It wasn’t so long ago that the end of the year was a down period on the chess calendar. There was the annual Hastings tournament (still extant), but the top players were generally at home relaxing and preparing for Wijk aan Zee and Linares (dead as a doornail). Those days are gone. The month began with the Sinquefield Cup (won by Fabiano Caruana), continued with the Champions Chess Tour Finals (won by Carlsen - more on that in a moment), and three other events are underway as several players desperately scramble for the last two Candidates spots. Nor is this the end, of course: the World Rapid & Blitz Championships begin, as is usual in recent years, right after Christmas. And only then does the super-GM action stop for a couple of weeks before Wijk aan Zee (aka the Tata Steel Masters, named for the event’s current sponsor) starts and Ding Liren reappears at last. (My understanding is that he has had health problems; hopefully all is well and he’ll be a more regular participant in top-level tournaments.)
This glut is wonderful for chess fans, but a challenge for your humble scribe. I can’t cover everything as I would like - at least not while maintaining the other components of a normal life - but I’ll do what I can to catch us a bit.
So, first, the Champions Chess Tour Finals. We left off on the eve of the semi-finals, with Wesley So, Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, and Nodirbek Abdusattorov the survivors to that point. So and Carlsen both went 6-1 in the prelims, but because So won their head-to-head match he was granted the unusual privilege of selecting his semi-final opponent. Unsurprisingly, he chose Abdusattorov, leaving Carlsen with the task of holding off world #2 Caruana.
Even so, this was not an easy job for So. The format for the semis was to play three sets: a best of four (with Armageddon if needed, likewise for later sets) on day one, a second best of four on day two followed if necessary by a third, best-of-two game set the same day. In set one, So won the first game but lost the next two, and was unable to win the fourth game to force Armageddon. Set two went better for the American, as So won the first two games. It still wasn’t easy as Abdusattorov won game three with Black, but So bounced back in game 4, giving his opponent a draw in a position Abdusattorov could have resigned. It came down to set number three, and to the Armageddon game after two correct draws. So was underbid and had to play White, and he rose to the occasion, winning something of a model game to punch his ticket to the finals.
The Carlsen-Caruana semi only required two sets, but they were both dramatic and went to Armageddon. Set one saw Caruana have opportunity after opportunity, but Carlsen’s resilience led to his “miraculous” victory. Caruana was completely winning game 1 with Black, and was at one point ahead a queen for a rook. Carlsen kept hanging in there, in mutual time trouble, and managed to reach a drawn position. Unfortunately for Caruana, he made one final error on move 90 and even lost that queen (and pawns) vs. rook (and pawns) ending. No problem: he won games 2 and 3 cleanly, and now needed only a draw with White to win the set. It didn’t happen. He reacted poorly to Carlsen’s offbeat opening (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 b6!?) and was lost after 14 moves. He fought well, but eventually succumbed.
In the Armageddon game Caruana again had White, and he had the upper hand in a razor-sharp Sicilian. To keep that advantage required accuracy more than the short time control allowed, and when Caruana didn’t play the piece sacrifice 19.f5! he was worse and then lost. Still, the position was very sharp, and he found a nice idea with 27.Rxh7! The key moment came when Carlsen played the brilliant 30…Qg7. This allows White to win the queen with 31.Ne6 Nf3 32.Qh3, but the problem is that after 32…Bxf4! (or 32…Rxf4!) 33.Nxg7 Black gives perpetual with 33…Nd2+ 34.Ka1 Nb3+ 35.Kb1 Nd2+ and so on. In an Armageddon situation a draw is as good as a win for Black, so Caruana tried 32.Nxg7 instead. It was hopeless and he soon lost, but there was no point in allowing the perpetual.
The second set was also dramatic. The first game was a reasonable draw, and the second game was also a draw - but one Caruana had every opportunity to win. In game 3 Carlsen won one of his patented grinds, and now Caruana would have to win on demand to force another Armageddon game. He did it, and in style, blowing Carlsen away with a fine attacking game.
In their second Armageddon game it was Carlsen who had White, and while he had his opponent under some pressure from the opening everything was manageable until Black’s 22nd move. Had Caruana played 22…Nd3 and only after 23.e6 played 23…f6, he might have held and reached a third set. That’s not a certainty, but it would have been the best bet at the time. Instead, he played 22…f6, and after 23.Nf7 White had the upper hand, which soon proved decisive.
