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By IM Kostya Kavutskiy

Check out the full replay of live coverage from the day here. The event features Chess 960 (aka Fischer Random), a chess variant where the starting position of the pieces is randomized along the first rank. The tournament format is a 10-player round-robin, with a time control of 20 minutes per side plus a 5-second increment added every move.

Going into the final day Sevian and Aronian were tied for the lead with 4/6. While Aronian could only manage to draw against So, Sevian was able to defeat Kasparov, after the former World Champion overstepped the time limit while trying to defend a pawn down.

Also winning was Caruana, who defeated Xiong from the black side in nice positional style:

Xiong - Caruana: final position after 32...Ng5 0-1

Navigating the Ruy Lopez Vol.1-3

The Ruy Lopez is one of the oldest openings which continues to enjoy high popularity from club level to the absolute world top. In this video series, American super GM Fabiano Caruana, talking to IM Oliver Reeh, presents a complete repertoire for White.

Two wins by Fabiano Caruana would give him a clear shot at first in the final round | Photo: Crystal Fuller

In the penultimate round Sevian drew with Xiong, maintaining his lead but allowing others a chance to reach him. Aronian, just a half-point behind Sevian, lost to Caruana after flagging in a difficult position, leaving Caruana in second place going into the final round.

Also winning to enter the tie for second was Shankland, who refuted a faulty Greek Gift sacrifice from Kasparov to win his second straight game as well:

Shankland - Kasparov: after 22.Nf4 Black was forced to resign, as h5 is falling next

Sam Shankland | Photo: Crystal Fuller

The final round featured the crucial match Caruana-Sevian, with Caruana needing to win in order to overtake first place. A sharp battle ensued, with the critical moment occurring when Sevian went all-out for an attack, finding a stunning bishop sacrifice in order to get his heavy pieces in front of Whites king. Caruana was simply unable to defend the position and Sevian clinched tournament victory as he was soon to deliver mate.

Caruana-Sevian: 18...Bxb2!! was a stunner, with the idea 19.Kxb2 Rgg6!-+, lifting the second rook in order to hunt down Whites king

Shankland would go on to draw against Xiong, leaving him in second place with 6/9, while Aronian and So both managed to win their final games, as So converted an extra pawn in the endgame against Robson while Aronian took down Nakamura thanks to a vicious counterattack on the queenside.

Good prep pays off! Shankland chose the right player to analyse with | Photo: Lennart Ootes

So scored 2/3 to sneak into the tie for second | Photo: Lennart Ootes

A second-place finish for Levon Aronian as well | Photo: Lennart Ootes

See more here:
Sevian beats Kasparov and Caruana to win Chess 9LX tournament - ChessBase

The original Pragmatic Sanction was an edict issued by Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, on 19 April 1713. It ended that the Habsburg monarchy, the extensive territories of which included the Archduchy of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary, could be inherited by a daughter undivided. Division would have irrevocably weakened the Empire, whose proud, if enigmatic motto, was AEIOU. Not just a mnemonic for the vowels, but actually standing for the orgulous assertion: Alle Erde Ist sterreich Untertan (the whole world is subject to Austria). That daughter turned out to be the Empress Maria Theresa, who did eventually succeed, but only after the (with hindsight inevitable) War of the Austrian Succession.

And what of the chess succession, now that Magnus Carlsen has renounced his world title and elected to transform himself into the king over the water?

One of my recurring nightmares used to be that the teenage Indian Grandmaster Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (born 10 August 2005) would qualify for a world title match against Ian Nepomniachtchi. That would create such a tongue twister as to make it almost impossible to report on the contest for lay persons. The chess correspondent would be obliged to resort to the somewhat disrespectful abbreviations Pragg and Nepo.

Availing myself of the aforementioned abbreviated escape route, Pragg qualified as an International Master at the age of 10, the youngest at the time to do so, and as a Grandmaster at the age of 12, the second-youngest at the time. On 22 February 2022, aged 16, he became the youngest player to defeat the then world champion Magnus Carlsen, when he beat the Norwegian in a rapidplay game at the Airthings Masters Tournament.

