To adapt Gary Lineker’s famous football quote (and not for the first time): chess is a simple game. The players play longplay, rapidplay and blitz and in the end Magnus Carlsen wins. The final day of the London Classic had the lot – a mind-numbing, eight-hour extravaganza of chess in three different formats, brilliant moves, crazy strategies,
7th London chess classic; 8th round
Round eight and we were back to the standard 1:4 ratio of decisive games to draws. But very good quality draws, let it be said. The one winner was Anish Giri, who inflicted a second successive defeat on the unlucky Hikaru Nakamura. Scores with one round to go are: 1-2 Anish Giri (NED), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA) 5/8, 3-5 Levon Aronian (ARM), Magnus Carlsen (NOR), Alexander Grischuk (RUS) 4½, 6-7 Mickey Adams (ENG), Fabiano Caruana (USA) 4, 8 Hikaru Nakamura (USA) 3½, 9 Vishy Anand (IND) 3, 10 Veselin Topalov (BUL) 2. As regards the Grand Chess Tour standings: the estimates going into the final round are Giri 24, Vachier-Lagrave 23, Aronian 22, Carlsen 21, etc. These can of course change quite drastically depending on results.
7th London chess classic; 7th round
Well, that round was a bit more like it! The London Classic came to life in round seven at Olympia, with three decisive results, some pulsating play on all the boards and a tense, cliff-hanging endgame which went on long into
7th London chess classic; 6th round
Round six of the London Chess Classic took place on Thursday 10 December at the Olympia Conference Centre and saw just one decisive game. Alexander Grischuk defeated Vishy Anand to join three
7th London chess classic ; round 5
As usual we started with some children making moves for the grandmasters. This time the children in question had travelled all the way from Gloucestershire. That’s around 200 kilometres due west of London for those readers unfamiliar with our green and pleasant land, and our adherence to Imperial units of measurement. They brought with them some innovative opening ideas. The little boy from Slimbridge Primary School deputed to make Levon
London chess classic; 4 round
As some wit commented on Twitter, the Berlin Chess Classic is over and the London Chess Classic has started. Well, very nearly. In fact, one of the fourth round games did feature this unpopular but highly effective Ruy Lopez variation but it was a long and interesting struggle. There was plenty of
London chess classic; 3 round
At the start of every round at the London Classic we always have at least one special guest on stage to make the first move for one or more of the super-GMs. Sometimes it’s a sponsor or a celebrity but more often than not it is one of the many children learning to play the game courtesy of the Chess in Schools and Communities charity. Children make great ‘honorary movers’ because you can never be quite sure what they are going to do! Today was a delightful
London chess classic; round 2
ALL DRAWS… … in today’s second round. That makes the scores Giri 1½/2; Grischuk, Vachier-Lagrave, Caruana, Anand, Adams, Aronian, Carlsen, Nakamura 1; Topalov ½. Most of the games were well contested, but elite, classical chess gravitates towards a drawn result and there’s no point getting hung up about it. One of the dangers of a stellar field is
7th London chess classic; round 1
The seventh London Chess Classic – bigger and even stronger than its six predecessors – got under way on Friday 4 December 2015 with some tense chess, and just the one decisive result, as Anish Giri of the Netherlands recovered from a dubious position to defeat Veselin Topalov and snatch an early lead.