On to the finals, which were marked by a strange dynamic: So’s utter terror in facing Carlsen. At every opportunity So would act in interviews almost like someone who hoped the bully would be nice to him, he would often move with agonizing slowness as if especially unsure of himself, and he would often shake his head in apparent self-disgust and/or look despondent at the board. And yet, despite all of that, he made a fight of both sets, though he lost both by 2.5-1.5 margins.
The first set saw both players demonstrate a very high degree of accuracy. Games 1 and 2 were balanced, correct draws, and only an error in a difficult rook ending, short of time, led to So’s loss in game 3. In game 4 it was So who was pressing, but slightly hesitant play on his part and active defense by Carlsen allowed the world’s #1 to hold without too much misery.
The second set looked like it might be a massacre, with Carlsen winning game 1 with Black in impressive style. So looked unhappy in the early stages of game 2, and was worse on the board and the clock. Still, he kept the game sharp, and the evaluation briefly swung in his favor. Carlsen recovered and was eventually winning, but in mutual time trouble a blunder by Carlsen (43.Qxh7+??; instead 43.Nxf8 kept a decisive advantage) gave So the win. (There was one dramatic moment left in the game, though. When Carlsen played 55.Rd7, threatening to give a perpetual with Nh7+, Nf6+, etc. So hit the table out of frustration before realizing that he could still win, which he did, with 55…Nf4+ followed by 56…Nh5.) Game 3 was a clean draw, and then in game 4 Carlsen won a nice game to finish the set and the match. In addition to the prestige and the title, Carlsen collected $200k for winning the tournament, while So will have $100k as his consolation. Not bad.
As noted at the top, there are other events afoot, too. I mentioned one in an earlier post, the Sunway Sitges tournament. Leinier Dominguez was participating - emphasis on “was” - hoping to surpass Wesley So in the race for the ratings qualifying spot for the Candidates. After the first round they were essentially tied, but then Dominguez drew with a 2371 in round 2 and then - by the skin of his teeth - with a 2520 in round 5. He dropped out after that second draw, now five points (after rounding) behind So. I’m not sure if he’s playing in any other classical events before the end of the year; if not, then he’s out of the race.
Alireza Firouzja, by contrast, is still in the race, and is playing a series of three two-game matches in the hope that he’ll qualify for that spot. Mark Crowther isn’t particularly happy about these ad hoc matches, and I’m sympathetic to his complaint. (Frankly, I wasn’t happy about Ding’s last-second qualification last year either, though that was more understandable.) Anyway, Firouzja won the first game of the first match, and he’s at 2751.8, ahead of Dominguez’s 2751.5 (though it’s a tie when they round up) but behind So’s 2757.4.
But wait, there’s more! The Chennai Masters are underway, and Parham Maghsoodloo, Arjun Erigaisi, and Dommaraju Gukesh are hoping to qualify from that. Only Maghsoodloo has an outside shot of sneaking into the rating spot - highly unlikely - but Erigaisi and Gukesh are in the running to pass Anish Giri for the FIDE Circuit spot.
Finally, without any commentary - the post is long enough already! - if you’re still following the various goings-on concerning computer cheating in chess, here’s a piece revisiting and mentioning some new issues regarding Hans Niemann, and here’s Fabiano Caruana addressing some of Vladimir Kramnik’s complaints about Hikaru Nakamura’s online successes.
Not entirely sure the glut is a boon for chess fans. Perhaps I'm missing the right venue, but commentary seems to be descending to the level of click bait social media. The official commentary for the CCT was dismal for anyone with any kind of serious interest in chess. A team of two GMs and one IM evidently told to try to avoid algebraic notation or serious analysis, with walk on roles by other titled players, providing us with hours and hours of gems to the effect that Carlsen is good at endgames, that it's important not to get behind in a four game match, along with repetitive and infantile pop psychology. In fact, more or less anything but analysis.
I rather miss the days of a super tournament every now and then where I could spend long and blissful evenings for a week or two listening to Peter Leko or Peter Svidler analyzing top level classical chess.