As at least one chess blogger suggested yesterday, a draw between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura was very likely, and it would quite possibly be a short draw. Sure enough, it took just 18 moves and less than half an hour for them to repeat moves and call it a tournament.
And since they haven't played so far, that means that they're paired for the last round. If Hikaru Nakamura can defeat Magnus Carlsen, he takes clear first; if not, Carlsen takes clear first. Nakamura's career record against Carlsen is extremely bad...
But mostly rounds 6 and 7. My comments about round 5 will be limited to the difficulties experienced by two members of the semi-old guard: Vladimir Kramnik and Boris Gelfand. Kramnik's travails were already noted in the preceding post, while Gelfand's suffering began in that round.
The Independent | Antonio Conte and Diego Simeone's game of chess ends with Chelsea boss teaching his potential successor a lesson |
The Independent | Antonio Conte and Diego Simeone's game of chess ends with Chelsea boss teaching his potential successor a lesson |
The Independent | Antonio Conte and Diego Simeone's game of chess ends with Chelsea boss teaching his potential successor a lesson |
Levon Aronian wins the FIDE World Cup 2017
The tie-break games of the World Cup final match between Levon Aronian (Armenia) and Ding Liren (China) were played in Tbilisi on 27th September.
A great event, especially for Levon Aronian, comes to a close. Ding Liren was in serious trouble in a couple of the classical games, so it's not too surprising that Aronian was able to break through at the shorter time controls.
There are no more perfect scores, as the four players coming into the round 3-0 drew their games. Rustam Kasimdzhanov split the point with Magnus Carlsen, and Aleks Lenderman did the same against his World Cup victim (and defending Isle of Man champion) Pavel Eljanov.
The Final LIVE! Tonight!
The Essex Knockout 2017 Final is played this evening, 26 September, at Wanstead. The visitors, Writtle, are the defening KO Champions and hope to repeat their success of last year: same venue, same opponents.
This has really been an exciting and entertaining tournament so far, with some big upsets and great stories. We've already looked at some round 1 highlights, and we'll skip over round 2 to turn our attention to round 3.
