CHESS#1316

The Sinquefield classic event in St Louis ended in a three-way tie. Fabiano Caruana led by half a point going into the last round. He drew with Wesley So. Levon Aronian beat Alexander Grischuk in a crazy "must-win" game. Magnus Carlsen beat Hikaru Nakamura in a 97-mover. 

So three players shared victory with 5.5 points from 9 rounds. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (5) also had a plus score. Viswanathan Anand, Grischuk and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (all 4.5) scored 50 per cent. The first place was supposed to be decided by playoff but the final decision was to declare the trio co-champions. 

A tiebreak was still required since, apart from the $300,000 prize fund, this was the last Grand Chess Tour event. The top four from GCT will play a match-tournament in London. Aronian, Caruana, Mamedyarov, So, Grischuk, Vachier-Lagrave and Sergey Karjakin were all in with a chance. 

After the smoke cleared, Caruana-So were tied for fourth-fifth in the GCT. Caruana won the tiebreak match. The St Louis festival is not over. Garry Kasparov joins several competitors to play C960 rapid match with randomised opening setups. 

The Russian Superfinals is halfway through. The 12-player round robins have no weak links. The open group has six players (!) sharing the lead with 3.5 points after six rounds. That includes Evgeny Tomashevsky, Grigoriy Oparin, Alexey Sarana, Daniil Dubov, Ernesto Inarkiev and Dmitry Andreikin. Top seed, Ian Nepomniachtchi (2) trails. The women's superfinal is led by Olga Girya and Alina Kashlinskaya (both 4/6). 

Thrissur resident, Nihal Sarin, raised Rs175,000 for Kerala from a YouTube show with contributions from other players. Humpy Koneru gave Rs25,000 after Anand started the ball rolling with Rs15,000. Siblings Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and Vaishali Rameshbabu contributed Rs20,000.  Incidentally, Sarin was stuck for a while in Dubai because the Kerala airports were closed. He spent the layover productively, coming second in a blitz tournament behind Vladimir Fedoseev. 

The Diagram, WHITE TO PLAY  (White: Aronian Vs Black: Grischuk, Sinquefield 2018) is massively unbalanced. Black has just 10 minutes left. White played 18. Rxf7?!  Kxf7 19. Rf1+ Bf5 20. g4 g6 21. Qc1 The exchange sac exposes the king but black can play 21.— Re6! or even 21. — Qe6. He should win, if he holds till the time control. 

Instead, play continued 21. — Kg7?  22. gxf5 gxf5 23. Bxe4 fxe4. Black can invite a draw with 23. -fxe4 24. Qg5+. Now white has lots of play with 24. Qf4 h6 25. Qc7+ Kh8 26. Bd6 Rg8+ 27. Kf2 Rg6 28. Be5+ Kg8 29. Ke3! Rd8 ? [ 29.— Re8 may hold] 30. Qe7! b5 31. h4! a5 32. h5 Rg5 The rook can't control both g-file and sixth rank. It ended 33. Rf6 Rxe5 34. Rg6+ (1-0). 

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player