7 London ChessClassic 2015-OCR, 71p

Compiled By Scorpionchess
Press release
20th July 2015
7th LONDON CHESS CLASSIC (4-13 December 2015)

The London Chess Classic has long established itself as one of the preeminent events on the chess
calendar. This year’s edition will surpass its predecessors, as the presence of ten of the world’s top-
ranked players will ensure the 7th Classic is the strongest tournament ever held on British soil. The
catalyst for this is the creation of the Grand Chess Tour (grandchesstour.com/).
The London Chess Classic has joined forces with Norway Chess and the Sinquefield Cup to create a
whole new chess cycle. Each tournament has a prize fund of $300,000 and there is a bonus pool of
$150,000 for the top three finishers in the overall standings of the Grand Chess Tour, making for a
total prize fund of over 1 million dollars. The London Chess Classic will be the climax of the Grand
Chess Tour with potentially over $100,000 at stake in the last round.
As in previous years, the LCC will take place at the Olympia Conference Centre in Kensington,
London. The action will start on the 4th December and the last round (as well as the playoffs, if
needed) will be played on the 13th December, with one rest day on the 9th December. You can find
the schedule on http://www.londonchessclassic.com/gct_schedule.htm.
Here is the impressive line-up. The 9 players who compete in all three tournaments will be joined by
a player nominated by the LCC whose name will be announced shortly.
No. Name Country Age Rating Ranking

1 Magnus Carlsen Norway 24 2853 1
2 Viswanathan Anand India 45 2816 2
3 Veselin Topalov Bulgaria 40 2816 3
4 Hikaru Nakamura USA 27 2814 4
5 Fabiano Caruana USA 22 2797 5
6 Anish Giri Netherlands 21 2791 6
7 Alexander Grischuk Russia 31 2771 9
8 Levon Aronian Armenia 32 2765 10
9 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave France 24 2731 26
10 Organiser’s wildcard
The one player everybody is of course looking forward to welcoming back to London is World
Champion Magnus Carlsen, who will be eager to add a 4th title to his tally, after winning the event in
2009, 2010 and 2012. The American number one, Hikaru Nakamura, is another former champion,
having won the title in 2013, while Vishy Anand, the former World Champion, will be returning to
London to defend the title he acquired here last year. Besides these familiar faces, three players will
be making their London Chess Classic debut: Veselin Topalov (the winner of Norway Chess, the first
stage of the Grand Chess Tour), Alexander Grischuk and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.
However, with over 4 months to go before the tournament starts, these ratings and rankings are
likely to change and we will keep an eye on every player’s performances leading up to the event. We
will be bringing you regular updates during the Sinquefield Cup, which takes place from the 22nd
August to the 3rd September in Saint Louis (http://grandchesstour.com/content/2015-sinquefield-
cup), and which will set the stage for the final overall standings of the Grand Chess Tour, before the
players reunite for a final time in London in December 2015.
As is usual at the London Chess Classic, spectators will not only be able to follow the action from the
comfort of their homes on the official website, but also in the Olympia Auditorium and its
surroundings, where live commentary will be provided. Tickets for what is going to be the strongest
tournament ever to be held in the UK will go on sale in September.
A chess festival, including the traditional international open, will be held alongside the Classic, and
details for that, as well as for all other side events, will be announced on the official website shortly.
Fiona Steil-Antoni
Press Officer
Email: press@londonchessclassic.com
Website: www.londonchessclassic.com/
Twitter: @LondonChess2015
Press release
2nd August 2015
MICHAEL ADAMS COMPLETES LINE-UP FOR

LONDON CHESS CLASSIC 2015
The 10th and last player to join the incredible line-up of the 7th London Chess Classic is none other
than England’s number 1, Michael Adams. It is no surprise the Englishman is the recipient of the
organisers’ wildcard, seeing as he has been the English number one since 1999 and was once ranked
number 4 in the world. Despite being the second oldest participant in the field (after Anand), Adams
keeps posting impressive performances and has been a member of the world elite for the better part
of 20 years now. Some of the highlights of his career include reaching the final of the 2004 FIDE
World Championship and winning the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess-Meeting in 2013. Having played
in all six previous editions of the London Chess Classic, the Cornishman will surely yet again be eager
to show his best chess on home turf.
Below is the final line-up for the London Chess Classic, with the updated August ratings. The
field boasts a staggering 2791 rating average, which, as things stand, makes this a category
22 tournament.
No. Name Country Age Rating Ranking

1 Magnus Carlsen Norway 24 2853 1
2 Viswanathan Anand India 45 2816 2
3 Veselin Topalov Bulgaria 40 2816 3
4 Hikaru Nakamura USA 27 2814 4
5 Fabiano Caruana USA 22 2808 5
6 Anish Giri Netherlands 21 2793 6
7 Alexander Grischuk Russia 31 2771 9
8 Levon Aronian Armenia 32 2765 11
9 Michael Adams England 43 2740 18
10 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave France 24 2731 24
However, this list did not take into account the Biel tournament, which ended on the 30th July and
saw Maxime Vachier-Lagrave score a treble, making it a record 4th victory in the history of this event.
Thanks to this performance, the Frenchman leapfrogged Adams to climb to the 16th place on the live
ranking list. Vachier-Lagrave now has a live rating of 2744, while Adams follows him closely on 2742.
With only 3 weeks to go until the start of the Sinquefield Cup, we will keep a close eye on the
evolution of the world rankings and with a little bit of luck, the 7th London Chess Classic will be the
first tournament in history to see the participation of 6 (or more) players rated over 2800 on the
official FIDE list.
In order not to miss any updates on the tournament, make sure to follow the tournament’s official
website as well as Twitter account!
Fiona Steil-Antoni
Press Officer
28th November 2015
DRAW FOR LONDON CHESS CLASSIC PUBLISHED

The draw for the highly anticipated London Chess Classic, which is just one week away now, was
performed by Tournament Director Malcolm Pein and Deputy Arbiter David Sedgwick with the pupils
of Marion Richardson Primary School on Monday 23rd November.
This year’s London Chess Classic promises to be the most exciting to date, as it constitutes the final
leg of the inaugural Grand Chess Tour. With both World Champion Magnus Carlsen and former
World Champion Viswanathan Anand in attendance - alongside 8 other world class players - the LCC
will be the strongest tournament ever held in the UK.
The pupils with David Sedgwick, Malcolm Pein and CSC Tutor Adam Bukojemski
Draw and Pairings
In accordance with the arrangements notified in St Louis, the colours were reversed from the
Sinquefield Cup, with Michael Adams playing the opposite colours to Sinquefield Cup wild card
Wesley So.
The players were placed in two groups of five. Viswanathan Anand, Fabiano Caruana, Alexander
Grischuk, Veselin Topalov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave will play five games with the white pieces
and were randomly allocated numbers 1-5. Michael Adams, Levon Aronian, Magnus Carlsen, Anish
Giri and Hikaru Nakamura will play five games with the black pieces and were randomly allocated
numbers 6-10.
The results of the draw were as follows:
1. Veselin Topalov
2. Alexander Grischuk
3. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
4. Fabiano Caruana
5. Viswanathan Anand
6. Michael Adams
7. Levon Aronian
8. Magnus Carlsen
9. Hikaru Nakamura
10. Anish Giri
Full Pairings
Round 1 Friday 4th December 16:00 Round 2 Saturday 5th December 14:00
Veselin Topalov Anish Giri Anish Giri Michael Adams
Alexander Grischuk Hikaru Nakamura Levon Aronian Viswanathan Anand

Maxime Vachier-
Magnus Carlsen Magnus Carlsen Fabiano Caruana
Lagrave
Maxime Vachier-
Fabiano Caruana Levon Aronian Hikaru Nakamura
Lagrave
Viswanathan Anand Michael Adams Veselin Topalov Alexander Grischuk
Round 3 Sunday 6th December 14:00 Round 4 Monday 7th December 16:00
Alexander Grischuk Anish Giri Anish Giri Levon Aronian

Maxime Vachier-
Veselin Topalov Magnus Carlsen Michael Adams
Lagrave
Fabiano Caruana Hikaru Nakamura Hikaru Nakamura Viswanathan Anand
Viswanathan Anand Magnus Carlsen Veselin Topalov Fabiano Caruana

Maxime Vachier-
Michael Adams Levon Aronian Alexander Grischuk
Lagrave
Round 5 Tuesday 8th December 16:00 Round 6 Thursday 10th December 16:00
Maxime Vachier-
Anish Giri Anish Giri Magnus Carlsen
Lagrave
Fabiano Caruana Alexander Grischuk Hikaru Nakamura Levon Aronian
Viswanathan Anand Veselin Topalov Veselin Topalov Michael Adams
Michael Adams Hikaru Nakamura Alexander Grischuk Viswanathan Anand

Maxime Vachier-
Levon Aronian Magnus Carlsen Fabiano Caruana
Lagrave
Round 7 Friday 11th December 16:00 Round 8 Saturday 12th December 14:00
Fabiano Caruana Anish Giri Anish Giri Hikaru Nakamura

Maxime Vachier-
Viswanathan Anand Veselin Topalov Magnus Carlsen
Lagrave
Michael Adams Alexander Grischuk Alexander Grischuk Levon Aronian
Maxime Vachier-
Levon Aronian Veselin Topalov Michael Adams
Lagrave
Magnus Carlsen Hikaru Nakamura Fabiano Caruana Viswanathan Anand
Round 9 Sunday 13th December 14:00 Rest Day Wednesday 9th December
Viswanathan Anand Anish Giri
Michael Adams Fabiano Caruana

Maxime Vachier-
Levon Aronian
Lagrave
Magnus Carlsen Alexander Grischuk
Hikaru Nakamura Veselin Topalov
Fiona Steil-Antoni
Press Officer
Rules and Regulations
1. Introduction
The London Chess Classic 2015 shall be the third and final event of the Grand Chess Tour 2015.
These Regulations shall be read in conjunction with the Regulations of the Grand Chess Tour (“the
GCT Regulations”) and with the contracts sent to each player.
2. Tournament Format
The London Chess Classic 2015 is a ten player Round Robin tournament.
The pairings for each round were determined by a draw conducted in accordance with the GCT
Regulations.
The arrangements for the draw and the resulting pairings are appended.
3. Tournament and Pairing Schedule
The tournament will be take place from Friday 4th December 2015 to Sunday 13th December 2015 in
accordance with the schedule below.
Any play-off required by the GCT Regulations shall be held on the evening of Sunday 13th December.
Round 1 Friday 4th December at 1600 (Photocall 1550)

Round 2 Saturday 5th December at 1400
Round 3 Sunday 6th December at 1400
Round 4 Monday 7th December at 1600
Round 5 Tuesday 8th December at 1600
Rest Day Wednesday 9th December
Round 6 Thursday 10th December at 1600
Round 7 Friday 11th December at 1600
Round 8 Saturday 12th December at 1400
Round 9 Sunday 13th December at 1400
4. Prizes Before UK Withholding Tax
US$ 300,000
1st $75,000
2nd $50,000
3rd $40,000
4th $30,000
5th $25,000
6th $20,000
7th $15,000
8th $15,000
9th $15,000
10th $15,000
5. Rules of the Competition
The London Chess Classic 2015 will be ruled by the FIDE Laws of Chess, in English, in the version of 1
July 2014.
The following articles of the FIDE Laws of Chess have been specified or amended for this competition.
1. Article 6.7. Any player who arrives at the chessboard more than 30 minutes after the start of
the session shall lose the game.
2. Article 9.1.a Players cannot agree to a draw directly without the consent of the Chief Arbiter.
The Chief Arbiter will only acknowledge the result of the game to be a draw if the position on
the board is
a). Three-fold repetition of moves (art. 9.2)
b). 50 consecutive moves without the movement of a pawn and without any capture (art. 9.3)
c). A completely drawn position.
The Chief Arbiter can be advised on his decisions on draw agreements based on c) by IM
Malcolm Pein, the Tournament Director.
3. Article 11.3.b During a game, a player is forbidden to have a mobile phone, electronic means
of communication or any device capable of suggesting chess moves with him in the playing
venue.
(NB Mobile phones may be deposited in the VIP room.)
6. Protocol for Draw Offers and Claims.
With regard to the three-fold repetition or the 50 move rule, the protocol will be equal to the
standard, but it is mandatory to call the Chief Arbiter.
With regard to a claim of a completely drawn position the following protocol will apply
1. A player makes a draw offer in the normal way; after making his move, and then presses
the clock.
2. If the opponent does not wish to accept the offer, he will continue play.
3. If the opponent wishes to accept the draw offer, he will stop the clock and both players
will call the Chief Arbiter for decision on the agreement.
For clarification: A completely drawn position will only appear in the far advanced endgame.
7. Rate of Play
The time limit shall be 40 moves in 2 hours, followed by the rest of the game in1 hour, with a 30
second increment from move 41.
8. FIDE Rating
The London Chess Classic 2015 will be submitted for FIDE Standardplay Rating. In the event of a tie-
break, the Rapidplay games will be submitted for FIDE Rapidplay Rating.
9. Dress Code
Suit and tie or just suit.
10. Press conference and commentary

Obligatory after each game for both players.
11. Appeals
A player can appeal against a decision of a Deputy Arbiter to the Chief Arbiter. The Chief Arbiter will
render his decision on the appeal with due diligence.
A player can appeal against a decision of the Chief Arbiter. Any such appeal shall be notified to IM
Malcolm Pein, the Tournament Director, within one hour after the end of the game and submitted in
writing to him within two hours after the end of the game.
The appeal shall be determined in accordance with the GCT Arbitration Committee in accordance with
the GCT Regulations.
Malcolm Pein
Tournament Director
Albert Vasse
Chief Arbiter
David Sedgwick
Deputy Arbiter
London
4th December 2015
4th December 2015
LONDON CHESS CLASSIC DAY 1 ROUND-UP

The 7th London Chess Classic, which constitutes the last leg of the inaugural Grand Chess Tour, kicked
off at Olympia Conference Centre this afternoon. The tournament got off to a perfect start as it was
publicised on primetime TV last night, when Magnus Carlsen was a guest on BBC’s ‘One Show’. In
case you missed it, you can replay it on the show’s Facebook page.
The 10 participants of the London Chess Classic
As for the actual chess action, Anish Giri was the only winner of today’s first round, as he mated
Veselin Topalov, after the Bulgarian lost control of his advantageous position. While Vachier Lagrave-
Carlsen, Anand-Adams and Caruana-Aronian were all balanced draws, Nakamura achieved a winning
position against Grischuk, but ended up missing a couple of chances and had to settle for a draw.
Twins Richard and Nicholas Pert before game 1 of the British KO Championship Final
In the British Knockout Championship Final, David Howell held Nicholas Pert to a draw with the black
pieces. Pert had a chance for an advantage in the opening, but after he failed to seize it, the game
ended in a draw when all the pieces were about to be exchanged.
In the FIDE Open, there were a lot of surprises in the first round, despite the big rating disparities
between players. Several players held their higher rated opponents to a draw, but four even
overcame a 400-500 rating point gap to create the day’s biggest upsets: Roger de Coverly, Toni
Riedener, Sacha Brozel and Jake Hung.
One of the schools participating in the CSC activities
Festivities had kicked off earlier today with the traditional CSC (Chess in Schools and Communities)
activities, where children have a lesson, followed by a simul, a chess show and a little tournament.
A detailed report of round 1 of the London Chess Classic by John Saunders will be on the official
website shortly. You can already find photo galleries of the Classic, the junior events as well as other
events (such as the British Knockout Championship Final and the FIDE Open) on Ray Morris-Hill’s
website. All the results and tournament details are up on the LCC website. You can also download
the PGN files of the games by clicking on the following links:
 London Chess Classic: http://pgn.londonchessclassic.com/gct/01/games.pgn

 FIDE Open: http://pgn.londonchessclassic.com/fide/01/R1Complete.pgn
 British Knockout Championship: http://pgn.londonchessclassic.com/bko/games.pgn
All the live games will be broadcast at: http://live.londonchessclassic.com/
Fiona Steil-Antoni
Press Officer
7TH LONDON CHESS CLASSIC (4-13 DECEMBER 2015)
CLASSIC ROUND 1: 4 DECEMBER 2015
John Saunders reports:
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.
Figure 1 A semi-circle of super-GMs
It is hard to believe that the Classic has only been around for six years as it is now established as the finale of the
year’s elite chess tournament circuit. And it’s as much about beginnings as ends: in its first incarnation in 2009,
Magnus Carlsen exploited the opportunity to move to the top of the rating list for the first time. He clearly likes
playing in London as he has won three of the four London Classics in which he has competed, as well as winning the
London Candidates in 2013 on his way to wresting the world championship from Vishy Anand. It’s great to have him
back in 2015.
You’ll be aware that the format of the London Classic rarely stays the same from one year to the next. We like to ring
the changes almost as often as Big Ben chimes. So this year, as an innovation, we’re only awarding one point for a
win and a mere half-point for a draw. What’s that you say? That’s how you score tournaments in your own
countries? OK, fair enough, so it’s not really an innovation, then. For once we are falling into line with the rest of the
world (but don’t expect us to start driving on the right any time soon). The point, of course, is that we are no longer
alone: the Classic now forms an integral part of the Grand Chess Tour, with the Norway Chess tournament in
Stavanger, played last June, and the Sinquefield Cup in Saint Louis, played in September, and the players bring their
scores from those events to be totted up to decide who wins the overall tour prizes.
The London Classic has the honour to be the final leg of the tour and there are still several players in with a chance of
taking the $75,000 Grand Chess Tour first prize. At the start of the London leg, the ‘leader in the clubhouse’ (as they
say in golf) is Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria with 17 Grand Tour points, ahead of Hikaru Nakamura 16, Levon Aronian
Round 1 Report: 4 December 2015, John Saunders
15, Magnus Carlsen 14, Anish Giri 13, Vishy Anand 12, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 12, etc. With 13 points Grand Tour
still available for the player who finishes an outright first in London, you can probably see that all is still to play for, at
least for the top six or seven players in the current table.
THE GAMES
Round one was a typically tense and cagey affair. After two hours’ play, the Stockfish computer supplied with the
snazzy live board displays on the website showed that every board was as close to even as it gets: pretty well +0.00
on every board. We have to bear in mind two things: one, this is the first London Classic of nine rounds, so players
are going to have to conserve their energy, and, two, the sheer strength in depth of the line-up. I tried to average the
ratings of the ten players but I got a nose-bleed just doing the arithmetic: I’m not good with heights. I think it was
2785. Just think about that for a moment: Bobby Fischer’s peak rating is the average rating of ten players at the 2015
London Classic. That thought is so mind-blowing I’m going to have to lie down for a while to come to terms with it.
Finally we had our first result when Vachier-Lagrave versus Carlsen ended with a perpetual check. The players
scooted through the opening fairly briskly until move 16, when Carlsen, playing Black had a 13-minute think before
innovating with 16...Qc8. By move 20, White had used 49 minutes to Black’s 58. However, the position was a little
lifeless: Carlsen didn’t think too long before allowing a line which would result in perpetual check. As London
policemen like to say at minor street incidents, “nothing to see ‘ere, move along now, please, ladies and gentlemen!”
We move on to Anand-Adams. Over the years

Mickey has had quite a tough time against the
genial Indian world champion, and thoughts of
Marshall Attacks against Vishy’s Ruy Lopez are
floating into my mind. But not this time as Vishy
pushed his c-pawn forward two squares on the
first turn, as some of you may recall that
Bronstein and Carlsen both did as a courteous
gesture to the host nation in tournaments many
decades apart. Nothing very startling occurred in
Figure 2 Carlsen looked happy enough after the game.
the opening, with Vishy’s 12.Qd2 being new but not earth-
shattering. Minor pieces were hoovered off and a repetition
amongst queens and rooks ended hostilities.
Grischuk-Nakamura began with a Berlin Defence. Some of you may

recall that Vishy Anand suggested to commentator Nigel Short after
last year’s final round that this line should be renamed “the
London”. I was all for it, bearing in mind that it was Vlad Kramnik’s
championing of the line at his 2000 world championship match in London with Kasparov that really put the defence
on the map.
On our map, that is, and not a German one. We could perhaps refine the name and call it the ‘London Wall’. There is
such a structure, by the way, built by the Romans two thousand years ago, and that is more than can be said for the
Berlin Wall, an unpopular edifice which only lasted a few decades before being pulled down. I submit, therefore, that
our ancient city wall is a better metaphor for what is a highly resilient chess defence.

