Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won the $300,000 CrunchLabs Masters, part of the £1.7m online Champions Tour, when the Lyon 33-year-old defeated his French compatriot Alireza Firouzja in the final after previously eliminating the world No 1, Magnus Carlsen. He actually beat Firouzja twice, the first time by 2.5-0.5 and then by 3-2 after the former Iranian qualified for a rematch.
Carlsen, whose mother, Sigrun Øen, died at 61 earlier this month, lost 2.5-1.5 in the semi-final to Vachier-Lagrave, who has now eliminated the Norwegian three times in two Champions Tour seasons. Vachier-Lagrave said his style may be a problem for the former world champion: “I can see all those ingenious small tactics, while Magnus misses one or two in a game, and that can prove costly … in that sense, I may be a worse matchup for him than other players.”
These results constitute an impressive comeback for Vachier-Lagrave, who got within half a point of becoming Carlsen’s challenger in 2021 but has since drifted down the Fide world rankings and is currently even outside the over-the-board top 20.
Earlier, Firouzja lost in nine moves in his quarter-final when the Iran-born Frenchman fell for Fabiano Caruana’s opening trap, and allowed the US champion a brilliant double rook sacrifice.
Caruana v Firouzja
1 c4 c6 2 Nf3 d5 3 g3 Bg4 4 Ne5 Bf5 5 Qb3 Qb6 6 cxd5 Qxb3 7 axb3 Be4? Falling into White’s trap. 7...Bxb1 8 Rxb1 cxd5 is level. 8 dxc6 Bxh1?? Black should settle for losing a pawn by Nxc6. 9 Rxa7! 1-0 The second rook sacrifice. If 9…Rxa7 10 c7 and the pawn queens by cxb8=Q+ or by c8=Q+, while otherwise 10 Rxa8 wins. There was a sting in the tail, as Firouzja recovered and knocked out Caruana 3-2 before reaching the final.
The online Champions Tour has four events open to all grandmasters, plus a qualification tournament for other international title holders, climaxing with an in-person final staged in mid-December. Numerous and substantial prizes have made the Tour a priority for many GMs, so that the qualifiers are always fiercely fought, with the fast time limit of 10 minutes per player per game, plus a two seconds per move increment, adding to the tension.
It is an excellent free spectator sport, too, with continual action, informative commentaries, and helpful visuals on the chess.com site, where the next major event, the $175,000 Speed Chess Championship, has just begun.
Carlsen will be in action this afternoon (3pm Friday July 26) when he meets GM Tuan Minh Le of Vietnam in the round of 16. Their three-hour match will comprise 90 minutes of 5 minutes+1 second blitz, 60 minutes of 3+1 blitz, and 30 minutes of 1+1 bullet.
More than 7m games were played online and over the board on 20 July as Fide celebrated its centenary with a Guinness World Record for a 24-hour period. The minimum time limit was three minutes per game plus a two seconds per move increment. Chess.com hosted 6m games, with Lichess next. Organising large numbers over-the-board is more difficult, but the total there still topped 75,000.
The 2024 British Championship starts at Hull on Saturday, with an interesting and diverse entry of 82 players. They include four of the five grandmasters who will represent England at Budapest in September in the 190-nation chess Olympiad. This quartet, David Howell, Michael Adams, Gawain Jones and Luke McShane, have 13 British titles between them and will start as favourites.
Shreyas Royal, 15, can qualify as a grandmaster with a good result at Hull, and will also have his sights on Adams’s 1989 championship age record, when the Cornishman won the first of his eight titles at age 17.
Several other players have realistic chances of GM and IM norms, none more so than Alex Golding. The Surrey 20-year-old is on a roll, with IM norms in the last few weeks at South Wales, where he was joint first with IM Harry Grieve, and MindSports. A good performance at Hull or in next month’s Kingston Invitation should qualify him as England’s newest IM.
Lan Yao, the holder, and the former Russian Elmira Mirzoeva, who won the English title last month, are the favourites for the women’s championship.
Hull will be a historic occasion for two nine-year-olds. Ethan Pang, already the youngest ever chess player to achieve a master level 2200 rating, will become the youngest ever British Championship competitor, breaking Howell’s age record set in 2000 by around three months.
Bodhana Sivanandan, already the youngest to be selected for England in any sport, will become the youngest player ever in the British Women’s Championship, which is incorporated in the open event. Both Pang and Sivanandan are already strong enough to win games, make reasonable debut scores, and to aim as a minimum at the traditional “master third “ total of three out of nine.
The franchise-based Global Chess League, launched last year in Dubai, will stage its second season from 3-12 October at Friends House, Euston. Six teams of six will be led by icons, whose names have just been announced. The other team members will be two male and two female grandmasters, plus a junior.
Carlsen, as last year, will head the Alpine Warriors team, in the No 1’s first competitive appearance in London since the 2019 Classic at Olympia. Vachier-Lagrave for Mumba Masters and India’s ex-world champion Vishy Anand for Ganges Grandmasters will also lead the same teams as last year.
Three new top boards are the world No 2, Hikaru Nakamura, for the league newcomers American Gambits, Anish Giri of the Netherlands for Alaskan Knights, and the two-time world finalist Ian Nepomniachtchi for Triveni Continental Kings, champions of the inaugural league season.
The games will be played at rapid chess time limits, with a minimum of three games a day between icon players. Last year’s inaugural league season ended dramatically with a missed checkmate in one.
3930: 1...f3! 2 Rf2 Qe7+! 3 Kh5 Qe8+! 4 Kg5 Qxe5 mate. This victory advanced Vaishali into the women’s world top 10.
