Latest news with #SicilianDefence
Gulf Today
an hour ago
- Sport
- Gulf Today
Unbeaten Grebnev goes on top with four victories and one draw
Grandmaster (GM) Aleksey Grebnev grabbed the pole position after emerging as the lone winner among the erstwhile co-leaders in Saturday night's fifth round of the 25th Dubai Open Chess Tournament at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club. The 18-year-old Russian talent played the Sicilian Defence and then accepted and ultimately refuted a rare pawn gambit line unleashed by the Indian GM Bharath Subramaniyam to pick up his fourth win against a lone draw and no losses. Subramaniyam initially succeeded in keeping Grebnev's king stuck in the centre, but the Indian lost his way in the complications when he allowed a queen trade that left him a pawn down in the endgame - and where the Russian's previously vulnerable king became an active asset. Grebnev was flawless from thereon, marching his king up the board to support his passed pawn on the f-file as Subramaniyam could do little to stop its advance. Grebnev now has 4.5 points, half a point ahead of five players who are in joint second place, including defending champion GM Mahammad Muradli of Azerbaijan and Indian top-seed GM Nihal Sarin, who drew their match on the first board, and International Master Rohith Krishna of India, who also drew his game against Russia's GM Ivan Zemlyanskii. GM Shant Sargsyan of Armenia and Iranian prodigy GM Sina Movahed, who celebrated his 15th birthday during the tournament's first round on May 27th, moved up to joint second place with wins over Indian players IM A. Ra Harikrishnan and GM Prraneeth Vuppala, respectively. Grebnev will try to protect his lead against the tournament favourite Sarin in the sixth round's top-board match-up on Sunday. In Category B, Iran's Fide Master (FM) Mahdi Nikookar defeated India's Candidate Master (CM) Alankar Sawai Vandan to likewise claim the sole leadership with a perfect five points. CM Allayar Shirliyev of Turkmenistan and Sri Lanka's Pesandu Rashmitha Liyanage trail at second place with 4.5 each after wins over India's Hemant Agarwal Mukund and IM Anastasios Pavlidis of Greece, respectively. Nikookar will have the white pieces as he tries to maintain his unbeaten streak when he faces Shirliyev in the sixth round. The tournament follows a 9-round Swiss system with a 90-minute time control plus a 30-second increment per move. Games are played every day from 5pm, except the final round on June 4, which starts at 10am. The awarding ceremony is on June 5. The tournament offers a prize pool of $52,000 to be handed out to the winners of both categories. Category A, contested by players with a rating over 2300, has a total prize fund of $39,500 with $12,000 going to the champion, while Category B, open to players rated below 2300, offers $12,500 in total prizes and $2,000 awarded to the champion. Special prizes will also be distributed to top performers among rating categories, unrated, youth, women, and UAE players. International Arbiter Majed Al Abdooli of the UAE spearheads the tournament's international team of arbiters who will manage and oversee the competition. Chess fans from around the world can watch the Category A games live on the club's website as well as chess platforms such as and Earlier, top-seed Grandmaster (GM) Nihal Sarin scored an emphatic victory to bounce back into the lead after erstwhile co-leaders GM Mahammad Muradli and GM Aleksey Grebnev agreed to a quick, uneventful draw in Friday night's fourth round of the 25th Dubai Open Chess Tournament at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club. The three grandmasters have 3.5 points each and are joined in a five-way tie at the top by Indian players IM Rohith Krishna and GM Bharath Subramaniyam. Sarin, who was held to a draw by Krishna in the third round, repulsed a daring attack against his king by Israel's GM Yair Parkhov in securing the win. The Indian top-seed maintained a solid grip of the position and was poised to win material when Parkhov launched a kingside offensive punctuated by a rook sacrifice. Sarin did not have problems diffusing the attack and converting into an endgame where he was a piece up.