Round 1
A. Grischuk - H.Nakamura
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.0-0 Nxe4 5.d4 Nd6 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.dxe5 Nf5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 9.h3 Ke8 10.Nc3 Be6 11.g4 Ne7
12.Nd4 Bd7 13.Kh2 Unusual. 13.f4 has been played by Karjakin, and 13.Re1 by Caruana. 13...c5 14.Ndb5 Forcing the king to
move, but ultimately condemning the knight to a twilight existence on the edge of the board. 14...Kd8 15.Be3 a6 16.Na3 b6 17.Ne4
h5 18.Kg3 hxg4 19.hxg4 Bc6 This bishop now exerts great influence on the
game. Around here, GM commentator in the VIP room Julian Hodgson
attempted to defend the e4 knight by playing Na3-c3 and looked mildly
affronted when the Hiarcs Chess Explorer software he was using immediately
flipped the knight back to a3. This may or may not be connected to the fact
that they serve a particularly nice claret in the VIP room. 20.Ng5 Ke8 Slightly
annoying to have to move the king back whence it came but the watchword of
the Berlin/London Wall is patience. 21.f4 f5 22.Rad1 Another move designed
to soften up White’s light squares, perhaps with a view to establishing the
knight on f5. After 22.exf6 gxf6 23.Nf3, Black has a pleasant position, with the
option of putting his king on f7 or, perhaps better, lining up the rook against the
vulnerable g4-pawn. If 22.Ne6 then 22...Kf7 and the c7-pawn cannot be taken
as the knight would be trapped, and 23.Ng5+ Kg6 increases Black’s pressure
on the kingside. 22...g6 23.Ne6? (diagram)
White opens the door to an instinctive, and highly dangerous, exchange for pawn sacrifice by
the American. Grischuk used about half his remaining 30 minutes on this move. 23...fxg4!
Nakamura took 8 minutes of his own remaining half-hour thinking time on this move.
24.Nxc7+ Kf7 Black is threatening ...Nf5+, when, for example, Kxg4 is answered, not by
Nxe3+ forking everything in sight (though that obviously wins too), but by Rh4+ and Be7
mate. 25.e6+ Kg8! 26.Kxg4 There’s no time for 26.Nxa8 because of the forcing sequence
26...Nf5+ 27.Kf2 Rh2+ 28.Ke1 Nxe3 29.Rd8 and Black calmly unsheaths his bishop with
29...Kg7, lining up Be7 and Bh4+. 26...Ra7 26...Rc8! is a more precise, winning move,
according to the software, but there are some mind-numbing sub-variations that even human
super-GMs would be unlikely to fathom. 27.Rd7! The only move to continue the fight. Black
cannot take as the resultant pawn on d7 would give White full compensation. Both players
were down to their last ten minutes to make the time control at move 40 or so by now.
27...Nf5 27...Bxd7 28.exd7 Nc6 29.Nd5 b5 30.Rd1 and again the d7-pawn is indirectly defended via the knight check on f6. 28.Bf2
Nh6+ 29.Kg3 Nf5+ 30.Kg4 Be7 31.Rfd1 Nh6+ 32.Kg3 Nf5+ 33.Kg4 (diagram)
33...Nh6+? Having used six of his seven and a half remaining minutes, Nakamura decides to
opt for the repetition. Houdini suggests 33...Rh5 threatening a swift mate with ...Nh6+,
...Bh4+ and then ...Bxf2. However, perhaps Black was worried by 34.Rxe7 Nxe7 35.Rd8+
Kh7 36.Rd7!? Bxd7 37.exd7 Nc6 38.Ne6 Rd5 39.Nc4, which is not quite over. Even so, it is
surprising that he didn’t decide to go for it. 34.Kg3 Rh7 35.Nc4 Nf5+ 36.Kg4 Nh6+ 37.Kg3
Nf5+ 38.Kg4 Nh6+ ½-½
Which brings us to the game of the day, Topalov-Giri. Former FIDE world
champion Veselin Topalov was making his debut at the London Classic and, with
his addition to the list, the tournament can claim to have hosted all the current
great names of the game. It’s hard to think of anyone who has provided more
entertainment to chess spectators since Kasparov retired, whom he had the honour to play (and defeat) in the
former world champion’s final game of classical chess. I must confess that the opening didn’t seem to promise a
Topalov tour de force but, sure enough, it soon caught fire when Topalov sacrificed a central pawn to get his pieces
firing. Anish Giri chose to give the pawn back. His position still looked a bit fishy but he had at least defused some of
the tactical threats. At move 25, had Topalov been allowed to call over to the world champion and said “hey,
Magnus, do you want to come and take over my position?”, one feels it would have been very bad news for Giri. It
looked like a typical Carlsen torture chamber. But suddenly fortunes changed and Topalov looked ill at ease. In time
trouble he walked into a glorious tactic and Anish blew him away. All credit to both players who played half a great
game each (if you know what I mean).

Figure 3 Topalov vs Giri was the game of the
day
Round 1
V. Topalov - A. Giri
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.g3 c6 4.Bg2 d5
5.Qa4 Is it a Catalan? A Grunfeld?
Frankly, I haven’t a clue, but this hybrid
system seems to have quite a following
amongst the super-GMs. Before long you
can bet the woodshifters down your local
club will be playing it, too, though they
won’t really know why they’re doing it.
5...Nfd7 Gelfand has played this so it
must be good stuff (or, in the stilted
language of the chess world, ‘principled’).
6.cxd5 Other super-GMs reaching this
position have opted to drop the queen
back to c2 or b3 rather than resolve the
pawn situation in the centre. 6...Nb6
7.Qd1 cxd5 (diagram)
One of those positions you see in puzzle sections in chess magazines, inviting you to
deduce the opening sequence which led up to it. I’m quite sure Fred Reinfeld would have
castigated both players for too many moves by the queen and knight in the opening. 8.Nc3
Nc6 9.e3 Bg7 10.Nge2 0-0 11.0-0 Re8 Another grandmaster encounter, Roiz-Wagner, from
the Dresden Open earlier this year, continued 11...e6 but Giri has higher aspirations for his
light-squared bishop. 12.b3 e5 13.dxe5 Nxe5 14.h3 14.Nd4 would have prevented Black’s
next move but allowed 14...Bg4. Having said which, 15.Qd2 looks like it gives White a slight
edge. 14...Bf5 15.Nd4 Bd3 16.Re1 Ba6 The bishop controls the d3-square from this unusual
post, which is Black’s intended compensation for the pressure on his isolated d5-pawn.
17.Qd2 Nd3 18.Rd1 Bxd4 19.exd4 Qf6 20.a4!? Topalov didn’t get where he is today
without incurring risks. What had seemed a fairly innocuous position a few moves ago is
starting to get sharp. 20...Qxd4!? 21.a5 At first sight White seems to be winning a piece with
21.Bf1 but of course it’s not that simple. The irrelevant looking 21...Nd7! is Black’s salvation:
22.Bxd3 Bxd3 23.Qxd3 (The point of 21...Nd7 is now demonstrated if White throws in the intermezzo move 23.Bb2 as 23...Ne5!
defends the bishop and simultaneously threatens ...Nf3+. Both players must have seen that back at move 20.) 23...Re1+! 24.Kg2
Rxd1 25.Qxd1 Qxc3 regains the material, leaving a roughly equal position. 21...Nd7 22.Ra4 If winning a piece on d3 was plan A,
this must be plan B - re-routing the rook to the kingside and giving mate. This red-blooded approach is one of the reasons why the
great Bulgarian player is so popular with chess spectators. 22...Qe5 23.Nxd5 Nxc1?! GM Julian Hodgson was disappointed with
this, wanting to see a more complex fight with 23...N7c5 24.Rh4. An interesting point here, incidentally, is what happens after
24...Nxb3. It’s tempting to play 25.Qh6 on auto-pilot but then Black simply drops his queen back to g7 and there is no threat.
Instead, 25.Qg5! is devastating, when it gradually dawns on you that the really dangerous piece in this position is White’s knight on
d5, threatening a deadly check on f6 and also a fork on c7 in some variations. For example, 25...Re6 26.Qh6! Qg7 27.Qxg7+ Kxg7
28.Bh6+ Kg8 29.Nc7, etc. 24.Rxc1 Nf6 25.Nc7 After this Topalov was down to his last 15 minutes. 25.Nxf6+!? Qxf6 26.Rf4 Qe5
27.Bd5 looks like the start of a long Carlsen-style torture session. Maybe that was a better option. 25...Rad8 26.Qf4 g5 27.Qb4
Qb2 28.Raa1 Re2 29.Qc5 h6 30.Nxa6 bxa6 31.Rab1 Qd2 32.Bf3 Topalov was now down to 2 minutes. Giri, with 11 minutes left,
played his next move very quickly. 32...Ne4! (diagram)
33.Qxa7?? 33.Bxe4 was the only safe continuation. After 33...Rxe4 34.Rd1 Qxd1+ 35.Rxd1
Rxd1+ 36.Kg2 Re6 37.Qxa7 a draw seems the most likely result. 33...Nxf2! 34.Bxe2 Nxh3+
35.Kf1 35.Kh2 is unplayable because of 35...Qxe2+ 36.Kxh3 Rd2! with a forced mate.
35...Qd5! 36.Bh5 Perhaps Topalov had imagined he could escape with 36.Ke1 but then
36...Qh1+ 37.Bf1 Qf3! and there’s nothing to be done, e.g. 38.Rb2 Qxg3+ 39.Rf2 Re8+
40.Be2 Nf4 41.Rc2 Qg1+ 42.Kd2 Rxe2+!, etc. 36...Qh1+ 37.Ke2 Qg2+ 38.Ke1 Re8+ 39.Kd1
Nf2+ 40.Kc2 Ne4+ 40...Ne4+ 41.Kd3 Qd2+ 42.Kc4 Rc8+ and mate next move. 0-1
The final game to finish was Caruana-Aronian. Though long and hard-fought, it
never quite tickled the fancy of the commentators, probably because it was more
of a technical struggle. One for Ruy Lopez aficionados, perhaps: forgive me for passing over it in silence.
OTHER EVENTS
As well as the Classic itself, we have a very strong open tournament, and the final of the inaugural British Knock-Out
Championship. The latter is being contested by English number two David Howell and the surprise qualifier for the
final, English number eight Nick Pert, who knocked out Luke McShane on his way to the final. The first game of their
six-game match ended in a draw in only 15 moves. So enough said about that for now.
Figure 4 Pert vs Howell: a quiet start

to their match
Round one of the open had a

sprinkling of creditable results
for underdogs as the sub-
2200s confronted the GMs.
Alex Lenderman, Sergey
Grigoriants and Benjamin Bok
were held to draws by Rhys
Cumming (England), Daniel
van Heirzeele (Belgium) and
Stephen Moran (Ireland)
respectively, so well done to
the latter three. The big
surprise, however, was
veteran English amateur Roger
de Coverly (who’s even older than me - yes, that old) beating GM Peter Wells. Roger has been around forever. I
recall he was a member of the opposition team in what was only my second competitive game of chess when our
schools met in 1967. These days he’s better known as the most prolific poster of comments on the English Chess
Forum – 13,270 comments posted in something over seven years. That’s an average of about six published
comments a day. Even I’m not that verbose, but it obviously hasn’t done his chess any harm. It was a very impressive
win – a textbook example of how a sub-2200 player should play against a GM – so I’d advise you seek it out from the
PGN download available on our website.
Scores: 1 Giri 1/1; 2-8 Grischuk, Vachier-Lagrave, Caruana, Anand, Adams, Aronian, Carlsen, Nakamura ½; 10 Topalov
0.
Round 2 is scheduled for Saturday 5 December 2015 at 16.00.
More photos take by me are available here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskn1h789
John Saunders Email chesspress@londonchessclassic.com

Website : www.londonchessclassic.com
London Chess Classic Reporter (@johnchess) Twitter: @LondonClassic2015

5th December 2015

It was a very peaceful day as all five Classic games ended in draws. In the most anticipated clash of
the day, Carlsen thought he had a minimal edge on the white side of a Berlin, but Caruana defended
perfectly to hold a rather comfortable draw. Carlsen was still in a cheerful mood at the press
conference, as his advice to kids watching was to ‘keep more pieces on the board than I did today’.
Ken Clark of Newham Council making the ceremonial first move for Magnus Carlsen
Carlsen and Caruana were not the only ones to call it a day before even making time control, as the
encounters Aronian-Anand, Giri-Adams and Topalov-Grischuk were all drawn before move 40,
despite the Sofia rules (meaning players cannot agree a draw unless there is a repetition) being in
effect here. The spectators were thus left with the game between Hikaru Nakamura and Maxime
Vachier-Lagrave, which didn’t disappoint as the players delivered what was clearly the most thrilling
encounter of the round. While it was first Vachier-Lagrave who had the upper hand, he missed a
promising continuation and the advantage swung over to Nakamura, before the players repeated
moves and a draw was agreed on move 57. So after 2 rounds, Anish Giri is still in the sole lead with
1.5 points, as he is the only player to have won a game so far. Tomorrow we can look forward to a
remake of the last two World Championship matches, as Carlsen takes on Anand with Black.
The most exciting encounter of Round 2: Nakamura vs Vachier-Lagrave

In the British Knockout Championship Final, David Howell was first to draw blood as he eventually
overcame Nick Pert in a rook endgame. Pert was possibly better at some point during the game, but
he lost control just before the time control and once the players received their additional 30
minutes, Howell showed perfect technique to convert his advantage. This means that after two
games Howell leads with 1.5-0.5, but with four games remaining, everything is still left to play for!
In the FIDE Open there was a double round today - the only one of the tournament - and after 3
rounds, there are still 10 players left with a perfect score. One of those players is the top seed
Evgeny Postny, but a more surprising co-leader is Krishna Crg from India, who was only seeded 51st.
Things promise to heat up tomorrow, when the first boards will all feature GM clashes.
The London Chess Conference in full swing
Today was also marked by the beginning of the 3rd London Chess Conference, which is being held at
the Hilton Olympia Hotel. The conference runs from 5-6 December and is organised around the topic
of ‘Chess and Society’. This includes talks on how chess can help prisons, libraries, refugees,
alcoholism and depression, amongst others. You can find all the details about the conference on
their official website, Facebook page and Twitter account.
You can now read John Saunders’ excellent detailed report of round 1 on the London Chess Classic
website and the one from today’s round 2 will be available soon. You can also find photo galleries of
the Classic, the London Chess Conference, the junior events as well as other events (such as the
British Knockout Championship Final and the FIDE Open) on Ray Morris-Hill’s website. All the results
and tournament details are up on the LCC website, while you can download the PGN files of the
games by clicking on the following links:

 FIDE Open: http://pgn.londonchessclassic.com/fide/games.pgn
Fiona Steil-Antoni
Press Officer
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 that the players can play excessively well. It happens in other sports, too. I’m sure we can think of major football
finals which have ended 0-0 and gone to penalties, because the two sides have defended too well, or big cricket
matches where neither side can bowl the other out.
HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD
Before considering the games,

there’s one thing different about
this year’s Classic. We’re missing
Nigel Short. England’s larger than
life grandmaster is a bit poorly at
the moment, having had to pull
out of the British Knock-Out
Championship (where his
replacement, Nick Pert, has taken
full advantage of the unexpected
opportunity). We wish Nigel a
swift recovery. We also miss his
shafts of wit in the commentary
room and elsewhere. For example,
who could forget his ingenuity
when borrowing Boris Becker’s
walking stick to use as a pointer when giving an impromptu lecture at the display board in the VIP room a few years
back? Not many people would have had the chutzpah to ask, but the famous tennis star, visiting the tournament
after sustaining an injury to his leg, didn’t mind a bit.
It gives you an insight into Nigel’s ingenious turn of
mind, and leads you to think that anyone who makes
such a request of a Wimbledon champion can be
expected to have the creativity and confidence to
make that amazing king walk (minus crutch) to
checkmate Jan Timman all those years ago. It was
Tilburg 1991 if you’re minded to look it up.
Nigel’s pining for us, too. He’s following progress

back home in Greece and supplying some feedback
via Twitter. His first missive was “Gutted at not being
at #londonchess. Watching the demigods from my
study.” I’ll interpolate some of Nigel’s other pithy Figure 1 Nigel Short, with Boris Becker's crutch, in 2011.
Twitter comments into the summaries of games.

Giri - Adams was
the first game to
finish, around two
hours into the
session. "I wasn’t
too happy – but
then suddenly it
was a draw" was
Mickey Adams'
succinct post-
Figure 2 "... and suddenly it was a draw!" game comment.
Figure 3 Anish Giri, with his second Vladimir Tukmakov
The game opened
with a Classical Nimzo-Indian (4.Qc2). After 16 moves, White had used less than five minutes while Black had already
thought for three quarters of an hour. Black had a cramped position, with a hemmed-in light-squared bishop and a
hole on b6. But then... nothing. White had a bit of a think (though he had only used 37 minutes by the time the game
ended) and decided he couldn't make progress. Anish Giri puts me in mind of the Hogwart's motto: "draco dormiens
nunquam titillandus," or, in English, "never tickle a sleeping dragon." He enjoys being provoked to violence, as in the
round one game, but seems less inclined to initiate chessboard mayhem himself.
Topalov - Grischuk was a Berlin/London Defence. Nigel Short

again: “When I see the Berlin, I almost become happy that I am no
longer a top player.” I tend to agree with his scepticism, whilst
recalling that yesterday’s Berlin game between Grischuk-
Nakamura, though drawn, was pretty good value. 12...Bd7 was
the first unfamiliar move. Later 18.b3 by Topalov looked a little
strange and Grischuk took the initiative with Black. However, it
always looked on the cards that the game would be left with
pawns only on one side of the board and the game petered out to
a draw. If the likes of Messrs Grischuk and Topalov cannot stir up
Figure 4 Topalov playing Grischuk a storm with the Berlin, it does rather support Nigel’s case.
Aronian-Anand featured an offbeat line of the Nimzo – 1.d4 Nf6

2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Bb4 5.Bd2!? According to my database,
the first person to try this was Alekhine at a simul in Greenock in
1923 – and he lost. Well, serves him right for indulging in such
pusillanimity. The bishop looks all wrong on such a tame square.
Except for the fact that, when I looked through the game in
question, Alekhine was all over his opponent like a cheap suit,
and only lost because of a ridiculous blunder. So maybe it’s OK
after all. Aronian was probably less interested in a 90-year-old
game from a Scottish simul and more influenced by the fact that
he himself had lost a game to it against Nakamura in Saint Louis
last year. The game transposed to something resembling Nimzo- Figure 5 Aronian - Anand
Indian orthodoxy. Grandmaster opinion in the VIP room
indicated that White had an edge in the early middle game but that it evaporated quite quickly after the queens
were exchanged. Once Black’s knight was established on e4 for the second time (on move 28), the repetition of
moves was an odds-on bet.
Carlsen - Caruana was another Berlin. Nigel was withering: “Can someone please wake me up if anything happens in
the @MagnusCarlsen - @FabianoCaruana game?” including the players’ Twitter addresses to ensure they would
become aware of his scorn. The players proceeded down a well-worn super-GM path to an innocuous-looking
position on move 20 with a symmetrical pawn structure and a dwindling array of material on the board. Of course,
you never know with Magnus: his speciality lies in finding
an oasis in a positional desert. Once his passed pawn
came to d6, you started to wonder. Could he be headed
for one of his trademark long grinds? I did my own straw
poll of the GMs in the VIP room. Around move 30, I asked
John Nunn what he thought and he opined that White
had an advantage. A move or two later I asked Chris Ward
and he thought there was nothing significant for White.
Nigel Short put it very well on Twitter: “I know the
engines say equal, but I always get a bit nervous when my
opponent has a passed pawn on the 6th.” Had the 140-
character restriction not prevented a longer comment, I
imagine he might have added, “especially when the
Figure 6 Carlsen - Caruana opponent is Magnus Carlsen”. But the dangerous criminal
passed pawn on d6 found itself securely locked up in the
Caruana penitentiary and there was to be no spectacular Carlsen jailbreak. Instead, the American came up with a
witty finish, giving up a rook to force perpetual check.
Nakamura - Vachier-Lagrave was the last, and best, hope of a

decisive result. It started with a Benoni. This time the Athenian
oracle proved more trenchant than the enigmatic Delphic
equivalent. More pithy than Pythian, you might say: “When
deciding upon a crap opening, choose one with an upside – like
the Benoni.” I believe Nigel Short’s predecessor as English
number one, Hugh Alexander, expressed a broadly similar
opinion. “If God played God in the Benoni, I think White would
win; at the lower levels, however, Black has excellent practical
chances.” Those practical chances were certainly in evidence in
this game, as White made a mess of the opening.
Round 2
H. Nakamura - M. Vachier-Lagrave
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.e3 Bg7 4.c4 0-0 5.Be2 c5 6.d5 d6 7.Nc3 e6 8.0-0 exd5 9.cxd5 Na6
10.Nd2 Rb8 11.e4 Reaching a Benoni position where White’s has expended two tempi
getting his e-pawn to e4, which doesn’t fill one with confidence. 11...Re8 12.f3 Nh5 Nigel
Short predicted this: “12...Nh5!? (and mate) now looks promising for Black.” 13.f4 Nf6!?
Cunningly trading two tempi for White’s own two lost tempi in order to reach a known Benoni
position which is better for Black, but which usually occurs after Black’s move 11. 14.Kh1 Nc7
15.a4 a6 16.a5 Bd7 17.Bf3 Nb5 18.e5 Two database games have proceeded 18.Nxb5 and
two have gone 18.e5, but the results have been 0-1 in all four cases. Superficially, it’s not
obvious why White doesn’t continue with something like 18.Re1, trying to prop up the various
weaknesses as they occur but Black’s long-term prospects are not promising. 18...dxe5
19.fxe5 Rxe5 20.Nc4 Rf5! If Black heads home with his extra pawn, White gets some
counterplay: 20...Re8 21.Bf4 and Black is obliged to sacrifice the exchange. The text is much
more potent. 21.Ne2 (diagram)
Finally diverging from Ufimtsev-Tal, Spartakiade 1967, which continued 21.Ne3 Rf4
22.Ne2 Rh4 23.g3 Re4! 24.Bxe4 Nxe4 25.Nf4 Nd4 26.Kg2 Qe7 27.Re1 h5 28.Ra3
Re8 29.Ne2? Bh3+! 30.Kxh3 Ng5+ 0-1 because it’s mate. 21...Rxf3!? Julian
Hodgson was straining at the leash to see Black play this. Black’s compensation for
the exchange is very promising. Later, however, when shown 21...Ng4!?, he
regretted not playing that instead. Even so, that would have required calculating
Figure 7 Matthew Sadler and Julian Hodgson
commentating some tricky computer-ish lines. 22.gxf3 Bh3 23.Re1 Qxd5 24.Nf4 24.Qxd5 Nxd5

