CHESS #1400

Magnus Carlsen won the Magnus Invitational by taking a ding-dong final against Hikaru Nakamura where both played brilliant chess. Prior to that Carlsen won in the semi-finals against Ding Liren while Nakamura put it across Fabiano Caruana in the other semi. Coincidentally, Ding had beaten Carlsen at the league stage while Caruana had beaten Nakamura.

The Invitational was followed by the Fide Chess.com Online Nations Cup where six teams take each other on in a rapid double-round robin (25 minutes / game plus 10 seconds per move) with four boards. The fourth board is a woman. China has Hou Yifan taking a break from her studies to handle that board. She is still, by miles, the highest rated woman player in the world.

China and Europe lead. The Chinese have won five of their six matches, drawing against Russia. Europe represented by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Levon Aronian, Anish Giri, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Anna Muzychuk and Nana Dzagnidze has lost to China while beating the other four.

India has had a poor outing with draws versus USA (twice) and against Russia, coupled to losses to the Rest of the World (Teimour Radjabov, Alireza Firouzja, Bassem Amin, Dinara Saduakassova, Mariya Muzychuk), Europe and China.

The Indian team is led by Viswanathan Anand, who is in reasonable touch. The rest of the squad are the highly experienced Vidit Gujrathi, Pentala Harikrishna, Baskaran Adhiban, Humpy Koneru and Harika Dronavalli. Gujrathi has been the weak link so far, with three losses.

Team strategy is a peculiar thing. Analysing together with teammates is of course, useful. However, there are specifics to preparation, which can require a lot of discussion. The team may, for instance, decide that Board one has to play solidly while Bd 3 tries to win. A wild tactician like Mikhail Tal, or an inveterate risk-taker like Garry Kasparov, Veselin Topalov, or Viktor Korchnoi, can upset the mental balance of teammates because of the unpredictability of results on their boards.

In online play, the additional dimension of controlling for cheating, or consultations on team strategy during the game are other variables. A team may “group-think” and decide for example, that Bd 2 has to take risks. During a normal match, the non-playing Captains would have the option of asking any or all their players to offer a draw, but he or she wouldn’t be able to issue instructions to play safe, or go for broke.

The Diagram White to Play (White: Anand Vs Black :Nepomniachtchi, Fide Chess.Com Online Nations May 2020) first came up on Anand’s radar ten years ago! When it occurred here, he blasted out 15. f5!! Bxc4 16. e5 Qd7 17. f6 (1-0). Mate can’t be stopped since 17.—Kh8 18. Qh6 Rg8 19. Ng5.

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player