Martin Lokander is an up and coming 18 years old Swedish FM with a rating of 2365. Despite being a full-time student he plays a lot (about 120 games/year!) and also closely follows top level chess events.

We’re about to witness the final round of the Grenke Chess Classic, and it’s about to be a nailbiter. The surprise of the tournament, GM Arkady Naiditsch is in shared lead together with Magnus Carlsen, whom he managed to beat. However, Caruana has a good chance of joining them in the lead, as he plays David Baramidze who has been struggling with 4 consecutive losses.

Adams – Anand isn’t really interesting for the tournament, and anything but a draw would be surprising for me. Anand can’t be satisfied with his tournament, and while Mickey had his chances he’s been unable to put the ball in the back of the net.

Naiditsch – Aronian is certainly an interesting game, seeing that Aronian has been struggling for the entire last year. His games against Anand and Adams were definitely shaky, although he eventually managed to sort things out. If Naiditsch would be able to win tomorrow, which I definitely think he is capable of, it would be a huge sensation for him. However, a draw is the most probable result.

Carlsen – Bacrot is probably the game with most eyes on it. Carlsen is Carlsen, and as White he’s extremely dangerous. But to be fair, Bacrot has been very solid this tournament and he’s even been very close to winning certain games. Carlsen-fans will be disappointed, but I think Bacrot will be able to hold once again.

Baramidze-Caruana will probably see some slightly unusual choice of opening from Caruana, who will probably do his outmost to beat Baramidze with the Black pieces. Baramidze is suffering from 4 consecutive, terrible losses, and Caruana comes straight from a quick draw with the World Champion. My money is Caruana.

Would my predictions work out, we will have a shared win between Carlsen, Naiditsch and Caruana.

Martin Lokander is an up and coming 18 years old Swedish FM with a rating of 2365. Despite being a full-time student he plays a lot (about 120 games/year!) and also closely follows top level chess events.

3 rounds of the Grenke Chess Classic have been played, and there are two notable things that are heavily discussed.

First of all, Naiditsch beat Carlsen AGAIN, and especially the extremely provocative 10…Bxg4?!!? is being criticized all over the world. I’m far from sure what Carlsen had in mind, but it looks like a kind of position where it’s not too easy to prove the sacrifice wrong. As the game proved, Carlsen eventually managed to outplay Naiditsch in the middlegame until something went horribly wrong in the endgame. As Carlsen himself noted on Twitter, this is the 4^th straight tournament where Carlsen loses in round 3! Certainly food for thought.

What’s more worrying is Levon Aronian. A year ago Levon reached his peak live rating of 2835.5, and today he’s not even top 10 in the World. A remarkable decline for someone who should be at his peak!

4 more rounds to go, and I’d still take Carlsen as favourite to claim the tournament but his start is certainly worrying.

Martin Lokander is an up and coming 18 years old Swedish FM with a rating of 2365. Despite being a full-time student he plays a lot (about 120 games/year!) and also closely follows top level chess events.

The last super tournament of the year is over, and the official winner is Viswanathan Anand, after outplaying Michael Adams in *sigh* a Berlin Endgame.
When half of the field share first place with a +1 score, I can’t really see it as a real “super tournament victory” as compared to Sinquefield or any other big tournament. Unfortunately, this leaves me with the strange feeling that this was more of a nice chess gathering with some interesting games. 5 rounds is really way too short for a tournament of this standard.

When even Hikaru Nakamura plays the Berlin Endgame, I think it might be time for a Berlin ban? I was disappointed to see such a high amount of Berlin Endgames, and even though I generally find this endgame fascinating, I feel like I’ve had enough of it. What happened to the Najdorf?

Now there’s a short break in tournaments, but in about a month my favourite super tournament begins, the Tata Steel Chess Tournament. What’s more important is that at the time of writing, Hikaru Nakamura is bashing Yaacov Norowitz on Chess.com, and that’s way more interesting than the Berlin Endgame so I think it’s time for me to sign off this blog post for now.

Merry Christmas!