25.Nf4 Nxf4 26.Bxf4 looks possible for White, though Black has ample compensation for the exchange. 24...Qxd1 25.Rxd1 Bd7
26.Be3 Bc6 27.Kg2 Re8 The engine indicates 27...Nd4! 28.Bxd4 cxd4 and now 29.Rxd4 Nh5 30.Rad1 Bxd4 31.Rxd4 Nxf4+
32.Rxf4 Rd8 with a healthy extra pawn. 28.Kf2 Here the engine advocates 28.Bxc5 and
is happy to defend 28...g5 29.Nd3 g4 30.Nce5 gxf3+ 31.Kg1, etc. A human player might
worry about Black’s potential minor piece activity, as well as the two pawns’
compensation for the exchange. 28...g5 29.Nd3 g4 30.Nde5 Bd5 31.Rg1 h5 32.h3
(diagram)
32...Bxc4 A good example of how chess engines can calculate the (humanly)
incalculable. Houdini finds the counter-intuitive 32...gxf3! 33.Bh6 Ne4+ 34.Ke3 Kh7!
35.Bxg7 f2 36.Rg2 Nd4, getting ready to win the piece back with 36...Nf5+. The human
would have to calculate all the horrid little sub-variations and move-order tricks, and also
go on to calculate what happens after 37.Nb6 Nc2+, etc, as the complications do not end there. And then, even if the human had
calculated that far, make a decision as to whether to trust all the calculations made. One little mistake in calculation and the game
could be lost. It’s just too much, too far, for the human brain. 33.Nxc4 Nd5 Black’s advantage has largely evaporated and the any
advantage starts to migrate in the direction of White and his two rooks. However, it’s only very slight. 34.fxg4 Nxe3 35.Nxe3 Bxb2
36.Rae1 Bc3 37.Re2 Bd4 38.Kf3 Nc3 39.Ree1 Ne4 40.gxh5+ Kh7 41.Rg2 Nd6 42.Ree2 Re5 43.Nc2 Rxh5 44.Nxd4 cxd4
45.Rg4 Rxa5 46.Rxd4 Nf5 47.Rb4 b5 48.Kf4 Nh6 49.Ke5 Ra3 50.h4 Rg3 51.Ra2 Rg6 52.Rb1 Re6+ 53.Kf4 Rf6+ 54.Ke4 Re6+
55.Kf4 Rf6+ 56.Ke4 Re6+ ½-½
Other events
David Howell defeated Nick Pert in the second game of their six-game match so leads by 1½-½ in the battle for the
British Knock-Out Championship and the £20,000 winner’s cheque. It came down to a tricky rook and pawn endgame
which looked drawn for much of its course but turned round towards the end.
In the FIDE Open, ten players have reached 3/3: Mads Andersen (DEN),
Evgeny Postny (ISR), Mark Hebden (ENG), Eric Hansen (CAN), Sagar Shah
(IND), Jahongir Vakhidov (UZB), Crg Krishna (IND), Keith Arkell (ENG),
Mishra Swayams (IND) and John Bartholomew (USA). In round two
French GM Romain Edouard was downed by 16-year-old V. Ap Karthik
of India.
Round 3 is scheduled for Sunday 6 December 2015 at 14.00. (Apologies

for getting the start time wrong in the last report!)
Figure 8 Keith Arkell is amongst those on 3/3 in

the FIDE Open. You can’t keep a good man down!
More of my photos from round two are available here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskqwzhAN
John Saunders Website : www.londonchessclassic.com

Twitter: @LondonClassic2015
London Chess Classic Reporter (@johnchess)

6th December 2015

After yesterday’s five draws, it looked like there could be up to four decisive results in today’s 3rd
round, but many missed opportunities meant Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was the only player to bring
home the full point, thus joining Anish Giri in the lead with 2/3.
World Champion Magnus Carlsen facing his predecessor Vishy Anand
In the most highly anticipated clash of the day, Carlsen chose to meet Anand’s Ruy Lopez with the
Berlin Defence, an opening that famously played a huge part in both their World Championship
matches. Anand came out of the opening with a favourable position, but a few inaccuracies before
the time control left Carlsen in the driving seat. However, the World Champion failed to convert his
clear advantage and the players eventually agreed a draw on move 57. Carlsen was clearly
displeased after the game, stating: ‘It was a bit embarrassing for both of us’. Another player who
came very close to tasting victory was Alexander Grischuk. The Russian virtuoso spent 1 hour and 3
minutes(!) on 20.f4, but subsequently reached an almost winning position. Having run very short of
time though, he missed the necessary precision to convert his advantage and a draw was agreed –
meaning Anish Giri remains unbeaten in the Grand Chess Tour. Caruana will also be disappointed
tonight, as he failed to convert a position that seemed to be technically winning in the US derby
against Nakamura. Adams meanwhile scored his third draw - against Aronian - despite having been a
tiny bit worse out of the opening. This leaves us with the only decisive game of the day: Vachier-
Lagrave was outplaying Topalov, and the Bulgarian decided to sacrifice a rook to try and find a
perpetual. However, he ran out of checks only two moves later and saw himself forced to resign.
A look into the fully packed East Hall

In the British Knockout Championship Final, Pert used the white pieces to good effect, managing to
put Howell under considerable pressure. However, there was never any clear path to a decisive
advantage, and a draw was agreed in an opposite-coloured bishop endgame.
In the FIDE Open, a string of draws on boards 2 to 6 put top seed Evgeny Postny into the sole lead
with a perfect 4/4, after he overcame Mads Andersen with the black pieces.
The English Junior Rapidplay gathered 63 young chess enthusiasts
One special tournament that took place today was the English Junior Rapidplay. The event was a
resounding success, as 63 children competed for the coveted title. At the end of the day, Luke
Remus Elliot and Naomi Wei shared first place with 4.5/5, but Luke claimed the title after a play-off.
You can find a photo gallery of this and other junior events on Ray Morris-Hill’s website.
Several weekend events concluded today and you can find all the results and winners on this
dedicated page of the London Chess Classic website.
website and the one from today’s round 3 will be available soon. You can also find photo galleries of
the Classic, the London Chess Conference and other events (such as the British Knockout
Championship Final and the FIDE Open) on Ray Morris-Hill’s website. All the results and tournament
details are up on the LCC website, while you can download the PGN files of the games by clicking on
the following links:

Fiona Steil-Antoni
Press Officer
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
example as Anum Sheikh, the self-
confident little girl deputed to make
Vishy Anand’s first move against
Magnus Carlsen, not only plonked
down the right move, 1.e4, but also helpfully pressed the 15th world champion’s clock for him. Never seen that done
before: the CSC clearly teach them well. A lovely moment which dispelled the tension and was greeted with smiles
all round. It obviously influenced the other players too, as that was the opening move chosen in all five games. Anum
Sheikh is a smart girl: she’ll go far.
Round 3 featured just one decisive game, as Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France defeated Veselin Topalov, who has
thus lost the only two decisive games of the tournament so far. Scores: 1-2 Giri, Vachier-Lagrave 2/3, 3-9 Adams,
Aronian, Anand, Carlsen, Caruana, Grischuk, Nakamura 1½, 10 Topalov ½. However, despite unpromising opening
choices made on all five boards, it was an absorbing round of chess in which there might well have been more
decisive results had all the chances offered been taken.
Following our quotations from the Athenian oracle quoted yesterday, we turn today to another favourite amongst
oracular voices on Twitter. @GingerGM, or Simon Williams, as he's better known, was unimpressed when he logged
in to follow play in the third round: "I excitedly just tuned into #londonchess had a quick look at the positions, quickly
turned off - #bloodyberlin". We feel your pain, Simon. There were no fewer than three Berlins, plus another Ruy
Lopez without 3...Nf6 and a Sicilian. He later added the comment: "In some ways I am happy that I am not a world-
class chess player. Can keep playing interesting openings, without ever learning the Berlin [smiley face]." Yes, it did
look a bit dull to start with but it soon got very interesting.
There was another bit of onstage

amusement before battle started.
Mickey Adams came on stage to find
his name card placed alongside the
black pieces for his coming battle
against Levon Aronian. You can
imagine the English number one’s
bemusement, particularly as he had
already had Black in rounds one and two! Was there perhaps some bizarre
Grand Chess Tour rule that the wild card was assigned Black in every game? No – the board/table had been set up

incorrectly. Oops. The tournament director did his Lord Sugar impression, pointing a dismissive finger at a rueful
Chief Arbiter, and after this bit of comic by-play Mickey was put in charge of the white bits. That said, he didn’t look
to be entirely in command of them in the early stages of the game, but he weathered the storm. OK, it wasn’t exactly
Storm Desmond blowing from the Armenian side of the board (a reference to the weather system that’s been
battering the northerly parts of our country these past few days), more of a brisk breeze. But Levon did seem to have
much the more active position for a while. Mickey, however, is a cool head in a crisis and the white bishop's nagging
pressure against the a6-pawn made it hard for Black to exploit his positional edge.
Vachier-Lagrave - Topalov was not a Berlin (hurrah!) but a

line of the Sicilian, which my software of choice (Hiarcs
Chess Explorer) dubs the Adams Attack (an ironic
soubriquet, that, given Mickey’s grovellish position on the
adjacent board). White's opening didn't look particularly
incisive, but a long series of exchanges in the early
middlegame brought about a position where material was
level and White had a passed pawn on the queenside, with a
queen and rook each. Surprisingly the passed pawn itself
didn't prove to be the decisive factor so much as Vachier-
Lagrave's deft manoeuvre to occupy the b-file with his
queen and rook. Suddenly, from nowhere, the game was
over. Topalov looked in poor form in this game, making a number of questionable decisions from move 21 onwards.
Let’s hope he finds his best form soon as he’s such an entertaining player when he’s at the top of his game. Kudos,
though, to Vachier-Lagrave, whose sudden switch of focus, from lumping the a-pawn downfield to threatening mate
via open file, rank and diagonal, was highly impressive.
Round 3
M. Vachier-Lagrave - V. Topalov
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.h3 e5 7.Nde2 h5 To prevent White’s
intended g2-g4, instead of which he is obliged to move the g-pawn one square only. 8.g3 Nbd7
9.Bg2 b5 10.Nd5 Nxd5 11.Qxd5 Rb8 Julian Hodgson, in the VIP room, suggested 11...Qc7, with
the point that 12.Qxa8 loses to 12...Nb6. The general consensus, however, was that Topalov
was sufficiently tactically astute not to fall for a two-move combo. 11...Nb6 is a decent alternative,
after which White has nothing special. 12.Be3 Be7 13.Qd2 Nf6 14.0-0 Various personages in the
VIP room wanted to look at 14.0-0-0!? but GM John Nunn felt this was highly dubious. 14...0-0
15.Kh2 Bb7 16.Nc3 Rc8 17.a4 b4 18.Nd5 Nxd5 19.exd5 a5 20.Qe2 Bg5 Not necessarily wrong
but 20...Qd7!? 21.Qxh5 f5! is an interesting alternative, e.g. 22.Qe2 e4 23.Rfd1 Bf6 24.Bd4 Bxd4
25.Rxd4 Qe7 and Black should have no difficulty in regaining the pawn given White’s various
weaknesses. 20...h4 was another feasible option, when Black is doing fine. 21.Bxg5 Qxg5 22.h4
(diagram) 22...Qf6?! This looks an illogical choice of square. Sooner or later Black is going to
want to play 22...Qe7 anyway, to help defend the queenside and maybe think about ...f7-f5, so he should play it immediately.
23.Qb5 Had Black’s queen retreated to e7 on the previous move, Black could now have played ...Rc5 to shoo the white queen
away. 23...Qe7 24.Qxa5 Rxc2 25.Rac1 Instructive: White prefers to challenge the c2 rook, rather than play 25.Qxb4 and allow
Black to strengthen his grip on the c-file with 25...Qc7, after which he would have good prospects of regaining the sacrificed pawn.
Hell hath no fury like Topalov with more active pieces. 25...Rxb2 26.Rb1 Ra2 27.Qxb4 Ba6 28.Qb3 Bxf1 Dubious. Exchanging off
the bishops costs Black a useful potential blockader of the a-pawn and defender of an entry square on b7. 28...Rd2 29.Qxa2 Bxg2
30.Kxg2 Ra8? Topalov goes on the defensive, but soon than was necessary: 30...e4! immediately offers counter-chances, maybe
exchanging a pair of pawns on e3 and opening up the white king to a few checks. 31.a5 e4 32.Rb3 f5 Black would like to start
some counterplay with 32...Qe5, forcing White to defend the d-pawn but, unfortunately for him, it
doesn’t achieve its objective. Simply 33.a6! when 33...Qxd5?? loses to the crude cheapo 34.Rb8+ -
which would not have been the case had the black rook still been on f8. 33.Qd2 (diagram)
33...Qc7? Another poor move from Black who has failed to spot White’s coming threat. Instead
33...Qf7! achieves the dual purpose of tying a white piece to the defence of the d5-pawn and
staying in the vicinity of the g7-pawn to stop snap mating threats. Which the move played signally
fails to do... 34.Qb2! A wonderful wrong-footing move from the Frenchman. He cheerfully abandons
what had previously seemed like the all-important passed pawn on a5 in order to exploit the
geometry of the position. Suddenly the only thing that matters is the triangle formed by the lines b2-
b7, b7-g7 and b2-g7. More simply, the threat is Rb7 followed by Qxg7 mate. What to do?
34...Rxa5? Topalov fails the test. Instead, 34...Qxa5! 35.Rb7 Qa1 (Only move) 36.Rxg7+ Kf8
37.Qxa1 Rxa1 38.Rg5 is Black’s only chance, though White still has pretty good winning chances.

35.Rb7 Ra2 36.Qb5! Rxf2+ A forlorn attempt at perpetual. Instead 36...Qc1 37.Qe8+ Kh7 38.Qxh5+ Qh6 39.Qxf5+ Qg6 40.Qe6
should be good enough to win. 37.Kxf2 Qc2+ 38.Qe2 1-0
The all-American clash between

Caruana and Nakamura started
with a Berlin, proceeding into a
theoretical sideline as early as
move 6. Nakamura’s queenside
play starting with 15...b4 was
dubious and he found himself
obliged to surrender a pawn a few
moves later, though Caruana’s
isolated d-pawn and backward b2-
pawn were by way of
compensation. Caruana may have
been considered to be winning for
much of the middlegame, and
remained a pawn up to the end,
but never looked like converting as
his pawns remained weak and
couldn’t be usefully advanced.
Grischuk - Giri meandered down a main line of the Berlin until

Grischuk went into a long think over his 20th move. He revealed later
that he was already familiar with some of the resultant endgame(!)
positions but needed time to recall some of the side variations. In the
end he took 1 hour 3 minutes before coming back to life and pushing
20.f4. The software was so confused by the delay that, when he did
move, it only registered the stopping of the clock and not the move
itself, perhaps in disbelief that he should have moved at all. This
proved to be a turning point but an unexpected one: you might
expect the player who had used so much time to spoil his position but
in fact it was Black's game which began to subside alarmingly. I
suppose ultra-long thinks by the opponent can discombobulate a player and make them forget whatever it was they
were planning when they last moved. Rather like Anand versus
Carlsen, Giri suddenly became indecisive, moved his knight around
and incomprehensibly buried it on g7. Grischuk’s position suddenly
looked very strong, but with the downside that he only had a few
minutes left to negotiate about 15 moves. That said, he is the world
blitz champion and has allegedly only once lost on time, despite
being a notorious time trouble addict. But he showed himself to be
human, missing a strong thrust (27.f5!) and a couple more shots in
the run-up to the time control, by which time Giri’s rook had
jumped out and secured sufficient counterplay to draw. Anish Giri’s
unbeaten run in the Grand Chess Tour and his lead in the
tournament thus remain intact.
Anand - Carlsen didn't look very propitious for Black for much of the course of the game, as Anand maintained a
typical Berlin nagging edge. John Nunn felt that White was a lot better until about move 25, based on having good
chances to get a strong pawn formation on the kingside. At that point the GMs in the VIP room were advocating
25.Bh4, retaining a significant advantage. They also thought 26.Kf3 was sub-optimal. But instead Vishy seemed to
drift and Carlsen seized his chance, first to neutralise White's kingside play and then reroute his knight to a powerful

post on c4. The Athenian oracle (Nigel Short) had already predicted something of the sort: "Optically [Vishy] stands
well against [Magnus], but he has no clear plan of improvement." We’ve all been there: a supposedly good position
but what to do next. So often this presages a turnaround in fortunes and that was the case here.
A bit of indecisive king shuffling by Vishy and suddenly Magnus jumped out, the tables were turned and it was Black
calling the shots. But Magnus couldn’t find a way to convert his advantage either, although we have to give due
credit to Vishy for adapting so well to the change in fortune. Undaunted, he switched over to rugged defence and
Magnus couldn’t find a way through. Carlsen was understandably disappointed at not converting – “it was a bit
embarrassing for both of us” – but I think the game was better than that, at least in terms of the resilience shown by
both players when they were under the cosh.
Other events
Evgeny Postny of Israel is now leader on his own in the FIDE Open,
with a perfect 4/4. His victims have included the English GM Aaron
Summerscale and the Dutch GM Benjamin Bok. The next four
boards all ended in draws. Further down the list, on board 13,
there was a win for English IM John Cox against the formidable
Swedish GM Tiger Hillarp Persson. Meanwhile, another English
amateur player, Marcus Osborne, downed his second IM in the
space of four rounds.
Figure 1 Team Carlsen: father Henrik and coach Peter
Heine Nielsen The Weekend Classic ended in a win for the Greek IM Georgios
Mastrokoukos who scored a perfect 5/5, followed by six Brits on 4,
amongst them veteran IM Mike Basman. On the train home I chatted with GM Matthew
Sadler whose eagle eye had lighted on a game Mike Basman was playing in this event.
Matthew whipped out his mobile phone and sent me an email with a partial score
showing how this game might have proceeded. I give this little snippet here, partly for the
fun of sharing the typical Basmaniac opening, and partly for the ingenuity of Matthew’s
idea (although the pettifogging computer thinks it has answers to a couple of his moves -
let’s not worry about that)...
J. Moreby − M. Basman
1.e4 h6 2.d4 g5 3.h4 g4 4.Qxg4 d5 5.Qf3 dxe4 6.Qxe4 Nf6 7.Qd3 Nc6 8.c3 Rg8 9.Nf3 Be6 10.Bf4 Qd5 11.Nbd2
Rg4 12.Bh2 0-0-0 13.Ne5 (diagram) Mike Basman eventually won a long game after 13...Rxh4 but Matthew was
attracted to 13...Nb4!? 14.cxb4 Rxd4 15.Qc3 Ne4 16.Nxe4 Rd1+ 17.Ke2 Qxe4+ 18.Qe3 R8d2 mate.
Howell vs Pert
The third match game of the British Knock-Out Championship final between David Howell and Nick Pert was held on
Sunday afternoon. Nick Pert, a point down, had White and eventually won a pawn, but only in liquidating to an
opposite pawn endgame. It was still tricky but Howell held effectively to maintain his one-point lead going into the
second half of the match.
Round 4 is scheduled for Monday 7 December 2015 at 16.00.
More of my photos from round three are available here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskqGSFUr


7th December 2015

Despite today’s four draws, chess lovers from all over the world were treated to some thrilling chess
and it was almost 11pm when the last two players called it a day. But before we get to the actual
chess action, here’s a reminder that on Wednesday 9th December the CNN will be asking Magnus
Carlsen your questions. You can read all about this unique opportunity in the following press release.
The Auditorium seen from the balcony
The first game to finish was a rather balanced draw between Giri and Aronian, but the remaining
four games were all looking extremely promising - and they didn’t disappoint! The draw between
Grischuk and Vachier-Lagrave also came from an even game, but here it was the Russian’s infamous
time trouble issues that had the spectators on the edge of their seats. However, once move 40 was
reached, the rook endgame was just a forced draw and the players repeated moves right away.
Nakamura was next to finish, as he profited from an off-day by Anand to win his first game here in
London. World Champion Magnus Carlsen looked like he was close to winning for the majority of his
game, but Adams put up a magnificent defensive performance and a draw was agreed at 10.30pm.
Surprisingly, this was not the last game of the day to finish, as Topalov was still trying to get the
better of Caruana. However, the American produced a similarly impressive rear-guard effort to hold
on to a draw, which was eventually agreed on move 83.
Nakamura increasing his career score against Anand to 6 wins to 1

And if today’s action wasn’t enough to satisfy your chess hunger, make sure you don’t miss out on
this brilliant video where all LCC participants (try to) describe one another in just a single word.
Today’s 4th game of the British Knockout Championship Final was marked by both players getting
extremely short on time right out of the opening, which led to Howell offering a draw on move 15
with the white pieces. In hindsight, 15.Be3 might have been Howell’s worst move of the game, but
after a 25-minute think Pert decided to accept the draw offer, which means that with two games to
go Howell is still leading by the smallest of margins.
In the FIDE Open, Benjamin Bok held the sole leader Evgeny Postny to a draw with the black pieces,
which gave four players from the group on 3.5/4 the chance to catch up with an important win
today: Alex Lenderman, Eric Hansen, Tamas Fodor and the man of the hour, 51st seed Crg Krishna.
Evgeny Postny, top seed and joint leader of the FIDE Open
The traditional Weekday Classic Tournaments - which give players the chance to play five FIDE-rated
games in either the U2000 or U135 section - also kicked off today and will run daily until Friday.
website, and the one from today’s round 4 will be available soon. You can also find photo galleries of
the Classic, the Junior events and other events (such as the British Knockout Championship Final and
the FIDE Open) on Ray Morris-Hill’s website. All the results and tournament details are up on the LCC
website, while you can download the PGN files of the games by clicking on the following links:

Fiona Steil-Antoni
Press Officer
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 absorbing chess but still only one decisive
result, with Hikaru Nakamura beating Vishy Anand to move into a triple tie for first place with MVL and Anish Giri.
The current scores: 1-3 Giri, Nakamura, Vachier-Lagrave 2½/4, 4-8 Adams, Aronian, Carlsen, Caruana, Grischuk 2, 9
Anand 1½, 10 Topalov 1.
Giri-Aronian was something of an academic exercise. Neither

player seemed inclined to push very hard. The game began
with an English Opening and pieces were exchanged off at
regular intervals. A draw looked on the cards from an early
stage and so it proved.
At the start of play, Julian Hodgson in the VIP room made it

plain which game he intended to concentrate on: the
Grischuk versus Vachier-Lagrave game featuring a Sicilian
Najdorf. This is the sort of opening variation that watching
grandmasters slaver over, whilst the rest of us can only
marvel at the nuances that they argue over. It was indeed a
pretty good game, with Grischuk walking the time tightrope
as usual, after expending about an hour and a half over moves 13 to 15, but again the players spoilt matters by
playing too well. Some apparently unbalanced positions occurred along the way but the players picked their way
precisely through the complications, in Grischuk’s case with very little time to spare, and found all the right moves to
maintain the equilibrium. Shortly after the time control they repeated positions and a draw was agreed. If you look
at the Stockfish engine’s assessments of the position from Black’s move 26 to the end, you’ll find it was exactly 0.00
on every move. Positively uncanny.
Nakamura-Anand was a surprising game

in many ways. The opening, a Catalan,
wasn’t particularly sharp, though White
built up pressure against Black’s d5-
pawn. Anand chose to counter this by
surrendering it for some positional
counterplay. This was a reasonable plan
but he followed it up unconvincingly,
and Nakamura was able to consolidate
his pawn plus, and bottle up Anand’s
queen on the queenside into the
bargain. Nakamura grasped his chance
with alacrity and by the time they
reached move 40 was about to increase
his material when Black decided he’s
seen enough and resigned. Quite a
disappointing game for Anand and his
many followers. With all three decisive games being lost by the forty-somethings in the line-up, pundits are shaking
their heads and citing anno domini as a significant factor. I do hope they are wrong: come on, the old guys.

