Champions Showdown (Chess960) Ends

Some matches stayed close for a while, some until the last day, but by the end each match winner had shown his dominance over his opponent.

In the match between Levon Aronian and Leinier Dominguez, it was pretty one-sided throughout. In part this may be because Aronian's top end is simply stronger than Dominguez's (at least judging by their career ratings in classical chess), but Aronian also had a significant edge in experience, having been a regular in Chess960 competitions when they were an annual event in Mainz. In the end Aronian more than doubled Dominguez's score, winning 17.5-8.5. (There were 20 games in total, but because the six rapid games counted double there were 26 points at stake in each match.)

Similarly lopsided was the match between Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Sam Shankland. Shankland did pretty well the first two days, but losing seven straight games over the third and fourth days put an end to the American's hopes and then some. He finally got a consolation win in the penultimate game, but still lost by an overall score of 17.5-8.5, the same as in Aronian-Dominguez.

Wesley So dominated the first two days, and while Anish Giri came back a bit on day 3 So finished the match with a win and seven draws on the last day. It wasn't as lopsided as the two previous matches, but So's winning margin of 15.5-10.5 was still very comfortable.

Veselin Topalov "only" defeated Garry Kasparov 14.5-11.5, but that's with Kasparov winning the last two games. Topalov looked stronger throughout the event, but Kasparov left quite a few points on the table, missing wins and making blunders. He also had a bit of bad luck thanks to Peter Svidler. At the start of each day the position would be determined and shown to the players 30-60 minutes before the day's first round, and the players would spend time analyzing the position to get in some prep. Svidler and Kasparov, the two Russians, worked together, and today only Svidler looked at the position and set it up for the two to analyze. Unfortunately, he switched the placement of two of the pieces, and so they analyzed the wrong position until Giri came by about a minute before the analysis finished, telling them that they'd made a mistake. Kasparov's equilibrium was shaken, and he played very poorly in the first game, resigning after just 15 moves. By the end of the day he seemed to have found his form - but too late. Topalov won, 14.5-11.5.

The only match that was really competitive through the first three days and into the fourth was Hikaru Nakamura vs. Peter Svidler. Nakamura began the day with just a one point lead, and after a draw and a Svidler win it was all equal with six blitz games to go. Just when it seemed it was going to come down to the wire, however, Nakamura won four in a row to clinch the match. Svidler won the last two to shrink the margin to two points, but as with Kasparov's wins it was too little too late. Nakamura 15, Svidler 13.

There won't be anything to learn about your regular openings from these games, but I'd recommend having a look at them - whenever players of this caliber get together there are going to be some deep and beautiful ideas. The next major event comes in about a week and a half, and it's as major as can be: the World Chess Olympiad in Batumi, Georgia. Magnus Carlsen isn't playing, but he might be the only one missing from the world's top 10 - maybe even the top 20, except for whomever is the odd Russian out.