Both the Men’s Candidates Tournament and the Women’s Chess Championship happened a few weeks ago, setting up, for Caruana and Nakamura, the Men’s US championship.
On the women’s side, Hou Yifan scored a decisive victory, destroying Mariya Muzychuk 6-3. The players were from China and Ukraine respectively, and no American player participated in 2013-14 Grand Prix, through which the challenger qualified. The key game from this match, I believe was game six, shown below:
Mariya Muzychuk–Hou Yifan Women’s World Chess Championship 2016
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. O-O Nf6 5. d3 d6 6. c3 O-O 7. Bg5 {White pins the knight, hoping to push forward in the center with d4.} h6 8. Bh4 g5 {Muzychuk judges that the kingside weakness is worth stopping d4, as now the White e-pawn would be under attack.} 9. Bg3 g4 {Black continues to push. Now the White knight will have a nice home on f5, but Yifan loses her powerful central control.} 10. Nh4 Nh5 11. a4 a6 12. Na3 {Both players, instead of immediately jumping into the f-file, develop, as then the knights would immediately be traded off.} Qg5 13. Nc2 {While Black moves to shore up the kingside, White gets into position to once again possibly play d4.} Ba7 {Muzychuk, anticipating this, retreats.} 14. Ne3 {White eschews the d4 option: instead, she aims to control f5 with both knights, placing a piece there.} Ne7 {Black does not take on e3, winning a pawn, as she would concede one of her most useful pieces, discombobulate the queen after a recapture, and open up the f-file for the then-ideally placed White rook. Seeing these attacking possibilities for White, Black decides to simply cover the f5-square, preventing White from dropping in effectively.} 15. d4 {White seizes the opportunity to expand in the center, seeing that Black has retreated one of his defenders of that square.} Qg7 {Black protects all her loose pawns and threatens the White d-pawn.} 16. dxe5 dxe5 17. Nef5 {White jumps in, reasoning that her knights aren’t doing anything if they’re not going to land there eventually.} Bxf5 18. exf5 {Instead of the prosaic knight recapture, White decides to restrict the possible Ng6-Nf4, which would be an excellent placement for Black.} Bc5 19. Re1 Nxg3 20. hxg3 Kh8 21. Qe2 {White and Black shadowbox, each threatening and defending the weak kingside pawns.} Bd6 22. Qe4 Rab8 23. Be2 h5 {Black, having defended her pawns, takes action and locks in the White knight, trapping it on h4.} 24. Rad1 Ng8 {This appears to be a retreating move, but Black is regrouping for an attack.} 25. Kh2 Qg5 26. Bc4 Nf6 27. Qe3 {White, fearing the worst, decides to buckle, trading queens and defusing some of her advantage.} Qxe3 28. Rxe3 e4 {White begins to lose confidence, as Black steadily advances.} 29. Re2 Rbd8 30. Bb3 Rd7 31. f3 {She tries to release the h4-knight, which is one of the cruxes of her position: it is unable to move.} Re8 32. Rde1 Rde7 {Black, prophylactically predicting the opening of the e-file, does not let the knight out until she is fully ready.} 33. Bc2 exf3 34. Rxe7 Rxe7 35. Rxe7 f2 {Black seizes a chance to attempt promotion.} 36. Rxf7 {The best move was perhaps B-d3, which would stop the queening, but Muzychuk falls apart and soon resigns.} f1=Q 37. Ng6+ Kg8 38. Rxf6 Bc5 {0-1. Yifan doubled her lead of one game to two, with four games left, and eventually won.}
In the Candidates tournament, Karjakin narrowly defeated Caruana, with, extremely luckily for spectators, a climactic game scheduled in the last round, wherein the scenarios were extremely complicated: As chess24 put it in one article (https://chess24.com/en/read/news/moscow-candidates-13-it-s-karjakin-or-caruana)
“Let's sum up:
If either Karjakin or Caruana win they qualify
If they draw and Anand doesn't beat Svidler then Karjakin qualifies (on the 2nd tiebreaker of most wins)
If they draw and Anand beats Svidler then Caruana qualifies (he wins a 3-player direct encounter mini-league due to his plus score against Anand)”
In essence, Caruana had to win as Black unless Anand beat Svidler in order to qualify, which produced an exciting final battle which decided the tournament.
