3rd London Chess Classic Opens with a win for all the players

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3rd London Chess Classic 2011 (Opening)

3rd London Chess Classic Opens with a win for all the players

Mark Crowther - Saturday 3rd December 2011

IM Malcolm Pein opens the 3rd London Chess Classic with World Champion Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen on either side. Photo © Ray Morris-Hill:.

IM Malcolm Pein opens the 3rd London Chess Classic with World Champion Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen on either side. Photo © Ray Morris-Hill:. | http://www.rmhphoto.eu

The 3rd London Chess Classic opened with a press conference hosted by Tournament Director IM Malcolm Pein. He introduced the players which includes all of those rated over 2800. There was a brief question and answer for the players, Malcolm Pein explained the objectives of "Chess in Schools and the Communities" which has many activities during the tournament. This was followed by a relaxed twitter game where the players combined forces to beat moves suggested in a twitter feed. Round 1 Sat 3rd December 2011 2pm GMT Kramnik-Nakamura, Aronian-McShane, Carlsen-Howell, Adams-Anand, Short in commentary.

The 3rd London Chess Classic press conference. Photo © Ray Morris-Hill: http://www.rmhphoto.eu/

Tournament Director IM Malcolm Pein opened the 3rd London Chess Classic at a press conference where he introduced the players in a strong line-up which includes all the players over rated 2800 and above. World Chess Champion and World Number 2 Vishy Anand, World Number 1 Magnus Carlsen and new invitee World Number 3 Levon Aronian. This is the first time in history that four players have been rated over 2800 "we're absolutely delighted with that of course" as a piece of British Chess history.

The organisers expect over 2000 visitors to watch the games. There will be many amateur players who are going to compete in 10 different events FIDE rated tournaments, rapid, and blitz every night.

Malcolm Pein stressed the connection with "Chess in Schools and the Communities"

IM Malcolm Pein: We'll be welcoming children from all over the UK to Olympia for free coaching, a tournament and in addition they will be holding an enormous simultaneous display with 500 children on December 6th that is now oversubscribed it has proved so popular we've had to turn some schools away. There are five days of schools chess activities to which other children can come. In addition CSC is running two courses to train teachers how to teach chess which I think is the biggest impediment to expanding the base of the game in this country. So we're hoping to teach 50 people who, some play chess, some don't, how to teach chess in the classroom. So we'll be teaching them how to run up the curriculum we've been developing, and also we'll be teaching classroom skills for those who are already chess teachers.

There were a number of questions put to the players.

World Champion Anand, Malcolm Pein and Magnus Carlsen. Photo © Ray Morris-Hill: http://www.rmhphoto.eu/

Do you think you'll be playing in the World Chess Championships next time?

Magnus Carlsen "It's too early to say whether I'll be playing the World Chess Championship next year or whatever I don't think I have any real discussions with FIDE on that. Essentially I haven't been in much communication with them for a long time."

Michael Adams, Levon Aronian and Viswanathan Anand. Photo © Ray Morris-Hill: http://www.rmhphoto.eu/

Is Anand at a disadvantage playing in Moscow because Gelfand is a Russian speaker and originally from Belarus?

Viswanathan Anand "I don't think so, Boris feels very much at home in Moscow and definitely speaking the language is a help. But I've also been there a lot, and I'm quite familiar with the city. I don't think I'll be at a disadavantage."

Luke McShane. Photo © Ray Morris-Hill: http://www.rmhphoto.eu/

Having returned to a full time job have you managed much preparation for this event and do you plan to continue playing?

Luke McShane: I certainly haven't stopped playing and I have prepared, I suppose the disadvantage is that I haven't had as much time to prepare but it means that I've not been playing a lot of chess lately so that I'm all the more keen to play some good chess while I can.

Players gather round the board with the twitter game on it

Players in relaxed mood gather round the board with the twitter game on it. Photo © London Chess Classic taken from the live video feed available for all rounds http://goo.gl/V6qGB

The press conference finished with a fun exhibition game where members of the public suggested moves using twitter to be played against the Grandmasters in the tournament. As we saw with a similar exhibition by Magnus Carlsen the world had a few too many cooks trying different styles, and quickly was on the back foot (I didn't want to go all aggressive!). and finished off in 23 moves.

Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand. Kramnik's daughter tries to get his attention. Photo © Ray Morris-Hill: http://www.rmhphoto.eu/

The World on Twitter - London Chess Classic [B06]
London Classic Twitter Game London, 02.12.2011
[Pein,Malcolm]

1.e4 g6 2.d4 Nf6 3.e5 Nh5

Magnus couldn't resist this. It's a move once played by Tony Miles that Magnus took up but he lost to Michael Adams with it at the Olympiad.

4.Be2 d6 5.Bxh5

[5.Nf3 Nc6 6.exd6 exd6 7.d5 Ne7 8.c4 Bg7 9.Nc3 0-0 10.0-0 Bg4 11.Re1 Re8 12.h3 Bxf3 13.Bxf3 Nf6 14.Bf4 Nd7 15.Rc1 Ne5 16.b3 a6 17.g3 Nf5 18.Bg2 g5 19.Bxe5 Bxe5 20.Ne4 Ng7 21.Qd2 h6 22.f4 gxf4 23.gxf4 Bf6 24.Kh2 Nh5 25.Rg1 Kh7 26.Rcf1 Rg8 27.Qe2 Ng7 28.Qd3 Kh8 29.Bf3 b5 30.Bd1 bxc4 31.bxc4 Bh4 32.Bc2 f5 33.Rg6 Kh7 34.Rfg1 Qe7 35.Ng3 Bxg3+ 36.Qxg3 Qf7 37.Bd1 Rae8 38.Rxh6+ 1-0 Adams,M (2728)-Carlsen,M (2826)/Khanty-Mansiysk RUS 2010/The Week in Chess 829]

5...gxh5 6.Qxh5 dxe5 7.Qxe5 Rg8

The GMs have good play for a pawn here.

8.Nf3 Nc6 9.Qh5 Nxd4 10.Nxd4 Qxd4 11.0-0 Qe4 12.g3 Bg7

Classic Players