MARK RUBERY CHESS
The Russian grandmaster, Ian Nepomniachtchi (30), won the 2020–21 Candidates Tournament with a round to spare and thus earned the right to challenge the defending world champion Magnus Carlsen in Dubai in November.
The eight-player chess double round-robin tournament to decide the challenger for the World Chess Championship began in March 2020 in Yekaterinburg, Russia, but was suspended at the halfway point due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The second half of the tournament was only concluded last month, thus with over 13 months from beginning to end, it is believed to be the longest over-theboard chess tournament in history.
Nepomniachtchi was closely pursued by the Dutch GM Anish Giri before victory in the penultimate round assured him of first place due to the better tie-break (and with the pressure off both players lost their final game).
Final Round 14 Standings: 1st Nepomniachtchi 8.5pts, 2nd Vachier Lagrave 8pts,
3rd Giri 7.5pts, 4th Caruana 7.5pts, 5th Ding Liren 7pts, 6th Grischuk 7pts, 7th Alekseenko 5.5pts, 8th Wang Hao 5pts.
Here is a swashbuckling display by the challenger from a lucrative online event …
Nepomniachtchi,I (2784) - Carlsen,M (2863) [B90]
Legends of Chess Final chess24.com INT (2.13) 2020
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Rg1!? (Virtually any move 6 against the Najdorf can be deemed playable)… b5 7.g4 Bb7 8.g5 Nxe4 9.Nxe4 Bxe4 10.a4 e5 11.axb5 Be7 12.Rg4 axb5 13.Bxb5+ Nd7 14.Bd2 Bb7 15.Nf5 0–0 16.Rxa8 Bxa8 17.Rh4 g6 18.Qg4 Nc5 19.Qh3 19… h5? (The engine finds a typically complex route to force a draw via 19...Bxg5! 20.Rxh7 Bxd2+ 21.Kxd2 Qg5+ 22.Kc3 Ne4+ 23.Kb4 Qd2+ 24.Ka3 Qa5+ 25.Ba4 Qc5+ 26.Ka2 Qc4+ 27.Ka3 Qc5+ with a perpetual) 20.Rxh5! gxh5 21.Qxh5 Ne6 22.g6 1-0 as after fxg6 23.Qxg6+ Kh8 24.Qh6+ Kg8 25.Qxe6+ Rf7 26 Nh6+ wins the house.
Magnus Carlsen put the following brief remark on his Twitter account regarding his upcoming match with Nepomniachtchi as well as obliquely referring to a song made famous in the stage play ‘Phantom of the Opera’ - “Time to say Dubai!”