This Saturday, 11 March, the annual Oxford v Cambridge Varsity match is being hosted by The Royal Automobile Club Pall Mall. Cambridge lead the series with 59 wins to Oxford’s 53 in a contest which goes back to the 1870s. Primum mobile at the RAC is Henry Mutkin, who himself led the Oxford team in
Nigel Short has distinguished himself by scoring 100 per cent, winning all six games, in the Bunratty tournament which finished towards the end of last month in Ireland. Anyone who has competed in a chess tournament of almost any strength will realise how hard it is to win all the games. In Short’s case he
Matthew Sadler’s retirement from full-time international chess is one of the great losses to the British game. Occasionally, the one-time prodigy emerges, usually to make a massive score in a rapid or blitz event in the vicinity of Holland, where he now works and lives. It is also fortunate that he still competes in the
The cause célèbre at the Tradewise tournament in Gibraltar, which finished earlier this month, was the extraordinary protest by Hou Yifan, the reigning women’s world champion, against having to play seven female opponents in ten rounds. In the tenth and final round she made her complaint manifest by deliberately throwing the game in just five
The Tradewise tournament at Gibraltar has gained a colossal reputation and is even challenging the traditional tournament at Wijk aan Zee (see last week’s column) in terms of playing strength. This year the tournament was graced by our very own Michael Adams and Nigel Short, as well as such illustrious denizens of the international arena
My two previous articles dwelt on Richard Réti’s introduction of the so-called hypermodern systems. Characterised by the double fianchetto of White’s bishops, Réti swept to victory with his invention against both Bogolyubov and Capablanca, as detailed in my columns. A fortuitous coincidence with the publication of Réti: Move by Move by Thomas Engqvist (Everyman Chess) was
The new book by Thomas Engqvist, Réti: Move by Move (Everyman Chess), about the hypermodern leader Richard Réti, is so significant that it deserves further examination. Perhaps Réti’s most celebrated victory came against Capablanca, who had come through his 1921 world title contest and the subsequent great tournament of London 1922 without losing a single game.
Richard Réti is one of the most fascinating figures in the history of chess thought. The author of two seminal books, Modern Ideas in Chess and Masters of the Chessboard, Réti was an expert in simultaneous blindfold chess, successfully taking on many opponents at one and the same time. In terms of his theories and
The London Classic is over with the final scores being as follows: Wesley So 6/9; Fabiano Caruana 5½; Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik and Hikaru Nakamura 5; Anish Giri 4½; Lev Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Michael Adams 4; Veselin Topalov 2. This result means that Wesley So not only wins the London leg of the
Magnus Carlsen has retained the World Championship but only after Sergei Karjakin, the challenger, missed some glorious opportunities. In game 9 Karjakin, already a point ahead in the match, built up a formidable attacking position, only to miss the coup juste at the critical moment. Karjakin-Carlsen, New York (Game 9) 2016 (see diagram 1)
Probably the most spectacular game played in the past year was the brilliant win by Gawain Jones in the Olympiad. Gawain, a devotee of the King’s Indian Defence, succeeded in fashioning a masterpiece very much in the style of those King’s Indian heroes David Bronstein, Mikhail Tal and Leonid Stein. Nguyen (Vietnam)-Jones (England): Baku
The annual London Classic is now underway at Olympia. Understandably Magnus Carlsen, after his exertions in New York, is not competing. Nevertheless, the line-up is extremely powerful, consisting of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Fabiano Caruana, Vladimir Kramnik, Lev Aronian, Hikaru Nakamura, Wesley So, Anish Giri, Viswanathan Anand, Veselin Topalov and our own Michael Adams. This week, a
Game eight of the World Championship in New York broke the deadlock of hard-fought draws in the first seven games. Carlsen employed a closed variation of the queen’s pawn opening which had, in the past, been popularised both by Johannes Zukertort and Akiba Rubinstein. The opening merged into a level but still fertile middlegame. At
But yet afraid to strike, as Alexander Pope would doubtless have described the first seven games of the World Championship currently in progress in New York. It is not that there has been a dearth of opportunity, just a frustrating lack of realisation. Like Marshall Grouchy at the Battle of Waterloo, no sooner are the
The early games of the World Championship in New York between Magnus Carlsen and Sergei Karjakin did little to contribute to the gaiety of nations. In the first two games both contestants seemed more anxious to display their ability to avoid loss than to strive heroically for a win. If the two were ‘willing to
The World Championship in New York begins this week. In the run-up, the defending champion, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, has been the heavy favourite to retain his title against Sergei Karjakin, formerly representing the Ukraine but now playing for Russia. Their lifetime score at classical time limits, under which the New York contest will be conducted,
Last week I previewed the respective chances of world champion Magnus Carlsen and his challenger Sergey Karjakin for their forthcoming championship bout in New York. Now I take a look at what drives Magnus and what primarily distinguishes his approach to chess from that of his rival. Karjakin has a powerful, conventional style. Well versed in
The polls are in for next month’s big event in the USA and Magnus Carlsen has emerged the clear favourite in his world title defence against Sergey Karjakin. Indeed, the Norwegian world champion leads by five wins to one in the classical format used in New York. The match is organised by Agon and the
I first encountered the Triskelion, the traditional coat of arms of the Isle of Man, when I saw Laurence Oliver’s film of Shakepeare’s Richard III. At the crucial Battle of Bosworth, Lord Stanley, the Earl of Derby and feudal lord of the Isle of Man switches sides and betrays Richard. His three-legged triskelion banners are seen
As I write, the Mikhail Tal Memorial tournament in Moscow is still underway. The Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri stormed into an early lead, winning three games out of his first five. But he was toppled when coming to grief in the following dramatic situation. Aronian-Giri: Tal Memorial Moscow 2016 (see diagram 1) White has