Round 4
H.Nakamura - V.Anand
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.c4 d5 4.g3 Be7 5.Bg2 0-0 6.Qc2 c5 7.0-0 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Qb6 Anand had
played this in beating Aronian in a blitz game at Norway Chess last summer, so Nakamura
would have expected it. 9.Rd1 Nc6 10.Nxc6 Qxc6 11.Bg5 11.Na3 was played by Aronian,
and 11.b3 has been played here. The text is new. 11...h6 12.Bxf6 Bxf6 13.Na3 This has the
advantage over 13.Nd2 of defending the queen, and thus freeing White to play a future cxd5
when he wants to, but the knight on the edge is otherwise a bit awkward. 13...Bd7 14.Rab1
Rac8 15.Qd3 White has conclusively won the d5-pawn. 15...Rfd8 16.cxd5 Qa4 (diagram)
Black has lost the pawn - or it might be more accurate to say he has sacrificed it. The point is
that Black has a certain amount of positional compensation as his pieces are very active and
White has some difficulty consolidating. 17.Rd2 b5 A bit dubious. Instead 17...exd5 18.Bxd5
Be6 19.e4 Rc5 looks as if it regains the pawn and secures equality. 18.Rbd1 exd5 19.Bxd5
Bc6 20.e4 a6 21.h4 Bxd5 22.exd5 Qb4 23.Rb1 Qa5
24.b4 Qa4?! The black queen gets boxed in here.
24...Qb6 helps to blockade the d5-pawn and could well
be good enough to hold. 25.Rb3! Be7 26.Re2 Rc7 26...Bxb4 27.Re4 a5 28.Kg2 Re8 29.Rd4!
and White can steadily improve his position while the black queen and bishop will remain
trussed up on the queenside. 27.Kg2! White is in no hurry: he has Black where he wants
him. 27...Bf6 28.Qf3 Re7 29.Rd2 Red7 30.Qe2 g6 This gives White another target. Harrying
the queen with 30...Re7 and then maintaining the e-file blockade looks better. 31.h5! g5
32.Qd1 Bg7 (diagram) It might be worth trying to break out with 32...a5!? 33.bxa5 b4 34.Rf3
Qxd1 35.Rxd1 Bg7 36.Nc4 Rc7!?, etc. 33.Nc2! White liquidates to a won endgame.
33...Qxa2 34.Ne3 Qa1 34...Qa4 35.Nf5 is no better for Black. 35.Qxa1 Bxa1 36.Ra2 Bd4
37.Nf5 Bg7 38.Rxa6 White is a pawn up and getting ready to win a second. The d5-pawn is
indirectly protected by the threat of Ne7+ and Nxd5. 38...Bf8 39.d6! Bxd6 40.Nxh6+ Kh7
41.Ng4 1-0 This seems an early resignation but after 41...Be7 42.Rf3 Rf8 43.Ne5 and
44.Nxf7, etc.
The other two games lasted long into the evening,

with Carlsen-Adams ending at 10.30pm (a 6½ hour
session) and Topalov-Caruana going on even longer.
In both cases White was trying to win but, not for
the first time in this event, the defenders triumphed
in both cases.
I’m glad I didn’t stay to the bitter end. Although

‘bitter’ was very much the operative word as I
decamped to a pub. The London Classic is the focus
for much chess activity in the London area, not all of
which is organised by Malcolm Pein’s team. Just as
there is an Edinburgh Festival, there is also an
Edinburgh Fringe. So we can think of these unofficial
chess events as part of the London Classic Fringe. I headed down to my home town of Kingston-upon-Thames (which
is really just a suburb of London) to attend a simul given by GM Stuart Conquest at Kingston Chess Club. Stuart now
lives in Gibraltar but of course he wanted to be in London for the Classic, and he was able to slot in a simul whilst in
town. (If you’re interested, he scored a creditable +12, =2, -0 against a strong line-up including one former British
Under-18 Champion and a FIDE Master, drawing with Alan Scrimgeour and Angus James.) This is just a small example
of how the London Classic reinvigorates chess in the capital for its duration, with a plethora of visiting titled players
available for chess functions. And I was able to watch Stu play his simul whilst following play at Olympia in the two
long endgames via my smartphone.
Meanwhile, back at Olympia... I hope everyone has had a look at that great little video of all the players giving one-
word assessment of their rivals (and themselves). The last word went to Mickey Adams about himself – “underdog”
– whilst two of his fellow competitors cited Kasparov’s famous homage to the great Briton: “spider”. Mickey is
celebrated for his toughness and every British chess fan could be proud of their man as he held out for a draw
against the world champion in what had seemed a forlorn cause. If I’d been asked for a one-word assessment of
Mickey, I’d have opted for “Banks”, comparing the Adams rearguard action with that of the legendary England
goalkeeper Gordon Banks and his wonder save against Pele in the 1970 FIFA World Cup. Thinking of a more chessy
analogy, perhaps Mickey could wear a T-shirt with the inscription “I was tortured in the Carlsen Jailhouse – and
survived!” That’s it, I’m all out of analogies, you’ll be relieved to hear.
Mickey’s opening woes probably stemmed

from the awkwardly-placed knight on a6
and the best he could do to survive was to
give up the exchange for a pawn.
However, with limited material left on the
board, he had more than a glimmer of hope of survival. Eventually, on move, he manoeuvred his way into the
position shown in the diagram above. He has a vulnerable pawn on f7 but it is defended by the knight, which is
defended by the bishop, which is defended by (and defends) the pawn on b6. You could call it a fortress, but perhaps
‘spider’s web’ would be more apt. After relocating his attacked bishop, Carlsen was left trying to find ways for his
king and kingside pawns to find a way through the net. Having failed to do so, he tried giving up the bishop to get
two kingside passed pawns but that too proved insufficient. A great save by the England number one.
The final game to finish was Topalov-Caruana. A Berlin Defence, with a sort of Giuoco Pianissimo flavour to it, the
game exited the book on move 8. The Bulgarian, on ½/3, showed further signs of being out of sorts with some insipid
play in the opening. Not only did he lose the initiative, he looked at a distinct disadvantage from about move 11
onwards. GM heads in the VIP room started to shake and a few people had already chalked up a 0-1 score in their
mind as Caruana’s queenside attack started to unfold. But then things started to change: Caruana’s 21...c6? was a
misjudgement and a deceptively simple sequence of moves by Topalov put White in the ascendant. However, a far-
sighted, imaginative defence by Caruana enabled him to save the game. If Mickey is Gordon Banks, then Fabiano
must be Brad Friedel, with maybe a dash of Dino Zoff.
Round 4
V. Topalov - F. Caruana
Black is in serious trouble here, with both c and e-pawns very vulnerable, but he comes up
with a radical solution: 45...Rc8! 46.Ba6 Qa7 47.Bxc8 Topalov decides to go for it but, with
the benefit of hindsight, we can see that 47.Bc4 is more prudent, trying for some other way
to realise White’s strong positional edge. 47...Qxa2+ 48.Kd1 c4 Caruana’s survival plan is
based on (a) his connected passed pawns and (b) the threat of perpetual check. 49.Rd2
Qa1+ 50.Ke2 c3 51.Qxf8 cxd2 52.Kxd2 Qb2+ Houdini prefers 52...Qc3+ 53.Ke2 Qc4+
54.Kf2 b3, when Black’s safety is guaranteed. 53.Ke3 Qc1+ 54.Kf2 Qd2+ 55.Kf1 Qd1+
56.Kg2 Qe2+ 57.Kh3 h5! Not difficult to find but absolutely essential. 58.g4 hxg4+ 59.Kxg4
Qg2+ 60.Kf4 Qh2+ 61.Ke3 Qg1+ 62.Kd3 Qf1+! Another only move: Black cannot let the
white king slip out via c4 unless he is in a position to play Qc3+ and ensure the survival of
the all-important b-pawn. 63.Kd4 Qa1+ 64.Kc4 Qc3+ 65.Kb5 b3 Plan B, perpetual check, is
on hold for the moment so Caruana reverts to plan A, pushing the b-pawn. 66.Bxe6 66.Qe8
is a possibility, but 66...Qxf3 67.Bxe6 b2 68.Bg8+ Kh6 69.Ba2 Qd3+ 70.Kb4 b1Q+ should
draw. 66...Qe5+ 67.Kb4 Qxe6 68.Kc3 Qb6 68...b2!? 69.Kxb2 Qb6+ 70.Kc3 Qe3+ draws,
according to the computer, but has too many imponderables for human consideration. 69.Qf5+ Kg8 70.Qd5+ Kf8 71.Qxb3 There is
nothing better. 71...Qf6+ 72.Kc2 Qxh4 73.Qb8+ Kf7 74.Kd3 Qe1 75.Qf4+ Ke6 76.Qf5+ Ke7 77.Qc5+ Kf7 78.Qf5+ Ke7 79.Qg6
Allowing perpetual but it’s a draw anyway. 79...Qd1+ 80.Ke3 Qe1+ 81.Kf4 Qc1+ 82.Kf5 Qc5+ 83.Kf4 ½-½

Those two wonderful saves by Adams and Caruana
are the clue to why we are seeing so many draws at
Olympia. Chess players at this exalted level are
wonderful defenders, having learnt from computers
that positions that used to be considered lost can
actually be saved so long as you keep plugging away
with precise moves and not allowing yourself to get
too downhearted. Just as in football, when a single
goal advantage often fails to a late equaliser, it ain’t
over until the fat arbiter collects the scoresheets.
OTHER EVENTS
In the FIDE Open, Erstwhile leader Evgeny Postny was

held by Benjamin Bok of the Netherlands, and there are now five players tied on 4½/5: Evgeny Postny (ISR), Alex
Lenderman (USA), Eric Hansen (CAN), Tamas Fodor (HUN), Crg Krishna (IND). The latter, a 24-year-old IM rated 2367,
has a TPR of 2705 at the moment, with a win against Vakhidov and a draw with GM Keith Arkell to his credit.
In the British Knock-Out Championship between David Howell and Nick Pert, there was another draw, so Nick Pert
has two remaining games in which to level the scores, which stands at 2½-1½ in Howell’s favour.
Round 5 is scheduled for Tuesday 8 December 2015 at 16.00. (Note that Wednesday 9 December is a rest day in the
Classic schedule.)
More of my photos from round four are available here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskqEmhQy


8th December 2015

Not for the first time this week, there was a lone decisive game in a round of the final leg of the
Grand Chess Tour. With only four decisive results (out of 25) so far, chess fans from all over the
world will hope for the players to come back well-rested after tomorrow’s free day!
Levon Aronian getting some help with his first move, under the watchful eye of Malcolm Pein
The first game to finish today was the encounter between Vachier-Lagrave and Giri, which ended in
a 31-move draw in a topical Berlin Defence. Next to finish were the games Aronian-Carlsen and
Adams-Nakamura, which both ended in draws after the balance was never really disturbed. For the
third consecutive day, Caruana missed a big opportunity to get on the scoreboard, as he threw away
a huge advantage against Grischuk. He will mostly be kicking himself for missing 46.Qg6, which was
winning on the spot. The last game of the day to finish - after over 6 hours of play - was Anand
against Topalov, where Vishy scored his first win of the tournament after outplaying Topalov.
Anand inflicting a third loss on Topalov

In the 5th and penultimate game of the British Knockout Championship Final, we had another
balanced draw between Pert and Howell. This means that Pert will have to win with the black pieces
tomorrow to level the score and take the match into a play-off.
In the FIDE Open, after 6 rounds an incredible total of 10 players are in the joint lead with 5 points.
With 3 games to go, anything could still happen in the Festival’s biggest side event.
Marion Richardson Primary School
As is usual at the London Chess Classic, daily events are organised for the schools, including simuls,
lessons and a little tournament. Before the start of today’s round, Marion Richardson Primary School
from Tower Hamlets was additionally awarded the British Chess Educational Trust.

Fiona Steil-Antoni
Press Officer
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
Aronian’s move against Magnus Carlsen unfurled 1.Nh3!? which was extremely welcome with us photographers as it
made the players smile for the camera.
The clash of two of the leaders, Vachier-Lagrave

and Giri, was bloodless and the first game to finish,
around two hours into the round. It was a Berlin
Defence and drawn in 33 moves. The main point of
interest was the move 19...Nd4, which must have
been computer analysis. It was a prepared
improvement on the game Adams-Kramnik, played
– no prizes for guessing where – yes, at the Classic
last year. Thereafter the only piquant point was the
presence of passed pawns on the same file (as if
they had somehow overtaken one other). However,
the resultant position was lifeless and a repetition
duly followed. The Athenian oracle was typically
withering: "I have gone on strike: I refuse to
commentate on [MVL v Giri] as a point of principle." A colleague in the press room thought that the players' priority
might have been watching the evenings' Champions League matches. I just hope neither of them was a Manchester
United supporter.
Aronian-Carlsen was drawn after around three hours'

play. It started life as an English Three Knights, quickly
reaching a position which will also be familiar to c3
Sicilian and Caro-Kann players, with White having
hanging pawns on c3 and d4. Those of us who have
essayed the white side (the writer includes himself)
may be familiar with the pattern whereby any
advantage White has in the middlegame gradually
erodes and turns to disadvantage as an endgame
position develops. Gratifyingly, this doesn't just
happen to us hapless woodpushers, as Levon Aronian's
position also seemed to worsen between move 20 and
30. However, not so much that he was in any significant danger of losing. Soon what remained was a drawn rook and
pawn endgame, and a truce was signed. Thus these two giants of the game go into the rest day with the identical
score of five games, five draws. A little disappointing, to say the least.
The other three games proceeded beyond the time control at move 40 and had much of interest to the spectators.
Mickey Adams’s Ruy Lopez was met by Nakamura’s Berlin Defence (boo!) to which Mickey replied 4.d3 (which I think
of as the ‘Even More Boring Variation’ against the Berlin). The players exited the book but then Mickey must have
had a sudden rush of blood to the head and played h2-h4, h4-h5 and h5-h6 in the space of four moves. On Twitter
Nigel Short exclaimed “Whoa!” and awarded the original thrust 10.h4 a pair of exclamation marks (though he might

have been kidding). Nakamura, probably awe-struck, sidestepped the pawn advance and played g7-g6 after the
white pawn came to h6. There didn’t seem to be any accompanying onslaught from Adams’s other pieces and the
pawn was left stranded on h6, waiting to be engulfed by Black’s army. This duly occurred and White was left a pawn
down in an otherwise unremarkable middlegame.
So, once again, the English super-GM’s job was to defend

a dodgy position, and this time he was a pawn down. But,
to be fair, things weren’t quite as bad as they might have
appeared and Mickey went into the line with his eyes at
least partially open. Black’s queenside pawn structure
with the trademark Berlin doubled c-pawns didn’t do
Nakamura any favours when it came to trying to win with
his extra pawn. Not for the first time in this tournament,
stout defence trumped an apparent advantage, and
Nakamura couldn’t make any impression on the Adams
rearguard. Computers don’t find fault with Nakamura’s
attempts to win so we are left to conclude that it was
another success for solid defensive play. I’m going to suggest to our tournament director (you are reading this, aren’t
you, Malcolm?) that we play the theme music to The Great Escape when Mickey next walks onto the stage to take
his place at the board. I would nickname him ‘Houdini’ but that soubriquet has already been used for an analysis
engine. Five draws from five games may not be so great if you’re a 2800+ rated world champion but it sounds a
whole lot better when you are the lowest rated competitor in the shark pool and have already styled yourself the
underdog.
Caruana-Grischuk was another Berlin with the even

more boring 4.d3. However, Caruana improved on
Mickey Adams’s treatment of the line by not
launching a pawn down the board and seeing it
disappear. He too underlined the same structural
disadvantage of the Berlin pawn structure as he
created a typical position where White has a virtual
pawn advantage (four versus three on the kingside,
while Black has four, but including two doubled
pawns, on the queenside, with little prospect of
undoubling them). This might not have been so
damaging for Black were it not for the fact that he
was, as always, so profligate with his thinking time. Caruana gradually improved his position to the point where he
was winning but, unaccountably, under no particular time pressure, let a fairly obvious winning line go begging.
Round 5
F. Caruana - A. Grischuk
Black’s main problem is his time pressure but he has to be careful on the board too as the
queen and bishop are capable of combining to launch dangerous attacks against the king on
the a3-f8 and a1-h8 diagonals. 32...b6 With more time to think, Black could work out
32...Bf2!? 33.Qxb7 Be3, with a very handy threat of perpetual check whilst the white queen
is offside. 33.Qc3 c5 34.Bb2 Qd1 Too risky, particularly in time trouble. Black could think
about closing down the long diagonal with 34...Ke6!? though 35.Qf3 Qd7 36.Qa8 keeps alive
some winning chances for White. 35.e6+!? Kxe6 36.Qe5+ Kd7 37.Qg7+ Be7 38.Qxg6 Qc2
Looks natural, and Black had not time to calculate, but 38...bxa5 39.Qxf5+ Kd8 40.Bf6 Bxf6
41.Qxf6+ Kd7 is a better way to defend, according to the computer, hard though that is to
believe. 39.Be5 Now, with two moves to make, Black is struggling to shore up all his
weaknesses. 39...h4 40.axb6 cxb6 41.Qxb6 Qd3 42.Qb7+ Ke8 43.Qa8+ Kd7 44.Qb7+ Ke8
45.Qc6+ Kf8 For Black it’s a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea: 45...Kf7
46.Qd5+ Qxd5 47.cxd5 is a won bishop and pawns endgame (though there are quite a few
tricks which Black can try before resigning, e.g. 47...Bf6!? when 48.Bxf6?? Kxf6 loses for
White despite the extra pawn, as the two black queenside pawns outfox the b-pawn as the white king is too far from the action).

