The Week in Chess

The first round of the GRENKE Chess Classic saw a fierce battle between World Champion Magnus Carlsen and his next challenger Fabiano Caruana. Carlsen as black seemed on course for victory as his unusual treatment of the opening gained him a large, advantage. However the win was not all that easy to achieve in reality, perhaps Carlsen relaxed and chose the wrong technical method, or just underestimated the problems because Caruana found a really strong defence that left a tricky Rook and Pawn endgame that Carlsen didn't even believe he could win. In fact he got a long way down the correct winning line suggested by computers but failed at the last difficult hurdle and had to settle for a draw.

Nikita Vitiugov punished Matthias Bluebaum in spectacular style for grabbing material. In an equal position 20.Bxc6 was risky and 24. Qxa7 allowed a brilliant finish 24... Ne4+ offering a knight 25. Kg1 and the decisive 25...Ra3!! offering a rook for mate.

Arkadij Naiditsch sacrificed a piece for a raging attack against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and while computers had him winning it was not at all that clear in a wild position and in the end MVL deserved to hold the draw.

Georg Meier against Levon Aronian was a complicated draw but probably didn't depart much from equality. Hou Yifan got some advantage against Viswanathan Anand after he gave up the exchange but a draw remained the likely result.

Round 1 standings: 1st Vitiugov 1pt, 2nd-9th Carlsen, Aronian, Vachier-Lagrave, Caruana, Anand, Naiditsch, Hou Yifan Meier 0.5pts 10th Bluebaum 0pts.

Round 2 2pm BST pairings: Carlsen-Hou Yifan, MVL-Anand, Aronian-Naiditsch, Vitiugov-Meier, Caruana-Bluebaum.