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The World Women's Team championship is on, in Astana, Kazakhstan. The top ten national teams play a Round Robin. The top players of most favoured teams have opted out. After four rounds, Russia, China and Ukraine share the lead with 7 match points each (2 MP for a win). Russia has 12.5 game points, China has 12 and the Ukraine, 10. India, missing Humpy and Harika, is fifth with 4 MPs.
The eight Candidates are gearing up for the double-round-robin elimination, which starts next Friday in London. The winner will challenge Anand for the title in November 2013 with guaranteed multi-million funding. But there's also Euro 510,000 in the Candidates prize fund itself with sponsor Agon obviously determined to put up a good show.
The Candidates include Carlsen, Kramnik, Aronyan, Radjabov, Grischuk, Svidler, Gelfand and Ivanchuk. Carlsen has to be the favourite but nobody can really be counted out in this field. Carlsen is the youngest player and a double-rounder could place a premium on physical stamina. Balanced against that, the Norwegian's habit of playing every game to bare kings could be counter-productive since it requires vast reserves of energy.
In 1962, Bobby Fischer exhausted himself in a quadruple round robin Candidates because of a similar mindset. Fischer was also the victim of collusion. Soviet GMs Keres, Petrosian and Geller took short draws with each other under Politburo orders and prepared and analysed adjourned games versus Fischer together.
That 1962 Candidates led to a change to match-play in order to prevent this happening again. In London, three Russians and seven (!) former Soviet citizens are arrayed against one Norwegian. But times have changed and it's unlikely that Carlsen will face a barrage of "group-think".
The DIAGRAM, WHITE TO PLAY, (Yi,Wei Vs Qingnan,Liu Reykjavik 2013) is a win from the world's youngest GM. It is home preparation but of truly outstanding quality. In this line (11.--b4 12. fe6 fe6) of the Sozin Sicilian, white had a 27 per cent score prior to this game.
13.e5!! Fabulous novelty 13...dxe5 14.Bxf6 gxf6 15.Rd1! exd4. Nothing works for black. If 15...bxc3 16.Qh5+ Ke7 17.Nf5+! exf5 18.Qf7#. Or 15...Bg7 16.Nxe6 Nxe6 17.Bxe6.
Play went 16.Qh5+ Ke7 17.Qxc5+ Kf7 18.Qh5+ Ke7 19.Ne4 Qb6 20.0�"0 Bg7 21.Nc5 Be8 22.Qg4 Bh6 23.Nxe6 Be3+ 24.Kh1 Bg6 25.Nxd4 Bxd4 26.Rxd4 Rhd8 27.Re1+ Kf8 28.Qf4! Kg7. Since 28...Rxd4 29.Qh6#. 29.Re7+ Kh8 30.Qh6 (1�"0). If 30.- Rg8 31. Rh4. Was this worked out to the end?
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player
