Category 21 China turning into drawfest

THE CATEGORY 21 (average Elo rating: 2756) double round-robin tournament now ongoing in Shenzhen, China and featuring six of the world’s strongest grandmasters, is fast turning into a draw festival.

After f i ve rounds, t he six super- GMs -- Anish Giri (2769), Michael Adams (2761), Ding Liren ( 2759), Pentala Harikrishna (2758), Yu Yangyi (2750) and Peter Svidler (2741) – have produced 3 decisions and 12 point- splitters. You’d thought with this roster, you’d expect the players to be more aggressive, taking risks and fighting furiously every game. Unfortunately, this is not the case judging from the games played so far.

Anyway, here are t he standings after Round 5: 1- 2. Giri, Ding, 3; 3- 4. Yu, Harikrishna, 2 ½ ; 5- 6. Adams, Svidler, 2.

We’ll see what happens in Round 6 and determine whether or not this event is worth wasting any more of our time than what we already spent for it.

Adams, M (2761)-Harikrishna,