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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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---- Nous avons besoin d'un traduction français!
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The professional circuits in chess and other spectator sports have been cancelled or postponed. Amidst this drought of competitive entertainment comes the Magnus Carlsen Invitational.
The Magnus Carlsen Invitational is the first professional online chess tournament.
Dates: April 18 to May 3
Largest prize pool in online chess history
Expert commentary in 9 languages by Chess24 including the newly added Chinese team
8 of the world’s top players including the World Champion
7 rounds to decide the top four
Semifinals and final of the top four players
4 rapid games per match
Thrilling armageddon format to decide tiebreaks
__________
The drawing of lots will be on April 15 at 12:00 PM
The commentators are: Peter Svidler and Jan Gustafsson with Alexander Grischuk coming in from time to time when there are interesting games. Lawrence Trent will be there too.
Hikaru was interrupted and complained but the game was awarded to Magnus. Later Hikaru tweeted:
Fun match, very unsatisfactory ending with the arbiter writing a message to me in the middle of the game to abort while I am thinking about playing Kf1 or Kh1! Not that it changes the outcome, but still...
Round 1, April 18
Game 1
Ding, Liren – Firouzja, Alireza
E51 Nimzo-Indian
A note on the glitch in the Carlsen-Nakamura Armageddon game:
A strange situation was seen during the sudden-death decider, as Nakamura seemed to be talking to the camera. The commentators thought he was streaming his game, when in fact he was reacting to the fact that an arbiter sent him a text message while he was considering his 25th move.
The problem was that the clocks shown via live-streaming — and apparently what the arbiters were seeing — had displayed Carlsen having more than 4 minutes, the time allocated for Black in the Armageddon. The players' clocks were correctly set up though. Nakamura was visibly disturbed, but did not make a fuss of it.
Other than that, the technical side of the first-ever super-tournament played online worked fine, so we do not expect this to happen again.
Fabiano comes on after the match is over and said that he was under pressure in the first two games and should have lost one or both of them.
It is hard adapting to fifteen minutes per side when usually it is blitz online. He can’t even imagine playing a classical game online. He is settled in at home and staying close to his apartment.
- Lawrence’s interview question to Fabiano: "Do you still shop at Whole Foods?"
- Despite being on the ropes for most of the match Fabiano Caruana gives mate in the 4th game to beat Ian Nepomniachtchi
- The world champion about Anish Giri's opening debacle today: "Unforgivable."
- MVL shocked Magnus by playing the Slav, but a few minutes later: "I have to say what Maxime is doing is brilliant - he's found a way to play the Grünfeld!"
- Why isn’t Firouzja playing under the Iranian flag?
- Because he is playing for FIDE, not for Iran.
- Carlsen is going to crush Firouzja tomorrow
- Giri is the punching bag now
- Nepo is like an Orc chieftain who missed the portal
Last edited by Wayne Komer; Sunday, 19th April, 2020, 01:50 PM.
Jonathan Tisdall - Magnus looks to be playing well today, but it is FASCINATING how quickly he appears to lose his cool when he misses details vs. Alireza.
- "Fantastic swindle!!!" (Grischuk) "There are no heroes when your king is in a mating net!"
Alireza Firouzja hits back to level the match against Magnus
- Grischuk on Firouzja-Carlsen: "It's like their Banter Blitz match continues - they're trading blows in a very fighting way"
(When asked if Carlsen isn’t a bit discomfited by Firouzja):
Grischuk on Carlsen & Firouzja: "I think it's a bit like Kasparov. He convinced himself that Kramnik is going to be the next World Champion & then when he played the match against him he just totally could not play... He can fight anyone but not destiny"
Round 2, April 20
Game 3
Carlsen, Magnus – Firouzja, Alireza
D38 QGD, Ragozin variation
Grischuk on Carlsen in a technically winning position: "He doesn't want to think in this position out of principle - I will beat you here playing instantly
- Magnus holds his nerve to win Game 3 and now Firouzja must win with White to force Armageddon - in the youngster's favour is the fact all 7 of Magnus' rapid games have been won by White so far!
Round 2, April 20
Game 4
Firouzja, Alireza – Carlsen, Magnus
C65 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defence
After his match, Hikaru came on to talk to the guys. He felt that Anish is not doing well because he hasn’t had the time playing online that MVL, Magnus and himself have had.
He says that he sticks pretty close to home now. It is hard to study chess when you have no idea when the next tournament will be. He hadn’t been looking at the news for a few weeks and so, when he went out to buy groceries, he was shocked to find that he wouldn’t be let in to the store unless he had a face mask on.
__________
On the twitter page of FIDE there is this problem with a Canadian connection:
This problem was composed by John Griswold White was published in “Canadian Illustrated News” in 1879. John G. White (1845-1928) was an attorney, a chess aficionado and a book collector.
