Magnus Carlsen, the world No 1, maintained his outstanding record in the online Champions Tour this week with a victory in the Chessable Masters. The Norwegian, 33, has now won 14 of the 17 Tour finals he has contested. However, it was not an easy passage.
Carlsen lost to Alireza Firouzja 1.5‑2.5 in the Chessable Masters final, but under the rules he had the right to a return match, which he won 2-0. The pair were evenly matched, with Carlsen’s strategic depth offset by the 20-year-old Frenchman’s ferocious tactical skills, and its high class level was a reminder that Carlsen would not have retired as classical world champion had Firouzja won the 2022 Candidates.
Game two of their first match stood out, as Firouzja outplayed Carlsen in his endgame speciality by a decisive king march from f2 to g6. In the return match Firouzja’s standard dropped a little. He was outplayed in the first game in a battle of opposite castling, then missed a winning chance in the second game that would have taken the match into an Armageddon decider.
Earlier, Carlsen lost a game to the 17-year-old Denis Lazavik from Belarus, who ranks well outside the top 100 over the board but has a growing online reputation, and who had already eliminated the top 10 players Anish Giri and Hikaru Nakamura. He also struggled before defeating Slovenia’s Vladimir Fedoseev, who missed a great chance in a knight ending.
Carlsen lost game four against Fedoseev on time (“My brain was fried at that point”) and won their match only by drawing as Black in the Armageddon tie-break, He said: “The games were pretty terrible in general. I prevailed, that was more or less the only good thing.”
The Chessable Masters continued the recent over-the-board trend from the Fide Grand Swiss and the World Rapid/Blitz where relative unknowns did well against the global elite. In one round, top 20 GMs Ian Nepomniachtchi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Firouzja all lost to much lower ranked opponents, while in the earlier Play-In, open to all grandmasters, the world No 2, Fabiano Caruana, and the former world champion Vlad Kramnik both retired early with totals of 3.5/8 and 2/4.
Mian Sultan Khan, the unknown who held his own with the world top between 1929 and 1933, was finally awarded an honorary grandmaster title last week. Sultan Khan (1903-1966) was omitted in 1950 when Fide issued its first grandmaster list, which included living veterans but no deceased players, although his record was clearly equal or superior to many who were awarded the title.
Arkady Dvorkovich, the Fide President, presented the posthumous GM award to the prime minister of Pakistan, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, at a ceremony in Islamabad. Sultan Khan was a British subject from the Punjab, who became a Pakistani in 1947. His first name, Mian, was corrupted to Mir by Western media, and his birth year, according to his family, was 1903 and not the widely quoted 1905.
Sultan Khan won three British Championships, was ranked world No 6 at his best, drew with the world champion Alexander Alekhine at the 1931 Olympiad where he scored 11.5/17, beat Savielly Tartakower 6.5-5.5 in a match, and scored his most famous victory over José Raúl Capablanca at Hastings 1930-31.
Sultan Khan uses an opening developed by Tigran Petrosian decades later, gains a small edge to Black’s doubled d pawns, reaches an ending with two rooks for a queen, and then slowly but surely wears his opponent down with intricate manoeuvers in a 65-move marathon.
Pakistan is to introduce chess in its public schools, starting with 100 schools in Islamabad. Fide has promised support in providing coaches. As part of the initiative, Fide’s development director, Nigel Short, is giving a nationwide simultaneous tour, as Pakistan strives to increase the popularity of chess in the country. In contrast to India’s many grandmasters, Pakistan’s current best player is rated only 2269.
However Sultan Khan, who reached the world top from scratch in his late 20s despite having little access to chess literature and knowing next to nothing about the theory of chess, was a supreme natural talent arguably on a par with India’s former world champion Vishy Anand.
Two rising talents aged 13 and 12 are poised to join the select group of under-14s, including Carlsen and three world title candidates, who make up the youngest grandmasters in chess history.
Andy Woodward, 13, from Texas, US, scored his third and final GM norm at Jeddah last week. He already has the required 2500 rating so just awaits final ratification from Fide. Woodward is the second youngest ever US grandmaster, behind only the world record holder, Abhimanyu Mishra. One of Woodward’s most important victories so far has been against the controversial Hans Niemann in the 2023 World Junior Championship.
Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, 12, of Turkey, won the Jeddah tournament and, with a 2524 rating, is currently the highest rated under-14 in the world. Erdogmus is poised for a still greater achievement. The record for the highest rated under-13 in the history of chess has been held for 35 years by Judit Polgar, who achieved 2555 in 1989. Erdogmus’s 13th birthday is not until June, so he has good chances of surpassing Polgar’s landmark.
Jeddah was his second GM norm of three needed, so he is also well placed to join the select group of five players who have qualified for the GM title before their 13th birthday. The Turkish prodigy demonstrated his skills in this quick and impressive win from the 2023 Baku Open.
3906: Firouzja mated in four by 1...Bg2+! 2 Kxg2 h1=Q+! 3 Rxh1 Nf4+ 4 Kg1 Qxa1 mate.
Fedoseev v Carlsen: White missed 1 Ne3+! Kxd4 (if Kc6 2 Kxg3 wins three pawns up) 2 Nc2+! Nxc2 3 a6 and the pawn cannot be stopped.
