Fabiano Caruana is within 11 points of Magnus Carlsen on the rating list after beating Hikaru Nakamura with a brilliant queen sacrifice in a razor-sharp line of the Najdorf Sicilian. Wesley So still leads after cashing in on Veselin Topalov’s continuing self-destruction, while Maxime Vachier-Lagrave did the same when Levon Aronian over-pressed. Even Vishy Anand was in trouble after a speculative sacrifice, but he managed to hold against Anish Giri.

Fabiano Caruana shows that killer opening preparation still exists | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

After three rounds in which only a single game was decisive it seems the rest day was just what the doctor ordered!

The undisputed game of the day was the all-American clash:

Fabiano Caruana 1-0 Hikaru Nakamura

One of the things we missed in the 2016 World Championship match was any dramatic opening bomb, with both teams having put in enormous work to avoid any match-deciding surprises. 

In London, on the contrary, the players are willing to take risks, with Fabiano Caruana giving a theory for why Hikara Nakamura went for the Najdorf in Round 6:

In the US Championship he said it was a must-win game in Round 3, so maybe here he thought it was a must-win game if he wanted to win the Grand Chess Tour.

For 15 moves the players followed one of the most extraordinary games of 2016 – Giri-MVL from the Norway Chess tournament:

Here Maxime was on his own and thought for 32 minutes before coming up with 15…Rg8!?, a move that in practical terms proved inspired, since it got Anish out of his preparation. His first independent move of the game, 16.Rdg1, proved to be essentially the losing blunder after 16…d5!.

In London, meanwhile, we perhaps got to see how the world’s best computer hardware would treat the position, with the dizzying sequence 15…b4!!? 16.axb4 Ne5 17.Qxf4 Nexg4 18.Bxg4 e5 19.Qxf6! Bxf6 20.Nd5 Qd8 blitzed out so fast you had to do a double take to realise White had just given up his queen for two minor pieces:

Hikaru was obviously expecting 21.Nc6 now, when Black is forced to give back the queen, and after 21…Bxg4 22.Nxd8 Bxd8 23.Rd2 the mutual sacrifices have led to an endgame with equal material where both sides have their trumps.

Instead, though, what followed was 21.Nf5!!, when Nakamura spent 35 minutes confirming he was in deep trouble. Caruana explained:

I’d analysed this and the computer doesn’t show 21.Nf5. The problem is that the computer doesn’t understand that after 21.Nf5 Bxf5 Black is pretty much just lost. It’s one of the saddest positions I’ve ever seen for Black.

Maurice Ashley's attire was fitting for the moves he got to describe | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

Caruana revealed that after his second Rustam Kasimdzhanov played the move on the board against him in a training session it took almost no analysis to realise how strong it was. So how had Nakamura missed it? Fabiano:

It is possible to overlook if you’re not going deeply into the position and you’re more or less making the computer’s first line. I think if he played this over the board as White he’d play Nf5 very quickly. I think this is just over-reliance on the computer.

The position was a minefield, and one which neither player could navigate easily. For instance, after 21…Rb8 22.Nxf6+ Qxf6:

23.Nxd6+! was the move the computer was crying out for, when 23…Kf8 is met by the killer quiet move 24.Bf5!!, illustrating just how helpless Black is. Fabiano had missed that and instead went for 23.Rxd6, but it was such an overwhelming position for White that there always seemed to be a second (or even third) chance to play any idea.

So after 23…Be6 24.Rhd1 0-0 25.h5 Qg5+ 26.Be3 Qf6 27.Nxh6+ Kh8 Caruana was finally able to play that 28.Bf5 move, when 28…Qe7 already allowed a grandstand finish:

29.Nxf7+ was already winning, but Fabiano saw some ghosts – and another attractive idea – and instead played 29.b5. 29…Rbe8 would at least have posed resistance, but 29…Qe8 again allowed 30.Nxf7+!, which this time Caruana went for. After 30…Rxf7 31.Rxe6 Qxb5 32.Rh6+ Nakamura resigned, since a forced sequence wins back the queen with an easily won ending.

Fabiano is three wins in three games away from the world no. 1 spot | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

Fabiano summed up laconically, “I didn’t really see much this game, but somehow it was enough!”