Sergey Karjakin–Fabiano Caruana Candidates Tournament 2016
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Bg5 e6 7. Qd2 {Black has chosen the Sicilian, so the fight will usually be diagonal: White attacking Black’s kingside, and Black attacking White’s queenside.} a6 8. O-O-O Bd7 9. f4 h6 10. Bh4 b5 {Black starts his attack.} 11. Bxf6 {However, White takes control of the center, eliminating one of Black’s best pieces.} gxf6 {Black recaptures, doubling his pawns, but keeping his queen available to attack on the queenside.} 12. f5 {White aims to break open the center, since Black will now most likely not castle queenside.} Qb6 13. fxe6 fxe6 {Black’s king now looks airy. White aims to eliminate Black’s defenders and break through with his heavy pieces.} 14. Nxc6 Qxc6 15. Bd3 {White hopes to use the e8-h5 diagonal, perhaps penetrating on g6 with the bishop.} h5 16. Kb1 {White hopes to safeguard his king.} b4 {However, Black seizes the opportunity to attack, ensuring that the knight could not return to b1.} 17. Ne2 Qc5 18. Rhf1 {White targets the f-pawn.} Bh6 {Black responds by tempoing the queen and controlling the h6-c1 diagonal, which strengthens his attack.} 19. Qe1 a5 20. b3 {White begins to defend against the threat of a4. If it is played, he can now relatively safely ignore it without worrying about a further push to a3.} Rg8 21. g3 {White does not capture on f6, as then Bg7 would open up the long diagonal for Black with tempo: very dangerous considering Black’s queenside attack.} Ke7 {Caruana, for his part, moves forward, protecting the pawns in front of his king.} 22. Bc4 {Karjakin opens the d-file and attacks e6.} Be3 23. Rf3 Rg4 24. Qf1 Rf8 25. Nf4 Bxf4 {Black alleviates the building pressure by trading, then goes about striking back.} 26. Rxf4 a4 27. bxa4 {White reasons that having ignored the a-pawn, the Black capture would be more dangerous, opening up a file: this way, with Bb3 soon to follow, he shores up all his pawns and defends on his own terms.} Bxa4 28. Qd3 Bc6 29. Bb3 Rg5 30. e5 {White counterattacks. Although he sacrifices a pawn, he frees his rook to join in the attack.} Rxe5 31. Rc4 Rd5 32. Qe2 Qb6 33. Rh4 {He retreats, attempting to trade off Black’s active rook.} Re5 34. Qd3 {White now has all the threats: taking on d6, an invasion on h7…Caruana has them guarded against for now, but Karjakin’s pressure is unrelenting.} Bg2 35. Rd4 d5 36. Qd2 Re4 37. Rxd5 {! And the breakthrough comes! Black’s king is hopelessly exposed, and Black is forced to try and return material with the threat of queen and rook invasions. Karjakin wraps it up neatly.} exd5 38. Qxd5 Qc7 39. Qf5 Rf7 40. Bxf7 Qe5 41. Rd7+ Kf8 42. Rd8+ {1-0. Either way Caruana moves, mate or massive material gain follows. Sergey Karjakin, with this last-round win, became the challenger for the World Chess Championship.}
Politics:
Please don’t leave–I won’t express my political views here (or, at least, I will certainly try to be neutral.) The reason for which I bring up the hotly contested election cycle this year is to determine how each candidate currently still in the race has related to chess, if at all. http://en.chessbase.com/post/hillary-clinton-looking-for-irina-krush has been a useful source for this section.
Donald Trump: He frequently uses chess as a metaphor for clever, strategic thinking, referencing it multiple times, especially as an analogue to business. He wrote in one of his books, Think Like a Champion, that "We all know that chess is a game of strategy. So is business." First of all, I would posit that while they have certain shared elements of strategy, it is ridiculous to compare business chess, but, unfortunately, many do, saying Trump “plays chess while everyone else plays checkers.” As far as I can tell, he has never actually played chess. A scour of the internet reveals nothing, and a search of the USCF lookup tables for “trump” yields 12 players, none of them Donald J. Another occasionally controversial figure (in chess,) Nigel Short, has mentioned him on several occasions, but, sadly for Trump, none of them good, as seen below (I put three twitter comments and one facebook comment into a picture for easier viewing.)
