Champions Chess Tour Final: Down to the Final Four
Plus: The London Chess Classic ends, chess in the mainstream press, Dominguez fights for a spot in the Candidates, and an impressive David vs. Goliath victory.
It’s not surprising that the final four of the Champions Chess Tour Final includes Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, and Wesley So. Carlsen is arguably the GOAT, and inarguably the strongest active player - and by a significant margin. Caruana is the world’s #2 player in classical chess, and while he’s not quite as strong (relatively speaking) in shorter time controls it’s not as if he forgets how the pieces move. And So is not just one of the world’s best players in general, but an especially strong player when it comes to shorter time controls.
What is surprising is that Hikaru Nakamura isn’t the fourth member of the quartet. He started off with two terrible days, and suffered failure after failure in Armageddon games. The fourth semifinalist is instead Nodirbek Abdusattorov - but before discussing how he and everyone else made it to the semis, let’s first get a grip on the tournament’s complicated format.
The first stage of the tournament, running from Saturday (November 9) to the first session on Tuesday (November 12), was a round-robin of two-game matches played with a time control of 15 minutes per side for the whole game, with a three second increment after each move. If the score was 1-1, then a bid Armageddon game would occur: both players would secretly write how little time they’d be willing to take as Black (against White’s 15 minutes; no increment until move 60 and a one-second increment thereafter). The low bid would get Black, draw odds, and the amount of time on their clock that they bid. As there were eight players, it was a seven round (that is, seven match) preliminary, with two rounds on Saturday, two on Sunday, two on Monday, and the finale on Tuesday.
The top two in the preliminary stage were seeded straight to the semifinals, while the bottom two were eliminated. That left the middle four to fight for the last two spots in the semifinal. In the first round of matches, #3 played #4 and #5 played #6. The winner of the first match qualified for the semis, while the winner of the second match was given the opportunity to face the loser of the first match for the last spot.
Got it?
Now let’s fill in the details. So and Carlsen both finished with 6/7, with So starting off 6-0 and defeating Carlsen in their match (winning the Armageddon game with White). So lost with Black to Caruana in the Armageddon game in round 7, which put Caruana in clear third with 5/7. He lost to Carlsen, obviously, and to Abdusattorov, not reaching Armageddon in either match. Abdusattorov finished fourth with 4 points, and then there’s the bottom half of the scoretable.
Unsurprisingly, Denis Lazavik finished dead last with just 1/7, but he performed better than his match score would suggest. He was only shut out once (in round 7, by Nakamura), took three matches to an Armageddon game, and one one of them (against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in round 4). What is surprising is that the other three players - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Hikaru Nakamura, and Alireza Firouzja tied for 5th-7th with a meager 2/7.
Vachier-Lagrave made it with wins over Nakamura in round 2 and Firouzja in round 5. Nakamura also beat Firouzja, in round 3, but after losses in rounds 4, 5, and 6 he entered the last round tied for last with Lazavik. Fortunately for Nakamura, he defeated Lazavik and finished ahead of Firouzja on tiebreak. Firouzja defeated Abdusattorov in round 1 and Lazavik in round 6, but losses to Nakamura and MVL couldn’t have helped his tiebreak score.
So and Carlsen were thus automatically qualified for the semis. Caruana and Abdusattorov swapped wins with White, but Caruana won the Armageddon game with Black to punch his ticket for the semis. Meanwhile, Vachier-Lagrave faced off with Nakamura, with the winner getting the right to play Abdusattorov in a match to determine the last semifinalist. MVL won game 1 with White, but Nakamura struck back in game 2 and drew the Armageddon game with Black to advance.
With two match wins on the day it looked like Nakamura might be getting back to his usual extraordinary self, but it was not to be. He was a little fortunate to hold a worse endgame with Black in the first game with Abdusattorov, and after a perfunctory draw in the second game it was on to Armageddon. With White, Nakamura had some chances after his opponent failed to play 17…c5, but with very active play Abdusattorov escaped a dodgy position and went to achieve a superior ending that petered out to a draw.
Today (Wednesday) we’ll see the first day of the two-day semifinals; I believe the pairings are So vs. Abdusattorov and Carlsen vs. Caruana. And now you’re caught up! (At least from a news perspective. I’ll present some games from the event in a subsequent post, probably after today’s action.)
And speaking of catching up, the London Chess Classic finished a couple of days ago, and “old man” Mickey Adams took clear first with an undefeated 6/9. We left off after round 8, and while Adams only managed to draw his last two games - against last-place finisher Luke McShane in round 8 and (by far) bottom seed Shreyas Royal in the last round, the two players who entered round 8 half a point behind him didn’t do any better. Amin Tabatabei and Dommaraju Gukesh - the two players in question - drew each in round 8, and in round 9 Tabatabei could only draw with Jules Moussard while Gukesh was soundly beaten by Hans Niemann. A terrific result for Adams.
Now, in brief:
It’s good for chess when it makes it into the mainstream press - at least when it’s not for a cheating scandal - and that’s what it has done in this profile of well-known streamer Levy Rozman.
Lenier Dominguez is fighting for one of the two remaining Candidates spots, and is neck-and-neck with Wesley So for the spot awarded to the player with the highest rating as of the January 2024 rating list. This will give you the lowdown on how it works, but the ratings there - at least as of this post - are out of date. (This is where you’ll want to look.) Right now, among those who are (meaningfully) eligible for the spot, the leaders are So (2757.4), Dominguez (2757.0), Firouzja (2750.5), Giri (2749.1), Maghsoodloo (2743.3), and Keymer (2743.2). Only classical ratings are relevant here, which means that So’s and Firouzja’s results in the Champions Chess Tour Finals are irrelevant for qualification. I don’t know if any of Dominguez’s rivals are playing in a classical event between now and the end of the year, but Dominguez is in action in the Sunway Sitges tournament, and started off with a win (against a much lower-rated opponent) in round 1.
Finally, here’s a remarkable and impressive victory by a lower-rated (FM or IM) against a strong GM back in 2021 (HT: Brian Karen). I’m less impressed by 17.Bg5 than the commentator, as all the alternatives are obviously losing (and badly). What is impressive is that White saw this coming from a ways off (assuming he did!), and then continued playing (mostly) great chess from that move on. Here’s the game, with my comments.
Regarding the second "in brief" point: Maghsoodloo will play at a new Indian supertournament, Chennai Masters December 15 to 21 - mainly designed to give Gukesh or maybe Erigaisi another shot to overtake Giri in the FIDE Circuit thereby qualifying for the candidates. Other participants are Aronian, Sjugirov, Eljanov, Harikrishna and Predke - wondering how this field was put together: players available at short notice, strong enough to make it relevant for the Circuit but not stronger to reduce the chances of Gukesh or Erigaisi.
Hence, inviting Giri "wouldn't have made sense", but he'll be joining the live commentary from the Netherlands. In a German Bundesliga interview, Maghsoodloo seemed optimistic about gaining the 14 rating points he currently lacks - it would require a 5.5/7 score which would be a real threat to Gukesh and Erigaisi (even more may be needed depending on how Dominguez does at Sunway Sitges).
Giri and/or Keymer also could have played Sunway Sitges, they don't. Keymer's other option was the "German Masters" where a 8/9 score would be required as the 10-player field has four players rated 2390-2528.
Oddly, FIDE regulations on candidates qualification aren't clear on what happens if two players have exactly the same rating in the January list (ciphers behind the decimal point will be gone, rounding up or down).