Game of the Week

As I mentioned the, indecently short, draw between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura last week it only seems fair to show a very nice game played by the World Champion.

If Carlsen has had problems with any player recently it has been against Wesley So.

As luck would have it they both lost at the semi-final stage last week and had to play each other for 3rd place in the latest Elite event

Here is the game, with a few notes:

 White:  Magnus Carlsen       Black:  Wesley So

Magnus Carlsen Invitational

Puzzle no. 10

Can you find the Mate for White? A good method to use is to work through the 3 Forcing Moves in any position.

  1. Checks
  2. Captures
  3. Threats

White to Move

Puzzle No.9 Solution

White to Move

White wins with the following, forced, sequence

  1.  Qe3+   Kh7 ( if Kh5 then Qg5)   2. Qe7+  Kh6 ( any other move allows Qg7 mate)  3. Qg7+  Kh5   4. Qg5 mate

Game of the Week

We have another exciting game from the Thanet All Play All League.

White exchanges Queens very early. However this game doesn’t become positional as both players look to attack their opponent’s King with their remaining pieces – and we see that development and tempi really are essential when we play chess.

 White:  pm5       Black:  samfeuillatre

Thanet All Play All 2021

Game(smanship) of the Week

Here is the position after 2 moves from a ‘ game ‘ played yesterday between World Champion Magnus Carlsen & his top Blitz challenger Hikaru Nakamura

The players agreed a draw!

This was played in the final round of the preliminary stages of the Magnus Carlsen Invitational Event: 16 top players competing for a prize fund of $1.5M

Carlsen and Nakamura had already qualified for the Knockout rounds of the event when they played this little joke of a game

Do you think that they were entitled to take a quirky quick draw and save energy?

Or

Do you think that they manipulated the system and made it harder for non players/sponsors to take chess seriously as a sport?