Magnus Carlsen during a match at the Tata Steel Chess India Rapid and Blitz at the Dhono Dhonyo Auditorium in Kolkata. (Express photo by Partha Paul)
While the spectre of Magnus Carlsen had loomed on the Classical World Championship which D Gukesh won last month, a whiff of a Gukesh-novelty was used by the Norwegian in last week’s Champions Tour, as per the Guardian. Playing at the World Rapid and Blitz Championship in New York currently, Carlsen, who started wretchedly with 2.5/5 from Day 1 seems to be on an experimental phase if the leadup is anything to go by.
Carlsen’s loss against Belarusian 18-year-old Lazavik might have been a disaster on Wall Street, but Carlsen sure shorted the quirky move, and made a killing against Ian Nepomniachtchi in 23 moves at Oslo’s leadup.
“Carlsen is always alert to new developments, and his 7 a3 repeated Gukesh’s novelty against Ding Liren from game 13 of the Fide world title match in Singapore, a drawn encounter where the teenager overlooked a win,” the Guardian wrote of the over-the-board game against Nepomniachtchi. “This time there was a much faster outcome, as Carlsen won 4-1 including a 23-move crush in the final game.”
The Russian had differed from Ding’s response by early castling, Guardian said, but he missed the power of the rook lift on the Rh3 17th move. “This is an ancient and strong strategy against the French, which I recall the shock of experiencing as Black at London 1948 against Oliver Penrose. Here, White’s attack on the king quickly proved the irrelevance of the Russian queen excursion on the opposite flank, and Carlsen’s final 23 Qg6! created the unanswerable threat of Ng5 and Qh7 mate,” Guardian described.
Carlsen has prioritized Rapid over the longer format, thus calling into question the official ‘greatest’ tag that many believed still resides with the 34-year-old. Guardian stated that ‘the list of his lifetime victories is impressively long, and underlines the task ahead for the new classical world champion, Gukesh Dommaraju, as the Indian 18-year-old, who is not competing in New York.’
The English publication compared the two players’ credentials – Carlsen boasted of 64 major titles, all but nine of them over the board. Gukesh is on six – including the Singapore world championship, one Candidates, three Olympiad golds, and one Fide Circuit, “albeit with a 16-year age advantage.” Guardian noted.
While Russian Volodar Murzin led on Day 1 at New York, and Arjun Erigaisi is jostling amongst others, Guardian reckoned Carlsen faces his strongest challenge from “the many ambitious Americans who are well aware of their nation’s strong historical record in speed events. The first modern US champion Samuel Reshevsky, and his contemporary, Reuben Fine, were both skilled blitz players, while Bobby Fischer won an unofficial world blitz championship in 1970 ahead of the Soviet elite. In recent years the popular streamer Hikaru Nakamura has been Carlsen’s near equal in fast play.”
The 30 Americans in contention include USA’s world Nos 2 and 3, Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura, while Arjun has other youngsters like France’s Alireza Firouzja and Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov, for company.
The Women’s World Rapid/Blitz, has 113 entries, with D Harika currently 4th. The total prize fund is $1m for the open Rapid and Blitz, with $428,500 for the two women’s events.
While Carlsen is the cynosure of all eyes, it is apparent from the leadup that Gukesh, who isn’t present in New York, and his unorthodox bold moves have wormed their way into Carlsen’s ears, and the speedy events could see the Norwegian deploy a few more, even as he fights back from 80th place in the next 8 rounds of the 13 round event.
I’m Manas Ranjan Sahoo: Founder of “Webtirety Software”. I’m a Full-time Software Professional and an aspiring entrepreneur, dedicated to growing this platform as large as possible. I love to Write Blogs on Software, Mobile applications, Web Technology, eCommerce, SEO, and about My experience with Life.
