13th December 2015 LONDON CHESS CLASSIC DAY 9 ROUND-UP Yesterday’s round-up predicted it could be a late night at the Olympia Conference Centre on the last day of the London Chess Classic, but little did the fans know they were in for a high intensity 10-hour chess marathon. Magnus Carlsen, winner of the London Chess Classic and of the Grand Chess Tour The final and decisive round had started at the usual 2 pm weekend kick-off time and, for the seventh time in the tournament, there were four draws and one decisive result. Adams-Caruana, Aronian-Vachier Lagrave, Anand-Giri and Nakamura-Topalov were all balanced draws. The one decisive result (which was incidentally also the last game to finish) was crucial as Magnus Carlsen ultimately got the better of Alexander Grischuk. Carlsen was very lucky as Grischuk first missed a promising continuation with 30...Rxg4, then a forced draw, before sacrificing a rook for a non- existent perpetual check. Both players made the same oversight. This last-gasp win enabled Carlsen to join Giri and Vachier-Lagrave in the lead and thus force a 3-way play-off. As stipulated by the official regulations, ‘The two players placed lowest on tiebreak shall contest a two game Rapidplay match at a time limit of Game / 25 mins + 5 secs / move throughout’, which meant Giri and Vachier- Lagrave would have to face off first for the right to challenge Carlsen for tournament victory. In the first game, Giri opted for a Berlin (another one!) with the black pieces and played a perfect game to score an all-important victory. All he needed now, to advance to the final, was a draw with White. However, Vachier-Lagrave hadn’t said his last word and after a balanced game, he managed to snatch the required win, when instead of finding a forced draw with 57.Re5!, Giri went astray with 57.Ne5?. Maxime also went on to win the toss for the ensuing Armageddon game and decided to play with Black, meaning he ‘just’ needed a draw to advance to the final. However, he did more than that as he outplayed Giri and eventually even won as Giri was trying to avoid a repetition at all costs. The start of the decisive play-off between Carlsen and Vachier-Lagrave It was 9.45 pm when the final between Carlsen and Vachier-Lagrave kicked off. This match would not only decide the winner of the London Chess Classic, but also of the Grand Chess Tour. In an incredible turn of events, if Maxime decided the play-off in his favour, he and Magnus would finish on equal points in the overall standings and another play-off would be required (which was scheduled for Monday afternoon by agreement with the players) to determine the GCT winner. However, it didn’t come down to this as the World Champion dominated both games; winning the first and offering a draw in a won position in the second. It was 11.38 pm when that draw was agreed and Magnus Carlsen was declared the winner of both the London Chess Classic and the Grand Chess Tour. It was a very bitter end to the tournament for the Frenchman, but for World Champion Magnus Carlsen on the other hand this will have come as a big relief after a somewhat difficult year in 2015. On the plus side, not only is this his fourth victory at the London Chess Classic (out of five) but it is also his fourth classical tournament victory in 2015 (after Tata Steel Chess, Grenke Chess Classic and Shamkir Chess) - he could even make it a fifth at the Qatar Masters, which starts in just under a week. As Magnus put it himself after clinching first place, ‘The highs have been pretty high this year; it’s just that the lows have been lower than they usually are’. Carlsen’s performance is all the more impressive considering he started the Grand Chess Tour in the worst possible way when he inadvertently lost the first round of Norway Chess on time in a winning position, and only finished in 7th place on his home turf. Furthermore, the World Champion was never in the lead of the Tour throughout any of the three events but, as so many times before, he showed his impressive fighting spirit as after six consecutive draws in London, he won two of the last three games to force a play-off and eventually win it all! Now that all is done and dusted, the nine qualifiers for the 2016 Grand Chess Tour are Carlsen, Giri and Aronian (by virtue of finishing in the top three of the 2015 GCT), as well as Kramnik, Nakamura, Caruana, Anand Topalov and So (by 2015’s average FIDE rating). The dates for the three tournaments are already known: Norway Chess 16-29 April, Sinquefield Cup 19 August-2 September and London Chess Classic 30 November-13 December. Luke McShane, winner of the Super Rapidplay with 9.5/10! In the Super Rapidplay, Luke McShane carried his superb form into day two, as he rushed to a perfect 9/9, securing tournament victory with a round to go. In the last round, he was held to a draw by Alex Lenderman, but he nevertheless left second-place finisher Hrant Melkumyan a whole point behind him. A total of nine players shared third place with 8/10, including British Knockout Championship runner-up Nicholas Pert and IM David Eggleston, who was perhaps the biggest surprise of the tournament. You can find the complete final standings and all details online now. You can now read John Saunders’ excellent detailed report of round 9 on the London Chess Classic website. You can also find photo galleries of the Classic, the Junior events and other events on Ray Morris-Hill’s website. All the results and tournament details are up on the LCC website, while you can download the PGN files of the games by clicking on the following links: London Chess Classic: http://pgn.londonchessclassic.com/gct/09/games.pgn Super Rapidplay: http://www.londonchessclassic.com/replay/games_replay_superrp15.htm Fiona Steil-Antoni Press Officer Email: [email protected] Website: www.londonchessclassic.com/ Twitter: @LondonChess2015 .