Catching Up on 2023, Looking Ahead to 2024
Carlsen wins the Rapid & Blitz Championships, and we have a full slate of Candidates.
It seems that the only person that can stop Magnus Carlsen is…Magnus Carlsen. He’ll occasionally lose a game or fail to win a tournament, but overall his rate of success is extraordinary. Having won both the World Rapid (for the fifth time) and the World Blitz Championships (for the seventh time) - a double he has achieved four times - he is now up to 17 world championship victories (counting his five Classical World Championship wins - the “real” world championship). It’s amazing, and he’s still just 33 years old.
He was undefeated in the Rapid event, winning seven games on the way to clear first with 10/13. The key game was his win in round 10 - with Black - against his closest rival, Vladimir Fedoseev, who led at the time and who still finished in clear second, half a point clear of Yu Yangyi (third on tiebreak) and Vidit Gujrathi. Had Fedoseev won his last game he would have forced a playoff, but he was satisfied with a big payday and made a quick draw with Dmitry Andreikin.
In the Blitz Carlsen finished the first day tied for first, but then lost the first game of day two to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Carlsen mixed up his opening lines and was efficiently butchered by the French star. Annoying for Carlsen, no doubt, but there was psychological hangover as he promptly won six games in a row before finishing with a couple of draws.
Someone who did manage to keep pace with Carlsen was Daniil Dubov, who finished half a point out of first. (Oddly, Dubov likewise got Andreikin in the last round, and like Fedoseev he made a short draw to guarantee a big payday while coming half a point behind Carlsen.) If you tally about Carlsen’s and Dubov’s shall we say apparent scores, they finished tied with 16/21. Unfortunately for Dubov, he and Ian Nepomniachtchi decided to be “clever” in their game from round 11, the final round of the first day. While players are wont to make short, sometimes prearranged draws from time to time, they generally have enough sense to not produce the equivalent of a large, flashing neon sign announcing it to the whole world.
Not these guys: 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nd4 Nd5 3.Nb3 Nb6 4.Nc3 Nc6 5.Ne4 Ne5 6.Ng5 Ng4 7.Nf3 Nf6 8.Ng1 Ng8 9.Nc5 Nc4 10.Na4 Na5 11.Nc3 Nc6 12.Nb1 Nb8 and draw agreed - but not 1/2-1/2. The arbiters awarded this a 0-0 score, leaving them half a point off the lead at the end of the first day. Dubov, like Carlsen, scored +5 on the final day, good enough for clear second; Vladimir Artemiev, who started the tournament with six straight wins and had the solo lead as late as round 17 and was tied after round 18, took third. His only loss came in round 18, when he lost with White to Aleksandar Indjic. He bounced back with a win, but two draws later he was still a point behind Carlsen and half a point behind Dubov. (Nepo and MVL were another half a point behind.)
Let’s turn now to the race for the Candidates, which also had a little controversy. The FIDE Circuit spot was controversy-free and went to Dommaraju Gukesh. He led the race entering the World Rapid & Blitz Championships, and neither Anish Giri nor Arjun Erigaisi were able to overtake him. But there was a bit of controversy for the ratings spot. I mentioned a while back that Alireza Firouzja, trying to surpass Wesley So, played a series of three two-game matches set up specifically for this purpose. He went 5.5/6 in them, gaining points but still finishing a touch behind So. He then played in a mostly very weak Swiss system tournament, going 7/7 and beating the three highest-rated players (one of whom was Gata Kamsky). As it turned out, FIDE refused to rate the matches but did rate the tournament, and that was just enough for Firouzja to pass So by a couple of points, 2759 to 2757. Too bad for So, but he could have played somewhere in the last weeks of December as well to combat Firouzja’s maneuver.
Anyway, the bottom line is that the eight spots for the Candidates are set - at least as long as Carlsen doesn’t change his mind and decide to participate. They are:
Ian Nepomniachtchi (qualified by losing the World Championship match)
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (second place in the World Cup)
Fabiano Caruana (third place in the World Cup)
Nijat Abasov (fourth place in the World Cup; he’d be out if Carlsen, who won the World Cup, decides to play)
Vidit Gujrathi (winner of the FIDE Grand Swiss)
Hikaru Nakamura (runner-up in the FIDE Grand Swiss)
Dommaraju Gukesh (runner-up in the FIDE Circuit - Caruana won but already qualified by other means)
Alireza Firouzja (rating qualifier)
These guys will fight it out from April 2-25, 2024 in Toronto for the right to face Ding Liren in a 14-game match sometime this year. Ding has been AWOL for a long time, but will participate in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament (“Wijk aan Zee”) later this month.
"Too bad for So, but he could have played somewhere in the last weeks of December as well to combat Firouzja’s maneuver."
Firouzja's (second) 'maneuver' was kept secret until it was too late for Wesley So to react? Though it was clear that Firouzja was "up to something" when he dropped out of world rapid/blitz. "The event" for Wesley So could have been the Eastern Open in Arlington, VA - like Rouen Open running 26-29 December and thus rated for the January list. It had two IMs, maybe So would have needed to motivate some GMs (the likes of Shabalov, Yermolinsky, Finegold, ... stronger ones not really needed?) - Kamsky and Li Min Peng were added to the field of Rouen Open last-minute together with Firouzja.
It might have been hilarious to follow such an asynchronous Elo race with (a matter of definition) small or big obstacles for both players - due to time zone difference and double rounds in both events almost 24h each day in parallel to world rapid/blitz. Advantage So that he would have started with a small to (as Firouzja's matches weren't rated) slightly bigger edge, maybe also that Eastern Open had 8 rounds vs. 7 rounds in Rouen. Disadvantage So arguably that he is more prone to draws also against relatively weak opponents.
BTW Kamsky, like Firouzja, lives in Chartres and is a member of the Chartres Chess Club - he is also involved in local Chess in School programs and organizes local blitz events. This might explain why he was available and willing to help Firouzja - I don't really mean losing against him, but playing the event in the first place.