Heinrich Basson is a chess enthusiast from South Africa. He is an avid club player with a current FIDE rating of 1899. He follows world chess events closely and analyzing the matches and writing about chess are some of his hobbies.
There were two world-class tournaments which recently took place and finished within the past week, Grenke Chess Classic and Moscow Open. Let us take a quick look at what happened in both tournaments.
The Grenke Chess Classic had some brilliant chess and after the 7 round round-robin event it was GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Arkadij Naiditsch who both finished on 4.5 out of 7 and in the lead. GM Michael Adams and GM Fabiano Caruana finished on 4 out of 7, only trailing the leaders by half a point. A very close tournament it was indeed. GM Carlsen and GM Naiditsch were tied for first, and a tie-break had to be played. After 4 rounds of the tie-break it was 2 points all, which lead to a final armageddon game which was won by GM Carlsen, giving him a 3-2 win on tie-break. Another great title for the world champion.
The Moscow Open was also a very strong tournament. It had an Open A event, which was the main open event. There was an Open B event, which was the female open event. There were also other open events for rating classes and a male and female student round-robin event. Definitely a world-class tournament! The main event was super strong with plenty of GM’s participating. It was won by GM Ernesto Inarkiev with 8 out of 9, gaining him 23.5 rating points. In 2nd place we had a tie between 4 players, namely GM Anton Korobov, GM Francisco Vallejo Pons, GM Tigran Petrosian and GM Vladislav Artemiev. They all had 7 points. The Open B event was won by WGM Tingjie Lei, also with 8 out of 9 and gaining 14.6 rating points. In 2nd place we also saw 4 players on 7 out of 9. This was definitely a brilliant tournament and definitely one to follow each year.
As I am writing this the Zurich Chess Challenge is on the go and the FIDE Grand Prix series in Tbilisi is also starting today. The Zurich Chess Challenge really will be a close tournament, GM Nakamura has been in some great form lately and GM Anand and GM Kramnik will be solid as always, it will be a tough tournament and everyone has their chances. In the latest FIDE Grand Prix series GM Anish Giri, GM Alexander Grischuk and GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave might be in with good chances of a podium spot, although any of the 12 participants can take the title and points. GM Baadur Jobava will also be fighting to increase his rating to above 2700 again.
Enjoy the chess in the coming two weeks and be sure to check out Chessbet each day!
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.