A bald statistical narrative of the prodigys subsequent triumphs reveals the rapid upwards curve of his meteoric career. In July 2019, Pragg won the Xtracon Chess Open in Denmark, scoring 8/10 points (+70=3). On 12 October 2019, he took gold in the World Youth Championships Under-18 section with a score of 9/11. In December 2019, he graduated as the second-youngest person to achieve a rating of 2600. He accomplished this feat when aged only 14 years, 3 months and 24 days, about the same age when (as the Jurassic period gave way to the Cretaceous) I was persuading the Committee of the Battersea Chess club to permit a 14 year old to actually enter the club championship.

In April 2021, Pragg went on to win the Polgar Challenge, the first leg (out of four) of the Julius Baer Challengers Chess Tour, a rapid online event organized by Julius Baer Group and chess24.com for young talents. He scored 15.5/19, 1.5 points ahead of the next best placed competitors. This win helped him qualify for the next Meltwater Champions Chess Tour on 24 April 2021, where he finished in 10th place with a score of 7/15 (+4-5=6). This included wins against the leading grandmasters Teimour Radjabov, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Sergey Karjakin (who still retains the record of becoming the youngest grandmaster) and Johan-Sebastian Christiansen. Pragg drew against the still regnant World Champion Magnus Carlsen.

On 20 February 2022, Pragg distinguished himself as only the third Indian player (after Anand and Harikrishna) to win a game against Carlsen (see below) in any time format, in the online Airthings Masters rapid tournament of the Champions Chess Tour. At the Chessable Masters tournament later that year, he defeated Carlsen once again, his second win over him in 3 months, and advanced to the finals. He also defeated Carlsen no fewer than three times in the FTX Crypto Cup 2022, finishing second behind Carlsen in the final standings.

And for his latest trick In the recently concluded FID Chess World Cup 2023, held in Baku, the former home town of Garry Kasparov, 18-year-old Pragg emerged as the worlds youngest player ever to have reached the Chess World Cup final. Pragg had defeated the former challengers Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana in tie-breaks in the semi-final. His match in the final against the now former World Champion Magnus Carlsen resulted in a defeat in the rapid tie-breaks. This was sufficient, nevertheless, to secure Pragg an honourable second place, as well as confirmed qualification for the 2024 Candidates Tournament to determine the challenger for the new World Champion Ding Liren.

Although Pragg succumbed to Carlsen in the Baku Final, the Indian teenager has Future World Champion indelibly inscribed on the Sibylline prophecies of his future destiny. Perhaps, in years to come, when the Magnus star has faded, Pragg may seize the world title and restore the traditional situation whereby the incumbent world champion and the world number one are identical. By renouncing his champions title, yet still continuing to notch up victory after victory, Carlsen has devalued the title to the point where it is practically worthless. The chess world now awaits a new Praggmatic Sanction, the triumph of Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, to restore the succession of the world championship to its accustomed lustre.

And now, that afore-mentioned game from the Airthings Masters Tournament:

Magnus Carlsen vs. Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa

And as an extra, a video link to the always excellent Agdamators column on YouTube, featuring a game from my youth, back in the Cretaceous Period, against Fielder from the Battersea Club championship.

Raymond Keenes book Fifty Shades of Ray: Chess in the year of the Coronavirus, containing some of his best pieces fromTheArticle, is now available from Blackwells . Meanwhile, Rays206th book, Chess in the Year of the King, with a forewordby TheArticle contributor Patrick Heren, and written in collaboration with former Reuters chess correspondent, Adam Black, has just appeared and is also available from the same source or from Amazon

Continued here:
Praggmatic Sanction: the ascent of an Indian chess prodigy - TheArticle

FPS Chess is, as its name suggests, chess, with a first-person twist. Then again, the title also raises a good question: is chess already played in first person? When we sit down to a match, are we assuming the role of a general, surveying the carved pastures of war? Or are we narrators at a third-person remove, telling the story of each piece, as it slides toward ruin or triumph?

The crux of FPS Chess, which released last year on Steam, and which you can download free of charge, is simple. Seated in a warm study (bookshelf, crackling hearth, model train humming over a prairie of carpet), you play a match against someone online: a friend or a stranger. No character sits opposite you, and both your pieces and your opponent's move of their own accord, hopping where you point. Though, it must be said, no actual pointing is done. Unlike Inscryption - another game about a game, which enfolded you in wood and warm darkness but had nastiness on the cards-no hands reach out.

