CHESS#1323

The title match between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana promises to be very competitive. There’s nothing to choose between them in terms of Elo. They are the world #1 and #2, with Carlsen (2834.7 live rating) just ahead of Caruana (2832.3). 

In practice, Carlsen has the edge, of course. He has massive match experience; Caruana has none. Carlsen is clearly superior at rapid and blitz, in case it comes down to a tie-breaker. He’s also superior in clear positions with defined positional themes. Those are easier to reach, than the unclear, messy positions where Caruana is the Don. 

But there’s very little in it. Indeed, Carlsen came close to being pushed down to #2 during the European Club Championships (ECC) at Chalkidiki, Greece. He survived several minus positions and one that was dead-lost, versus Ding Liren. Carlsen scored just one win and six draws for a rating performance of 2,776. Don’t read too much into this — he would have avoided revealing preparation.

The ECC ended in a tie between Mednyi Vsadnik, St Petersburg, and AVE Novy Bor (12 Match points each). Mednyi had the better tie-break. Four teams, including Carlsen’s Valerenga Oslo, tied for the third-sixth, with 11 points each.  

Speaking of statistics, Sergey Karjakin remains the youngest person to make it to GM, at the age of exactly 12 years, seven months in 2002. Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan has just completed the GM title at 12 years, 10 months, 10 days edging out R Praggnanandhaa, (who was three days older) as the second-youngest GM. 

Ding Liren is on the verge of breaking an incredible record. Between 1973 and 1974, the legendary Mikhail Tal played 95 straight games without a single loss. There have been longer undefeated streaks, but none against consistently strong opposition. Ding has now gone 94 games without defeat. His streak started in August 2017, after a loss, to Anish Giri. Ding has 28 wins and 66 draws, for a performance rating of 2860-odd — and all of those games were versus very strong opposition. 

In the DIAGRAM,  (White: Carlsen Vs Black: Ding, ECC 2018), BLACK TO PLAY, the world champion has just blundered with 23. g4??. Black chose to respond with 23. --- d4 24. Rf3 Nxg4 [ 25. hxg4 Bg4 or 25.--Bc6 is obviously good for black]  winning a pawn.  He could also have gone 23.--Rxh3!, which looks even better. After 25. Re1 Nf6 26. Nb6 Bc6 1 [ Not 26.-- Bxh3? 27. Nd5! Nxd5?? 28. Re8#], Ding was just a pawn up with a winning position and he consolidated with 27. Rg3 g5 28. Re5 Nh5 29. Bf5 Rf4 30. Rg4 Bf3 31. Rxf4 Nxf4 32. Nd7 c4 33. bxc4 Rxc4. Amazingly, Carlsen survived with tenacious defence. (1/2-1/2, 57 moves)

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player