World Championship 2021

After an exciting Candidates tournament, we now know who will challenge Magnus Carlsen for the World Chess Championship later this year.

The event was won by Ian Nepomniachtchi, the reigning champion of Russia.

Nepomniachtchi is an exciting player who has every chance of dethroning Carlsen. In my opinion one thing for certain is that he will play to win the Match and won’t be content to be just taking part. I think that chess fans across the globe can look forward to a much more entertaining Match than we witnessed in 2018

Puzzle no. 14

For those who enjoyed our recent Game of the Week ( I am sure that is everyone!) here is a puzzle based on a suggestion from Bob Page

The diagram shows a possible position from the game pm5 v Ferrarifan

If on move 23 the game had continued

23. Re4   Bf8

we would reach the following position, what would you play?

White to move

Game of the Week

It was very easy to choose this Game of the Week, although the Candidates (part 2) is back with us, one game played in the Thanet Early Summer Swiss had spectators glued to their mice. I can only guess how the two participants felt during the game and, more importantly, how they felt once the game had finished.

The game started very quietly, with the opposing armies, to some extent, ignoring each other and instead just developing and getting ready for battle. However once White sacrificed a piece for two pawns and the opportunity to get at his opponent’s King we saw a true battle.

I won’t give the result away here, suffice to say that the game twisted and turned. Please just enjoy the game and applaud both players for a great game of chess

 White:  pm5       Black:  Ferrarifan

Game of the Week

It was very difficult to choose the Game of the Week, not because no interesting games were played but because there were too many exciting battles. The Thanet Early Summer Swiss again turned up a good selection of good fighting games, however my choice this week may well be the most exciting game played ( so far ) in 2021

All club players can play a decent game, given a generous time limit and a following wind: Super GMs on the other hand can play magical games even at the quickest speed.

Here is a game, played online, between Hikaru Nakamura and Shakhirya Mamedyarov .

Please enjoy the game – I am not qualified to add any comments, if you want to see more please watch the excellent video on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqEkCwRuf7s

 White:  Hikaru Nakamura       Black:  Shakhirya Mamedyarov