 "Chess (#1211)")
Magnus Carlsen took the Bilbao Masters with a round to spare. After suffering his first-ever classical loss to Hikaru Nakamura in the opening round, the world champion clinched the tournament with his first-ever classical win versus Anish Giri.
In all, Carlsen scored +4, -1, =5, to log 17 from 10 games (double round robin) with soccer scoring. He was followed by Nakamura, (+1,=9), 5 points behind. Wei Yi and Wesley So scored one win and one loss each. Giri was obviously in terrible form (=7,-3). But the real disappointment was Sergey Karjakin who scored 9 draws and a loss to Carlsen in their last encounter before the title match. He may be protecting his repertoire.
The world champion's rating barely improved (up 2.4 Elo) despite his convincing performance. Carlsen has had, by anybody else's standards, a fantastic year winning the Tata Steel and the Norway GM before he took Bilbao. For him, it's been just average.
Meanwhile Maxime Vachier-Lagrave leads 4-2 in an exhibition match against Peter Svidler in Biel. This started with four rapid games and MVL won the rapid set 2.5-1.5. He is leading the classical 4-game set by 1.5-0.5. The Karpov Tournament in Poikovsky (Russia) has Radek Wojtaszek, Igor Kovalenko, Maxim Matlakov, Anton Korobov (al 2.5) tied for first after four rounds. It's a 10-player Round Robin and quite strong with Dmitry Jokovenko, Dmitry Andreikin, Emil Sutovsky, Alexander Motylev, Ilya Smirin and Viktor Bologan. Vidit Gujrathi and Vladislav Artemiev (both 6/9) shared first place at the Lake Sevan GM in Armenia. Jan Kryzstof Duda (5.5) came third.
The Diagram, WHITE TO PLAY ( White : Carlsen Vs Black: Giri, Bilbao Masters 2016) features a combination missed by both parties. Carlsen whipped up a big attack anyway. The killer is 23. c5! bxc5 24. Ra6 amazingly black cannot prevent Rxd6 getting two pieces for the rook. Why would this win? Well, the game has answers.
Play went 23.cxd5 exd5 24.Nb3 Qxc2 25.Nd4 Qc8 26.h5 Qd7 27.Rb1 Bc7 28.f3 Qf7 29.Ra1 Bd6 30.Ra6 Qxh5? [Giri missed 30...Qb7! when 31.Nxf5 Nxf3+ 32.gxf3 Bxf4 33.exf4 Rf8 34.Nxg7 Qxg7 35.Qxg7+ Kxg7 is drawn]
31.Rxb6 Nc4 32.Rxd6 Nxd6 33.Bxd6 Rxe3 34.Be5 White now has the kind of position he could have got by force after 23. c5! The two pieces help the queen to attack.
34...Qg6 35.Qf4 Re1+ 36.Kf2 Ra1 37.Qd2 Ra8?? [The engines say 37. Qa6 or 37-- .f4 may hold. This is an outright blunder since Qxd5 will hit Ra8] The game concluded 38.Nxf5 Qe6 39.Qg5 g6 40.Nh6+ Kf8 41.Ng4 Ke8 42.Nf6+ Kf7 43.Nxh7 Ra4 44.Qd8 Ra2+ 45.Kg1 (1-0). The conclusion could be 45.-- Qxe5 46. Qf8+ Kd6 47. Qb8+ Ke6 48. Nf8+ Kf5 49. g4+ Kf4 50. Nxg6+.
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player