(diagram) 46.Qa8+? Remarkable. White misses an open goal: 46.Qg6! and it’s all over as
Black cannot usefully defend against the threat of Bg7+, Bh6+ and Qg7 mate. If 46...Bd8
47.Bd6+ wins trivially, while 46...Qg3+ is equally obviously a lost endgame. How did
Caruana miss such an easy shot? 46...Bd8 47.Bc3!? An imaginative try to keep the win
alive. 47.Qf3 Qxf3 48.gxf3 is just a draw. 47...Qg3+ 48.Kh1 Qd3 49.Qb8 Kf7 50.Qb7+ Be7
51.Be5 a5 52.Bb8 A strange plan. Instead, 52.Qf3!? keeps some winning chances alive,
e.g. 52...Qxf3 53.gxf3 Bf6 54.Bc7 Bc3 55.Bd8 Be1 56.Kg2 Ke6 57.Kf1 Kd7 58.Bg5 Bg3
59.Ke2, when White can, I think, secure either the h-pawn or a-pawn in return for the f4-
pawn, and thus get a genuine bishop endgame a pawn up. But it’s probably still drawn.
52...Qb1+ 53.Kh2 a4 54.Qd5+ Kf8 55.Bd6 axb3 56.Qa8+ Kf7 57.Qd5+ Kf8 58.Qa8+ Kf7
½-½
The final game of the round, and the one decisive encounter, was Anand-
Topalov. The Bulgarian has now been marked out as the whipping boy of the tournament and he can of course
expect no mercy. “It’s nothing personal,” as the Mafioso said in The Godfather, just before launching a murderous
attack on Don Corleone, “just business.” First of all, Topalov deserves credit for playing 1...c5 on move one. OK,
Veselin has committed the Berlin sin himself a few times in the past but not here, so far. But he committed a much
worse win by going very passive and allowing Vishy to establish a good knight versus bad bishop endgame. The rest
of the game resembled a typical Carlsen squeeze, except that it was Vishy playing the part of Torquemada. It wasn’t
a flawless win, by any means, but highly educational for us spectators and inspirational for Vishy himself. For Topalov
it would have been abject misery. He started the tournament as the Grand Chess Tour leader, but now he is the only
player in the line-up with a negative score – and a gruesome minus three at that. You can’t help feeling for the guy.
As Nigel Short remarked on Twitter the other day, “if you are in bad form at Wimbledon, you just get knocked out. If
you're in bad form at #LondonChess you can be humiliated day after day.”
Round 5
V. Anand - V. Topalov
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.h3 e5 7.Nde2 h5 8.Bg5 Be6
9.Bxf6 Qxf6 10.Nd5 Qd8 11.Qd3 Anand played 11.Nec3 here in a couple of non-
classical games in Berlin recently but probably didn’t want to see what the
Topalov team had prepared against that. 11...g6 Now we are in uncharted water.
12.0-0-0 Nd7 13.Kb1 Rc8 14.Nec3 Rc5 15.Be2 b5 16.a3 Nb6 17.g4 hxg4
18.Nxb6 Qxb6 19.hxg4 Rxh1 20.Rxh1 Bg7 21.Qe3 Qb7 22.Rd1 Qc7 23.g5
Qc6 24.Rg1 (diagram) 24...Qd7 Commentators Jan Gustafsson and Daniel King
were critical of this move and recommended
instead 24...a5 with at least a semblance of
queenside counterplay. Unaccountably,
Topalov goes passive. 25.Qg3 Rc8 26.Bg4 Forcing off the bishops, after which White is going to
have a powerful post for his knight on d5, and Black’s dark-squared bishop will have only a
twilight existence. 26...Bxg4 27.Qxg4 Qxg4 28.Rxg4 Bf8 29.Nd5 Black isn’t necessarily bound
to lose from this position but he is in for a tough defence. 29...Be7 30.c3 Rc6 31.Kc2 Kd7
32.Kb3 Bd8 33.a4 Rc5 34.axb5 Rxb5+ 35.Ka2 a5 36.b4 axb4 37.cxb4 Rb7 38.Kb3 Rb8
39.Rg1 Rb7 40.Rg3 Rb8 41.Rg1 Rb7 (diagram) How is White to break through? I suspect many
of us amateur players might be minded to give this up as a draw somewhere around here since
there is no obvious way to continue and the white rook is tied to the defence of the g5-pawn...
42.Ra1! ... except that it isn’t! Not in Vishy’s view, anyway. This, for many of us, would be a light
bulb moment (if our light ever switched on at all). The dominating knight and White’s general positional advantages are so powerful
that it is worth surrendering the g-pawn and continuing to probe Black’s position a pawn down. Not many of us would have the
confidence and judgement to pursue such a strategy. 42...Bxg5 43.Kc4 Bd8 44.f3 f5 45.Rh1 Note that Black’s rook has no scope
while white’s rook has a free pass to access all areas of the board. 45...Ra7 isn’t on as White has a deadly skewer. 45...fxe4
46.fxe4 g5 Every fibre of my being rebels at this move as it hems in the bishop behind a pawn of its own colour. But in truth there is
little better. If 46...Kc8 47.Rh8 Ra7 48.Rg8 forces 48...g5 anyway and the torture continues. 47.b5
Rb8 48.Rh7+ Ke6 49.Kb4! Zugzwang. Rook moves allow the b-pawn to advance. 49...g4 Because
the g-pawn is still on the board, Black has no stalemate cheapoes such as 49...Ba5+ 50.Kxa5
Rxb5+, etc, so he’s better off without it. 50.Rg7 g3 51.Rxg3 Rb7 Rook moves sideways along the
rank allow b6, after which the win is easy, while 51...Kf7 52.Ra3 Rb7 53.Ra8 Rd7 and again 54.b6
wins quite easily. 52.Rg6+ Kd7 After 52...Kf7 53.Rxd6 Be7 54.Nxe7 Kxe7 55.Rh6 is an easily won
rook and pawn endgame. 53.Rg7+ Kc8 54.Rg8 Kd7 After 54...Ra7 White continues 55.b6 Ra1
56.b7+ with a simple win as Black cannot eliminate White’s last pawn. 55.Kc4 Rb8 56.Rg7+ Ke6
After 56...Kc8 White has 57.Ne7+! Bxe7 58.Rxe7 Rb6 59.Kb4 Kd8 60.Rh7 Kc8 61.Ka5 Rb7
62.Rxb7 Kxb7 63.Kb4 with a won king and pawn endgame. 57.Kb4 (diagram) We’re back at the
same position as after White’s 50th move but now the stalemate trick comes back into play.
57...Ba5+! 58.Kc4? Anand blinks. Grischuk, sitting alongside the commentators, said, “he doesn’t

want to win!”, meaning that Vishy was enjoying himself too much to want to finish the game
just yet. But I’m inclined to think it was a simple miscalculation. Instead 58.Kxa5! Rxb5+
59.Ka4 Ra5+ 60.Kb3 Ra3+ 61.Kc4 and, whichever rook check Black plays, White replies with
a knight move, thus giving the black king a square on f6 and defusing the stalemate tactic.
58...Bd8 Not much option than to go back: 58...Re8 59.Rc7! and the b-pawn marches
forward. 59.Rg8 Rc8+ 60.Kd3 Rb8 61.Rh8 Kd7 62.Rh7+ (diagram) 62...Ke6? Black is
relying on his unsound stalemate defence to work a second time. 62...Kc8! looks like it should
draw: 63.Kc4 Ra8 64.Rh8 Ra4+ 65.Nb4 Kd7 63.Kc4 Rc8+ 64.Kb4 Rc1 Perhaps a bit
surprising that Black didn’t play 64...Rb8 65.Rg7 Ba5+ again but maybe he’d seen the flaw by
now and expected Vishy not to be fooled a second time. Anyway, this is the best try. 65.b6
Rb1+ 66.Ka5 Bxb6+ There’s nothing better now. 67.Nxb6 The knight, posted on d5 for
38 moves, has finally completed a successful mission. 67...Ra1+ 68.Kb5 Rb1+ 69.Kc6 Rc1+
70.Kb7 Rb1 71.Kc7 Rc1+ 72.Kd8 Re1 73.Rh4 Kf6 74.Rg4 1-0 An only move (otherwise
Black’s king would drive the rook away from the defence of the pawn on e4) but a pretty
simple one to find. On seeing it Topalov resigned immediately.
Wednesday is the rest day and the players will need it, particularly the unlucky Topalov. Let’s hope they come back
breathing fire and positivity on Thursday.
OTHER EVENTS
The situation in the FIDE Open reminds me of a

London traffic jam. There are now ten players piled
up on 5/6: Evgeny Postny (ISR), Erik Blomqvist (SWE),
Alex Lenderman (USA), Tamas Fodor (HUN), John
Bartholomew (USA), Benjamin Bok (NED), Eric Hansen
(CAN), David Martins (POR), Crg Krishna (IND)
(pictured below), Prasanna Vishnu (IND). Sopiko
Guramishvili, the wife of Anish Giri (pictured, left,
with Giri’s coach Vladimir Tukmakov), is amongst
those on 4½, with a current TPR of 2495.
The fifth game of the six-game match between David Howell

and Nick Pert ended in a draw, so Nick Pert now has the
unenviable task of beating Howell with Black if he is to take
the match into overtime.
Round 6 is scheduled for Thursday 10 December 2015 at 16.00. (Note that Wednesday 9 December is a rest day in
the Classic schedule.)
More of my photos from round five are available here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskpJM1JT


9th December 2015
LONDON CHESS CLASSIC REST DAY ROUND-UP

While the London Chess Classic players got to enjoy a rest day, there was still a lot of chess action
going on elsewhere at Olympia Conference Centre, most notably with the conclusion of the
inaugural British Knockout Championship.
David Howell, winner of the British Knockout Championship
In the 6th and final game of this novel and exciting event, David Howell outplayed Nicholas Pert to
take the final by a score of 4-2 and the winner’s cheque of £20,000. Congratulations! Pert picked up
£10,000 for his efforts.
In the FIDE Open, three of the ten leaders - Evgeny Postny, Benjamin Bok and Eric Hansen - won
their games and are in the joint lead with 2 rounds to go.
Before the players return to the board on Thursday, now is a good time to have a look at the overall
Grand Chess Tour standings, seeing as an additional 150,000$ is at stake for the top-three finishers
of the Tour (75,000$ for the winner, 50,000$ for the runner-up and 25,000$ for third place).
Grand Chess Tour Estimated Standings after round 5 of the LCC

The rest day of the Festival’s main event is also a good opportunity to take a moment and look
ahead to next year’s Grand Chess Tour qualification process. As the Tour regulations state, ‘The top-
three players from the 2015 Grand Chess Tour qualify automatically for the 2016 Grand Chess Tour.
The next six players by rating shall also be invited to participate in the 2016 Grand Chess Tour.
Ratings will be the average of each monthly FIDE supplement from February through December
inclusive, as well as the live ratings after the 2015 London Chess Classic.’
As of today, the six players with the highest rating average are Carlsen, Topalov, Anand, Nakamura,
Caruana and Giri (in that order). They are followed by Kramnik, So and Aronian, while Vachier-
Lagrave is only in 13th position. This means that the Frenchman will have to finish in the top-three of
the GCT standings - a live version of which is pictured above - in order to make the cut.
The last 3 rounds of the LCC will thus not only determine the tournament and Tour winner, they will
have the added suspense of revealing the 2016 GCT qualifiers. While it seems like Carlsen, Topalov,
Anand, Nakamura, Caruana, Giri and Kramnik are almost guaranteed to qualify on rating, the
remaining two spots are likely to be a close race between So, Aronian and Vachier-Lagrave - but a
race where So can only watch from the sidelines.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave handing out prizes at today’s junior event
You can read John Saunders’ excellent detailed report of round 5 on the London Chess Classic
website. You can also find photo galleries of the Classic, the Junior events and other events (such as
the British Knockout Championship Final and the FIDE Open) on Ray Morris-Hill’s website. All the
results and tournament details are up on the LCC website, while you can download the PGN files of
the games by clicking on the following links:

Fiona Steil-Antoni
Press Officer
10th December 2015

Today saw the return of the Grand Chess Tour, with the identity of this year’s winner still very much
in the balance. With 3 rounds to go, almost anyone could still win both the LCC and overall title.
Anish Giri maintains his unbeaten record (both in the GCT and against Carlsen!)
The first result to come in today was yet another draw in a Berlin, this time in the game between
Vachier-Lagrave and Caruana. Next up drawing their encounter were Anish Giri and Magnus Carlsen,
meaning the former not only remains unbeaten in all three tournaments of the Grand Chess Tour,
but also undefeated by the World Champion. Nakamura and Aronian also split the point as soon as
the time control was made, as there was nothing left to play for in a level rook endgame.
At this stage, it looked like the two remaining games, Topalov-Adams and Grischuk-Anand, would
both end in White’s favour. Indeed, Britain’s number 1 had just blundered with 32...Ne7, missing
that after 33.Nb3 a fork on c5 was inevitable. However, the Bulgarian returned the favour by
overlooking a fork himself, and a draw then became inevitable. In the last game of the day, Grischuk
secured his first victory thanks to a nice positional game against Anand. However, by the Russian’s
own admission, he wasn’t sure he was winning had Vishy played 51...d3 instead of 51…Kd3. At the
end of the day though the result is all that matters, and Grischuk joins Nakamura, Giri and Vachier-
Lagrave in the lead, with each having won one game and drawn the rest.
Grischuk-Anand was today’s lone decisive encounter

With the tournament standings remaining largely unchanged, this is a good opportunity to take a
closer look at the provisional overall Tour standings. Nakamura is currently in the lead, but he is
closely followed by Giri and Vachier-Lagrave. However, bearing in mind the close standings of the
LCC and the fact that the tournament winner will earn 13 GCT points, a handful of players could still
take home the 75,000$ cheque for the overall champion.
Unlike the LCC, there is no shortage of decisive results in the FIDE Open, where there were only two
draws on the first 10 boards today. After overcoming Eric Hansen with the white pieces, Benjamin
Bok is now the sole leader with 7/8, but with four players trailing him by half a point, anything could
still happen in tomorrow’s last round.
Benjamin Bok, sole leader of the FIDE Open
In other news, chess once again made primetime TV as the BBC ran a story on the daily junior events
for tonight’s BBC London News. You can watch the replay on BBC’s iPlayer (starting from 15:24).

Fiona Steil-Antoni
Press Officer
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 other players in the lead with +1,
while the former world champion dropped back to ninth place. Scores after six rounds: 1-4 Anish Giri (NED),
Alexander Grischuk (RUS), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA) 3½/6, 5-8 Mickey Adams (ENG),
Levon Aronian (ARM), Magnus Carlsen (NOR), Fabiano Caruana (USA) 3, 9 Viswanathan Anand (IND) 2½, 10 Veselin
Topalov 1½. Three rounds remain.
Two of the three leaders, Vachier-

Lagrave and Caruana, met in this round
and had the opportunity to play for the
(as yet) unprecedented heights of +2. A
‘London Wall’ variation ensued (I’ve
decided to drop the B-word from now
on) and the metaphorical edifice proved
as sturdy as the bricks and mortar one
built by the Romans. (It’s worth remembering that London started life as a
Roman city, not an English one. So Fabiano should feel at home here.) The
game wasn’t without interest – it was ‘book’ to move 13 – and Maxime, not to mention the GM pack in the VIP
room, did their best to make White’s position work. But Fabiano seemed to have the measure of Maxime’s menacing
pair of knights. It was the first game to finish.
The second game to finish was

Giri-Carlsen. A few sighs of relief
may have been heard as Magnus
eschewed 3...Nf6 and pushed his
pawn to a6.
Soon they were into another

elderly line of the Ruy Lopez
Figure 1 Giri is getting so lazy he employs a which followed Yates-Ed.Lasker, Figure 2 Carlsen thinks wistfully,
child to move his pieces for him New York 1924, until move 17, "someday my points will come."
when Giri opted for 17.Qb1 and Carlsen innovated with

17...g6. Giri had the two bishops and Carlsen had an isolated
d-pawn but it didn’t seem to count for much. The game lasted
for 53 moves but the game looked dead from some way out.
Giri will probably be glad to have the world champion out of
the way (not that he has a bad record against him), while
Carlsen has now drawn all six of his games and may be starting
to wonder where his next point is coming from.
It wasn’t until 7.50pm that the third game finished, although

fewer moves were played in Nakamura-Aronian than in Giri-
Carlsen. The opening was a Catalan, with Aronian trying the
Figure 3 Levon Aronian pulled off the best combination of the beginner-ish manoeuvre 11...Ra6 and 11...Rb6 in front of his
day... of jacket and shirt, that is. Very smart. pawn chain, instead of the more conventional 11...Na6. It’s
not unprecedented but still looks artificial. The game never really
caught fire and was balanced throughout. Moving on...
So far in this tournament the tiny handful of decisive results have

involved Topalov, Anand or both of them. So there were high
hopes for the other two games. In the end both of them provided
full value for the spectators, although only one of them did
indeed provide another decisive outcome. Topalov pressed hard
for a result against Mickey Adams and looked to have good
prospects when Adams started to go astray and blundered the
exchange. But some imprecise play let the English GM indulge his
penchant for caïssic escapology and another half-point was chalked up on the scoreboard. Connoisseurs of horseplay
will want to add this game to their collection as both players managed to uncork a deadly knight fork, one which
(nearly) won and the other which definitely saved the game.
Figure 4 Topalov and Adams: the two horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Round 6
V.Topalov - M.Adams
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Be7 5.Bf4 0-0 6.e3 Nbd7 7.c5 Steinitz first played this against Chigorin at Nuremberg in 1896 so
it has a lengthy pedigree. It’s a solid line with which White loses few games. 7...c6 8.h3 b6 9.b4 a5
10.a3 h6 Adams has been here before, drawing games with Gelfand and Berkes in this line. 11.Bd3
Ba6 12.Bxa6 Rxa6 13.0-0 Qc8 Previous games had seen 13...Qa8 played here. 14.Rb1 axb4
15.axb4 Qb7 16.Ne1 Rfa8 17.Nc2 R6a7 18.f3 Qc8 19.Qd3 bxc5 20.bxc5 e5 (diagram) 21.dxe5
21.Bh2 looks more normal but Topalov introduces a degree of imbalance into the game. 21...Nxc5
22.Qd2 Nfd7 23.Nd4 Ne6 24.Rfc1 Nxf4 25.exf4 Bc5 26.Kh2 Bxd4 27.Qxd4 Nf8 28.Qd2
28.Nxd5?? is not possible because of the counter-pin 28...Qd7! 28...Ng6 29.Rb2 Qd7 30.Ne2 It all
looks fine to here but Adams’s concentration starts to waver hereabouts. He had about 16 minutes’
thinking time left to move 40. 30...Ra4 31.Rbc2 R8a6 It starts to get difficult after this. Probably just
31...Rc8 was right. 32.Nd4 Ne7? (diagram) 33.Nb3! Threatening
to fork three heavy pieces on c5 and the threat cannot be
adequately countered. 33...Qf5 34.Nc5 Ra8 35.Nxa4 Rxa4 36.g3
g5 Forcing White to keep finding good moves. 37.fxg5 hxg5 38.Re1 Precision was needed here
and Topalov is not currently in a state to provide it: 38.Qc3! and now if 38...Ng6 simply 39.Qxc6
and the rook on a4 is attacked. This one tempo makes all the difference. 38...Ng6! 39.e6 White
can’t adequately defend the e5-pawn. If 39.Rxc6 Nxe5 and, ironically, Black gains sweet revenge
for the vicious triple fork which cost him the exchange in the first place. 39...fxe6 40.Rxc6 Houdini
finds a way to keep a semblance of a winning chance open for White: 40.g4! Qf6 41.Rxc6 Ne5
42.Rc8+ Kf7 43.Rc7+ Kg8 (The point of 40.g4 is seen in the line 43...Kg6?? and now 44.Qc2+
wins as the black queen cannot interpose on f5, whereas in the game line it can.) 44.Rf1 Nxf3+

45.Kh1!? Ra1, etc, but it’s a typical computer line. 40...Ne5 41.Rc8+ Kf7 42.Rf1 42.Rc7+ Kg6 is very safe. 42...Nxf3+ 43.Rxf3
Qxf3 44.Qc2 Kg7! An only move but perhaps not so difficult to find. 45.Qxa4 45.Qb2+ d4 46.Rd8 Qe4 leads nowhere. 45...Qf2+
46.Kh1 Qf1+ 47.Kh2 ½-½
Finally, that rare commodity here at Olympia this

year: a decisive result. Grischuk-Anand started with an
English opening, with slight Dutch overtones. Grischuk
didn’t get much out of the opening, other than a hefty
time deficit whilst snatching a pawn on b7 and then
extricating his queen to safety (no news, there, then).
The opening seemed to work out absolutely fine for
Anand but then he lost his way in his opponent’s time
trouble. First he overpressed in the middlegame and
pushed his f-pawn too far forward. Grischuk now had
an advantage but it may not have been winning but
for Anand’s dubious 40th move and outright error on
move 51.
Round 6
A. Grischuk - V. Anand
1.c4 e5 2.d3 Nc6 3.Nf3 f5 4.g3 Nf6 5.Bg2 Bb4+ 6.Bd2 Bxd2+ 7.Qxd2 0-0 8.Nc3 d6 9.0-0 Bd7 10.Nd5 Nxd5 11.cxd5 Ne7
12.Qb4 Nxd5 13.Qxb7 c6 14.Nd2 Nb6 15.Qa6 d5 Black is emerging out of the opening very well. 16.Rac1 f4 17.Nf3 Qf6 18.Qa5
Kh8 19.b3 Bg4?! This looks dubious. Perhaps Black should sit tight and let Grischuk’s time
pressure do its work. 20.Qc3 Attacking two pawns so the reply is more or less obligatory. 20...e4
21.Qxf6 Rxf6 22.Nd4 f3 Although this drives the white bishop into the corner, the embarrassment is
only temporary and White will emerge one day to capture the f3-pawn. 23.exf3 exf3 24.Bh1 Rc8
25.Rfe1 White grabs the open file. He now has a considerable advantage. 25...h6 26.b4 Na4
26...a6 may be better: 27.Re3 Rcf8 and White can’t play 28.Rxc6? Rxc6 29.Nxc6 because of
29...Rc8 when 30.h3 Rxc6 31.hxg4 Rc1+ 32.Kh2 Rc2 should hold for Black. 27.Re3 Rcf8 28.h3
Some of White’s advantage dissipates after this. Instead 28.a3 keeps stirring the pot. 28...Bxh3
29.Rxf3 Bd7 30.Bg2 g5 31.Rxf6 Rxf6 32.Nf3 Kg7 33.Ne5 Be8
34.Bh3 White was down to 3 minutes to Black’s 12. 34...h5 35.d4
Nb6 36.Rc3 Nc4 (diagram) The start of a good plan to hold the
balance. 37.Nxc4 dxc4 38.Rxc4 Rd6 39.a3 Bf7 Simply 39...Kf6
seems better as White has little scope to improve his game. 40.Rc5 Rxd4? Again 40...Kf6 looks
reasonable but the text is a definite error. 41.Rxg5+ Kf6 42.Rf5+ Kg6 43.Rc5 Rd1+ 44.Kh2 Bd5
45.Bg2 Rd2 46.Bxd5 cxd5 47.Kg2 Kf5 48.Ra5 Ke4 49.Rxa7 Winning a second pawn but the
game is not over yet. 49...d4 50.b5 Rb2 51.a4 (diagram) 51...Kd3? 51...d3! pretty well secures
the draw. If 52.Rd7 Rb4 53.Rd8 Rxa4 54.b6 Rb4 55.Rb8 d2 56.Rd8 Rxb6 57.Rxd2 with a drawn
endgame. 52.Rb7 Ra2 53.b6 Rxa4 54.Rb8 1-0 It’s not immediately obvious but White now has a
comfortable win, e.g. 54...Rb4 55.b7 Rb2 (To stop the f-pawn racing down the board) 56.Kh3! and
now it becomes clear: 56...Rxf2 57.Rc8 and the pawn promotes.
On Wednesday, while the Classicists rested, David Howell wrapped up his British Knock-Out Championship victory
with a last-round win against Nick Pert, making the score 4-2. David Howell takes home £20,000 while Nick pockets a
not inconsiderable £10,000 himself. English GMs don’t often get such generous pay days so this is a most welcome
additional contest to the British professional chess scene.
The FIDE Open reached the eighth and penultimate round. Benjamin Bok of the Netherlands is in the lead with 7/8
after defeating Eric Hansen of Canada. The other leader Evgeny Postny drew with Romain Edouard. Scores going into
the final round: 1 Benjamin Bok (NED) 8/9, 2-4 Alex Lenderman (USA), Hrant Melkumyan (ARM), Evgeny Postny (ISR),
Jahongir Vakhidov (UZB) 7½. Amongst those on 6 are British champion Jonathan Hawkins and veteran Mark Hebden.
Round 7 is scheduled for Friday 11 December 2015 at 16.00.

