London Chess Classic 2: So joins the 2800 club

Wesley So beat Mickey Adams in Round 2 to leapfrog Maxime Vachier-Lagrave into the world no. 4 spot, enter the 2800 club for the first time, take the sole lead in the London Chess Classic and make it even less likely that he fails to take the $100,000 bonus for winning the 2016 Grand Chess Tour. Another spectacular round also featured Vishy Anand demolishing MVL’s Najdorf and Fabiano Caruana finding a beautiful winning move in a game where it seemed his gambles were going to backfire against Veselin Topalov.

Wesley So has quietly reached the very top | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

If the fear was that after the hijinks of Round 1 the players would settle into the usual solidity of a supertournament we needn’t have worried. We got the same combination of risk-taking, blunders and drama:

Even the draws included plenty to talk about. Giri-Nakamura witnessed a Nakamura who was determined not to make the same mistake of blundering in the opening after playing too quickly. He took things to the other extreme, and on move 7, in a position Anish Giri had had before against Bacrot in a tournament Nakamura also played, he spent 43 minutes. Giri returned the favour on move 12 by thinking for 29 minutes, and despite the Dutchman having a promising edge it never seemed like blossoming into more and the game ended drawn in 43 moves. 

Anish Giri is the only player with 50% after two rounds | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

Kramnik's helper plays 1.e4.
Malcolm Pein: "Good move, Vladimir?"
Kramnik: "It's a very good move. I'd like to play it, but I will not" | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

Kramnik-Aronian was much more pleasing to the eye with another Kramnik kingside fianchetto culminating in 20.e5!

20…Bxg2 was well-calculated by Aronian, with 21.exf6 being met with the only move 21…Qb7, and although 22.Nd6 gave White a hint of an edge the black battery on the h1-a8 diagonal was sufficient to force exchanges and a draw in 32 moves.

After Kramnik-Topalov, Vlad was probably missing handshaking! | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website 

Let’s move on to the wins.

Vishy Anand 1-0 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

Maxime’s Najdorf woes continued on Saturday. After getting outprepared by Giri while playing against his pet line in Round 1 he found himself outprepared by Vishy Anand as he played it in Round 2. 

Is MVL contemplating switching to the Berlin like everyone else... | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

Vishy’s aggressive 9.g4 had been played once before by Denis Khismatullin in a game the creative Russian player lost, but Anand had analysed it deeply and took a pawn sacrifice from his opponent in his stride, revealing he was still in book after 16.0-0-0:

He commented:

In fact the idea with 14…e4 15.Qe2 and castles on opposite sides was known to me. The point is of course Black has very good play, but the process of getting the pawn on d5 back will cost him.

MVL had a chance earlier on to play the typical Sicilian exchange sacrifice on c3, but when Maurice Ashley told Anand that English GM Julian Hodgson had been going apoplectic about that move Vishy quipped:

I will just say that neither the possibility was unknown to me, nor Julian going apoplectic!

Instead Vishy managed to win in true style, playing an exchange sacrifice of his own on d5, with MVL lamenting:

My position was always on the unpleasant side. Even if I played the right moves I had to suffer and find tricks… It’s never pleasant to get outprepared and outplayed so convincingly.

The denouement was of the picture perfect kind that makes it into chess textbooks:

33.Bxb7! and Maxime offered his hand in resignation immediately, since if the knight captures the bishop the a-pawn is unstoppable.

That means Vishy will turn 47 on Sunday in good spirits after a fine win and having climbed above Sergey Karjakin into 7th on the live rating list. 

Vishy's apprentice, 11-year-old Praggnanandhaa, is also doing well in London, with 2.5/3 in the FIDE Open as he aims to beat Karjakin's record as the world's youngest ever grandmaster | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

MVL’s time spent preparing for Magnus Carlsen currently only seems to have left him a little unprepared himself.

Wesley So 1-0 Michael Adams

Wesley’s dream and Mickey’s nightmare continued in London on Saturday, with Adams once again getting into time trouble and allowing his knight and queen to be forked, this time with 39.Be5!

It was a bit subtler, but the threat is 40.Bf4 next move, winning the queen (e.g. 40…Qh5 is simply met by 41.Bd1), so Mickey had no choice but to give up his knight. 

