Veni, vidi, destiti?
Carlsen withdraws from the Sinquefield Cup, plus an early look at round 4.
Several minutes into round 4 of the Sinquefield Cup I tuned in to see that four of the games had started, but for whatever reason Carlsen-Mamedyarov was still “yet to start”. Hmm, okay…maybe someone had trouble getting to the venue, or there were technical difficulties. No matter. I went back to what I was doing and checked back in several minutes later, and saw that only three games were underway. Nepomniachtchi and So had drawn by repetition in almost no time at all, while Carlsen-Mamedyarov was 0-1.
What? I haven’t tuned in to see what the commentators have said - readers, feel free to fill in the details, if there are any - but have only seen this, which includes a Tweet from Carlsen that says this:
I’ve withdrawn from the tournament. I’ve always enjoyed playing in the @STLChessClub and hope to be back in the future
It would be easy and entertaining to speculate about the reasons for his withdrawal, but from Golden Rule considerations I’ll avoid doing so. Hopefully the reasons are good ones, and if there’s a serious problem in his life let’s hope the situation will soon be favorably resolved.
As for the effect on the tournament, the big loser from this decision is Hans Niemann. When a player withdraws from a round-robin after playing fewer than half his games, the games he played don’t count in the final standings. (See the FIDE Rules, section 6.6.2.1 Niemann’s win counts as a real game and will be rated, but as far as the tournament situation goes his score has regressed to 1.5/2.
As for the chess: Caruana has a big advantage against Vachier-Lagrave, while Aronian-Dominguez and Niemann-Firouzja are (for now) closer to equal than something serious for one player or another. The Niemann-Firouzja game looks like it could break into wild complications at any moment - let’s hope it does.
I like Nepo's reaction, though it helps to watch his facial expressions at the same time: Hans' win over Magnus was "more than impressive".
There's also a report on the chess24 "wall" https://new.chess24.com/wall/news/magnus-carlsen-withdraws-from-the-sinquefield-cup, including "The obvious implication of Carlsen's withdrawal and other changes in St. Louis is that Magnus suspects foul play but is unwilling to make a public accusation." Not mentioned on chessdom, but his tweet embeds a video by football (soccer) coach Jose Mourinho saying "If I speak I am in big trouble" (unhappy with a referee ....).