The Candidates Tournament is due to start later this week. This is the event where the 8 qualified players fight for victory and the chance to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the coveted World Title

This time round though there may be more at stake, as Carlsen has stated that unless Alireza Firouzja wins the Candidates he won’t defend the title. Whether he means it, we will find out in due course: but it does mean that uniquely coming 2^nd in the Candidates may not be such a bad result. Assuming that FIDE arrange a World Championship match between the top two finishers if Carlsen is serious.

Here is a very quick summary of the 8 warriors, followed by my prediction of who might win.

The players are, in alphabetical order:

Fabiano Caruana – USA

Ding Liren – China

Duda Jan Krzysztof – Poland

Firouzja Alireza – France

Nakamura Hikaru – USA

Nepomniachtchi Ian – FIDE ( Russian: he signed the anti-war open letter to Putin )

Radjabov Teimour – Azerbaijan

Richard Rapport – Romania ( Has recently switched federations from Hungary)

In my opinion a strong case could be made for 6 of the candidates, I won’t mention the two players whom I don’t think are up to winning!

My prediction for the top 2 places, and quite possibly, the competitors in the next World Championship are:

Richard Rapport and Ian Nepomniachtchi

As Nepo qualified for the last match v Carlsen lets look at a position from one of Rapport’s games

Rapport v Caruana – in this very sharp position what did Rapport play in this position? White to move

Congratulations to

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

 

Last night we played our final Millar Cup match of the season, against a very good Sandwich team. Unusually for this season we were able to field our first choice team.

As the match started it soon became obvious that all 14 players had come to battle, as every board seemed to have reached a double edged position after only a few moves. The first two games to finish both went to our opponents. Paul V, who has been superb all season found his young opponent a handful and eventually fell to a well thought out attack. Next Dominic’s position crumbled with just one oversight. Dominic had played really well and held a strong advantage until one move allowed his opponent to swing the position in his favour.

So the score was 0 – 2 to Sandwich

We needed to find a way back into the match and the fightback was led by Manoj, who built up a very nice pawn structure before winning the exchange and shortly after the game.

Paul C also had a very nice position, slowly increasing the pressure until his opponent buckled.

All of a sudden the score was 2 – 2

The 2 Captains clashed on board 2, and Trefor, after giving up a pawn for speedy development achieved a crushing position, the game ended abruptly when he trapped his opponent’s Queen. This left 2 games and wow both games were very complicated. Watching Andy’s game I thought he was under pressure, then a clever plan swung the game in his favour before his opponent also found some great moves. It was fitting that the game finished in a draw as neither player deserved to lose.

This takes us back to top board and Arnaud, who was engaged in a fascinating battle against of of Kent’s strongest players.. In a semi-blocked position Arnaud demonstrated mastery of his horses as his 2 Knights worked wonders against Bishop & Knight. The final position was agreed a draw, with both players down to their final minute on the clock

So the final score was 4 – 3 to Broadstairs.

A great way to finish the campaign

Arnaud Wisman	0.5 – 0.5	Robert Starley
Trefor Owens	1 – 0	Harry Sharples
Manoj Natarajan	1 – 0	Jon Hunt
Paul Carfrae	1 – 0	John Thorley
Dominic Blundell	0 – 1	Mark Towlson
Andy Flood	0.5 – 0.5	Adrian Tottenham
Paul Verrall	0 – 1	Ethan Latymer
	4 – 3

Entertaining top of the League Bridge and out rated on three of boards it was always going to be a challenging task.

Early play was promising, with Michael Jenkinson going a piece up in his match on Board 4 and before too long he had converted his advantage into a win and Broadstairs were 1 – 0 up.

On Board 2 and now playing for Bridge was Gary Hilleard, the former Broadstairs chess player. Thoughts were also with his former teammate and Broadstairs player Mike Doyle who passed away a fortnight ago. Gary went one, then two and then three Pawns up, however his Broadstairs opponent playing white was benefiting from attacking counter play options which unfortunately never really materialised and soon the overall match result was 1 – 1.

Paul Verrall progressed through to the end game and with only his King left against his opponent’s King and Pawn could at best achieve a draw, which is what he achieved preventing his opponent from converting the extra Pawn to a Queen.

At all square the deciding match on Board 1 would determine the result. Things were looking good for Dominic playing Black he was managing his time excellently at what looked to many as a drawn  end game although a pawn down. His opponent had less than 2 minutes on his clock against Dominic’s 10 minutes so Broadstairs could well win the match on time. Alas a late mistake from Dominic enabled his opponent to block and exchange Queens at which Dominic resigned as Patrick, his opponent, would have converted one of his remaining pawns to a Queen.

So, a very close overall match was converted by Bridge into a 2.5 v 1.5 win and guaranteed them the title of Steele Cup Champions.

 

Broadstairs		Bridge
Dominic Blundell   1630	0 – 1	Patrick Burns 1908
Andrew Flood        1590	0 – 1	Gary Hilleard  1623
Paul Verrall             1369	1/2 – 1/2	Zach Stanier    1566
Michael Jenkinson 1300	1 – 0	Darren Coker   1300

 

Here is a position from a game played this week between two of the top players in the world.

Wesley So      v     Levon Aronian

There is an interesting material balance on the board, but the main issue is the weak White King, how did Aronian (Black) finish the game?