That result realistically put an end to Nakamura’s hopes of winning the Grand Chess Tour, since Wesley So extended his lead over Hikaru to 1.5 points with only three rounds to go:

Veselin Topalov 0-1 Wesley So

“I guess just my brain is not working” was Veselin’s explanation for a fifth loss in six games in London. The signs weren’t promising even before it started:

Yet again, Topalov welcomed chaos on the chessboard, repeating a game against So from the Leuven blitz earlier this year. Wesley introduced a new idea, but until move 17 it was far from clear who was playing for a win. 17.e5 was risky, but after 17…d5 it was still all to play for:

Here, though, Topalov admitted he simply collapsed, with 18.Be2? (instead of the natural 18.Bd3!) already a serious mistake, while after 18…Qg5! 19.a5? f5! it was essentially game over, with Wesley quipping:

I didn’t know I was much better already but fortunately Veselin kept shaking his head!

Still three games for Veselin to endure | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

The idea of swinging a rook along the fourth rank was simply too slow, as was illustrated by the final position in which the rook is still a helpless bystander on a4:

That win took Wesley to +3 in the tournament and a new rating high for his career of 2807.1. He now knows that three draws will guarantee him the $100,000 first prize in the 2016 Grand Chess Tour even if Nakamura wins his last three games. He can aim higher, though. For instance, in Round 7 he has White against Kramnik and knows a win will see him leapfrog the former World Champion into the world no. 3 position.

Calm, precision chess has seen Wesley dominate the 2016 Grand Chess Tour | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

For Topalov, of course, the milestones are less welcome, with the Bulgarian clearly contemplating the retirement he talked about after the Candidates earlier in the year when he mentioned that he can expect such streaks of bad form to become more common in future:

The final win of the day came from nowhere…

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 1-0 Levon Aronian

Things fell apart fast for Levon Aronian in Round 6 | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

For a long time this Giuoco Piano seemed to be following a plan marked out in the Armenian’s opening laboratory. The first 15 moves took him no more than seconds, and when Maxime rejected capturing a pawn the computer evaluation swung in Black's favour. Finally, though, Maxime woke up, and played a sequence of sacrificial moves that equalised the position. That was a disappointment for Levon, who Maxime felt was too slow to adapt to the new situation on the chessboard, particularly after 34.g4, when “suddenly things are going not his way”:

It’s hard to credit how fast the position fell apart. 34…Rd1? allowed 35.Qe5!, and just a handful of moves later Aronian had given up all his queenside pawns for essentially nothing more than a single check. Perhaps he was getting into the Christmas spirit?

That meant Aronian, MVL and Nakamura had all joined the group of players on 50%, the other members of which played out the day’s most dramatic draw.

Vishy Anand ½-½ Anish Giri

Anish Giri contemplating the wisdom of playing the Najdorf against the great Vishy Anand | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

Vishy had obviously enjoyed smashing MVL’s Najdorf in Round 2 and felt inspired to do the same to Giri’s version in Round 6, but he admitted that he’d got a bit carried away when he came up with 16.b4 at the board and then followed that up with a sacrifice a move later:

17.Ndxb5!? axb5 18.Nxb5 Qc8 19.Nxd6 Bxd6 Qxd6 was three pawns for the piece, but White’s thoughts very soon had to turn to survival:

I got a bit tempted by this, but then I started to see problems and I realised that probably I’d gone in a bit deep.

Who could have imagined Vishy would sacrifice one of his horses | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website

Giri was soon on the verge of victory, but the moment it slipped from his grasp was perhaps 25…Rb1+

Anish admitted afterwards he’d only contemplated 26.Bc1, since he thought 26.Ke2! was doomed to fail. Instead after 26…Qa6+ 27.Kxf3 Qxf1+ 28.Bf2 Giri commented, “to my complete shock I couldn’t find a win here”. It seems there wasn’t one, so Giri’s drawing sequence in London stretched to six games.

The final game between Vladimir Kramnik and Mickey Adams saw Big Vlad take a leaf out of Carlsen’s playbook:

It featured an exchange sacrifice met by an exchange sacrifice and a neat piece sacrifice to end the game in perpetual check, but it couldn’t help but pale into insignificance against the backdrop of the other games.

The net result is the table you can see below, where So, Caruana and Kramnik are spread out in the top three places before a group of five players on 50%.

With only three rounds to go it’s time for anyone with ambitions of winning the event to strike, so don’t miss Round 7 on Friday. Tune in from 17:00 CET for all the action, while you can replay the Round 6 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
• Round 2: So joins the 2800 club
• Round 3: Birthday blues
• Round 4: Nakamura on a roll
• Round 5: Adams strikes, Vlad escapes