Friday, October 15, 2021

Chess: Fabiano Caruana trails at US championship and loses world No 2 spot

One win from his first six games in St Louis has left the American lagging well behind Ding Liren in the world rankings


Fabiano Caruana (right) with Rustam Kasimdzhanov (centre) in London in 2018. The US No 1 recently parted company with his long-standing coach. Photograph: fide.com

Leonard Barden
Fri 15 Oct 2021 

After eight of the 11 rounds at the $194,000 (£141,522) US championship in St Louis, which finishes on Monday, Aleksandr Lenderman, Samuel Sevian and the defending champion Wesley So shared the lead on 5/8. This close race will probably only be decided in the final rounds. Games are free to watch live daily from 7pm.

The big shock has been the poor showing of top-seeded Fabiano Caruana, whose stellar result at St Louis 2014 is widely regarded as the best tournament performance of all time, and who narrowly failed to capture Magnus Carlsen’s world crown at London in 2018.


UK prisoners allowed to play chess in global online tournament

Caruana began St Louis as the world No 2 but his first four rounds brought him just a single win plus three shaky draws, while rounds five and six were disastrous losses to lower rated opponents. In round six he was worse against the rising talent Sevian, 20, who also features in this week’s puzzle, then preferred a risky attack to solid defence and was caught by Sevian’s tactic 28 Re1! when Bxg2? fails to 29 Rxf7!

In round seven, Caruana won after Ray Robson missed a chance to establish a drawing fortress, but the two defeats have caused his rating to nosedive to well behind the new No 2, China’s Ding Liren. Interviewed after defeating Robson, Caruana admitted: “Most of my games in this tournament were bad. At least, today was a very big step-up from previous rounds.”

The 29-year-old St Louis resident cannot yet be counted out, since despite his struggles so far he is still just a single point behind the leaders, while two of his remaining three opponents are in the bottom half of the table.

Even if he finishes an also-ran in the US Championship, Caruana has an immediate chance for redemption in the Fide Grand Swiss which starts in Riga on 25 October. Some Caruana fans believe he is using the US contest as a training ground for the more important task of qualifying for the 2022 Candidates or Grand Prix, for which places are at stake in Riga. Hikaru Nakamura, the five-times US champion with 1.3 million followers on his Twitch streaming channel, has adopted a different approach, missing St Louis to concentrate on the Grand Swiss.

3785: Alexey Shirov v Samuel Sevian, Stockholm 2016. Black to move and win. The then 15-year-old grandmaster outcalculated a legendary tactician here. How did Black score quickly?    3785: 1…Qb4+ 2 Kd5 Be4+! 3 Qxe4 Qc5 mate.

Caruana’s setback follows the announcement a few weeks ago that he had parted company with his longstanding coach and second, Rustam Kasimdzhanov. The Uzbek, 41, whose playing peak was the 2004 Fide knockout world championship where he defeated England’s Michael Adams in the final, had previously aided Vishy Anand during the Indian’s successful world title defences of 2008, 2010 and 2012.

Kasimdzhanov was Caruana’s trainer for six years, including his successful early 2018 campaign when the American won the Candidates, Stavanger and Grenke and got within a few points of Carlsen in the ratings. Winning just a single classical game out of 12 against Carlsen in London would have made Caruana No 1 in the rankings, but it never happened. Kasimdzhanov was disappointed, and it affected their relationship.

After the pandemic arrived Caruana and his coach rarely met due to travel problems, so that when the Candidates started, then stopped at halfway for a year, the tension showed in Caruana’s game. Kasimdzhanov would have continued had his employer qualified for a second match with Carlsen, but as it was he decided to see more of his family and explore other coaching options.

Parting was strange, he told Chessbase. “When you work together intensively for six years, a special relationship develops. It’s like a divorce.” Kasimdzhanov may now switch to helping Uzbekistan’s rising talents Javokhir Sindarov, 15, and Nodirbek Abdusattorov, 16.

Last week’s British championship at the University of Hull felt nostalgic, a final hurrah for some of the GMs and IMs who learnt their skills 30-40 years ago on the competitive weekend circuit during the talent explosion which briefly made England the world’s No 2 chess country. Despite a generous near-£5,000 prize fund, it was a low-key tournament with the smallest entry since 1948 and a third of the players withdrawing before the finish.

Top-seeded Nick Pert took the title and £2,000 first prize with a gritty undefeated 6.5/9. There were five co-leaders with two rounds left, but Pert’s quick round eight win against Joseph McPhillips, who went pawn-hunting with his queen at the cost of development, sealed it when his rival Andrew Ledger seemed to succumb to final-round nerves. Mark Hebden, the oldest at 63, who has been close to the title a few times in his long career, played 268 moves in his last three games but missed a chance to force a play-off with Pert at move 75 in his final round against Keith Arkell, 60.

None of England’s six 2600-plus rated GMs took part, nor did the rising star Ravi Haria, 22, who had just started a new job. Four of the elite plus Haria will comprise the national squad in next month’s European team championship at Catez, Slovenia where England are the fifth seeds behind Russia, Azerbaijan, France and Poland.


