Ding Liren wins Brilliant Game against Magnus Carlsen in King's Indian Defence: chess24 magnus tour finals Aug 2020

In this entry, I will analyze a game where Magnus plays the King's Indian Defense with Black and Ding outplays it with near perfect play. lots of tactics to calculate and Ding was up to the task.

  www.chess24.com for full coverage 

 
Great example where Ding Liren quickly built pressure againt Magnus who wasn't really up to speed with KID structures. Ding has mastered positions with 1d4 and g3,Bg2 fianchetto. His calculation ability is world class level even though he started poorly in candidates 2020 first half and will not challenge Magnus for World Championship ( it will be either Nepo,MVL or Caruana again).

Ding was impressive with the line starting with 24Bh6! and played perfectly until 31 Qf4 checkmate. Magnus could have defended better if he found Bd4+ in several instances but instead lost very quickly

Carlsen-Nakamura Armageddon (Lindores Abbey Online Rapid) #HeritageChess

Hikaru with Black won the decisive game, and the 3rd match ( he lost first match 0-3, won second 2.5-1.5, and had tied 3rd match 2-2). Hikaru will play Daniil Dubov in the final starting June 1st. https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/lindores-abbey-rapid-challenge-2020

Screen Capture from the game

Amber Chess 2009: Aronian wins in Nice !

Levon Aronian, Nice winner Amber Edition 2009

By drawing his two games against Topalov today, Levon Aronian won the combined 2009 Amber tournament. This is the second win in a row for the armenian grand master, as he won last year's combined Amber event as well.

Levon Aronian overall winner in Amber 2009 !

The tournament was incredibly strong this year, with the participation of Anand,Kramnik,Topalov,Carlsen,Morozevich,Karjakin and many other top GMs.

I think that Aronian's success lies in very strong middle-game skills both from a tactical and strategic standpoint, the ability to save or turn around compromised positions ( see rapid game against Carlsen for instance), finding counter-chances and making superb practical decisions especially in complex positions, and excellent nerves & self-control in time-trouble.

A great example today was his move 32..Re8! in the blindfold Topalov-Aronian.
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1541024


Finally Aronian has developed a well-thought out opening repertoire with 1d4 as main weapon for White (with also 1.c4 and 1Nf3 as alternatives). As Black, he can play 1..e5 or 1..c6 against 1.e4, and favors the Slav against 1.d4.

Kramnik, Anand and Carlsen were also in the running for first place during the tournament.
This year's event produced numerous exciting battles, including the blindfold tournament, which showed that top grandmasters can play fast and accurately without a chessboard, which I find personally very impressive. Only a few blindfold games were decided by blunders, with the vast majority displaying quality chess !



Official Website and Final Standings :
http://www.amberchess2009.com/

Excellent coverage also at :

http://www.chessvibes.com/ (with on-site videos)

http://www.chessgames.com/

http://www.theweekinchess.com/

Toward the end, Europe-Echecs provided on-site coverage as well:
http://www.europe-echecs.com/

Tactics in Amber 2009

Position I
Karjakin-Topalov (round 2) White to play and win



Position II: Morozevitch-Topalov (4). White to win.


Position III ; Black to move
Topalov-Morozevich (4). Why didn't Black take on g5 with the queen but played 1..Qb7 here ?

Answer for III:

1..Qg5? 2 Qf7+ Kh7 3 Re3 Bd7 4 Rg3! Qf6 5 Qg8+ Kh6 6 Qh8# would be a neat finish. 4..Bg4 may

be better in this variation but 5 Ne3 answers it. If Black tries 5..Re7 then 6 Qg8+ intermediary check wins.

Black avoided it by playing 1..Qb7 but lost eventually. Game followed with 2 Ng3 a4?! while 2..b4 was an interesting alternative ( 3 ab4 ab4 4cb4 Ne6!, bringing the knight to the defense ).

Official site: http://www.amberchess2009.com/