The Week in Chess

The Sinquefield Cup started with all games finishing decisively. Veselin Topalov the leader of the Grand Chess Tour won the final game to finish against World Champion Magnus Carlsen.

Carlsen seemed to surprised by the move 7...g5 in the Sicilian, a known idea and risked a piece sacrifice that initially paid off and he may have even been better but perhaps in the kind of position he doesn't enjoy and afterwards he wondered if he shouldn't have sacrificed the piece. 17.e5 was an error that again gave Topalov the advantage and it was one way traffic after 17..Qc6! Carlsen said that he's worried that he's blundering and also criticised his lack of practicality in taking so long to sacrifice the piece as he intended it after Na3 and there was no way back. Topalov thought it was an OK game. He was shocked by Carlsen's piece sacrifice "it's not what white's supposed to do." "In his time trouble he allowed me to do everything more or less."

Levon Aronian won an ultra-sharp struggle against Fabiano Caruana where black's preparation left lots of weaknesees but with ideas of his own. However Caruana wasn't accurate and after 25.Ne4 giving up a rook Aronian had a crushing attack which he transformed into an endgame win.

Wesley So grabbed a pawn with white in unfavourable circumstances and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave punished him fully.

Anish Giri was very convincing against Alexander Grischuk with an advantage from the opening and Grischuk;s habitual extreme time pressure led to a sudden finish.

Hikarua Nakamura played for a tiny nagging advantage against Viswanathan Anand and was rewarded with a poor move 35...f5 from Anand which led to a win in only 8 more moves.

Round 1 Standings: Topalov, Nakamura, Giri, Aronian, Vachier-Lagrave 1pt Carlsen, Anand, Caruana, So and Grischuk 0pts.

Round 2 pairings: Grischuk-Anand, Topalov-Nakamura, Caruana-Carlsen, Vachier-Lagrave, Giri-So.