Sinquefield Cup Begins with a b5 Bang for Anand

The seventh annual Sinquefield Cup began on August 17th at the Saint Louis Chess Club, with twelve of the top players in the World competing for over $300,000 in prize money, as well as Grand Chess Tour points. The round started out quietly, as most games steered toward draws, starting with Karjakin-Mamedyarov.  The most promising middlegame, in Aronian-Vachier-Lagrave ended in repetition about two hours into play.

[pgn]

[Event "7th Sinquefield Cup 2019"]
[Site "Saint Louis USA"]
[Date "2019.08.17"]
[Round "1.4"]
[White "Aronian, Levon"]
[Black "Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "A48"]
[WhiteElo "2765"]
[BlackElo "2778"]
[PlyCount "50"]
[EventDate "2019.08.17"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Nbd2 d5 4. e3 Bg7 5. b4 a5 6. b5 c5 7. bxc6 Nxc6 8. Be2
O-O 9. O-O Bf5 10. c3 Qc7 11. a4 e5 12. Ba3 Rfc8 13. Rc1 e4 14. Nh4 Be6 15. g3
g5 16. Ng2 Qd7 17. f3 exf3 18. Bxf3 Bf5 19. Qb3 Bd3 20. Rf2 Qe6 21. Qd1 b6 22.
Nf1 Be4 23. Nd2 Bd3 24. Nf1 Be4 25. Nd2 Bd3 1/2-1/2

[/pgn]

Grand Chess Tour Champion Hikaru Nakamura, who is currently ranked #1 in the World in Blitz, fought for an edge in his game against World (Classical) #2 Fabiano Caruana. Fabi defended well and that game also ended in a draw.

[pgn]

[Event "7th Sinquefield Cup 2019"]
[Site "Saint Louis USA"]
[Date "2019.08.17"]
[Round "1.2"]
[White "Nakamura, Hikaru"]
[Black "Caruana, Fabiano"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "C80"]
[WhiteElo "2743"]
[BlackElo "2818"]
[PlyCount "85"]
[EventDate "2019.08.17"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Nxe4 6. d4 Be7 7. Re1 b5 8.
Rxe4 d5 9. Nxe5 Nxe5 10. Rxe5 bxa4 11. b3 Be6 12. Ba3 Bxa3 13. Nxa3 O-O 14. Nb1
Qd6 15. Nc3 axb3 16. axb3 c5 17. Ne2 f6 18. Re3 c4 19. Ng3 cxb3 20. cxb3 g6 21.
Qf3 Bf7 22. h3 Rfe8 23. Rxe8+ Rxe8 24. Qd3 Re6 25. Nf1 Qb6 26. Ne3 Rc6 27. h4
Kg7 28. h5 Qb4 29. Ng4 Be6 30. h6+ Kf7 31. Ne3 a5 32. Qd1 Rc3 33. Ra4 Qxb3 34.
Qxb3 Rxb3 35. Rxa5 g5 36. Ra7+ Kg6 37. Ra6 Kf7 38. g4 Rb4 39. Ra7+ Kg6 40. Ra6
Kf7 41. Ra7+ Kg6 42. Ra6 Kf7 43. Ra7+ 1/2-1/2

[/pgn]

The World Champion showed a nice tactical possibility against GM Anish Giri in the post-mortem. https://twitter.com/anishgiri/status/1162837611498692609 The actual game ended in a well played draw when Anish played the more obvious 27...Rxa8 instead of Rf8.

[pgn]

[Event "7th Sinquefield Cup 2019"]
[Site "Saint Louis USA"]
[Date "2019.08.17"]
[Round "1.1"]
[White "Carlsen, Magnus"]
[Black "Giri, Anish"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "A28"]
[WhiteElo "2882"]
[BlackElo "2779"]
[PlyCount "72"]
[EventDate "2019.08.17"]

1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e5 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. e4 Bb4 5. d3 d6 6. Be2 Bg4 7. a3 Bc5 8. b4
Bb6 9. Be3 Bxf3 10. Bxf3 Nd4 11. Na4 Nxf3+ 12. Qxf3 Bxe3 13. Qxe3 O-O 14. O-O
Re8 15. Nc3 a5 16. b5 c6 17. Rab1 d5 18. Na4 Qe7 19. bxc6 bxc6 20. cxd5 cxd5
21. Nb6 Rad8 22. Rb5 Qxa3 23. exd5 e4 24. dxe4 Qxe3 25. fxe3 Rxe4 26. Rxa5 Rb4
27. Ra8 Rxa8 28. Nxa8 Nxd5 29. Rd1 Rb8 30. Rxd5 Rxa8 31. Kf2 Kf8 32. Kf3 h6 33.
Kf2 Ra2+ 34. Kf3 Ra8 35. Kf2 Ra2+ 36. Kf3 Ra8 1/2-1/2

[/pgn]

Ding Liren and Wesley So also drew their game, so it left only Ian Nepomniachtchi-Vishy Anand, and the six-time World Champion pressed and pressed till it looked like the final game would also be drawn in a rook and knight vs. rook ending. Until Ian Nepomniachtchi committed a fatal blunder in this position.

Position after Kc4??

Show Solution Upon victory and post-game interview, the Indian legend descended the staircase and was greeted with raucous applause. He enters round two of the Sinquefield Cup with a clear lead. Sinquefield Cup quick links Grand Chess Tour homepage and live games starting at 1:50 ET YouTube channel (archives and live show) YouTube Russian stream Round 1  Grand Chess Tour twitter GCT tour standings