Hillary Clinton: As with all the candidates, there is the popular line that “X plays chess while Y plays checkers.” This is sometimes said about Hillary Clinton. While I concede that chess is more complicated than checkers, this is just not a good analogy, so I will stop mentioning it. Instead, please enjoy this clip:
Ted Cruz: Here is one of the articles which claims he plays chess, albeit maybe not at a very high level (I can’t find the game anywhere.
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/07/ted-cruz-is-a-hardcore-spiderman-fan-who-once-played-21-games-of-chess-on-mt-fuji.html/
Unfortunately, perhaps he doesn’t understand how the pieces are set up; he Twittered a picture of a chess board set up incorrectly:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/28/ted-cruz-chess_n_4010528.html
Bernie Sanders: He has, apparently played a game against NM David Carter in a simul: it is fairly famous, on the internet, that this occurred a few years ago, but I can’t get the score of the game, as it was likely not recorded. Here’s the article: http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2014/10/10/bernie-sanders-chess-master
And here is former WC and all-time great Garry Kasparov criticizing Bernie Sanders’ philosophy, which I think is an interesting perspective, although I won’t comment on it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/15/russian-chess-master-garry-kasparovs-harsh-critiques-of-bernie-sanders-and-socialism/
John Kasich: Actually, I can’t find anything on Kasich in regard to chess, which may be a good thing, as I don’t generally like to mix up my chess with the ugly state of American politics right now.
Conclusions: Politicians should record their chess games so I can put them on my blog. Or, better yet, have a round-robin chess tournament and everyone will actually know who to vote for.
New news:
The Men’s and Women’s U. S. championships are taking place currently, which I alluded to in the opening section. Unfortunately, the women’s field is not very strong, with an average current rating of 2283.5 among the twelve participants. However, there have still been some very interesting games and results. Three of the youngest players, Carissa Yip, Jennifer Yu, and FM Akshita Gorti have all asserted themselves, though faltered slightly with a 3/8 start.
From Jennifer Yu–Agata Bykotsev US Women’s Championship
[SetUp “1”]
[FEN "8/8/6p1/3p2B1/4bPkp/R3K3/8/8 w - - 0 1"]
1. Ra1 {Yu had been winning the whole game and is now a rook up for two pawns. This was move 51, an inaccuracy (bringing the king over with 51. Kf2 is better and more intuitive.)} h3 2. Rg1+ {This is the move that throws the win away, as now the pawn has a clear route to promotion. In fact, White would be the one to have to play a few moves of defense.} Kf5 3. Rc1 {½-½}
She had earned this advantage by trapping a knight early on after a few missteps by Black (below.)
[fen]r3nrk1/5pbp/p1pp2p1/qp2nb2/2P2P2/1PN1B1PP/P2QN1B1/3R1RK1 b KQkq -[fen]
On the men’s side (quite strong, with three of the top ten players in the world,) GM Jeffery Xiong, one of the two youngest in the field along with IM Akshat Chandra, has 4.5/8, an impressive score, his win (among seven draws) coming against Kamsky, when Kamsky blundered.
From GM Jeffery Xiong–GM Gata Kamsky US Championship
[SetUp “1”]
[FEN "r5k1/1p3p1p/2b2qp1/Pp3n2/3p4/1P1R1PP1/3QK2P/4RB2 w - - 0 1"]
1. Kf2 {Kamsky had previously played a swashbuckling attack against Xiong, but the youngster had managed to repulse it with inspired defense.} Ne3 2. Be2 Rd8 3. Kg1 Kg7 4. Bd1 {The game appeared to be petering out for a draw, but instead Gata handed the game to Jeffrey, blundering.} Bxf3 {This leaves White with two ways to win, the other being Rxd4.} 5. Bxf3 Qxf3 6. Rexe3 dxe3 7. Qb2+ {1-0 by resignation.}
On the other side of the spectrum, Chandra has only a dreadful 1.5/8, but I remain inspired by his blog at questtogm.com. So what is the future of American chess? I think it’s bright. The U. S. has plenty of young prodigies on both sides, and although they’re not posing a serious threat to the women’s title, they have a solid chance at stealing the men’s.
Lastly, I am mailing this (below) today. We’ll see what happens.
–Best of chess,
Radish Uh Ikon
