Sinquefield Cup, Round 2

Tomorrow is another day.

Well, chess fans, this was a pretty low-content day. Long ago, when Anatoly Karpov ruled the earth, rounds like this were a dime a dozen. Ulf Andersson, Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, and Karpov himself (at least when he had Black, or faced a countryman, or had already sewn up tournament victory) would mass produce 10-15 move draws like employees on the Ford assembly line, and why not? The world’s best would beat up on the weaker players in the event, occasionally play a real game against each other just to prove it was possible, and then get back to what’s important - tennis for Spassky, shopping trips for Petrosian, maybe stamp collecting for Karpov and whatever it was that Andersson did for fun in those days.

There were probably good reasons for that back then. After all, they had to play three or four games a week, and who has the energy for that? (To be fair, there were adjournments, so all those super-short draws let them avoid further adjournments and gave them and their teams of elves - huge teams, for Soviet players - to analyze as well as possible in those pre-computer days.) So what’s the excuse of today’s players?

I’m going to blame it on the opening, and by “the opening” I mean *the* opening: the Giuoco Piano. I would happily sign a petition encouraging tournament organizers to ban it, or to have FIDE hire a police force to send anyone who plays it to the gulags, or - worst of all - to force offenders to listen to “Baby Shark” for 10 straight hours.

So here’s a suggestion that tries to take the incorporate one of the strengths of Chess960 without adopting its weakness. In at least some tournaments, have the organizers come up with a list of, say, 100 variations that might be chosen. The players may or may not be informed about this - maybe they’re given a week or two’s notice at most. Just before each round, maybe no more than half an hour beforehand, one of those variations is chosen at random. The players will play two games - maybe g/60, with only a minimal break in between the games for rest and not further analysis - with each side getting a crack with the white pieces to minimize any possible unfairness in case one of the lines is especially favorable to one side or the other.

This would give the players - and fans! - a break from the interminable misery of the interrelated family of hellish openings comprising the Giuoco Piano (with d3), the Berlin (with 4.d3 or 4.0-0 Nxe4 5.Re1), and Closed Ruys with 5.d3 or 6.d3. Maybe some professionals enjoy studying the Giuoco ten hours a day and playing it whenever possible, but c’mon. Genghis Khan reputedly had hundreds of children, and even he had other interests.

For those of you have been wondering when I’d finally get to the tournament, here you go: five games, five draws. No one was in trouble, and the two Giuoco Pianos were already completely drawn by move 20. We were also “treated” to a 4.d3 Anti-Berlin that was headed for a draw by move 22 or so, meaning that all three games using openings from the Group of Death (by boredom) were dull and drama-free.

Also dull and drama-free, but not starting with 1.e4 e5, was the Wesley So vs. Fabiano Caruana game. That game made it all the way to move 16 before one could see the writing on the wall (a couple of fractions).

One game had some life. Dommaraju Gukesh kept Ian Nepomniachtchi on the defense for a long time, and while it may not have been the most complicated game Nepo’s skill in holding the game impressed me. There weren’t any fireworks in the game, but it wasn’t dull and the players put in a full day’s work.

That makes nine draws out of 10 games, and so the one winner - Alireza Firouzja - and the one loser - Caruana - remain in the first and last places, respectively, with everyone else sandwiched in between in a giant tie for the 2nd-9th places. Here are today’s games, with my comments; let’s hope for more action tomorrow.