Martin Lokander is an up and coming 18 years old Swedish FM with a rating of 2365. Despite being a full-time student he plays a lot (about 120 games/year!) and also closely follows top level chess events.

The last few rounds have been very solid, but not necessarily boring. Obviously the Berlin Endgames were a slight setback, but overall we can’t complain about the entertainment.

Adams has problems with the Black pieces. He beat Caruana and was very close to beating Kramnik as well, but his loss against Nakamura in the 4th round must’ve been a terrible experience. Lucky for him, he has the White pieces in the last round, facing Anand at 4 draws. Everything points to this being another Berlin Ruy Lopez with a draw as a result.

The big game is Giri versus Kramnik, and after Dubai Open it’s well known that the young Dutch GM has huge problems against the Russian legend. I don’t think Giri will take big risks because of his terrible head-to-head score, and since he has the White pieces I think the risk of a draw is high. I don’t think anyone will be shocked if this becomes a Berlin Ruy Lopez too.

The most entertaining game I think will be Caruana – Nakamura. Caruana hasn’t impressed at all (pretty much since Sinquefield/Bilbao), and Nakamura played an excellent game against Adams in round 4. What’s more important is that it won’t be a Berlin Endgame, and that’s pretty much all I want. I think there are good chances of Nakamura winning this game and clinching the tournament with a stunning comeback.

BET TIP: At the time of writing, there’s 8.4 odds on Nakamura winning the game (on MarathonBet) which is way too high if you ask me.

Martin Lokander is an up and coming 18 years old Swedish FM with a rating of 2365. Despite being a full-time student he plays a lot (about 120 games/year!) and also closely follows top level chess events.

The London Chess Classic has kicked off, and my wild predictions have been more or less catastrophic

Adams, the solid guy, hasn’t played a single draw (although I managed to predict a win for him!). I really thought Nakamura would bring down Kramnik today, especially since Kramnik’s preparation wasn’t too impressive, if you ask me. However, Nakamura went wrong and Kramnik played very well to convert a full point.

Giri and Kramnik are the leaders at 1½ points out of 2. They will play each other in the final round, and this might very well be a key game of the tournament. But to be fair, the tournament has just begun and Anand has barely played a move of his own :D.

Happy betting, and don’t miss my next post. It will be posted before the last round.

Martin Lokander is an up and coming 18 years old Swedish FM with a rating of 2365. Despite being a full-time student he plays a lot (about 120 games/year!) and also closely follows top level chess events.

The last of many super-tournaments this year. Although we lack the presence of undisputed World Champion Magnus Carlsen, London has attracted a very strong field and there’s bound to be some fighting chess. I won’t bore you with a long recap of the latest super tournaments, since most of the readers have been following these elite players the last couple of months anyway. Instead, I will give a few very wild predictions of what we might look forward to.

Adams is a bit of joker. He hasn’t been active for a while in the strongest tournaments, but winning the rapid tournament is certainly a good sign. However, since this is quite a short tournament (only 5 rounds), I wouldn’t be surprised if Adams’s solid style would get him at least 4 draws. And maybe one win!?

I haven’t got my mind straight on Giri’s form. Some of his recent results are amazing, but there’s still some instability, like we saw towards the end of Qatar Open. Something tells me that Giri might lose an early game (possibly against Hikaru in round 1!?) and he won’t be able to get more than 50 % in this tournament. I do however think he’ll manage a draw against his nemesis Vladimir Kramnik.

Neither do I think Caruana will impress (at least not with 5-0!). The initial blitz & rapid tournaments can’t have been a pleasant experience for him and these things will definitely affect his self-confidence.

Now, to my predicted winner of the tournament, Hikaru Nakamura. This might be a bit of a surprise for many and I agree that his recent results in classical chess haven’t been too spectacular, but you never know with Hikaru. If he would go and finish last I wouldn’t be surprised either, but his blitz & rapid certainly shows that he’s on a roll and if he gets off to a good start I definitely think he’s capable of winning the tournament.

These are of course very wild predictions and with my luck it could probably backfire in the opposite direction, but my main task is to provide some food for thought and confuse my competitors so I’ll win some prize myself! 😀