Chess: British championship dominated by veterans as over-the-board returns


This weekend Hull University hosts the British Women’s Championship. There are only 11 entrants, but it will feature a rare encounter between Harriet Hunt and Keti Arakhamia-Grant, the UK’s best two women players since the legendary Vera Menchik. The championship is a seven-round Swiss where the most likely meeting rounds between the favourites are the third on Friday afternoon (4pm) or the fourth on Saturday morning (10 am).

At their peaks, Hunt was in the world top 20 while Arakhamia-Grant, a Georgian turned Scot, was in the top 10. Hunt could have achieved more, but preferred her academic work as a plant geneticist. In possibly their only previous game, played in 2002, a sharp Najdorf Sicilian ended in a draw by repetition.

The Russian championship at Ufa in the Southern Urals has reached its midpoint, with Nikita Vitiugov half a point ahead of the pack on 3.5/5. Aleksandra Goryachkina, the world No 2-ranked woman, is on 2.5/5 after impressing with an early victory.

EVEN IN CHESS THE WOMEN'S PRIZE IS LESS THAN THE MENS BY 45% EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK IS NEEDED IN CHESS AS WELL AS ALL SPORTS

2021 U.S. Chess Championships
Streamed live 

Saint Louis Chess Club
Twelve of the country’s strongest players battle for the national title and $194,000 in a round robin event. Plus, the U.S. Women's title is decided in an identical format with $100,000 at stake. Join GMs Cristian Chirila, Yasser Seirawan, and Maurice Ashley for the move-by-move.

  


CHESS IS DIVERSE

2021 US Chess Championships: Wesley So preserves share of lead in Round 8

Ohmer Bautista
·Contributor
Fri, 15 October 2021

Filipino-American chess grandmaster Wesley So of USA. (Photo by BERIT ROALD/NTB Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)

Defending champion Wesley So continued to share the lead with Alex Lenderman and Sam Sevian after the eight round of the 2021 US Chess Championships ended with a series of draws on Friday (October 15, Manila time) at the Saint Louis Chess Club in Missouri.

Handling the black pieces, the Filipino-American So, who caught up to the tournament leaders in the seventh round, repelled Sam Shankland's attacks in a Berlin endgame as both sides agreed to call a truce.

The 28-year-old pride of Cavite now holds 5.0 points, tied with Lenderman and Sevian, both of whom also settled for draws in round eight where they faced Darius Swiercz and Leinier Dominguez Perez, respectively.

The matches involving Fabiano Caruana-Jeffery Xiong; Ray Robso-Lazaro Bruzon Batist; and John Burke-Daniel Naroditsky all ended in draws.

Here are the standings at the end of the eight round: Dominguez and Robson possess 4.5 points to stand behind leaders So, Sevian and Lenderman; Caruana sits at 4.0 in his lonesome; Shankland, Bruzon, Naroditsky and Swiercz find themselves in a deadlock at 3.5; and Burke continues to accompany Xiong in the cellar with 3.0.

The US Chess Championships will have its last rest day on Saturday (October 16, Manila time) before action resumes for the ninth round on Sunday.


2021 US Chess Championships: Wesley So beats John Burke to take share of lead

Ohmer Bautista
·Contributor
Thu, 14 October 2021,

Filipino-American Wesley So of USA.
(Photo credit should read JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images)

Philippine-born Wesley So bolstered his title-retention bid with a crucial win over John Burke in the seventh round of the 2021 US Chess Championships on Thursday (October 14, Manila time) at the Saint Louis Chess Club in Missouri.

The defending champion So displayed composure as he picked apart Burke's Anti-Berlin 4.d3, whose risk-taking decision gave the Filipino-American an opening to seize full control in the endgame.

"Last night, I checked his openings. I was looking for a way to play for a win with the black pieces, but he knows his theory really well," shared the 28-year-old pride of Cavite, who came armed with deep preparation.

So then chimed in, "Big shoutout to him for not forcing to draw with the white pieces."

The victory proved all-important for So as it catapulted him towards a share of the lead in the classical event, where he holds 4.5 points, tied with Sam Sevian and Alex Lenderman.

Sevian, who was coming off a rousing victory over world no. 2 Fabiano Caruana, subdued Lazaro Bruzon Batista to earn a piece of the top spot, while Lenderman called a truce with Jeffery Xiong to remain perched among the leaders.

In other matches, Caruana clinched his breakthrough win at the expense of Ray Robson; Daniel Naroditsky held Leinier Dominguez to a draw; and Sam Shankland agreed to a truce with Darius Swiercz.

Here are the tournament standings after the seventh round: Dominguez and Robson stand behind leaders So, Sevian and Lenderman with 4.0 points each; Caruana earns a solo spot with 3.5 points; Bruzon, Shankland, Swiercz and Naroditsky find themselves in a deadlock with 3.0 points apiece; while Burke accompanies Xiong at the bottom with 2.5 each.

The eight round of the US Chess Championships will commence on Friday (October 15, Manila time).


Ohmer Bautista is a sports journalist who has covered local and international sporting events in the Philippines. The views expressed are his own.

No comments:

Post a Comment