SuperGMs at risk in Opens
At the highest level of chess proficiency, Super-Grandmasters can hope to earn their livings by facing one another at extremely well-financed invitationonly events. Such competitions have grown somewhat more plentiful. Even so, they are still not so numerous as to offer sustenance for even a substantial number of would-be professionals. For a SuperGM to be invited to (or qualify for) participating in these choice competitions, a high rating is generally required.
Playing in Open tournaments puts SuperGMs at risk. A few upsets, draws or losses, by much lower-rated players can sink their ratings quickly. A practical move for maximizing an elite player’s rating then might be to avoid most Opens entirely. Take the prestigious World Open as an extreme example. That event has been run annually since 1973 and has regularly offered a prize fund in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Though many highlevel masters and GMs have competed in it, noticeably missing have been the World’s highest-rated players. In the past 20 years, not a single World Top 10 player has been World Open Champion. In the 2015 event, 32 GMs competed; none of the World’s SuperGMs were amongst them. The same could be said of many other Opens as well.
Evidently, promoters in the Southwest Asian country of Qatar have found ways to make their Masters Open an amazing exception. Held at the end of December, their event hosted 141 master-level players, 71 of which were Grandmasters. Seventeen were SuperGMs, four in the Top 10. One was World Champion Magnus Carlsen.
Continuing his year-end winning streak, Carlsen finished first yet again. Through the nine regulation rounds, he remained undefeated but was tied with Yangyi Yu, last year’s winner. Yu had gotten there by winning an edge-of-the-seat, exhaustive battle with American representative Wesley So, a Top 10 player. [See this column’s featured game.]
Unfortunately, Yu’s good fortune ended quickly as he easily was outplayed by Carlsen in two consecutive tiebreak games. Look at this exciting one: [Carlsen, Magnus-Yu, Yangyi] 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 d5 3.e3 e6 4.Nf3 a6 5.Bd3 c5 6.c3 Bd6 7.Bg3 Nc6 8.Nbd2 0–0 9.Ne5 Ne7 10.0–0 b6 11.Bh4 Nf5 12.Bg5 h6 13.Bf4 Bb7 14.h3 Be7 15.a4 Nd6 16.f3 Nd7 17.Qe2 Nf6 18.Bh2 Qc8 19.Rac1 a5 20.g4 Qd8 21.Qg2 Nd7 22.f4 Rc8 23.Rce1 cxd4 24.exd4 Ba8 25.g5 hxg5 26.fxg5 Nxe5 27.Bxe5 Nc4 28.Nf3 Nxe5 29.Rxe5 Bd6 30.Re2 g6 31.Qg4 Kg7 32.h4 Rh8 33.Rxe6 fxe6 34.Qxe6 Qe8 35.Qxd6 Rc6 36.Qe5+ Qxe5 37.Nxe5 Rxh4 38.Rf7+ Kg8 39.Ra7 Rc8 40.Bxg6 Bc6 41.Bf7+ Kf8 42.Ng6+ 1–0
Inside Carlsen’s mind
“It’s easy to get obsessed with chess. That’s what happened with Fischer and Paul Morphy. I don’t have that same obsession.”
Game of the week
Yu, Yangyi-So, Wesley 2015 Qatar Masters Open Doha, Qatar
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Nf3 c5 5.g3 cxd4 6.Nxd4 0–0 7.Bg2 d5 8.Nc2 Bxc3+ 9.bxc3 Qc7 10.cxd5 Nxd5 11.Nb4 Nxb4 12.cxb4 Rd8 13.Qb3 Nc6 14.0–0 Nd4 15.Qb2 e5 16.Be3 Bg4 17.Rac1 Qd7 18.f3 Bh3 19.Rfd1 Bxg2 20.Kxg2 Qe6 21.Rc7 b6 22.a4 Nf5 23.Rxd8+ Rxd8 24.Bf2 e4 25.Qc2 e3 26.Be1 h5 27.Rxa7 Nd4 28.Qe4 Qc4 29.Qxe3 Nc2 30.Qe7 Nxe1+ 31.Kf2 Qd4+ 32.Kf1 Nc2 33.Qxf7+ Kh8 34.Qxh5+ Kg8 35.Qf7+ Kh8 36.Qh5+ Kg8 37.Qf7+ Kh8 38.Kg2 Ne3+ 39.Kh3 Kh7 40.Qh5+ Kg8 41.Re7 Rf8 42.a5 bxa5 43.bxa5 Nd5 44.Qe5 Qxe5 45.Rxe5 Nb4 46.Re4 Nd5 47.Rc4 Rf6 48.Rc5 Rf5 49.Rc8+ Kf7 50.a6 Ne3 51.g4 Ra5 52.Rc7+ Kf6 53.Rc6+ Kf7 54.Kg3 g5 55.h4 gxh4+ 56.Kxh4 Nd5 57.e4 Ne7 58.Rb6 Ng6+ 59.Kg3 Ra3 60.g5 Ne5 61.Rf6+ Ke7 62.Kg2 Nd3 63.Rh6 Ra5 64.a7 Rxg5+ 65.Kf1 Rg8 66.Ke2 Ne5 67.f4 Nd7 68.Ra6 Ra8 69.Ke3 Nc5 70.Ra1 Nb7 71.e5 Nd8 72.Ra6 Kd7 73.f5 Nc6 74.e6+ Kc7 75.f6 Nb4 76.f7 Kb7 77.Rd6 1–0