I had hoped to blog a bit more the past few days, but travel and family have put that on a back shelf. Still, there are important things afoot in the chess world, so now that there’s a little time to fit in a post let’s seize the opportunity.
Before getting to chess, I hope that you and your loved ones had a wonderful Christmas (and before that, a Happy Hanukkah) and are enjoying the holiday season. (I may post more on that, and perhaps on New Year’s resolutions, in a few days. No guarantees, but we’ll try.) There is plenty of chess to enjoy over the break, but if you need a little break from chess you could do worse than to watch Notre Dame play Oregon State in the Sun Bowl on the 29th. (Go Irish!)
Chess time. The World Rapid Championship (or plural, Championships - there’s also a concurrent Women’s Championship) is underway in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. It started yesterday (December 26), finishes tomorrow, and will be followed by the World Blitz Championship(s) the next two days in the same location. It’s a prestigious event in its own right (likewise the blitz tournament), but it has further significance in that there are points available for the 2023 FIDE Circuit, of which the winner qualifies for the 2024 Candidates.
And now it’s time to catch up on a tournament we were following in some recent posts, the Chennai Grand Masters tournament. Going into that event, Anish Giri (who wasn’t playing there) led the race for the FIDE Circuit spot, but Dommaraju Gukesh and Arjun Erigaisi weren’t so far behind him. As it turned out they tied for first (impressively, Erigaisi won his last two games to catch Gukesh); now Gukesh leads the Circuit race with 87.36 points, Giri is second with 84.31, and then Erigaisi has 81.24 points. The race ends at the end of the calendar year, but that doesn’t mean it’s over, as points can be gained from the World Rapid and World Blitz Championships.
And all three are in action in the World Rapid. Right now, after 9 of 13 rounds, Erigaisi has 6.5 points, half a point behind the leaders and tied for 4th-16th places. Giri and Gukesh each has 5.5 points, in a big tie for 33rd through 64th. For Giri or especially Erigaisi to leapfrog Gukesh they’d need an exceptional score in one event or the other (without Gukesh having a similarly excellent score), but it’s not impossible.
Before turning to the Rapid Championship in earnest, let’s also discuss the other Candidates spot that hasn’t yet been settled, to be earned by the player with the top rating at the end of the year. This is a battle between Wesley So, who is inactive and resting on his 2757 rating (2757.4, to be rounded down) and Alireza Firouzja. Firouzja trailed So a couple of weeks ago when a series of three two-game matches against non-elite opponents were arranged for him. He needed to go 6-0 to do the job, and he…won the first five games. Unfortunately for him, but IMO fortunately for fair play, his third opponent forgot to follow the script and drew the last game - and with Black.
And therefore, So qualifies? Not so fast. Luckily for Firouzja, there’s an extremely weak FIDE Swiss that will finish on the 29th that gives him another chance to surpass So. This seven-round event has three GMs (including Firouzja; the other two are Gata Kamsky and Li Min Peng), one IM over 2400 (Hugo Tirard) and the only other player rated over 2300 is rated 2302. Firouzja is 4-0 right now and has surpassed So by a rating point, having defeated players rated 1686, 1858, 2219, and 2413. In round 5 he’ll have Black against Peng; if he wins that game it’s probably a done deal. If he draws and goes on to play and beat Kamsky, I think he’ll make it; anything less and he’s probably out.
With that covered, let’s get back to the World Rapid. I can’t remember who said it, but I remember years ago a strong player outside the absolute elite saying something like “there are more than 15 people who can play chess”. This was very much in evidence from the first round of the Rapid. The top four players (Magnus Carlsen, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave) all drew their games, as did the sixth seed (Fabiano Caruana). The tenth seed (Vladislav Artemiev lost), numbers 12 and 14 drew, numbers 16 and 17 (Anish Giri and Teimour Radjabov) lost, and there were many more half and full upsets besides.
Of course, the top seeds are the top seeds for a reason, and after two days of three, nine rounds of 13, the leaderboard is dominated by elite players. Carlsen, Vladimir Fedoseev, and Yu Yangyi are tied for first with 7 points apiece, and the group with 6.5 includes such household names as Erigaisi, MVL, Santosh Vidit Gujrathi, Radjabov, Vincent Keymer and Dmitry Andreikin. But there are some surprises too, like Subramaniyam Bharath who has 6.5 points and the best tiebreaks of everyone in that score group. Other relative unknowns in that score group are Volodar Murzin and Pouya Idani.
Finally, for U.S. fans, here’s how our players are doing: Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian have 6 points, Conrad Holt has 5.5, Timur Gareyev and Hans Niemann have 5, and Andrew Hong has 4.5. They’ll have a tough time getting on the podium, but it’s nice that all our players are at 50% and above.