Every time a piece attempts a capture, we cut to first person for the ensuing bout. Battle is joined on the board and off, tumbling from the table onto the chairs and shelves, into the fire, even onto the carriages of the train. At this point, one might presume that any connection to real chess has wobbled off the rails; in truth, it has merely taken an unexpected track. FPS Chess encases the ancient game in the mechanics of the hero shooter, changing the patterns of its play; and in so doing it varnishes the pieces with character, lending their gestures a sharp, familiar purpose. Look at the bishops, brandishing Holy Hand Grenades and gliding, on borrowed wings, into battle. And watch the queen, wielding a Gatling gun and hurling pieces with regal telepathy. Pick a fight with her, and you feel as you did at the approach of a Big Sister, in BioShock 2. The world cracks and panic floods in.

FPS Chess pays homage to its inspiration by breaking its rules. Thus, it joins the ranks of variations that have hovered at the margins of chess throughout history. Think of Chess960, dreamed up by Bobby Fischer, which randomises the placement of pieces, in an effort to drag players out of the dusty realms of theoryA and into a domain of pure and unhinged creativity. Dunsany's chess, meanwhile, arms Black with a traditional setup but equips White with a battalion of thirty-two pawns. Its creator, Lord Dunsany, fought in the First World War, so perhaps it's little wonder that he bequeathed us an asymmetric horde mode. Chess may have arrived, early in the eighth century, in remarkably recognisable form, and it may not have been lavished with many patches or any substantial post-launch content. But with a modding community like this, who cares?

These variants may cease to be chess, but they never cease to be about chess. In mocking its rules, they tease out fresh meaning. They remind us that to lampoon is, fundamentally, an act of love, and they press the game through the obsessed prism of their makers. Hence the enduring image of FPS Chess, the one we see at the end of each confrontation: the defeated piece cracked, and crumbling into powdery shards. You relish the theatre, you appreciate the way the antique game has been toyed with and broken up, if only for a brief moment, but you know that the next move awaits, and the one after. The game underneath is untouched, standing firm even as it falls to pieces.

Original post:
FPS Chess joins the ranks of rulebreakers teasing new meaning from the game - Eurogamer.net

NEW DELHI: 18-year-old Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa took the 'Tata Steel Chess India Blitz 2023' by storm, notching an impressive five consecutive wins on the tournament's opening day. As the dust settled, Praggnanandhaa stood tall with a commanding lead, amassing 6.5 points by day's end. This stellar performance came hot on the heels of his joint third-place finish in the 'Tata Steel Chess India Rapid 2023' the previous day. On this occasion, Praggnanandhaa's winning streak was temporarily halted by Russian Grandmaster Alexander Grischuk, who managed to secure a draw in the sixth round. However, the Indian prodigy experienced a pair of setbacks in rounds seven and eight, succumbing to successive defeats. Showing resilience and determination, he regrouped and finished the day on a high note, securing a win against compatriot Arjun Erigaisi in the final round. In the overall standings after nine rounds, Praggnanandhaa leads with 6.5 points, closely pursued by Vidit Gujarathi and Alexander Grischuk, both accumulating six points. Notable highlights of Praggnanandhaa's impressive run include his victories over Azerbaijani GM Teimour Radjabov, rapid champion Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France, and German GM Vincent Keymar. His tactical finesse and endgame mastery shone through as he continued his unbeaten streak, defeating Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan and Indian GM Harikrishna Pentala. Although he faced an 86-move draw against Grischuk, Praggnanandhaa's remarkable journey was briefly interrupted by Vidit Gujarathi's clutch victory. He suffered another setback with a loss to D Gukesh in the eighth round. Nevertheless, Praggnanandhaa's rapid recovery and an impressive win against GM Erigaisi in the final round reinforced his position at the top of the leaderboard. Praggnanandhaa's extraordinary performance at the Tata Steel Chess India Blitz 2023 solidified his reputation as a rising star in the world of chess. (With inputs from PTI)

Read more here:
Tata Steel Chess India Blitz: Praggnanandhaa scores five successive wins to lead with 6.5 points - Times of India

Who knew that the light-hearted Chess Clash event would almost bring the downfall of Chess.com? After CCO Danny Rensch irresponsibly bet the company's ownership on clan Barbarian's win, clan King emerged with a victory, giving Ludwig the right to run Chess.com.

