The much anticipated World Championship Match starts in just a few days.

World Champion Magnus Carlsen will battle his Challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi over 14 games. The last two matches, both won by Carlsen have been a little disappointing for the fans, especially the match v Caurana where it seemed, to me, that the American Challenger was more concerned with not losing than he was with attempting to win! I don’t think that this will happen this time – Nepomniachtchi has a very individual and attacking style, in fact he is one of a very small group of Super Grandmasters to hold a plus score against Carslen in classical chess.

My prediction for the match?

I am going to hedge my bets and go for two distinct scenarios

1. Magnus will pick Nepo’s sometimes unorthodox openings apart and win comfortably

2. Nepo will take an early lead and keep finding enough chaotic and tactical positions to win the title.

What I am sure we won’t see is 14 boring draws

 

Here is a game played this year, it was a rapid game but still of the highest quality

 White:  Ian Nepomniachtchi       Black:  Magnus Carlsen

Welcome to another Game of the Week – played in the recent FIDE World Grand Prix, a very important event where the top two placed would gain a spot in the 2022 Candidates

Enjoy the game and make sure to count the number of Queens!

 White:  Gelfand, B     Black:  Movsesian, S

FIDE Grand Swiss 2021

The Goodall was an exciting affair this week, with a dozen players involved

All of the games were exciting, maybe the most double edged was the clash between Paul and Trefor that eventually finished in a draw

Here are the full results

David   0 – 1 Manoj

Reg  1 – 0 Fredy

Paul V  0 -1 Arnaud

Mike  0 – 1 Dominic

Chris  1 – 0  Andy

Paul C  0.5 – 0.5 Trefor

 

 match report by Andrew Flood

A casualty of the fuel crisis, this crucial re-arranged Hargreaves Shield match saw Broadstairs, without Manoj on board 1, meeting Bridge, the only other team in the Hargreaves Shield.

The out – rating of opponents on the 4 boards were evenly matched at 2 – 2, but with Dominic Blundell out rating his opponent on board 2 and in recent months playing some of his best chess, it was no surprise that he was first to finish and notch up a point for Broadstairs. A rook sacrifice and forcing moves along the h rank saw his opponent mated (as can be seen in our recent Game of the Week)

Paul Carfrae on the top board secured an important half point, agreeing a draw having fought hard to get a slight advantage.

Board 3 saw the two team captains battle it out over 46 moves. Black obtained early positional advantage but couldn’t drive home any advantage until very late on in the end game when it was possible through tempo to successfully advance a pawn to become a queen forcing white to resign and a win for Black and Broadstairs

On board 4, new boy Paul Verrall, won his first league point and secured the 3.5 – 0.5 win for Broadstairs. Playing some very good chess, in a game which he did not look like losing, Paul advanced his centre pawns into an end game, and all the way to the eighth rank, before his opponent resigned after a solid 3 hours of playing.

 

Broadstairs

3.5 – 0.5

Bridge
Paul Carfrae 1683

0.5 – 0.5

Peter Blundell 1698
Dominic Blundell 1630

1 – 0

Zach Stonier 1450
Andrew Flood 1593

1 – 0

Graeme Boxall 1435
Paul Verrall 1188 est

1 – 0

Ray Rennells 1285