Gulf Today
a day ago
- Sport
- Gulf Today
Five-way tie at Dubai Open Chess Tournament
Top-seed Grandmaster (GM) Nihal Sarin scored an emphatic victory to bounce back into the lead after erstwhile co-leaders GM Mahammad Muradli and GM Aleksey Grebnev agreed to a quick, uneventful draw in Friday night's fourth round of the 25th Dubai Open Chess Tournament at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club. The three grandmasters have 3.5 points each and are joined in a five-way tie at the top by Indian players IM Rohith Krishna and GM Bharath Subramaniyam. Sarin, who was held to a draw by Krishna in the third round, repulsed a daring attack against his king by Israel's GM Yair Parkhov in securing the win. The Indian top-seed maintained a solid grip of the position and was poised to win material when Parkhov launched a kingside offensive punctuated by a rook sacrifice. Sarin did not have problems diffusing the attack and converting into an endgame where he was a piece up. The 28th-seed Krishna continued his stellar performance as he took down the ninth-seed GM Pa Iniyan, his first GM victim in the tournament, in a fashionable Queen's Gambit opening. Playing the black pieces, Krishna overcame a vicious attack that saw Iniyan sacrifice a pawn and then give up his rook for a knight to penetrate Krishna's kingside defences. Krishna, however, found enough defensive resources to neutralise Iniyan's attack and later forced an exchange of queens to convert into a winning rook-versus-knight endgame. Subramaniyam pounced on a costly oversight by compatriot IM A R Ilamparthi to pick up the win. Ilamparthi, playing white, had built a comfortable edge in the Pelikan variation of the Sicilian Defence until an unfortunate knight retreat on the 25th move allowed Subramaniyam to drop a devastating bishop sacrifice, which if taken would lead to Ilamparthi losing his queen. Ilamparthi chose to save his queen, but the tactical sequence still led to heavy material loss that ultimately decided the outcome. In the first all-GM encounter on the first board, Muradli of Azerbaijan and the Russian Grebnev shook hands for a draw after just four moves, effectively giving themselves a breather ahead of the expected tougher battles in the later rounds. The fourth-round results set up a highly anticipated match-up on the first board in Saturday's fifth round featuring defending champion Muradli facing the top-seed Sarin. Grebnev will take on Subramaniyam on the second board. Krishna will face reigning Asian blitz champion GM Ivan Zemlyanskii of Russia, who is among a group of eight players in joint second place with three points each, on the third board. Category B In Category B, Fide Master (FM) Mahdi Nikookar of Iran and Candidate Master (CM) Alankar Sawai Vandan of India remain the only players with perfect scores after four rounds. Nikookar defeated China's Zhang Zhi, while Vandan outplayed FM Syed Mahfuzur Rahman of Bangladesh. Nikookar and Vandan will contest the solo leadership in the fifth round. Tournament format, schedule, prizes The tournament follows a 9-round Swiss system with a 90-minute time control plus a 30-second increment per move. Games are played every day from 5pm, except the final round on June 4, which starts at 10am. The awarding ceremony is on June 5. The tournament offers a prize pool of $52,000 to be handed out to the winners of both categories. Category A, contested by players with a rating over 2300, has a total prize fund of $39,500 with $12,000 going to the champion. Category B, open to players rated below 2300, offers $12,500 in total prizes and $2,000 awarded to the champion. Special prizes will also be distributed to top performers among rating categories, unrated, youth, women, and UAE players. International arbiter team and live coverage International Arbiter Majed Al Abdooli of the UAE spearheads the tournament's international team of arbiters who will manage and oversee the competition. Chess fans from around the world can watch the Category A games live on the club's website as well as chess platforms such as and
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Magnus Carlsen sets early pace as stars collide at Norway Chess
Magnus Carlsen arrived in vintage form at the start of the Norway Chess tournament. The encounter began inconclusively with the six stars – in ranking order Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, Arjun Erigaisi, Gujesh Dommaraju and Wei Yi – all launching a win or two. Gukesh, who celebrated his 19th birthday on Wednesday, won in round three against Nakamura. Carlsen's version of one of Bobby Fischer's favourite openings set the tone last week for another clean sweep of the No 1 of the global elite. Carlsen's comprehensive victory in the Speed Championship, which this year also acted as a qualifier for the Esports World Cup, included mini-match victories over three important rivals. Advertisement His win against France's Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was a rare venture into a classical Sicilian Defence with Bc4, like Fischer used to play in his pomp. The individual twists were 6 h3 and 14 Ba4!, but the offbeat strategy was classic Bobby, with a brutal attack against Black's light squares. White: Carlsen. Black: Vachier-Lagrave. Opening: Sicilian Defence. 