Fortunately, Ludwig took the high road and refused to take over the website, making only a few small requests in return:

The event featured 16 players divided into two clans (King and Barbarian) of four duos, each with a chess and a Clash creator. Clans competed in a set of three chess challenges and three Clash challenges, followed by a Clash of Clans Finale. Clans earned two extra minutes to play the Finale for each challenge they won.

How to watch Chess Clash

You can find all the action of Chess Clash here as part of our live events platform.

Live commentary provided by Ludwig, IM Danny Rensch, and Clash With Eric.

A lot of ups and downs defined the first challenge of the day. Clash creator Cristinini impressed fans and commentators alike when she quickly found overwhelming tactics to win her game for the Kings. Sadly, her clan mate Sapnap soon found a Botez Gambit to equalize the score:

With Clash With Ash losing his game against Xokas, it was up to SirTagCR to tie the score with the help of GM Aman Hambleton. SirTag's job looked easy when he took his opponent's last piece and still had a rook on the board, but this is an amateur event we all know it's not really an amateur event unless there's at least one stalemate, right?

With that magnificent throw, the Kings won the first challenge with a 2.5-1.5 score, winning an extra two minutes for the Finale.

Two things became abundantly clear as the second challenge started. The first is that Clash of Clans is an extremely complex game. The second is that chess skills do not transfer to other strategy games at all, as Clash specialist Clash With Eric's comments revealed.

Ironically, grandmaster Aman went to battle without training an army, which is the equivalent of playing a chess game without developing the pieces. That was not a good sign for clan Barbarian.

Aman further complicated matters for his clans by only getting one star on his second attack. However, Rey Enigma, from clan King, somehow took things a step further and didn't win a single star after both of his tries.

Sadly for clan Barbarian (and Danny), Kevin Bordi also underperformed with only four stars. Clan King finished the second challenge with another win and two more minutes on their clock for the Finale.

The third challenge began with a thrilling battle where OJ and Wirtual defeated Clash With Ash and Anna Cramling. The game came down to the wire after OJ launched a massive attack against his opponent's King Towera risky strategy that paid off.

Paired with SirTag, Aman took his opportunity to redeem himself. Their duo was the only one to pull a 4-0 victory, destroying all enemy towers without losing any of theirs.

The challenge eventually ended in a draw, giving each team one extra minute for the Finale.

With many Puzzle Rush addicts in their clan, the Barbarians were the clear favorite to win the fourth challenge. Still, it was King's Levy Rozman who stole the spotlight. Levy pulled off an impressive 47-point run, not only the highest among all participants but also the highest of his life:

That was not enough to give the Kings the win, though. Clan Barbarian won the challenge, bringing down the King's time advantage in the Finale to only two minutes.

The fifth challenge was another close one, with most matches ending in 1-1 ties. To Danny's (momentary) relief, the Barbarians eventually won, thanks to the efforts of Kevin Bordi and Domingo, the only duo to win 2-0.

The challenge win allowed the Barbarians to catch up on the Finale clock.

And then, it was time for Spell Chess. The wild variant lived up to its promise, with creators playing some of the craziest games of the entire event.

And while jumping and freezing spells are always fun to watch, there's nothing quite like witnessing the magic of a dirty flag.

Aman and Anna Cramling did the heavy lifting for the Barbarians, winning 4-0, as did Cristinini and OJ for the Kings. King's Rey Enigma beat Alexandra Botez 3-1, a score repeated by Barbarian's Domingo against Sapnap. Levy and Kevin tied 2-2, just like Clash With Ash and Xokas.

Yes, despite all the craziness, the challenge ended in a tie. Both teams got one more minute for the Finale, leveling the playing fieldor so we thought.

With both clans having the same exact amount of time on their clock, the Finale should've been a fair fight. But tragedy struck the Barbarians when Aman once more decided to go to battle without an army:

The grandmaster eventually got a hold of the situation and even played well, conducting multiple three-star attacks. However, it was already too late. The King's players played Clash of Clans slightly better than their counterparts, finishing the Finale with a whopping 31-star advantage to win the event.

Chess.com and Supercell donated $50,000 to the Healthy Gamer Foundation thanks to the clans' 243 earned stars during the Finale.

For their event victory, each King clan member also won five Royal Passes on Clash of Clans and Clash Royale, 100 worth of gems, and Chess.com bots in their likeness (active until the beginning of November).

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$50000 Donated To Charity As Clan King Wins Chess Clash - Chess.com