Grand Chess Tour Paris 2016 Blitz Day 1 Results and Standings

After the first round robin blitz games (9 games), Carlsen led with 7 points, ahead of Nakamura by half a point. See standings below:

# Name Pts SB
1 Carlsen, Magnus 7.0 30.25
2 Nakamura, Hikaru 6.5 24.50
3 Caruana, Fabiano 5.5 20.00
4 Aronian, Levon 5.0 20.50
5 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime 4.5 20.50
Kramnik, Vladimir 4.5 16.50
Giri, Anish 4.5 15.25
8 So, Wesley 3.0 12.75
9 Topalov, Veselin 2.5 11.75
10 Fressinet, Laurent 2.0 6.50

Replay the games played so far (Rounds 1-9 of Blitz games): Grand Chess Tour Paris 2016 – Blitz Round.

Blitz games Day 2

The countdown is done. You may catch the games LIVE: Grand Chess Tour Paris 2016 Blitz Games

Photo courtesy of the Grand Chess Tour.

Wesley So beats Magnus Carlsen in Grand Chess Tour Paris 2016 — Rapid Round 1

The Grand Chess Tour 2016 has started, and first stop was Paris, France. The Paris leg is composed of 10-player Round Robin Rapid and 10-player Double Round Robin Blitz games. Check out results and standings of the tournament.

What made this tournament really exciting is that right at the start of the tournament, in round 1 of the rapid games, GM Wesley So defeated the World Champion Magnus Carlsen.

Chessbase reports:

World Champion Magnus Carlsen is top favorite in Paris but the tournament did not start well for him. In the first round Carlsen played with White against Wesley So and with bold and creative play the World Champion reached a completely winning position in which he had two queens against queen and knight. But then he could not make up his mind which winning move he should play and lost on time – a bitter loss particularly so because the rapid games are played with a time-limit of 25 minutes for the whole game and a 10-second increment per move.

Apparently, Carlsen was winning the Rapid Round 1 game but lost on time.

Check out the game below. Also, you may also replay all round 1 games.

Viktor Korchnoi dies at the age of 85

Chess.com news:

In a bad year for sports legends, the chess world is not staying behind. Today Viktor Korchnoi died at the age of 85 in a hospital in Wohlen, Switzerland. Korchnoi had been ill for some time and was hospitalized last week after suffering from internal bleeding

Viktor Korchnoi was considered by many as one of the most underrated players in the world of chess. He was mentioned as such by Magnus Carlsen in his interview