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 h3 Nc6 5 d4 cxd4 6 Nxd4 e5 7 Nf3 h6 8 Bc4 Be6 9 Bb3 Be7 10 0-0 0-0 11 Re1 Rc8 12 Nd5 Bxd5 13 exd5 Na5 14 Ba4! Improving on an earlier Carlsen game where 14 c3 was fine for Black. 15 c3 f5 16 Bc2 Qb6 17 Rb1 Rf7 18 a4 Qc7 19 g4! Opening up the king's side 19…fxg4 20 hxg4 Rcf8 21 Qd3! Rxf3 22 Qh7+ Kf7 23 Bg6+ Kh6 24 Bh5! 1-0 After four rounds of the 12 in the double-round Stavanger tournament, Carlsen (Norway) leads with 8pts over Caruana (US) with 7, then Nakamura (US) on 5.5, Erigaisi and Gukesh (India) both on 4.5 and Wei (China) on 4. Norway's special scoring system is three points for a win, one for a draw and zero for a replay loss. Draws are played under Armageddon rules which allow for replayed games. Advertisement After two frustrating days where his skills were tested, Carlsen finally got back on track with his second win of the event, a hard-fought marathon against Erigaisi which was technically easier than it looked. Carlsen's king gradually infiltrated into the central squares to support the Norwegian's passed pawn in a queen and pawn ending. Queen and pawn against queen would probably be the epitome of Carlsen's trademark grinding style. After Friday's rest day, the top pairing for the tournament on Saturday will be Caruana v Carlsen, a 2018 world title rematch and also a meeting of the top two at Stavanger. The England and British Championships, World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships are all coming up in the next few weeks, so it will be an important time for young English talents. The soundest approach is the most stable: to aim for consistent results and high percentages rather than conjuring up dreams of instant glory. A 2300 rating is one of the most reliable landmarks displaying how a player acts under pressure and whether he or she can handle constant competition. 3974 1 Qb3+! and 2 c4! surprisingly traps White's queen.
The Guardian
04-04-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Women's chess takes centre stage with World and European titles up for grabs
Women's chess takes centre stage this week. In Shanghai and Chongqing, there is an all-Chinese 12-game match for the women's world crown between Ju Wenjun, 34, the holder, and Tan Zhongyi, 33, the challenger. The pair are closely matched on ratings (2561 to 2555) and level on head-to-head. The prize money pool is $500,000. Thursday's game one, with Ju playing White in a Sicilian Defence, was a routine draw by threefold repetition in 39 moves. There is live commentary from 7am BST each day from the all-time No 1, Judit Polgar, and England's popular Jovanka Houska on YouTube. Saturday is a rest day, game three (of 12) is on Sunday. Ju and Tan are effectively playing a rematch, as Ju won her first world crown in 2017, qualifying to challenge reigning champion Tan and then defeating her in the title series. Next, Ju successfully defended her title in a 64-player knockout in 2018. Since then, after Fide changed the system for deciding the challenger, Ju has won championship matches against Russia's Aleksandra Goryachkina in 2020, and against her compatriot Lei Tingjie in 2023. The women's world title was launched in 1927, and its first 17 years were dominated by Vera Menchik, who won every championship tournament and match between 1927 and 1939 by wide margins, outclassing her rivals. Menchik spent most of her life in London, and was tragically killed at age 38 by a German V1 bomb which hit her Clapham home in 1944. There have since been 10 memorial tournaments in her honour, the latest just two weeks ago. From 1950 to 1991 Soviet players monopolised the event, led by the Georgians Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze, both of whom also scored notable successes against male grandmasters. Gaprindashvili's shared victory at Lone Pine 1977 was among her best achievements. From 1991 onwards has been the Chinese era, with 15 of the last 20 champions, led by the all-time No 2 woman, Hou Yifan. However, Hungary's Polgar, the only woman to play in an open world championship tournament, never competed for the women's title. Ju has successfully defended her crown three times already, so will be the favourite against Tan. Her creditable results against male grandmasters, particularly at Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee 2024 where she beat Alireza Firouzja and drew with Ian Nepomniachtchi, Gukesh Dommaraju and Ding Liren, show that she ranks among the all-time top six or top 10 women. The European Women's Championship is currently under way in Rhodes, Greece, with a prize fund of €60,000, and qualifying 10 players for the Women's World Cup. England is fielding six players, the three-time British women's champion Lan Yao and five schoolgirls. The English Chess Federation international director, Malcolm Pein, explained that as it was the last participation financed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's £500,000 grant for English elite chess, which has been terminated this week, he decided to use it to support future talents. Lan won an impressive game in round one, showcasing the power of a queen and rooks on open attacking lines, but lost to the Netherlands star Eline Roebers in round three. Meanwhile, BBC Two's programme Chess Masters: The Endgame reached its fourth episode (of eight) at 8pm on Monday. Viewing figures, supplied by Broadcast, have stabilised. Numbers are marginally up, from 655,000 to 660,000, representing 5.4% of the viewing audience against 5.0% the previous week. The Magnus Carlsen memory test in episode three will be repeated for the new contestants in episode six. Carlsen takes on The World on Friday, a repeat of historic challenges by Garry Kasparov and Vishy Anand in which up to 70,000 players participated. It will be Freestyle Chess at one move a day. The game starts at 11am BST. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion You need to be a member of to vote for The World's moves. The game is open to all free and premium members and a free account can be made here. The website currently has 71,000 players signed up, but anticipates hitting the system limit of 100,000 opponents before the game starts. Matthew Wadsworth qualified as a grandmaster last weekend, when the Cambridge economics graduate, 24, shared first prize with 7/9 at Bad Wörishofen, Germany. He is England's third new GM in the last 12 months, following on from Ameet Ghasi and Shreyas Royal. Wadsworth already had the three required GM norms, but still needed to improve his Fide international rating from 2491 to 2500. He had a setback in round seven (of nine) when he lost to the Armenian top seed, so rounds eight and nine became must-wins. After winning both, his rating jumped to 2499.9 which Fide's newly published April rating list has rounded up to 2500. To replay Wadsworth's decisive game, go to the menu at the extreme right below the board, scroll down, and click fast or slow replay mode as preferred. Click the symbol at the right of h8 for the game with computer analysis. White's 24 b4! gave Wadsworth a clear advantage, although the later error 36 Kh1? gave Black a missed chance to get back into the game with 36…Nxe4! 3966: 1…Ng6! with the main line 2 fxg6 (other moves also lose) Bxh3+! 3 Kxh3 Qh5+! 4 Kg2 Qh2+ 5 Kf1 g2+ 6 Kf2 g1=Q mate.
The Guardian
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Guardian view on the chess boom: how rooks and knights captured the world
Once ignored and marginalised as a niche pursuit for nerds, chess is now primetime TV – on BBC Two, naturally. This week saw the launch of Chess Masters: The End Game in which 12 amateur 'rising stars' – six men and six women – will compete. Not since American Bobby Fischer beat the Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky (who died last month) at the height of the cold war has there been so much interest in the game. Chess is booming around the world, becoming one of the fastest growing internet games. Rachel Reeves is well known for having been British girls' chess champion, aged 14. The chancellor's favoured opening is the Sicilian Defence, apparently: 'It's quite aggressive,' she has said. A new film Checkmate, produced by Emma Stone, about 2022's alleged cheating scandal involving grandmaster Hans Niemann – he denied all wrongdoing – is in the pipeline. In a sure sign of the game's zeitgeist credentials, chess is the backdrop and central metaphor in Sally Rooney's latest novel Intermezzo. Watching YouTube tutorials during lockdown, the author became fascinated by its 'mathematical elegance'. As chess buffs will recognise, intermezzo (also known as Zwischenzug) is a term for 'an unexpected move that poses a severe threat and forces an immediate response'. Rooney plays her characters like a grandmaster, each chapter alternating perspectives, her lovers advancing and retreating in a series of surprising and risky moves. If anyone can sell chess to gen Z it's Rooney. Many young people discovered the game online during Covid. Post-pandemic chess club memberships soared. This surge was boosted by the unexpected success of the 2020 Netflix miniseries The Queen's Gambit, based on a little‑known 1983 US novel by Walter Tevis, set during the cold war, about an orphaned girl who finds stardom as a chess prodigy. The show, on which the former world champion Garry Kasparov was a consultant, was praised for its accuracy. Sales of chess boards rocketed and girls were inspired to take up this male-dominated pastime. With its unbendable framework, unique vocabulary and history, chess is one of the oldest games in the world. It is also one of the most beautiful. There are more possible games of chess than there are atoms in the universe. And its reach has been truly global. As the Guardian journalist Stephen Moss writes in his book The Rookie, chess is 'a very good barometer of power'. When countries rise so does their game, with India (where the game is believed to have originated) and China becoming leading chess nations in recent decades. Far from posing an existential threat, as was widely feared, computers and AI have given the game a new lease of life. As with reading, chess is inexpensive, you can do it anywhere and you can lose yourself in it for hours. For many, the board's 64 squares are where they can belong, and chess communities somewhere they can thrive. No wonder it is so popular. This isn't the first time the BBC has taken on bishops and rooks. Capitalising on the Fischer‑Spassky fever, The Master Game, which ran between 1975 and 1983, was a quietly thrilling show in which players provided commentary (recorded later) on their match. It remains to be seen if Chess Masters can succeed in making the game riveting TV. If it persuades more people, young and old, to play it will be a winner.
