ChessHive Tactics #7
[tactics_fen code=”r1k2bnr/2p1p1pp/p1P1b3/4N3/3Q4/4P3/PP1NKP1P/q7 w – – 0 1″ result=”mate in six”]
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Month: February 2017
Altibox Norway Chess 2017 – World’s Strongest Chess Tournament
Dubbed as the World’s Strongest Chess Tournament, Altibox Norway Chess 2017, which is scheduled to happen June 5 to 17 this year, was able to gather to play the current (February 2017) top 10 players in the world:
- World chess champion, Magnus Carlsen (Norway)
- Wesley So (USA)
- Fabiano Caruana (USA)
- Vladimir Kramnik (Russia)
- Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France)
- Hikaru Nakamura (USA)
- Viswanathan Anand (India)
- Levon Aronian (Armenia)
- Sergey Karjakin (Russia)
- Anish Giri (The Netherlands)
From its website:
Grand Chess Tour 2017 Schedule and Confirmed Participants (so far)
Eight of the top ten players are set to participate in the 2017 edition of the Grand Chess Tour. One rapid and blitz event was added to the events line-up from last year, i.e., the Saint Louis Rapid, which should follow soon after the Sinquefield Cup.
It’s a great year ahead, indeed, for chess fans for 2017.
2017 Grand Chess Tour Schedule
Nakamura wins Gibraltar 2017 title
Hikaru Nakamura and Yu Yangyi won their respective games in the final Round 10 of Tradewise Gibraltar Masters 2017, to get a shot at the title when David Antón Guijarro drew his game against Michael Adams.
At the end of Round 10, Guijarro, Nakamura, and Yu were tied, thus necessitated a playoff:
Tradewise Gibraltar Masters 2017 Final Ranking
[csvtable file=”http://chesshive.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/gibraltar-final.csv”]
Guijarro leads Gibraltar 2017 with 1 round to go
GM David Anton Guijarro
David Anton Guijarro beats Veselin Topalov in the penultimate Round 9 of Tradewise Gibraltar Masters 2017 ([replay]) to take the solo lead with 1 round to go. He might only be the 24th seed (ELO 2650) coming into this tournament, but he finds himself ahead of household names in the chess world such as Hikaru Nakamura, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Michael Adams, Boris Gelfand, and especially Fabiano Caruana.
Caruana is having a hard time in this tournament after he lost to Nigel Short in the 6th round and drew with several lower rated players in earlier rounds before that, thus he’s at No. 12 in the ranking after Round 9. He’s currently at 3rd place in the live ratings with 2819.7. He’s set to face Varuzhan Akobian in the final round.
February 2017 FIDE Ratings Update: Wesley So is No. 3
Following his outstanding performance in Tata Steel Masters 2017, Wesley So is now the world’s number 3 in the official FIDE Ratings List, with a rating of 2822.
Despite the Live Ratings indicating So as now No. 2 after Fabiano Caruana dropped some ELO points to today’s 2820, Caruana’s sub-optimal performance from Gibraltar are not yet in for the official tally.
Levon Aronian gained some ELO points as well from Tata Steel, to settle for 7th to 8th place, with a rating of 2785.