More of my photos from round six are available here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskqE2Uc9


11th December 2015

Chess fans were treated to three decisive results at the Classic today as the openings and the
atmosphere changed completely. The battle between Carlsen and Nakamura had the spectators on
the edge of their seats until almost 11 pm. After pushing for most of the game, Carlsen broke down
Nakamura’s defences in the seventh hour and the American resigned on move 78 - making it an
incredible +12 =18 -0 lifetime score in favour of the World Champion in classical games. The US
number one defended robustly until very near the end, and was even 25 minutes to 8 minutes up on
the clock but 62...f6? was possibly the decisive error and Magnus uncorked the incredible 67.Kxf6!!
which Nakamura had understandably missed. Later it’s possible that 71...Kg6 instead of Kf8 may just
have held. Tournament Director Malcolm Pein was full of foreboding; telling the audience that Boris
Spassky once gave him a lecture on how leaving two knights defending each other was rarely a good
idea and then Spassky’s words suddenly rang true.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is the man of the hour in London
The first game of the day had finished almost 6 hours earlier, when Aronian secured his first
tournament win by inflicting a fourth loss on Topalov. Aronian’s place in the 2016 GCT is threatened
by a possible top 3 finish for MVL and he ventured a sharp line of the English that was popular in the
1970s. Topalov seemed unfamiliar with the position; Bd7 was dubious, Qa5 ‘fishy’ and h6 just a bad
idea. This 27-move game was shortly followed by draws in the encounters Adams-Grischuk and
Caruana-Giri, meaning both Adams and Caruana have drawn all their games so far - a solid result for
Mickey, but doubtlessly a slight disappointment for Fabiano. One player who didn’t disappoint today
was Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave who played a brilliant game to overcome Vishy Anand,
inflicting on the 15th World Champion a first ever defeat on his birthday.
Thanks to this victory, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is now the leader of both the London Chess Classic
and the Grand Chess Tour. In the Classic, four players trail Maxime by half a point: Grischuk, Aronian,
Giri and now also Carlsen. In tomorrow’s penultimate round, the World Champion will face the out
of form Topalov, while Vachier-Lagrave takes on the super-solid Adams.
Benjamin Bok is the winner of the 2015 FIDE Open, after a last-round win over Alex Lenderman.
Thanks to this victory the Dutch GM left the rest of the field a full point behind him, as six players
shared second place with 7/8: Postny, Jumabayev, Hansen, Vakhidov, Sadzikowski and British
Champion Jonathan Hawkins, who finished the tournament unbeaten and with a 2626 TPR.
Lenderman-Bok, the decisive game of the FIDE Open
Tomorrow Saturday sees the beginning of the biggest and strongest side event of the London Chess
Classic – the Super Rapidplay. Over 320 players have currently entered the event, including 36 GMs!
You can see the players’ list here: http://tickets.londonchessclassic.com/entries.php#Rapidplay

Fiona Steil-Antoni
Press Officer
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
the evening. After seven of the nine rounds the situation is now as follows: 1 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 4½, 2-5 Levon
Aronian, Magnus Carlsen, Anish Giri, Alexander Grischuk 4, 6-8 Mickey Adams, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura
3½, 9 Vishy Anand 2½, 10 Veselin Topalov 1½.
The first game to finish (in just a little under

three hours) was Aronian-Topalov, with the
Bulgarian going down to another disappointing
defeat. Topalov has hinted at retirement more
than once in the past few months, and perhaps,
psychologically, he has already retired in his
mind and it is having a negative effect on his
game. He started the tournament leading the
Grand Chess Tour but he can forget any
ambition he had of winning the first prize there.
The opening was a Symmetrical English, with a
weird (but known) line in which the black knight
hops around the board in a loop to e6 via d5,
b4, d3 and f4. But Topalov’s queen was soon
out of play and an injudicious exchange on g5
left him helpless.
Round 7
L. Aronian - V. Topalov
1.c4 c5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nb4 6.Bc4 Nd3+ 7.Ke2 Nf4+ 8.Kf1 Ne6 A very weird opening for Black, who has
moved his knight six times in eight moves. By way of compensation he has prevented the enemy king from castling and stopped
White getting in d2-d4. Back in the 1940s, the first move tried by the earlier practitioners of this slightly bizarre line was 9.Ne5 here,
but these days people usually prefer the text move. 9.b4!? cxb4 10.Nd5 g6 11.d4 The line
11.Bb2 Bg7 12.Bxg7 Nxg7 13.Nxb4 0-0 14.d4 Bg4 was tried and found wanting for White in
some games in the early 1980s. 11.a3 Bg7 12.Rb1 Nc5 13.Qc2 Nc6 14.Nxb4 0-0 15.Nxc6 bxc6
16.d3 was OK for Black in Sveshnikov-Arnason, Sochi 1980. 11...Bg7 12.Be3 Nc6 13.Rc1 Bd7
Aronian thought 13...0-0 was more precise. “It’s the same as the game but with a healthier king.”
14.Qd2 (diagram) 14...Qa5?! Aronian considered this a serious error as the queen is out of
play here. Perhaps 14...0-0 or 14...Rc8 is indicated. 15.h4 Rc8? Both players thought after the
game that 15...b3 was the only move, giving back the pawn and exchanging the queens.
16.Bb3! White slams the door on the b4-b3 escape
route. 16...Qb5+ 17.Kg1 h6 Aronian thought Black
should play 17...h5 and then castle, not worrying
about an exchange sac on c6 followed by Nxe7+.
18.Kh2 g5 19.Rhd1 Kf8 After 19...g4 White can play
20.Ne5 Nxe5 21.Rxc8+ Bxc8 22.dxe5 Bxe5+ 23.g3 and White has good piece play for
the two pawns sacrificed. 20.Kg1 Aronian felt Topalov had underestimated the white
king’s long march to get ‘castled’. White is now very comfortably placed. 20...Rd8
21.hxg5 hxg5 22.Bxg5 Nxg5? This facilitates the white attack. “After taking on g5, I
thought he was completely lost.” (Aronian) 22...Be8 tightens the defences. 23.Qxg5 Bh6
24.Qh4 Bg7 25.Qf4 Bh6 26.Ng5 Bxg5 27.Qxg5 1-0 (diagram) A curious position:
Topalov resigned and computer engines concur with his assessment of the position,
giving it in the region of +3.80 in favour of White. Yet the material is level and it is not
immediately obvious how White wins. Aronian summarised it succinctly: “Black can
resign because he cannot get the queen into play. The difference is, I have a queen and he has something that used to be a
queen!” Let’s investigate: 27...Re8 (27...Rg8 28.Qh6+ Ke8? 29.Nc7 mate) 28.Bc4 Qa5 29.Rd3 and now it’s a lot clearer how close
to the end Black’s position is.

Adams-Grischuk was the next game to finish, after around 3½
hours. It started with a Najdorf Sicilian, and ended in a draw
in 29 moves. Around move 20 it threatened to get very
interesting but then fizzled out to a repetition not many
moves later.
Anand-Vachier-Lagrave was also a Najdorf Sicilian, of a

different line to the Adams-Grischuk, though there were
similarities, with the c3 knight coming to d5. Fleetingly,
White had a chance to get on top in this game but Vishy
missed it in the middlegame complications and he quickly
succumbed. Thereafter MVL was relentless, first winning
material and then rather cheekily setting up a flashy finish. It shouldn’t happen to a chap on his 46th birthday and,
judging from the look on his face as he exited the auditorium, it would rather take more than a cake and a few
balloons to console the great world champion in what remained of his evening.
Round 7
V. Anand - M. Vachier-Lagrave
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 e5 7.Nb3 Be7 8.Be3 Be6 9.Nd5 9.Qd3 Nc6 10.a3 d5 11.exd5 Nxd5
12.Nxd5 Qxd5 13.0-0-0 Qxd3 14.Bxd3 was the game the two players played in Saint Louis this year, which ended in a draw.
9...Nbd7 10.Qd3 0-0 Here Gelfand chose 10...Bxd5 against Anand in a rapidplay game in Zurich last year. That too was drawn.
11.c4 Carlsen played 11.0-0 against Grischuk in Saint Louis but went on to lose. 11...b5 12.Nd2 Most games which have reached
this position have proceeded 12.cxb5 axb5 13.0-0 Bxd5 14.exd5 Nb6 and now either 15.Bxb6 or
15.Qxb5, with a level position. 12...Nc5 13.Bxc5 dxc5 14.b3 Bxd5 15.cxd5 15.exd5 e4! is tricky as
Black can get threats on the open e-file and long diagonal if White takes the pawn. 15...Ne8 16.0-0
Nd6 Setting up a classic blockade on the passed d5-pawn. 17.a4 Bg5 18.Nf3 Bf4 19.axb5 The
onsite commentators were impressed by Vachier-Lagrave’s Bg5-f4 plan. One point is that 19.g3 is
answered by 19...f5! when 20.gxf4 fxe4 regains the material and causes damage to the white
kingside pawn structure. 19...f5!? A very bold, counterattacking plan. 20.Nd2 Qg5 (diagram)
21.Rad1? Can White play 21.Nc4 here? Houdini certainly thinks so: 21...fxe4 22.Qh3 Nxb5 and now
23.Nb6!, threatening the rook, then Nd7 forking rook and c5-pawn, and also making way for the
bishop to come to c4. So maybe Black’s Qg5 had been a bit too bold. 21...axb5 22.exf5 Ra3 23.Ne4
23.Qc2 looks safer: 23...Bxd2 24.Rxd2 Rxb3 25.h4 Qf4 26.Qxb3 Qxd2 27.Bxb5 is about equal.
23...c4 24.Qc2? This turns out to be a blunder. Instead 24.Qb1 Qh6 25.g3 Rxb3 26.Qc2, despite the loss of tempo involved in
having to move the queen twice, is better than the deadly pin on the b1-h7 diagonal. 24...Qxf5 25.Qb2 Maybe Anand had thought
he could prop his position up with 25.Bf3 Rxb3 26.Qe2 but now 26...Rxf3! is a shattering blow: 27.gxf3 Qh3 28.Ng3 Nf5! and White
is going to be mated. 25...Rxb3 26.Qxb3 cxb3 27.Nxd6 Qg6 28.Nxb5 e4 White is without hope. He could resign now. 29.d6 b2
30.Nd4 Qxd6 31.Bc4+ Kh8 32.Ne6 Bxh2+ 33.Kh1 Rxf2! Surprising, in a
way, that Black should not liquidate to a
simpler win, rather than playing this flashy
finish and risking a flaw in his analysis, but
such is the self-confidence of youth.
34.Ng5 If I were Vishy I would have
played 34.Rxd6 hoping for 34...Rxf1+??
35.Kxh2! h6 36.Ba2! but then I don’t get to
play people as strong as MVL (who would
have found 34...Bd6, winning). 34...Bg3!
0-1 (diagram) The final position is worth
a diagram. Black’s calm final move sets
up a back rank mate scenario which is just
a bit more potent than White’s.
Julian Hodgson in the VIP Room became animated when he saw that
Caruana-Giri started with his beloved Tromp. The opening would have
alarmed players unfamiliar with Tromp strategy as it involved Black giving up
a pawn, which became a monster passed pawn on c6. Except that, in reality,
it wasn’t too monstrous as it lacked support from its colleagues, and a far-
sighted GM would realise that its days were numbered. Again, many Black
players might have worried about the white rooks dominating the open files

in the middlegame but Giri seemed to have everything under control. Soon all the major pieces disappeared from
the board, as did all the queenside pawns, and a drawn position reached.
By contrast with Caruana-Giri’s Tromp, the Exchange

Slav of Carlsen-Nakamura elicited a few groans from
the watching spectators. The Exchange Slav is right
up there with the Berlin Wall when it comes to
turgid openings. However, any snap judgements on
what sort of game we were about to see proved to
be very, very wrong. This was to be Carlsen at his
majestic best, against his favourite whipping boy.
The world champion is a veritable chess alchemist,
capable of turning base metal into gold. That said,
just before the end of the lengthy torture session,
there was a golden opportunity for Nakamura to
save himself.
Round 7
M.Carlsen - H.Nakamura
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 Bg4 5.h3 Bh5 6.cxd5 “Oh no, an Exchange Slav!” most of us must have been thinking when we
saw this. But at the same time we’ve all seen what Magnus can do with a dry as dust position when he’s on his game. It’s just that
he hasn’t really been on his game for quite a time now. 6...cxd5 7.Nc3 e6 8.g4 Bg6 9.Ne5 Nfd7 10.Nxg6 hxg6 11.Bg2 Nc6 12.e4
dxe4 13.Nxe4 Bb4+ 14.Nc3 Nb6 15.0-0 0-0 15...Nxd4!? 16.Bxb7 Rxh3 is playable but perhaps a little risky for Black. 16.d5 exd5
17.Nxd5 Bc5 18.Nc3 Bd4 19.Qf3 Qf6 20.Qxf6 Bxf6 I expect many people were beginning to write
this off as a draw. 21.Bf4 Rad8 22.Rad1 Bxc3 Giving up his remaining bishop for a knight is risky.
But only with the ebenfit of hindsight: on the board at the time, it looked fine. 23.bxc3 Na4 24.c4
Nc3 25.Rd2 Rxd2 26.Bxd2 Ne2+ 27.Kh2 Rd8 28.Be3 Nc3 29.a3 Rd3 30.Rc1 Nd1 31.Be4 Rd7
32.Bc5 Nb2 33.Rc2 Na4 34.Be3 Nb6 35.c5 Nd5 36.Rd2 Nf6 37.Rxd7 Nxd7 (diagram) So there we
have the basic tableau for the endgame. Two bishops for two knights is an advantage, but only if
there is some vulnerability in the black defences. If there is, it is not visible here to us lesser mortals.
38.Kg3 Kf8 39.f4 Nf6 40.Bf3 Ke7 41.f5 gxf5 42.gxf5 Kd7 43.Kf4
Ne8 44.Kg5 Ke7 45.Bf4 a6 “Unnecessary” (Carlsen) 46.h4 Kf8
47.Bg3 Nf6 48.Bd6+ Ke8 49.Kf4 Nd7 50.Bg2 Kd8 51.Kg5 Ke8
52.h5 Now the outline of the Carlsen plan is becoming clear: he’s
going to swap his h-pawn for Black’s g-pawn and get his king to g7 to
pressure the f7-pawn. But then surely the black knights can defend and also conjure up a few
threats themselves? It still doesn’t look like a winning plan. 52...Nf6 53.h6 Nh7+ 54.Kh5 Nf6+
55.Kg5 Nh7+ A repetition... “draw?” 56.Kh4 “Not yet, my friend.” 56...gxh6 57.Kh5 Nf6+ 58.Kxh6
Ng4+ 59.Kg7 Nd4 60.Be4 Not 60.Bxb7? Nxf5+ 61.Kh7 Nxd6 62.cxd6 Kd7 63.Bxa6 Kxd6 with a
simple draw. 60...Nf2 61.Bb1 The only move to make progress. He must retain the f-pawn, of
course. 61...Ng4 62.Bf4 f6 Possibly a mistake. Magnus thought so, anyway. But it was getting very
hard to find moves and the agony was writ large on Hikaru’s face as he struggled to find a defence. 63.Be4 Nf2 64.Bb1 Ng4
65.Be4 Nf2 66.Bxb7! Nd3! Hikaru finds the best defence. 66...Nxf5+ 67.Kxf6 Nd4 68.c6 Nxc6 69.Bxc6+ Kd8 70.Ke6 Nd3 71.Bd6
wins. 67.Kxf6! (diagram) Carlsen turns on the afterburners, with just two minutes (plus 30 second increments) left to think. He
gives up the piece to clear the forward path of the f-pawn and also paralyze the two knights. But he
would also have to reckon with a myriad other possibilities. 67...Nxf4 67...Nxc5 68.Bd5! is very
difficult to meet for Black. 68.Ke5 Nfe2 69.f6 a5 70.a4 Kf7 71.Bd5+ (diagram) 71...Kf8? In the
commentary room a cheer went up from a posse of watching Norwegians as Nakamura chose the
wrong move. After 71...Kg6! it is by no means clear that Carlsen can win. A tragedy for Hikaru as he
has defended incredibly well to here. Now analysis engines were telling us that Magnus had only
one way to win. But he would he find it? 72.Ke4!! He would. 72.Kd6? is a mistake as it frees the e2-
knight from its defensive duties and allows 72...Nc3!; 72.c6 Nxc6+ 73.Bxc6 Kf7 74.Bd5+ Ke8 and
White can’t win. 72...Nc2 72...Ke8 73.Ke3 completes the job of paralyzing the knights: 73...Kf8
74.Bc4 Ke8 75.Bxe2 Ne6 76.Bh5+ Kd8 77.c6 wins. 73.c6 Nc3+ 74.Ke5 Nxa4 75.Bb3! A very sweet
move to win back a piece. 75...Nb6 76.Bxc2 a4 77.c7 Kf7 78.Bxa4 1-0
A remarkable game, albeit with a few blemishes. The game finished around 11pm. With two rounds to go, it will no
doubt have boosted Magnus Carlsen’s morale and make him a tough opponent for anyone in the final two rounds at
the weekend. But the tournament and Grand Chess Tour leader is Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and he is going to be
hard to stop in his current form.

London FIDE Open
The nine-round FIDE Open concluded on Friday with an

emphatic victory for Dutch GM Benjamin Bok, who won
his final game with Black against the formidable US
grandmaster Alex Lenderman.
Bok had started the event as the eighth highest rated

player. He conceded draws only to Evgeny Postny in round
five, and, remarkably, 2127-rated Stephen Moran of
Ireland in the first round. Perhaps the turning point in
Bok’s tournament was his somewhat fortuitous win
against Keith Arkell in round six:
London Open, Round 6

B. Bok - K. Arkell
36...R8g7? After 36...Rd2 37.Rf7 Re8, White’s threat of mate on e7 has been dealt with and
the position is equal. 37.Rh5 Rd2?? Oops. Black has to go on the defensive now with
37...R2g5, but the text is disastrous. 38.Rh6+ 1-0 After the king retreats, 39.Ne5+ follows
and then mate on the back rank.
London FIDE Open, final scores: 1 Benjamin Bok (NED) 8/9, 2-7 Evgeny Postny
(ISR), Rinat Jumabayev (KAZ), Eric Hansen (CAN), Jonathan Hawkins (ENG),
Jahongir Vakhidov (UZB), Daniel Sadzikowski (POL). IM norms were achieved by V
Ap Karthik (IND) and David Pires Tavares Martins (POR).
Photos (left): Alex Lenderman (USA) had a pretty good tournament until the last round while (right) Evgeny Postny
(Israel) was the early front runner but drew too many games.
Round 8 is scheduled for Saturday 12 December 2015 at 14.00. (Note, we revert to 14.00 start at the weekend)
More of my photos from round seven are available here: https://www.flickr.com/gp/johnchess2/3S35s3


12th December 2015

Today’s penultimate round saw a lone decisive result, but the players treated us to plenty of fighting
chess and set the stage perfectly for tomorrow’s 9th and final round in which a huge amount is at
stake. The winners of the London Chess Classic and Grand Chess Tour will be decided as well as who
qualifies for next year’s Tour.
Anish Giri joins Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the lead
The first game of the day to finish saw tournament leader Vachier-Lagrave draw with Adams who
defended the Ruy Lopez with ease. MVL decided to repeat moves and a draw was agreed on move
37. While this game was always balanced, the draw that soon followed between Grischuk and
Aronian was a much wilder affair. The Russian joked in the post-game analysis that this had not been
one of Aronian’s better opening preparations, as White got a tangible advantage. However,
Alexander soon found himself in time trouble (again!) and not only let his edge slip, but even found
himself worse. By his own admission, Aronian then committed the mistake of trying to flag his
opponent, allowing a nice piece sacrifice which led to a perpetual check.
Carlsen and Caruana were a pawn up in their respective endgames against Topalov and Anand.
Caruana had held an edge for some time but Anand had seen that the game was going to be drawn
despite the pawn minus. Anish Giri demonstrated the method in an instructive live commentary.
Topalov-Carlsen was a battle of attrition with Carlsen very nearly giving us another demonstration of
how he can create something from nothing. With just rook, knight and three pawns each remaining,
all on the same side of the board, Carlsen managed to tie the back marker up in knots. The
spectators were puzzled as to why Carlsen decided to liquidate into a drawn endgame with rook and
3 pawns against rook and 2 pawns. Giri also demonstrated the drawing plan of Ra3-Ra6 pinning the
e6 pawn. Afterwards, Carlsen revealed that he needed to avoid the 50 move rule and an interesting
discussion ensued as to whether the rules need a tweak, particularly in games with increment.
Carlsen was always making progress and he didn’t have enough moves to fully carry out his plans.
Something for everyone to ponder after the tournament.
That leaves us with today’s decisive encounter in which Giri inflicted a second consecutive defeat on
Nakamura. Anish chose the best moment to produce a beautiful game, as he not only joins MVL in
the tournament lead, but also moves into first place in the Grand Chess Tour standings. Giri remains
unbeaten throughout the Tour, a fantastic accomplishment!
Giri-Nakamura, the only decisive game in round 8
This means that going into tomorrow’s last round, MVL and Giri share the lead with 5/8, but they are
closely followed by Carlsen, Aronian and Grischuk, who trail them by just half a point. Tomorrow’s
three crucial encounters are therefore Aronian-Vachier Lagrave, Anand-Giri and Carlsen-Grischuk.
Chess fans couldn’t have hoped for a more exciting climax to the Grand Chess Tour, as with one
game to go, four players are still in with a realistic chance of winning the Tour: Giri, MVL, Carlsen and
Aronian. An interesting subplot will also be unfolding in the Aronian-Vachier Lagrave encounter, as
the Armenian will most probably have to decide the game in his favour in order to edge out MVL for
the last qualification spot of the 2016 Grand Chess Tour. A tie for first in the London Chess Classic or
the Grand Chess Tour will necessitate a play-off – it could be a late night!
Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant is one of the leaders of the Super Rapidplay
Before the start of the ‘big games’, over 350 players made their way to Olympia Conference Centre
to participate in the Super Rapidplay. After 5 rounds, four players are still on a perfect score: Howell,
Melkumyan, McShane and Arakhamia-Grant (who, despite her 2393 rating, took out Hawkins,
Rowson and Hammer!). The tournament is incredibly strong with over 30 GMs taking part.
the Classic, the Junior events and other events on Ray Morris-Hill’s website. All the results and
tournament details are up on the LCC website, while you can download the PGN files of the games
by clicking on the following links:

