CHESS#1298
Fabiano Caruana is on a roll. The Italian-American Grandmaster has won three really big events in the last six months. First, it was the London Classic, then the Candidates and now the Grenke Classic. The Candidates sets him up as the challenger for the next title match and it's worth noting that Caruana won in London and the Grenke ahead of Magnus Carlsen.
Matchplay is a very different kettle of fish from tournaments. Carlsen must be favourite to defend his title, given his combination of match experience, errorfree style and higher rating. But at the least, Caruana should not feel under-confident.
Grenke was a 10-player round robin. Caruana scored 6.5 points from his nine games for a performance rating of 2896. That put him clear of Carlsen (5.5) with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Levon Aronian and Nikita Vitiugov (all on 5) sharing third-fifth spot. Viswanathan Anand (3.5) had a pretty bad result, ending 8th with losses to VachierLagrave and Matthias Bluebaum, and no wins.
Caruana and Carlsen were both unbeaten but “Don Fabi” won four games, outpacing the world champion who had two wins. Two of Caruana's wins were absolute clutch encounters, first when he wrested the lead on demand from Vachier-Lagrave, and then beat Vitiugov in the last round with black to ensure there would be no question of tiebreaks. Caruana did come close to losing twice, however, against Carlsen and Hou Yifan (3.5) in endgames that resembled composed studies.
The Asian Age Groups in Chiang Mai saw Indians winning 68 medals, including 35 golds, spread across age-groups, time-controls and individual (14 golds) versus team events. Vietnam was a distant second in the tally with 17 golds. There are too many medal winners to mention. However, D Gukesh, who took five golds, must be noted as a shining talent who is looking like the next big prodigy. Gukesh is not quite 12 years old. He has just completed his IM title and crossed the 2400 rating level.
Meanwhile, the other Asian giant, China won a match against the Rest of The World in Liaocheng, China. This was a double-round Scheveningen event: every member of one team played every member of the other team twice. The Chinese were represented by Yu Yangyi, Ding Liren, Bu Xianghzhi, Wei Yi and Li Chao, while the RoW consisted of Daniil Dubov, Vidit Gujrathi, Jan-Krzystof Duda, Samuel Shankland and Etienne Bacrot. China won by a comprehensive 30:20.
The Diagram, BLACK TO PLAY (White: Caruana Vs Black: Hou Yifan, Grenke 2018) could come straight out of a composed study. Black played a normal 64.— a5 and drew (1/2-1/2, 98 moves) with Caruana defending grimly. Instead. 64.— Kd2 65. Bxa6 Nd3+!! 66. cxd3 d4! wins by queening on c1. Other lines like 65. Bc8 Nd3+ 66. Kb1 Ne1 67. Bf5 Kxc3 are more trivial.