Portrait of a prodigy
How old were you when you gained your first GM norm? What do you mean, you haven’t got one? OK, when did you become an IM? You mean you aren’t even an IM?! Meet 12-year old IM Praggnanandhaa who qualified as the world’s youngest ever international master in August when his grade reached 2500 and he has achieved his first GM norm in the World Junior Championship that has just finished in Tarvisio, Italy. To put this in perspective, Praggnanandhaa was the 26th strongest player in the tournament, he beat the number one seed, GM Jordan Van Foreest (2616), in Round 4 and two other grandmasters on his way to an unbeaten 8/11. Draws in his final three games meant that he narrowly missed out on a medal with players 1-3 all finishing on 8½/11. First place would have given him the GM title outright. While Praggnanandhaa’s victory over Van Foreest may have grabbed the headlines, his win in Round 8 against another grandmaster that won him the first of his GM norms.
White: IM Praggnanandhaa (2509) Black: GM Awonder Liang (2558)
World Junior Championship 2017
Congratulations to Michael Doyle for another fine win in our otherwise disappointing defeat to Margate in the Mick Croft Cup. Paul Ruffle used to be a member at Broadstairs and is certainly a stronger player than his estimated 117 so this was an especially impressive performance by Michael, who is also a much better player than his grade as I am sure you will agree after playing through this game.
White: Michael Doyle (81) Black: Paul Ruffle (e117)
Mick Croft Cup v Margate
Is it me or are chess tournaments becoming more complicated? The Champions Showdown which has just started in St Louis boasts that the games feature no increments or delays so we can expect a few exciting time scrambles. In fact, there could be many such scraps because although the tournament is only scheduled to last six days, there are so many games to be played that it resembles a series of penalty shootouts with no preamble of a proper match beforehand. Eight players are involved and so far as your correspondent can see, there is no overall winner. They are divided into four pairs: Nakamura v Topalov, Caruana v Grischuk, So v Dominguez and Carlsen v Ding Liren. The first round consists of four games for which each player has 30 minutes. There are six games in round two with 20 minutes each, 10 minutes for the next eight in round 3 and finally only 5 minutes for the last 12 games in round 4. For each match the winner gets $60,000, the loser $40,000 – yes, $40,000 for losing! Why did no-one ask me? And that appears to be it. No semi-final or final and while three of the four games are under way with round 1 completed, Carlsen v Ding Liren begins on Saturday. Apparently, Carlsen had a prior engagement in Germany. The good news from that is that the tournament will therefore have to continue until Nov 16 with Carlsen’s match the only one left. Meanwhile, this is what happens at the highest level when you are short of time and losing:
White: Alexander Grischuk (2785) Black: Fabiano Caruana (2794)
Champions Showdown 2017
Match drawn! While this was clearly entertaining for the spectators, it is not to everyone’s taste. As Mr Spock might have said, ‘It’s chess, Jim, but not as we know it.’ Caruana was of the same view:
‘I think it puts a lot of psychological pressure on the players from an early stage… Generally, a game shouldn’t end with one side losing on time in a completely won position, but it’s ok for one tournament.’
Perhaps the tournament should have been played last weekend to coincide with Fireworks Night.
David Faldon’s match report for last week’s Millar Cup match against Bridge made it clear that defeat isn’t everything and that every now and then you witness an “I was there!” game. Rather like the old story of London buses, you wait for one great performance and two come along at once. It’s a shame that the draw between Paul Carfrae (133) and Richard Eales (195) – which I hope we may yet feature on this site – was lost in the celebration of John Couzens’ victory over Alan Atkinson which provides us with this week’s Game of the Week. In the final position Black lost on time but by then the game was John’s. If you weren’t there – and I wasn’t! – play through the game below and see if you agree with John who said that it was ‘probably the best game I’ve ever played!’
White: John Couzens (116) Black: Alan Atkinson (175)
Millar Cup v Bridge B
For those of you who can’t get enough top quality Broadstairs chess, here is one more from our world famous victory over Margate on Monday. Paul Carfrae was another who was outgraded by his opponent and this is a very different game from the last. Here Paul is under the cosh for most of the game, forced to ditch his normal swashbuckling style by an unorthodox White opening that ultimately backfires.
White: John Thorley (145) Black: Paul Carfrae (133)
Millar Cup v Margate