NICK BARNETT CHESS

TEIMOUR RADJABOV is the winner of the FIDE World Cup 2019. In a major upset, he crushed Ding Liren the Chinese grandmaster, in both 5/3 blitz games for a 6-4 match victory. Four of the eight candidates who will compete for the right to take on Magnus Carlsen for his global crown are now decided. At this point are Radjabov, world No 2, Fabiano Caruana, defeated 2018 challenger, China’s world No 3, Ding Liren and Netherlands’ Anish Giri.

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RADJABOV is the second youngest player ever, after Judit Polgar, to make it into the FIDE Top 100 players list. With a rating of 2599 in January 2002 he was ranked 93rd in the world while still 14 years old. In the FIDE Moscow Grand Prix rapid event in June he won matches against Ivanchuk, Svidler, Beliavsky and Akopian before losing the final to Kasparov. In 2003 Radjabov defeated Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand and Ruslan Ponomariov with the black pieces, making him the first player to have beaten three former and reigning FIDE World Chess Champions with black in one year. The win against Kasparov in Linares was Radjabov’s only win in the tournament, where he ended up with a +1−4=7 score. Kasparov had been undefeated in five consecutive Linares tournaments before losing to Radjabov. It was rumoured that Kasparov was really resentful and in an interview in 2005, Radjabov claimed that Kasparov used his influence to prevent him from being invited to top tournaments after that. Despite that he managed to finally move to Number 9 in the live world rankings with 2,767 points.

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MPHO BOWERS is a 7 year old from Edenvale in Gauteng is being hailed as a prodigy. He has broken a long-standing South African record, winning 33 consecutive tournament matches and undefeated in 43 games. He recently won his 12th title of the year at the Etienne Lewis Tshwane closed tournament at Leriba Hotel in Centurion. He trains at the Goforchess Academy in Bryanston under the tutelage of former SA champion Clyde Wolpe. As the youngest member of the national junior team and highest-rated under-8 player, Mpho is set to represent South Africa at the African Youth Chess Championships in Namibia in December.

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