settle for silver; the 33rd Secondary School of Mongolia came in third. “We were favourites to win the tournament, but the Peruvian team fought, and they were quite close; it was a very interesting tournament,” 15-year-old Grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju of Velammal Nexus School said. The Velammal Nexus School received the trophy from Reem Ibrahim Al Hashemy, Minister of State for International Cooperation and Director-General of Expo 2020 Dubai and José Manuel Franco, Spanish Secretary of State for Sports. “I would like to first thank all our friends and our colleagues from Spain for your successful conception and delivery of such a splendid tournament and appropriate celebration of a game that was introduced to the Iberian Peninsula by Arab travellers,” said Al Hashemy. “At Expo, we are honoured to welcome chess events and activities over the coming weeks, the FIDE World Championship is already taking place at Dubai Exhibition Centre, and before the end of December, we will also welcome the Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Cup, organized by Dubai Chess & Culture Club,” she added. José Manuel Franco, Spanish Secretary of State for Sports, said: “We are grateful for being able to host the final rounds of this chess tournament on-site; I would like to congratulate and highlight the enormous effort of all the institutions and federations involved.” During the award ceremony, representatives of the Emirati and Israeli teams played a friendly game.
FIDE Chessable Camp at EXPO 2020 Dubai: Days 1-3 recap
At the end of Day 3 of the FIDE Chessable Camp @ EXPO 2020 Dubai, the participants had an opportunity to attend the fifth game of the FIDE World Chess Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi. The lucky 12 youngsters were selected from 250 players aged from 8 to 16 nominated by 100 federations, who have been undergoing training for two hours every week since July. From Asia, there are six, with four from India: Gukesh D and Leon Luke Mendonca, the wild cards, and Divya Jitendra Desmuth and Sahiti Varshini Moogi. Others are Poh Yu Tian from Malaysia and Abdulrahman Mohamad Al Taher nominated by the host country UAE. There are four representatives of Europe: Enrico Follesa from Belgium, Ayan Allaverdiyevam from Azerbaijan, Magnus Ermitsch from Germany, and Adrian Stenier Soderstrom from Sweden The Americas is represented by Ilan Schnaider and Caldela Belen Francisco Guecamburu, both from Argentina. Day 1 started with a room full of guests who have rarely been seen together in one place before: FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, Deputy President Bachar Kouatly, Managing Director Dana Reizniece-Ozola, and Chessable CEO Geert van der Velde. It was hard to tell whose words were more inspiring! It only got better when former World Champion Viswanathan Anand delivered an instructive lecture of the highest quality. Did a tremendous and quick improvement occur right in this camp, or it can be attributed to the five months of weekly lessons two hours a week in English, Spanish and Russian before? Whatever the reason, the ten youngsters who took on TRG Chairman and Russia National Junior Coach Mikhail Kobalia in clock simul were on fire, scoring five wins, three draws and suffering only two losses! Day 2 was a treat of another kind for the young participants as, together with their parents, they had a chance to experience EXPO. Day 3 saw Chessable CEO Geert van der Velde lead a round table discussion where life lessons took the centre stage together with the development of industry-leading training platform Chessable with Chessable Classroom. What’s ahead? Day 4 will be a day of intense training at the actual match venue with Mikhail Kobalia and Viswanathan Anand, a behind the scenes visit that Dana Reizniece-Ozola will wrap up. The FIDE Managing Director will talk about her career path from being a chess player to becoming an award-winning Minister of Finance and still having enough skills to beat the world No 1 Hou Yifan when Latvia met China at the 2016 Olympiad in Baku. On Day 5, the young participants will have some precious time with the FIDE World Cup 2021 winner Jan-Krzysztof Duda sharing his valuable experience with them.
Alireza Firouzja surpasses 2800-mark in December rating list
November 2021 saw two major chess competitions: FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss and European Team Championship. These two events caused a lot of changes in the new rating list. The big story is Alireza Firouzja‘s achievements in November that simply stagger the imagination. Indeed, after winning the FIDE Grand Swiss 2021 in Riga with an excellent result 8/11, the Iran-born teenager representing France steamrolled the competition in the European Team Championship, scoring 8/9 on the first board. These incredible results translated into 34 rating points and catapulted Firouzja to the second position in the open rating list. Alireza became the youngest player ever to surpass the 2800-rating mark, breaking the record set by Magnus Carlsen. Photo: Anna Shtourman Several top tenners, namely Alexander Grischuk, Levon Aronian and Maxim Vachier-Lagrave, dropped quite a few rating points in Riga. In the Frenchman’s case, it cost him the place in the top-10. On the other end of the spectrum is Fabiano Caruana, who qualified for the Candidates and picked up one point along the way. In the women’s rating list, the winner of Women’s Grand Swiss Lei Tingjie (pictured below) earned 30 rating points and returned into the top-10 after more than a three-year absence, whereas Aleksandra Goryachkina widened her margin over Humpy Koneru in the women’s top-10 after gaining 6 rating points in the two major November competitions. Photo: Anna Shtourman Biggest gains Vantika Agrawal WGM IND 2381 (+52) Firouzja, Alireza GM FRA 2804 (+34) Assaubayeva, Bibisara IM KAZ 2434 (+34) Antolak, Julia WGM POL 2368 (+34) Javakhishvili, Lela IM GEO 2479 (+33) Shirov, Alexei GM ESP 2704 (+31) Lei, Tingjie GM CHN 2535 (+30) Deac, Bogdan-Daniel GM ROU 2679 (+28) Keymer, Vincent GM GER 2664 (+25) Anton Guijarro, David GM ESP 2693 (+24) Zhu, Jiner WGM CHN 2478 (+23) Oparin, Grigoriy GM RUS 2681 (+22) Photo: Anna Shtourman Coincidentally, many winners in this category debut in the open and women’s top-100. Indeed, Vantika Agrawal (pictured below), Julia Antolak and Vincent Keymer significantly increased their rating and deservedly broke into the respective top-100s. Vincent and Vantika did a great job in the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss, whereas Julia picked 34 points in the Polish Women’s Championship semifinals and Frauenbundesliga 2021/2022. Photo: Anna Shtourman Alexei Shirov, David Anton, Grigory Oparin and Bogdan-Daniel Deac greatly benefited from their excellent performance at the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss as well, with the Russian and the Romanian reaching his career-high. For the most part, the same applies to Bibisara Assaubayeva (pictured below), Lela Javakhishvili and Zhu Jiner, who netted plenty of points at the FIDE Chess.com Women’s Grand Swiss with the Kazakhstani youngster mounting to 33rd position in the women’s rating list and 4th place in the top-100 girls. Photo: Mark Livshitz Outside of top-100 open and women, we can see even more impressive rating jumps by the youngsters. For one thing, the progress at a young age is more rapid; for another, the lower you are ranked, the easier it is to accumulate points. Kudos to Nilufar Yakubbaeva (+77), Eline Roberts (+61), who is knocking at the top-100 door, Anastasia Avramidou (+57) and Alua Nurmanova (+53) for their impressive rating gains.