 Super Rapidplay: http://www.londonchessclassic.com/replay/games_replay_superrp15.htm
The live games will be broadcast at: http://live.londonchessclassic.com/
Fiona Steil-Antoni
Press Officer
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.
There was quite a light-hearted mood amongst the

younger players today as they assembled for Round
eight of the Classic in the front row of the stalls and
waited to be summoned by the tournament director
to their seats on the stage. Magnus Carlsen, who
had been six minutes late for his round seven game
against Nakamura, and a bit grumpy generally,
seemed a different person. He entered into the
spirit of Levon Aronian’s banter with Maxime
Vachier-Lagrave and was clearly amused at what
Levon was saying to Maxime. Which I overheard... “I
was really impressed by your Bg5, Bf4 idea yesterday
Figure 1 Aronian, MVL and Carlsen enjoy some pre-game banter – what impressed me was how awful it was!” Yes,
you heard it here first, the super-GMs like to tease
each other before games. There was another grandmaster wind-up after one of the games in the commentary room.
Telling the audience of the opening phase of his game with Grischuk, Levon Aronian said that “it was a line we both
analysed.” Grischuk, with mock incredulity: “you analysed it?” and a few moments later, “well, it wasn’t the best
analysis of yours.” Said, and greeted, with a smile.
Levon and Anish seem to be the principal teases

amongst this particular batch of superstars, as you
can probably guess from their cheeky comments at
commentary sessions, but the other players take
this good-natured razzing in good part. It helps to
dissipate the tension of the moment. It is
reminiscent of the chat between footballers of
opposing teams waiting in the tunnel before they
take the field. Topalov looks less than amused at the
moment, though he too has a lovely, dry sense of
humour when he’s in the mood, but it’s easy to
understand that he’s probably just longing to be on
a plane out of London right now.
Figure 2 Anand, Adams, Giri and Caruana cheerful, Topalov less so
Tournament leader MVL opened with a Ruy Lopez,
to which Mickey Adams responded with the Breyer. You thought I was going to write another name beginning with
“B” there, didn’t you? But we didn’t have any of those in this round. This was a typically cagey Spanish, all theory to
move 23, and thereafter focusing on a small area of activity on the queenside. A couple of pawns and a knight were

exchanged before the players opted for a repetition and adjourned to the commentary room, where the
commentators pressed them into service to talk about the other games.
Grischuk-Aronian was a pleasing fight which ebbed and flowed and ended with some more banter and joshing in the
commentary room, as we’ve already seen.
Round 8
A. Grischuk - L. Aronian
1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 e6 4.0-0 Be7
5.c4 0-0 6.b3 b6 7.Bb2 Bb7 8.cxd5
Nxd5 9.d4 Nd7 10.Re1 N5f6 11.Nc3 c5
11...Bb4 12.Qc2 Bxc3 13.Qxc3 Be4
14.Red1 Qc8 15.Bf1 was a game
between Grischuk and Kramnik at the
World Blitz earlier this year, which
ended in a draw. 12.e4 cxd4 13.Nxd4
Bc5 14.Re2 Qb8 15.Rd2 a6 “Maybe
this is too much,” said Levon later,
regretting his plan to expand on the
queenside. “Expand slowly with Ra7,
Qa8,” said Sacha, with a wry grin on his face. Chris Ward explained,
diplomatically, that they had liked White here. To which Levon
responded, “I also liked White!” 16.Qe2 Ra7 17.Re1 Ne5 18.Kh1 Qa8
19.f4 Ng6 20.Nc2 (diagram) Levon had underestimated this move. There is a threat of Na4. “Did you feel a bit silly with your
pieces in this position?”, asked Chris Ward. “Yes!” admitted Levon. 20...Rd8 21.Red1 Grischuk suggested 21.Rxd8+ Qxd8 22.e5
but Aronian planned (After 22.Rd1 Qa8 23.e5? Black has 23...Ng4! 24.Ne4 Bxe4 25.Bxe4 Qxe4+!, etc) 22...Bxg2+ 23.Qxg2 Ne8
and wasn’t too worried about the passivity of his position. 21...Rxd2 22.Rxd2 h5 23.Qd1? “A blunder. I missed Ng4.” (Grischuk)
23...Ng4 24.Qe1 Bc6 25.h3 Nf6 26.b4 Bf8 27.Qe3 Rd7 28.Rxd7 Nxd7 29.a3 h4 30.Nd4 Bb7 31.f5 exf5 32.Nxf5 Nde5 33.Nd5
Grischuk thought he should have played 33.Bc1 here, anticipating the knight fork. 33...Nc4 34.Qd4 Nxb2 35.Qxb2 hxg3?! As
Grischuk’s time started to run perilously low: Aronian remarked, in the same facetious tone as before, “I was trying to flag Sacha
here, I have to confess... I got too excited.” 36.Nh6+ gxh6 36...Kh7!? 37.Nxf7 Qc8 38.Ng5+ was one of the lines the players looked
at after the game. White is perhaps better. 37.Nf6+ Kh8 38.Nh5+ Kg8 39.Nf6+ Kh8 40.Nh5+ Kg8 ½-½
Anish Giri moved up to share the lead with Vachier-Lagrave by defeating a

disconsolate Nakamura. The game started with what looked like a King’s
Indian Attack but Giri has given it a new twist, modelling it on a sedate
line of the Grünfeld which he had reversed for use by White. It’s hardly
the most aggressive opening line but it seemed to catch Nakamura in
what cricket commentator Geoffrey Boycott calls “the corridor of
uncertainty”. Having been ground down in a long game by the world
champion the evening before, he may not have been at his best today.
Even so he had a reasonably good game before he simplified
unnecessarily and allowed Giri’s light-squared bishop to pitch camp in the heart of his position. Time trouble did not
help either.
Round 8
A. Giri - H. Nakamura
1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 e6 4.0-0 Be7 5.d3 0-0 6.Nbd2 c5 7.e4 This looks like, and indeed is, a King’s Indian Attack, as analysed
in Ray Keene’s book Flank Openings many moons ago, but Giri has a different idea in mind. 7...Nc6 8.Re1 Qc7 9.Qe2 b5 10.a4 In
the KIA White would be looking to close the centre with e4-e5. 10...b4 11.exd5 exd5 Giri compared this to a reversed Grünfeld,
which he plays with both colours. 12.Nb3 “Probably White has good chances to equalise this position,” was a throwaway comment
from Giri hereabouts, perhaps still thinking of it as a reversed Grünfeld. 12...Re8 13.Bf4 Qb6 14.a5 Qb5 15.Qd2 Be6 16.a6 Bf8
17.Ne5 Nxe5 18.Bxe5 Nd7 19.Bf4 Qb6 19...Rac8 20.c3 Giri thought the text was a mistake and that he
should have played 20.c4 here. Then 20...bxc3 21.bxc3 when the knight is inviolate because the queen
would be trapped. 21...Bd6 20...Rac8 21.Qc2 After 21.cxb4 the move 21...c4!? is tricky. 21...d4 22.Nd2
h6 23.h4 dxc3 Giri thought it “ridiculous to take twice on c3.” He thought Black was fine here. Giri
expected something like 23...Bd6 24.Bxd6 Qxd6 25.Bb7, which is still level. 24.bxc3 bxc3 Giri was
more concerned about something like 24...b3 25.Qb2 c4, which he felt was unclear. 25.Qxc3 Nf6
26.Nc4 Qd8 27.Bb7 Nakamura felt he may have underestimated this. 27...Nd5 28.Qd2 Nxf4 29.Qxf4
Qxd3 After 29...Rc7 Giri thought 30.Bd5!? probably didn’t work, though it looks nice. He planned 30.Na5
with a solid set-up. 30.Ne5 Qd6 After 30...Qd4 Giri intended 31.Qxd4 cxd4 32.Nc6!? rather than taking
the exchange. 31.Rad1 Qc7 Giri expected 31...Qb6 as taking the exchange is nothing special: 32.Bxc8

Rxc8 and the position is roughly equal. 32.Nc6 (diagram) Giri liked the fact that he had so many possibilities which contributed to
Black’s time trouble woes, e.g. 32.Rd7!? Qa5 (Not 32...Bxd7?? 33.Qxf7+ wins for White) 33.Rc1 f6 32...Qxc6?! Giri, in the
commentary room, thought Black might play 32...Qb6 but the computer finds 33.Bxc8 Rxc8 34.Rxe6!! fxe6 35.Ne5 and White wins.
Black perhaps has to settle for 32...Qxf4 33.gxf4 Rxc6 34.Bxc6 Rb8 35.Bd5, though White
looks good in the long run. 33.Bxc6 Rxc6 34.Qa4 Rec8 34...Rcc8 35.Rc1 and now, for
example, 35...c4 allows 36.Rxc4!, winning. 35.Rd8! A very nice move to destabilise Black’s
set-up. 35...c4 36.Rxc8 Rxc8 (diagram) 37.Rxe6! fxe6 38.Qd7 Rc5 39.Qxe6+ Kh7 40.Qf7
Bd6 41.h5 Rg5 The commentators, supplemented by Vachier-Lagrave and Adams, tried to
shield the a7-pawn with 41...Bc7, but when Grischuk came into the commentary room, he
supplied the refutation, consisting of a mazy series of queen checks, thus: 42.Qg6+! Kg8
43.Qe8+ Kh7 44.Qe4+ Kg8 45.Qa8+, followed by 46.Qxa7, and White wins 42.Kg2 c3 43.f4
1-0 When the rook moves off the g-file, White has Qg6+ and Qxd6.
The remaining games featured long endgames which went in favour of the two
defenders. Caruana emerged from the middlegame with a slight positional
advantage but Anand found quite an intriguing way to liquidate down
to an endgame, going a pawn down, but presumably with sufficient
endgame knowledge and self-confidence to play it through to a draw.
Definitely not one to try at home until you’ve become a GM, or,
better still, won the first of your five world titles. Vishy made it all
look routine, though he made out it was all a bit of an accident.
Worth playing through the download and figuring it out for yourself.
Finally, Topalov-Carlsen: given the world champion’s morale-boosting

win of the previous day, and Topalov’s generally dismal showing, it
was expected that Black would be making the running here. That proved to be the case. The game began with a
Semi-Tarrasch, main line, finally exiting the known universe on move 16. Topalov was fine until move 21 and then a
series of lacklustre moves, including a few exchanges, left him with slightly the worse of an ending with queen, rook,
knight and four pawns each. The sort of thing which a player of Topalov’s calibre would draw in his sleep... except
against the relentless Carlsen. The queens came off and still the Norwegian pressed. On move 38 a pair of pawns
were exchanged, and at this point Carlsen dug in for the long haul, gradually tightening his grip on the Topalov
position, with his trumps being his better-placed king and his opponent’s vulnerable e5 pawn. It took him a lot of
patient manoeuvring but finally Carlsen established his knight on f4, and used this as a bridgehead to improve his
position incrementally. On move 84, he had reached the following position.
Black is to play and he still has realistic winning chances. His problem is the rule book.
He’s about to make his 84th move and he only has five more moves to evade the
strictures of the 50-move rule (draw if there are no captures or pawn moves made in
that time). He had to improvise, taking the e5-pawn at the expense of a knight
exchange, which, unfortunately for him, made Topalov’s drawing plan a whole lot
easier. Finally, on move 97, Carlsen had to concede the draw.
Carlsen was quite good-humoured about it but nevertheless felt that the strictures of
the 50-move rule were “ridiculous” in circumstances where he had been making
Figure 3 Topalov-Carlsen, Black legitimate efforts to win, and arguably achieving his objective, bit by bit. However much
to make his 84th move one sympathises with his argument, rules are rules, and they have to be accepted. As
indeed he did, with good grace. Topalov, meanwhile, had been oblivious to Carlsen’s 50-move problem. “Couldn’t
you have bluffed him?” was commentator Chris Ward’s mischievous suggestion. Carlsen just smiled: “maybe!”
Round 9 is scheduled for Sunday 13 December 2015 at 14.00. Pairings: Anand-Giri, Adams-Caruana, Aronian-
Vachier-Lagrave, Carlsen-Grischuk and Nakamura-Topalov. Don’t miss it!
More of my photos from round eight are available here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskqKEHdw


13th December 2015

Yesterday’s round-up predicted it could be a late night at the Olympia Conference Centre on the last
day of the London Chess Classic, but little did the fans know they were in for a high intensity 10-hour
chess marathon.
Magnus Carlsen, winner of the London Chess Classic and of the Grand Chess Tour
The final and decisive round had started at the usual 2 pm weekend kick-off time and, for the
seventh time in the tournament, there were four draws and one decisive result. Adams-Caruana,
Aronian-Vachier Lagrave, Anand-Giri and Nakamura-Topalov were all balanced draws. The one
decisive result (which was incidentally also the last game to finish) was crucial as Magnus Carlsen
ultimately got the better of Alexander Grischuk. Carlsen was very lucky as Grischuk first missed a
promising continuation with 30...Rxg4, then a forced draw, before sacrificing a rook for a non-
existent perpetual check. Both players made the same oversight. This last-gasp win enabled Carlsen
to join Giri and Vachier-Lagrave in the lead and thus force a 3-way play-off. As stipulated by the
official regulations, ‘The two players placed lowest on tiebreak shall contest a two game Rapidplay
match at a time limit of Game / 25 mins + 5 secs / move throughout’, which meant Giri and Vachier-
Lagrave would have to face off first for the right to challenge Carlsen for tournament victory.
In the first game, Giri opted for a Berlin (another one!) with the black pieces and played a perfect
game to score an all-important victory. All he needed now, to advance to the final, was a draw with
White. However, Vachier-Lagrave hadn’t said his last word and after a balanced game, he managed
to snatch the required win, when instead of finding a forced draw with 57.Re5!, Giri went astray with
57.Ne5?. Maxime also went on to win the toss for the ensuing Armageddon game and decided to
play with Black, meaning he ‘just’ needed a draw to advance to the final. However, he did more than
that as he outplayed Giri and eventually even won as Giri was trying to avoid a repetition at all costs.
The start of the decisive play-off between Carlsen and Vachier-Lagrave
It was 9.45 pm when the final between Carlsen and Vachier-Lagrave kicked off. This match would not
only decide the winner of the London Chess Classic, but also of the Grand Chess Tour. In an
incredible turn of events, if Maxime decided the play-off in his favour, he and Magnus would finish
on equal points in the overall standings and another play-off would be required (which was
scheduled for Monday afternoon by agreement with the players) to determine the GCT winner.
However, it didn’t come down to this as the World Champion dominated both games; winning the
first and offering a draw in a won position in the second. It was 11.38 pm when that draw was
agreed and Magnus Carlsen was declared the winner of both the London Chess Classic and the
Grand Chess Tour.
It was a very bitter end to the tournament for the Frenchman, but for World Champion Magnus
Carlsen on the other hand this will have come as a big relief after a somewhat difficult year in 2015.
On the plus side, not only is this his fourth victory at the London Chess Classic (out of five) but it is
also his fourth classical tournament victory in 2015 (after Tata Steel Chess, Grenke Chess Classic and
Shamkir Chess) - he could even make it a fifth at the Qatar Masters, which starts in just under a
week. As Magnus put it himself after clinching first place, ‘The highs have been pretty high this year;
it’s just that the lows have been lower than they usually are’.
Carlsen’s performance is all the more impressive considering he started the Grand Chess Tour in the
worst possible way when he inadvertently lost the first round of Norway Chess on time in a winning
position, and only finished in 7th place on his home turf. Furthermore, the World Champion was
never in the lead of the Tour throughout any of the three events but, as so many times before, he
showed his impressive fighting spirit as after six consecutive draws in London, he won two of the last
three games to force a play-off and eventually win it all!
Now that all is done and dusted, the nine qualifiers for the 2016 Grand Chess Tour are Carlsen, Giri
and Aronian (by virtue of finishing in the top three of the 2015 GCT), as well as Kramnik, Nakamura,
Caruana, Anand Topalov and So (by 2015’s average FIDE rating). The dates for the three
tournaments are already known: Norway Chess 16-29 April, Sinquefield Cup 19 August-2 September
and London Chess Classic 30 November-13 December.
Luke McShane, winner of the Super Rapidplay with 9.5/10!
In the Super Rapidplay, Luke McShane carried his superb form into day two, as he rushed to a
perfect 9/9, securing tournament victory with a round to go. In the last round, he was held to a draw
by Alex Lenderman, but he nevertheless left second-place finisher Hrant Melkumyan a whole point
behind him. A total of nine players shared third place with 8/10, including British Knockout
Championship runner-up Nicholas Pert and IM David Eggleston, who was perhaps the biggest
surprise of the tournament. You can find the complete final standings and all details online now.
website. You can also find photo galleries of the Classic, the Junior events and other events on Ray
Morris-Hill’s website. All the results and tournament details are up on the LCC website, while you
can download the PGN files of the games by clicking on the following links:

 Super Rapidplay: http://www.londonchessclassic.com/replay/games_replay_superrp15.htm
Fiona Steil-Antoni
Press Officer
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, outrageous slices
of luck – and somehow you just knew that Magnus Carlsen would come through it all to snatch first place in the
tournament and in the inaugural Grand Chess Tour. He did so and deserves the plaudits.
But let’s also hear it for his co-stars in the last-day drama – Alexander Grischuk, Anish Giri and Maxime Vachier-
Lagrave – who deserve to share some of the winner’s stardust.
London Classic, final scores: 1 Magnus Carlsen 5½, 2 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 5½, 3 Anish Giri 5½, 4 Levon Aronian 5,
5-7 Alexander Grischuk, Fabiano Caruana, Michael Adams 4½, 8 Hikaru Nakamura 4, 9 Viswanathan Anand 3½, 10
Veselin Topalov 2½. Rapidplay Play-off Semi-Final: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave beat Anish Giri 2-1 (after an
Armageddon decider); Rapidplay Play-off Final: Magnus Carlsen beat Maxime Vachie-Lagrave 1½-½. Grand Chess
Tour, leading final placings: 1 Carlsen 26, 2 Anish Giri 23, 3 Aronian 22, 4 Vachier-Lagrave 20, 5 Nakamura 19, 6
Topalov 18, etc.
London Classic Stats Round-Up: This was Carlsen’s fourth Classic victory, adding to his wins in 2009, 2010 and 2012.
Other Classic winners have been Kramnik (2011), Hikaru Nakamura (2013, rapidplay k.o. format), Anand (2014).
Carlsen’s first Classic victory in 2009 took him to the top of the rating list, where he has stayed ever since. His 2012
victory, with a TPR of 3021, took him over Garry Kasparov’s peak rating.
Most pundits expected Carlsen-Grischuk to be the game of the round, given that the world champion needed to win
to have any chance of winning the tournament and the Grand Chess Tour. The players did not disappoint and it
proved to be the only decisive result of the last round. This was a gripping encounter, if not necessarily a well-played
one. Sometimes, when he’s gung-ho for a result, Carlsen can vary his style from the relentless Capablanca/Karpov
model, to something resembling Tal at his mercurial best, following slightly crazy plans and beguiling opponents into
errors they wouldn’t usually make against anyone else. And Carlsen playing in the last round of a London Classic
tournament, as we know from past occasions, is in his element.
Carlsen didn’t have the best of luck in the earlier legs of the Grand Chess Tour but Caïssa smiled on him today. He
played a suitably imbalanced opening to ensure there were no easy routes to a draw and soon established a
comfortable edge. It looked as if he would smooth his way to victory but he then embarked on a crazy plan to snatch
a queenside pawn, whilst leaving his kingside wide open to invasion by Grischuk’s forces. Commentators were
incredulous as he compounded his error by misdirecting another of his pieces away from the key sector of the
battlefield. It suddenly looked odds-on for Grischuk to draw at the very least, if not win. Carlsen was a very lucky
Round 9 Report: 13 December 2015, John Saunders (amended 15 December 2015)

