The Week in Chess

Today is Anatoly Karpov's 74th birthday and the event celebrating the 50th anniversary of him becoming world champion finished. Ian Nepomniachtchi won the event with 6/9 half a point clear of Alexander Grischuk and Vladislav Artemiev.

Magnus Carlsen made easy work of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the Grand Final of the Chess.com Classic. He said afterwards he had hoped it would be good practice for the Norway Chess starting on Monday but it wasn't because he'd made such quick work of winning. I give very light notes to all three games. The 12 qualifiers for the Esports World Cup in Riyadh are: Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Arjun Erigaisi, Alireza Firouzja, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Fabiano Caruana, Vladislav Artemiev, Wei Yi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Vladimir Fedoseev.

The 30th Sigeman & Co tournament continues to supply the most interesting stories this week. 13 year old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus beat Richard Rapport and he is in the joint lead with Javokhir Sindarov on 3/4. Tan Zhongyi won another game, Vasyl Ivanchuk was down to the increment for a while and lost on time, failing to make move 28, Ivanchuk stood better but Tan had earlier turned down a forced draw by perpetual check. Nils Grandelius and Ray Robson drew in 74 moves.

Vincent Keymer did try for a seventh win in the German Championships, and had a winning position at one point, before going down in flames in time trouble. It's a bit sad really, eventually players learn to take a quick draw after they've secured first place, I imagine after similar losses and of course that's not really what we want. Dinara Wagner won the women's event after beating Hanna Marie Klek 2-0 in a rapid tie-break, they'd tied on 6.5/9.

Anish Giri leads the Sharjah Masters after a round 7 draw with Nodirbek Abdusattorov. His former co-leader Aleksandar Indjic lost to Saleh Salem. There was also Round 2 of the French Interclubs Top 16.