Luke McShane

Recently, with some regret, I declined an invitation to play chess in the Netherlands. I fancied the trip, but alas it made little sense to commit to what would have been a fleeting visit. Travel hurdles have become a Rumsfeldian ‘known unknown’, and sure enough, that country was in lockdown not a week later, requiring quarantine on entry from the UK regardless of vaccination status. Would they ease restrictions in time? It was a relief not to have to think about it. I was mildly bitten last summer, when my plans to play in Germany were left in limbo a couple of months before the start. Owing to what was then called the ‘Indian variant’, travel from the UK was temporarily verboten. But how long would it last?

Chess offers one ultimate consolation in defeat: the opportunity to set the pieces up and start again. At least in theory, a new game is a clean slate, and a release from past tribulations. But in practice, sometimes one simply cannot manage to air out the miasma of what came before. In the second half of the world championship match held in Dubai last month, Ian Nepomniachtchi was unrecognisable. Magnus Carlsen had landed a devastating blow in the sixth game, in a match hitherto tied at 2.5-2.5. His win, lasting 136 moves and almost eight hours (see my article of 11 December), seemed to utterly demoralise the challenger. A cascade of blunders in subsequent games allowed Carlsen to retain his title with a 7.5-3.5 victory.

Game 6 of the Carlsen–Nepomniachtchi world championship match was one for the ages. After draws in the first five games, the world champion broke the deadlock with a 136-move victory — the longest in world championship history. It lasted almost eight hours, and Nepomniachtchi made the final mistake in an endgame with a lone queen against rook, knight and two pawns. In a balanced middlegame, ‘Nepo’ took a risky decision at move 25, offering an exchange of two rooks for Carlsen’s queen, creating winning chances for both sides. Magnus Carlsen–Ian Nepomniachtchi World Championship Game 6, Dubai 25… Rac8 26 Qxc8 Rxc8 27 Rxc8 Qd5 Attacking the pawn on b3. It’s important that 28 Nf4 Bxf2+ wins.

Alireza Firouzja produced a momentous performance for France at the European Team Championships, held in Slovenia last month. The 18-year-old, originally from Iran, had taken first place at the Fide Grand Swiss in Latvia just a few days earlier. In Slovenia, his seven wins and two draws was a staggering achievement, earning him an individual gold medal and propelling him to second place in the world rankings. In the overall team standings, it was Ukraine that took gold, finishing narrowly ahead of France on tiebreak. The England team got off to a shaky start, and we didn’t come close to repeating our bronze-medal-winning performance from the previous edition in 2019.

‘Time to say Dubai,’ tweeted Magnus Carlsen, like some wry Bond villain, when he learned that the Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi would be his next challenger for the world championship title. Hosted at the Dubai Expo, battle will commence on Friday 26 November. Carlsen wrested the title from Viswanathan Anand in 2013, and since then has defended his title against Anand (again), Sergey Karjakin and Fabiano Caruana. But the Norwegian downplayed his match experience in appraising his prospects against the new challenger: ‘My biggest advantage is that I am better at chess.’ Still, world championship matches have an intensity all of their own, in which nerves and stamina are as indispensable as good moves.

One of the most eye-catching games from the recently concluded Fide Grand Swiss in Riga saw an early sacrifice of queen for knight, bishop and pawn. This exotic balance of material usually favours the queen, based on the rule of thumb that pawn = 1, knight = 3, bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9. But when the minor pieces coordinate well, particularly with rooks alongside, they can be more than a match for the queen. A queen’s greatest strength is her ability to attack, and perhaps fork, any pieces that are not nailed down. So when you jettison your queen for a miscellany of pieces, they had better resemble a florentine more than a fruit salad. It helps when the minor pieces have a clear target of their own. That is the situation that occurred after 14 Be2 (see diagram 1).

Alireza Firouzja, just 18 years old, was the clear winner of the Fide Grand Swiss, which concluded in Latvia last weekend. Originally from Iran but now settled in France, Firouzja already looks like a credible future contender for the world championship, and his victory in the Grand Swiss has earned him a spot in the 2022 Candidates tournament, which will select the next challenger for the world title. The current challenger, Ian Nepomniachtchi, who won the Candidates tournament in April, will face the world champion Magnus Carlsen in Dubai later this month. Play begins on 26 November. England’s David Howell also produced an outstanding performance in Riga, finishing in a tie for fourth place.

If you play chess like a wet rag, sooner or later you will be made to regret it. In Nigel Short’s new book Winning (Quality Chess, 2021), that precept pops up in countless guises, and nobody is above criticism. Peter Leko ‘infamously offended the gods by attempting to draw his way to the title’ in his world championship match against Vladimir Kramnik in 2004. Mikhail Gurevich pursued a ‘craven objective’ in trying to draw his way to qualification at the 1990 Manila Interzonal. (He was undone by Short himself.) Bronstein’s chances against Botvinnik in 1951 perished with his ‘abject capitulation’ in game 23. Russian grandmaster Aleksey Dreev was punished for a ‘wanton act of timidity’.