I should have been more clear with my comment above. I was responding to the diagram in game 2 between Firoujza and Carlsen. Magnus had a great position but swindled himself allowing Rb8+ and Qg4 with the huge threat of Qg6+ sacrificing the queen (Bxg6, hxg6+ and Rh8 checkmate) It didnt actually happen because Magnus to prevent it sacrificed his own queen for the rook on g2.
The usual commentators are joined by Tania Sachdev. Alexander Grischuk comes in and says commentating on Nepo-MVL is like trying to commentate on bullet chess... or table tennis - because the moment you try to say something it's changed completely!
There is a mention of a very popular true crime documentary miniseries about the life of a zookeeper, entitled Tiger King. Peter muses that when he was a boy he dreamed of owning a big cat when he grew up. His parents has the 50-volume Soviet Encyclopedia and he had all the pictures of big cats circled. He preferred to own a cheetah!
Round 2, April 21
Game 1
Ding, Liren – Caruana, Fabiano
A07 Reti, King’s Indian Attack (Barcza System)
- Totally glued to the matches! Feeling sorry for work I had to do today, but games are so exciting & @TaniaSachdev is such a great addition to the usual (already great) cast that it's blink & you'll miss it and I can work tomorrow, but I don't want to miss this.
Alireza plays 45.Rc7 and there is a connectivity problem and he can’t continue after Hikaru’s move, so Hikaru is awarded the game. Both players just had seconds on their clocks at this moment.
Their match has been stopped and negotiations are going on to resume or replace or something. In the meantime Carlsen and Caruana play on.
Round 3, April 22
Game 2
Carlsen, Magnus – Caruana, Fabiano
D24 QGA
- A beautiful draw by a repetition of moves means Magnus Carlsen wraps up a 3:1 match victory over Fabiano Caruana!
Final Result
Carlsen-Caruana 3-1
The commentators are now Nepo, Grischuk, Gustafsson, Sachdev and Svidler. Knowing that Grischuk is a great fan of Vishy Anand, someone asks who his favorite players of all time are.
Grischuk: "You have Kasparov, Fischer, Magnus, Karpov, but then I don't see anyone clearly better historically than Vishy. He's extremely unlucky those blitz & rapid tournaments started when he was going downhill. If they started in the early 90s he'd have at least 6 trophies"
_________
Firouzja seems dispirited after the controversy in Game One and does not play with his usual verve.
Round 3, April 22
Game 3
Firouzja, Alireza – Nakamura, Hikaru
D37 QGD, Hastings variation
Alireza Firouzja is the first guest and Fabiano Caruana joins Peter and Jan later.
Alireza is asked for his comments on yesterday’s incident in the Firouzja-Nakamura game.
He said that he was winning when a glitch occurred. Since he has very good Internet and computer, it had to be with the computer at the site. According to the rules, when the situation is fixed, they should restart the game from where it left off. However, Hikaru got up from his chair and left the screen. He said that he thought that Firouzja had lost on time.
The discussion lasted an hour. Hikaru was upset and said that he would not resume the game from the last position and if it was not scored a draw, he would leave the tournament. Then, Alireza was given an ultimatum, start the second game in five minutes or you lose the match. If you want to complain, do it after the games.
Later he had his appeal to replay the match rejected by the Appeals Committee.
Round 3, April 23
Game 1
MVL-Ding, Liren
E35 Nimzo-Indian, Classical, Noa variation
During this game, play suddenly stopped. It appeared to be the Internet on Ding Liren’s side. But, both players kept their seats, and when things were fixed, resumed play.
The guys talk about food. Lawrence says that he loves lasagna and prepares it from scratch. Alireza says that his mother does all the cooking and gets the groceries too. Since he is living in France, Jan suggests Escargots à la Bourguignonne but gets no reply.
Round 3, April 23, 2020
Game 1
Giri, Anish – Nepomniachtchi, Ian
D87 Grunfeld, Exchange, Spassky variation
The endgame database says this a white win in 35 moves after 68.d4.
The guys are really concerned that Anish won’t win a single game in this tournament and are cheering him on.
All the commentators said that they were following the computer games in the TCEC Season 17 – especially LCZero vs Stockfish. I was going to give some of the games but saw some rather length contests – 129 moves, 195 moves, 244 moves. They can be downloaded at:
It was pointed out how fast Nepo plays with this game as an example. He started with 15 minutes with the increment and after 73 moves he had 19 minutes 32 seconds on his clock!
Result of Match
Giri-Nepo 1.5-2.5
Round 3, April 23
Game 4
Ding, Liren – MVL
D14 QGD Slav, Exchange variation
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