Tough times for Mickey Adams | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

It seems he played 39…Ne6 40.fxe6 and then lost on time, but it would have made no difference in any case. Who can stop So?

It would be unfair to put all the emphasis on Mickey’s blunder, though, since Wesley had ratcheted up the pressure before that by gaining the bishop pair and an extra pawn on the kingside. Fabiano Caruana would later comment on So:

Something must have clicked for him because he’s improved a lot, at least in terms of results recently. He doesn’t go on rampages or anything, but he quietly accumulates points.

Wesley has every reason to feel satisfied with his work this year | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

His quiet rampage in St. Louis and now London has taken him across the 2800 mark for the first time in his career, and at 2803.2 he's also above Anish Giri’s peak of 2802.8. Wesley described it as a “wonderful feeling to have all the hard work and sacrifice by me and my family pay off”. With 2/2 in London he’s well on the way to the third place that would mean he wins the 2016 Grand Chess Tour even if Nakamura scores an unlikely sole triumph in the London Chess Classic.

Veselin Topalov 0-1 Fabiano Caruana

Fabiano's French proved too hot for Topalov to handle...

We said in our preview that a loss to Kramnik probably wouldn’t affect Topalov too much, and for a while on Saturday it seemed as though the Bulgarian was going to demonstrate his ability to bounce back after setbacks. Fabiano Caruana had played the French Defence, left his opponent with a pawn on the seventh rank and then gone all-in with what he called the “awful move” 25…Nd3. By move 27 computers were already calling the game for White:

Caruana didn’t disagree:

I thought that I should be basically lost, but it’s very unclear, since the knight on a3 is misplaced and I have a passed pawn.

The computer’s suggestion here was the simple 28.Qg6, targeting that passed pawn, while 28.b4 also seems likely to simplify the position in White’s favour. Instead Fabiano called Veselin’s 28.Re6?, weakening the back rank, “a step in the wrong direction”. 

It wasn't a game for the faint-hearted | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

Anything could happen in the game, since Caruana was in deep time trouble, and it was no surprise when he missed a spectacular chance to gain the upper hand:

30…Rxg7!! eliminates the thorn in Black’s position, since 31.Rxg7 is met by 31…Rh8!, threatening mate (e.g. 32.Kg1 Bxf2+ 33.Kf1 Rh1#).

As so often happens when your opponent is in time trouble, it was Veselin who played too fast, and gave Caruana a chance to find another truly stunning resource after 36.Nc4?

Caruana shuffles his rook from g8 to e8 and dashes Topalov's dreams (as seen on our Spanish broadcast)

36….Re8!! won the house, with Fabiano giving a deadpan description of his opponent’s reaction:

He looked surprised at first, and then he looked unhappy.

With the black passed pawns unstoppable Topalov played a desperado 37.Rxb7+ Qxb7 38.Qxe8 Qb1+ and resigned.

Caruana admitted, “I got lucky today” but the win nevertheless took him up to 2826.2, just 13.8 points behind you know who. He's in joint second place in London, with the standings after two rounds already showing a wide spread. Anish Giri is the only man on 50% after neither winning nor losing a game:

Among the many things you can say about Wesley So another is that he’ll also play in the 2017 Grand Chess Tour, since he’s guaranteed to be one of the Top 3 in 2016. After that three players qualify on average rating for 2016 and three are wildcards, while there will also be another 14 wild cards in total for individual events. The news announced today is that another rapid and blitz event, the Saint Louis Rapid, has been added to take place immediately after the 2017 Sinquefield Cup.

$1.2 million is up for grabs in the 2017 Grand Chess Tour

Closer at hand, Sunday’s Round 3 will see leader Wesley So face the challenge of Black against Aronian, while world no. 2 Caruana plays no. 3 Kramnik.Tune in from 15:00 CET for all the action, with commentary from Yasser Seirawan, Tania Sachdev, Alejandro Ramirez and Maurice Ashley! You can replay their Round 2 show, including all the player interviews, below:

You can also follow the games in our mobile apps:

         

See also:

• Official websites: London Chess Classic | Grand Chess Tour
• London Chess Classic games with computer analysis on chess24
• 8th London Chess Classic Preview
• Round 1: Nothing personal