boy, however: Grischuk failed to find what seemed a fairly obvious plan to draw, blundered and was gone. So
Carlsen won to tie for first and go into a three-way play-off with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Anish Giri.
Round 9
M. Carlsen - A. Grischuk
1.Nf3 c5 2.e4 d6 3.Bb5+ Nd7 4.0-0 a6 5.Bd3 Carlsen has been this way before. 5...Ngf6 6.Re1 b5 7.c4 g5 7...Ne5 was played by
Nakamura against Carlsen in the Zurich Rapidplay 2014. 8.Nxg5 Ne5 9.Be2 bxc4 10.Nc3 Carlsen played 10.Na3 against Topalov
in the 2015 Sinquefield Cup, which he lost. After the text move we are in new territory. 10...Rb8
11.Rf1 h6 12.Nf3 Nd3 13.Ne1 Nxb2 13...Nxc1? is poor here as 14.Bxc4! cleverly postpones the
recapture of the knight and brings White’s position to life. The analysis engine suggests the
intriguing 13...Rg8!? 14.Bxd3 cxd3 15.Nxd3 Bg7 16.Nf4 Ng4, giving up a pawn for some activity.
14.Bxb2 Rxb2 15.Bxc4 Rb4 A waste of a move: 15...Rb6 immediately seems better. 16.Qe2 Bg7
17.Nc2 Rb6 18.Rab1 0-0 19.Rxb6 Qxb6 20.Ne3 e6 21.f4 Kh8 22.f5 a5 23.a4 (diagram) White
has a pleasant advantage here, and was well ahead on the clock. Consequently most pundits
expected Carlsen to win smoothly from here. But last rounds always have unexpected twists.
23...Qd8 24.h3 Qe7 25.Ba6 The plan is simple enough: to get the queen to a6 and mop up the a-
pawn. It is corroborated by the analysis engines and yet human spectators, from the humblest
woodpusher up to the GM commentators, were suspicious. Wouldn’t this plan leave the queen out
of play? Couldn’t Black conjure up something interesting on the kingside while the queen is looking
the other way? 25...Bxa6 Black used 7 of his remaining 19 minutes on this move. The alternative
is 25...Bd7, which would prevent the queen invasion. So it seems Grischuk at least shared the spectators’ assessment of the merits
of Carlsen’s plan. 26.Qxa6 Nh5! Grischuk played this quickly. The knight on the rim isn’t dim. It opens diagonals for both queen
and bishop and also has ideas of jumping to g3 at an appropriate
moment. 27.Rf3 Rg8! Grischuk lines up another piece against the white
king. Surely Carlsen must attend to the situation on the kingside...
28.Nb5? What? You can judge what GM Julian Hodgson thinks of a
move by the pitch of his voice, and I think he hit a soprano top C
hereabouts. Nobody could quite believe their eyes here. Black is lining
up four pieces for an attack on the white king, yet Carlsen moves one of
his pieces away from the action, as well as blocking the queen’s return
to defensive duties. 28...Be5 29.Ng4 Qh4 The slight breeze wafting
round the white king is now a howling gale. Analysis engines weren’t
expecting White to be mated here, but nor did they think he had much
chance of winning. Most pundits thought a draw was probable now,
which would have ended Carlsen’s hopes of tournament and tour
victory, of course. 30.fxe6!?
(diagram) 30.Nxe5 allows perpetual
check with 30...Qe1+ 31.Rf1 Rxg2+!
32.Kxg2 Qg3+ 33.Kh1 Qxh3+, etc. Perhaps Carlsen saw that and decided to gamble. 30...fxe6?
Grischuk still had 8 minutes’ thinking time left, which, for a world blitz champion, you would have
thought might be long enough to discover 30...Rxg4! 31.hxg4 Qh2+ 32.Kf2 Nf4 33.Rg3 Nxe6!,
with decent winning chances for Black. 31.Nxe5 dxe5 32.Qxe6 Qe1+? 32...Qg5! should draw
here. 33.Kh2 Rxg2+ 33...Qxd2!? is a hard move to evaluate when short of time: 34.Qxe5+ Rg7
35.Rf8+ Kh7 36.Qf5+ Rg6 37.Qf2 and White probably wins anyway. 34.Kxg2 Qxd2+ 35.Kg1
Qe1+ 36.Rf1 Qe3+ 37.Rf2 Qe1+ 37...Qg3+ 38.Kf1 Qd3+ 39.Ke1 Qe3+ 40.Kd1 Qxf2 41.Qxh6+
Kg8 42.Qxh5 38.Kg2 1-0 Hereabouts Grischuk’s face registered shock as he realised there was
no perpetual check: 38...Qxe4+ 39.Kh2 and it’s over, while 38...Nf4+ 39.Rxf4 exf4 40.Qxh6+ Kg8
41.Qxf4 also wins.
THE PLAY-OFFS
“I’ve created a monster!” Not a quote from the fictional Doctor Frankenstein, but Alexander Grischuk’s rueful
comment on the negative part he played in securing Magnus Carlsen’s passage to the play-offs. Negative from the
point of view of Messrs. Giri and Vachier-Lagrave, anyway. They were probably gearing up for their two-game rapid
play-off when they discovered that a 2834-rated cuckoo had just dropped into their nest. To add insult to injury, they
found they were now playing off, not for tournament and tour victory, but for the right to compete in a further play-
off with Carlsen. How so? By beating Grischuk, Carlsen had not only tied with his two rivals but bettered their tie-
break score by virtue of his last-round victim having a higher finishing score than those of his rivals – a cruel twist of
fate. It meant that, within an hour of the end of the last round nine game (which ended about 3 hours 45 minutes
into the session), MVL and Giri would be back at the board for two 25m+5s games (and possibly an Armageddon
decider) whilst Carlsen had at least two hours to have some dinner and chill out. His second big slice of luck on the
day.

I don’t know how irrational or superstitious Giri
and Vachier-Lagrave can be but they could be
forgiven for sensing that Caïssa wasn’t playing
ball with them. Let’s face it, this rule whereby
one player can sit out the first two hours plus of
a play-off is very unfair. My personal view is that
they should play a three-way round-robin at a
blitz time limit, just to get the damned thing
over with. Four hours plus seems exorbitant
(especially when compared with the five or ten
minutes of a football penalty shoot-out) and
provides yet another example of chess being too
slow. However, it has to be said that the play-
offs, long as they were, did provide the
spectators with a wonderful spectacle by way of
an encore.
For Anish Giri the equation was relatively simple (even if the task wasn’t): he needed to beat his two rivals to win the
tournament and the tour. For Vachier-Lagrave it was more complex. He needed to beat Giri and then Carlsen to win
the tournament. But (and a very big ‘but’)... that wouldn’t give him tour victory but put him into a tie for the Grand
Chess Tour with Carlsen. So they would have to play off a second time! That didn’t happen as things turned out, but
had it happened, the players would have to have played their second play-off on the Monday. Phew! These rules are
so complicated that they probably need looking at again for subsequent years, not least for the fact that players can
have no clear idea of their desired result when they sit down at the board.
The semi-final would have brought joy to Hungarian GM Andras Adorjan’s heart. Black was more than OK, winning
three straight games. Game One was a London Wall (OK, Berlin Wall, then, for those unfamiliar with my previous
reports) but, of course, the joy of rapidplay chess is that draws aren’t quite so inevitable, given the part that the
clock and time-induced errors play in proceedings, even when quite arid positions arise. Vachier-Lagrave’s 15.Ned4
was a new move but perhaps not an improvement as Giri established a positional grip and then won a central e-
pawn. Giri also enjoyed a substantial time advantage. It was actually a beautifully played positional game by Black,
causing one to wonder momentarily if the top players of today really need the luxury of slowplay time limits to
weave their magic. It is well worth seeking out the download of this game to play through – check it out at the
website.
Game two built up to a crescendo, with Giri playing carefully to keep the draw in hand but Vachier-Lagrave
eventually securing a lasting initiative which secured him the win he needed to force an Armageddon. But there
were plenty of mistakes along the way as the time, and the players’ energies, started to dwindle. As so often with
rapidplay chess, and in contrast to the first game of the semi-final, the moves don’t look too pretty on the page but
they are incredibly exciting for the live audience. Here’s the denouement, with the result in doubt until the very end
when Giri, after 28 games unbeaten in the Grand Chess Tour, misses a crude tactic.
Semi−Final Play−Off, Game 2

A. Giri - M. Vachier-Lagrave
(diagram) 44.Nd8 In this deceptively simple position, White has to be very careful. Maybe 44.g4!?
to prop up the f5-pawn but Black still has a lot of activity, and that is so often the key factor in
rapidplay chess. 44...Rh2 45.Nxb7 Rxh3 46.Nd6 46.Nd8 Nf4 47.Re3 h4 48.Kg4 hxg3 49.Rxg3
Rh4+ 50.Kf3 Nh5 and Black can continue to squeeze. 46...Rh2 47.Ke4 Re2+ 48.Kd4 Ne7 49.Kc5
The analysis engine suggests 49.g4!? hxg4 50.Ne4+ forcing the king back and allowing 51.Nxg5+,
since 50...Kxf5?? loses to 51.Ng3+ but White might have to reckon with 49...c5+! which could be
good for Black. 49...g4 White’s position is now very stretched defensively. At slowplay he might
have hopes of survival but in a rapidplay the chances are slimmer. 50.Kb6 Re5! No way back for
the king. 51.Kc7 c5? Missing 51...Nd5+! 52.Kd8 Re3 which looks very strong. Now Black starts to
lose the thread. 52.Nc4 Rxf5 53.Rd6+ Kg5 54.Re6 Nd5+ 55.Kd6 h4? 56.gxh4+ Kxh4 57.Ne5?
With time running low, White misses 57.Re5! Rxe5 (Maybe White calculated 57...g3!? 58.Rxf5 g2

and missed the saving cheapo Nd2/e5, with a check on f3 if the pawn queens.) 58.Nxe5 g3
59.Kxd5 g2 60.Nf3+ Kg3 61.Ke4 and White cannot lose. 57...Nf4 58.Rh6+ Kg5 (diagram)
59.Rh8?? Finally, after 28 games without a defeat in the Grand Chess Tour, Giri blunders and
loses a game. Even now he could play on after 59.Rh7 with a reasonable chance of drawing and
securing his place in the final. 59...Rxe5! 0-1 60.Kxe5 Ng6+ and the knight fork ends the
Dutchman’s dream.
So, to Armageddon: White with 6 minutes to Black’s 5 minutes, with an increment of

3 seconds from move 61. Firstly, the all-important coin toss, which MVL won. He
chose Black as expected; most GMs think that the Armageddon system favours Black.
However, Giri’s opening choice, a double fianchetto, wasn’t the most dynamic and he
never looked too likely to draw the game, let alone win it. Soon MVL was all over him like a cheap suit and the game
was over. Giri, unbeaten throughout the tour, had finally lost two games in the space of half an hour.
THE FINAL PLAY-OFF
After the semi-final MVL had half an hour to compose himself for
the final rapidplay play-off with Carlsen, who no doubt benefited
from the two-hour break. Carlsen ran short of time striving to gain
an advantage from the opening, but Vachier-Lagrave defused his
threats and it came down to a completely drawn rook and pawn
ending. Except for the fact that, with time running low, and the
enormous strain of the situation, there is no such thing as a
completely drawn rook and pawn ending...
Play−Off Final, Game 1

M. Carlsen - M. Vachier-Lagrave
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+ Bd7 4.Bxd7+ Qxd7 5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 g6 7.d4 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Bg7 9.f3 0-0 Carlsen has been here before.
Anand, in Sao Paulo in 2012, played 9...Qc7 against him but lost. 10.Be3 Nc6 11.Rc1 Nxd4 This exchange is a bit unusual but
perhaps not significant. 12.Bxd4 Rfc8 13.b3 Nh5 14.0-0 Bxd4+ 15.Qxd4 Nf6 16.Rfe1 Rc7 17.Rcd1 Qc6 18.Nb5 Rd7 19.Nxa7!?
Carlsen goes after his second a-pawn of the day (although he never actually snatched Grischuk’s a-pawn in the end, of course).
19...Qc5 20.Qxc5 dxc5 21.Nb5 Rxa2 Black regains his pawn but White retains some advantage.
22.e5 Rxd1 23.Rxd1 Nh5 24.g3 Rb2 25.Rd8+ Kg7 26.Re8 Rb1+ 27.Kg2 Rb2+ 28.Kg1 Rb1+
29.Kg2 Rb2+ 30.Kh3 (diagram) No chance of a draw, of course. Carlsen still thinks he has
something here. 30...e6 31.Re7 Now the computer thinks White has a substantial advantage after
31.Nd6!? Rxb3 32.Kg4 f5+ 33.Kh4!? Rb2 34.Re7+ but that looks very nebulous. 31...Rxb3
32.Kg4 Kf8 33.Rxb7 33.Rc7!?, keeping a tempo in hand, may be preferable: 33...h6 34.Nd6 f5+
35.exf6 Nxf6+ 36.Kf4, etc. Still far from won, however. 33...h6 34.Rc7 Around here White had only
5 minutes left to Black’s 15 - a big difference and a worry for Carlsen fans. 34...f5+! An important
defensive resource. Now Black seems to be able to match White’s play, move for move. 35.exf6
Nxf6+ 36.Kf4 g5+ 37.Ke5 Ne8 Momentarily threatening Re2 mate. 38.Rxc5 Re3+ 39.Kd4 Rxf3
40.Re5 Rf2 41.Rxe6 Rxh2 Black has fought his way to a level position. 42.c5 h5 43.Nd6 Nxd6
44.cxd6 Kf7 A dead draw - or so we thought. 45.Re3 h4 46.g4 h3? In the context of a rapidplay
game, we can describe this as a decisive error. Black is not objectively lost after it but it becomes
incredibly hard to find the right moves, to the extent that most of the spectators, including super-GMs, were unable to spot the flaws
as they occurred in the following play. 46...Rg2! is safer: 47.Kc5 and now perhaps 47...h3!?
48.Rxh3 Rxg4 49.Re3 Rg2 and it should be reasonably easy to draw. 47.Ke5 Carlsen was
now down to his last minute, although with 5-second increments, of course. Vachier-Lagrave
still had ten minutes on his clock. But White has a relatively simple plan to try and win,
whereas Black has a lot of hard work to draw. 47...Rh1 48.d7 Ke7 49.Kf5+ Kxd7 50.Kxg5
Kd6 50...Rf1 was the move the commentators (including Grischuk) recommended, but it
seems they were mistaken: 51.Rxh3 is a tablebase win. 51.Kh5 (diagram) 51...Rf1? This error
almost had to happen, given the complexity of the position. Hardly anyone, including the GM
commentators, realised it was the final error as it was played, nor for a move or two after.
Tablebases confirm that the rook must go to a1, b1 or c1, or else the pawn advance to h2, to
reach a draw. 52.Rxh3 Ke7 53.Kg6! One organic brain in the building had locked onto the
winning plan. Unluckily for Maxime, it was the man sitting opposite him. 53...Rf6+ 54.Kg7 Rf7+
55.Kg6 Rf6+ 56.Kg5! Ra6 After this, it’s an easy win for a super-GM but even Grischuk was
initially puzzled as to what happens after 56...Rf1. The tablebases revealed the awful truth: 57.Rh7+! Kf8 58.Kg6 Kg8 59.Rg7+! Kf8
(59...Kh8 60.Rf7! forces off the rooks for a standard K+P win) 60.Ra7 and the black king will be forced away to the e-file after which
the white king shepherds home the g-pawn. 57.Rf3 1-0 Now the black king is cut off and it’s a copybook R+P v R win.

In the second game, Maxime never really made any impression on Magnus. Once Black had found an ingenious
sequence of moves to exchange material off, he had to go out on a limb, sacrificing a rook for a piece and pawn to
try and generate something but it never looked like working. Draw agreed, so Carlsen had taken the tournament and
the tour. Congratulations to him, and heartfelt commiserations to the gallant runner-up.
THE OTHER ROUND NINE GAMES
Let’s just round up the other four Round nine games. Anand-Giri was not expected
to be one of the more exciting games of the round. The odds on a draw increased
exponentially when the two players started building a London Wall. Anand was
repeating a game he played as Black against Carlsen in their 2014 World
Championship match, and which was drawn in 122 moves after Carlsen tried and
failed to win a R+N v R endgame. Giri varied with 26...b6 but the game soon
petered out to the inevitable draw.
Adams-Caruana was the clash of the two draw-meisters, as the tournament

director somewhat tactlessly described them when welcoming them on
stage for the final game. But accurately, as it turned out. This was an
orthodox Ruy Lopez, which diverged from theory on move 13. Mickey had
to surrender a pawn temporarily but he soon won it back. Before long an
opposite bishop endgame ensued and the two players agreed a draw. Have
two players drawn all their games in the same tournament before?
Probably, and even if they haven’t, it’s not a stat to set the pulse racing.
Nakamura-Topalov: given their tournament situation, this one was hard to

predict. Would the players be trying to win a game as consolation for an unhappy
tournament, or would they be content to draw and try to forget the pain? It felt
more like the latter, especially when we saw them opt for the London Wall. One
for connoisseurs of that system only.
Aronian and Vachier-Lagrave had lots to play for so we expected a full-blooded

encounter on this board. This was not the case: instead there ensued a line of
the English which had appeared in the games of both players during the past
year until Blacked varied with 7...dxc6 and allowed a queen exchange. The
position reached, with Black having doubled c-pawns and White enjoying a
pawn majority on the kingside, looked ominously like the aforementioned
London Wall. After a number of exchanges it came down to a fairly sedate
rook ending which was drawn well within the first time control.
SUPER RAPIDPLAY
The weekend also featured a very strong rapidplay event,

featuring a galaxy of grandmasters amongst the 300+ players, over
ten rounds. The favourites were Matthew Sadler (with a startling
rapidplay rating of 2800, based on a conversion from his national
rapidplay rating), former FIDE champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov,
David Howell, Alex Lenderman, Eric Hansen, Jonathan Hawkins,
Hrant Melkumyan, Christian Bauer, Mark Hebden and Nick Pert, all
weighing in at 2657 or more at rapid. Surprisingly ranked a little
lower than the above was Luke McShane, 12th highest rated on
2650. Luke proceeded to demonstrate that the rating list is not
such a reliable indicator as he reeled off a Fischer-esque nine wins
out of nine to secure the £2,500 winner’s cheque with a round to spare. A draw in the final round against Alex
Lenderman put hims a point clear of the field. McShane’s victims included David Howell, Hrant Melkumyan and Eric
Hansen. Matthew Sadler, despite his stratospheric rating lost games to Aaron Summerscale, Eric Hansen and Jonny
Hector to finish on 7/10. There were a number of grandmaster scalps for lesser rated players, including David
Eggleston’s fine finish of 2/2 against Rustam Kasimdzhanov and Christian Bauer, whilst Alex Lenderman lost in round
two to English amateur David Coleman. (Players left to right above, Jonny Hector (SWE), Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant (SCO), Jon
Speelman (ENG) and David Howell (ENG), with Matthew Sadler (ENG) in the background.)
Super Rapidplay Scores: 1 Luke McShane (ENG) 9½/10, 2 Hrant Melkumyan (ARM) 8½, 3-11 Alex Lenderman (USA),
Eric Hansen (CAN), Nick Pert (ENG), Romain Edouard (FRA), Jon Ludvig Hammer (NOR), Sergey Grigoriants (RUS),
Rinat Jumabayev (KAZ), David Eggleston (ENG), Tamas Fodor jnr (HUN) 8, etc.
I think that’s all I’ve got room for. Hope you’ve all
enjoyed the reports, which I have enjoyed writing. Good
health to everyone for the festive season and the new
year, and I look forward to reporting on the tournament
again in 2016.
More of my photos from round nine are available here:

https://flic.kr/s/aHskq1aXWn
John Saunders
Figure 1 Garry Kasparov visited on the final day. Here he is being

interviewed by Jennifer Shahade

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Compiled By Scorpionchess

20th July 2015

7th LONDON CHESS CLASSIC (4-13 December 2015)

No. Name Country Age Rating Ranking

2nd August 2015

MICHAEL ADAMS COMPLETES LINE-UP FOR

No. Name Country Age Rating Ranking

DRAW FOR LONDON CHESS CLASSIC PUBLISHED

The results of the draw were as follows:

Veselin Topalov Anish Giri Anish Giri Michael Adams

Alexander Grischuk Hikaru Nakamura Levon Aronian Viswanathan Anand

Alexander Grischuk Anish Giri Anish Giri Levon Aronian

Viswanathan Anand Magnus Carlsen Veselin Topalov Fabiano Caruana

Viswanathan Anand Veselin Topalov Veselin Topalov Michael Adams

Michael Adams Hikaru Nakamura Alexander Grischuk Viswanathan Anand

Fabiano Caruana Anish Giri Anish Giri Hikaru Nakamura

Viswanathan Anand Anish Giri

Michael Adams Fabiano Caruana

Hikaru Nakamura Veselin Topalov

3. Tournament and Pairing Schedule

Round 1 Friday 4th December at 1600 (Photocall 1550)

4. Prizes Before UK Withholding Tax

5. Rules of the Competition

(NB Mobile phones may be deposited in the VIP room.)

6. Protocol for Draw Offers and Claims.

Suit and tie or just suit.

10. Press conference and commentary

LONDON CHESS CLASSIC DAY 1 ROUND-UP

The 10 participants of the London Chess Classic

One of the schools participating in the CSC activities

 London Chess Classic: http://pgn.londonchessclassic.com/gct/01/games.pgn

All the live games will be broadcast at: http://live.londonchessclassic.com/

CLASSIC ROUND 1: 4 DECEMBER 2015

John Saunders reports:

Figure 1 A semi-circle of super-GMs

We move on to Anand-Adams. Over the years

Figure 2 Carlsen looked happy enough after the game.

Grischuk-Nakamura began with a Berlin Defence. Some of you may

Round 1 Report: 4 December 2015, John Saunders

Round 1 Report: 4 December 2015, John Saunders

Figure 4 Pert vs Howell: a quiet start

Round one of the open had a

Round 2 is scheduled for Saturday 5 December 2015 at 16.00.

More photos take by me are available here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskn1h789

John Saunders Email chesspress@londonchessclassic.com

Round 1 Report: 4 December 2015, John Saunders

LONDON CHESS CLASSIC DAY 2 ROUND-UP

The most exciting encounter of Round 2: Nakamura vs Vachier-Lagrave

The London Chess Conference in full swing

 London Chess Classic: http://pgn.londonchessclassic.com/gct/02/games.pgn

All the live games will be broadcast at: http://live.londonchessclassic.com/

CLASSIC ROUND 2: 5 DECEMBER 2015

John Saunders reports:

HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD

Before considering the games,

Nigel’s pining for us, too. He’s following progress

Round 2 Report: 5 December 2015, John Saunders

Topalov - Grischuk was a Berlin/London Defence. Nigel Short

Aronian-Anand featured an offbeat line of the Nimzo – 1.d4 Nf6

Nakamura - Vachier-Lagrave was the last, and best, hope of a