Orlando Chess at the Sinquefield Cup

Yesterday I saw this tweet from @LiChess and thought, "Don't I know the person sitting next to Rex Sinquefield?"

Man of the people Rex Sinquefield can often be found in the front row of the crowd watching the live broadcast at the chess club. pic.twitter.com/Ufc6xliDG1

— Lichess (@lichess) August 5, 2017

Today I got confirmation that it was someone I know. Lars & Jen Hansen's Orlando Chess House twitter account tweeted out the following:

At #SinquefieldCup in St Louis pic.twitter.com/oewKwHn3Ie

— Orlando Chess House (@OrlandoChess) August 6, 2017

Enjoying chess with old and new friends at #SinquefieldCup in St Louis pic.twitter.com/KQvppKcJSQ

— Orlando Chess House (@OrlandoChess) August 6, 2017

The Orlando crowd hanging out at #SinquefieldCup in St Louis pic.twitter.com/BO1z8gMYDI

— Orlando Chess House (@OrlandoChess) August 6, 2017

It turns out there's quite the Orlando crowd up there!

Tactics Time at the Sinquefield Cup

In round one of the Sinquefield Cup, Sergey Karjakin smashed Peter Svidler. In his recap for the Internet Chess Club, GM Ronen Har-Zvi spotted an incredible tactic that COULD have occurred. Here's the position, with White to move:
Take a look at see if you can work it out. I was able to spot the relevant ideas, but couldn't put them all together. I really enjoyed this combination, and hope you do as well. You can follow along with the video from the correct time here.

We've all been there.

Caruana: "I’m getting bad positions in the Queen’s Gambit Declined, so how much worse can the Benoni be?!" #SinquefieldCup #c24live

— chess24.com (@chess24com) August 8, 2016

The "Grand Chess Tour" is a joke.

I've tried to write this post a couple of times now. The topic just makes me too angry for coherence. The Grand Chess Tour, consists of the Stavangar Tournament in Norway, the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, and the London Chess Classic (not in Ohio). Players accumulate points in the overall standings based on their performances in the individual tournaments.

After the final tournament, concluded a week ago, Magnus Carlsen was declared the winner of both the London leg and the Tour as a whole. This last was due entirely to the most asinine tie-breaks ever used in the history of Chess. (Yes, I am including the time a Roulette wheel was used to settle the outcome of a Candidates Match between Huebner and Smyslov.) You can read about that The Chess Mind, in the perfectly named post Grand Chess Tour Tiebreaks: A System Than Which None Lesser Can Be Conceived.

The upshot is this: Despite only finishing on +1 for the tour, Carlsen finished first  in the overall standings, ahead of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (+2), Hikaru Nakamure (+3) and Anish Giri (+5). To add to the absurdity, Carlsen finished behind or tied with Giri and MVL in all three stages of the tour, yet still finished ahead of them in the standings! (Call Magnus the Tortoise of Chess.)

MVL really got hosed more than once, though. As recounted elsewhere, despite beating Giri in a tiebreak, he actually finished behind Giri in London. All these tiebreak shenanigans resulted in MVL missing out on qualifying for next year's Grand Chess Tour. So, not only does he get lesser prizes than deserved this year, he will miss out on next year's Tour as well, meaning he will miss three of the best (and most lucrative) tournaments of the year, plus whatever money he might have won for his placement in the tour next year. 

This is an egregious ... hmm, how to put this without using foul language? This is an egregious mistreatment of a player for playing well. But the Grand Chess Tour had already set a precedent for this when they didn't invite Karjakin this year, despite Karjakin having won the first two editions of the Stavangar Tournament ahead of Magnus Carlsen. So at least the GCT is consistent!

What a joke.