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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.

June 2016 FIDE Ratings List

No doubt, the reigning world champion is still on top with 2855, up 4 points from last month. But Vladimir Kramnik, from last month’s 2801, gained 11 more ELO points to take the second spot from Fabiano Caruana for this month’s official FIDE Ratings List June 2016.

Wesley So, although lost 5 points by virtue of his game 3 loss to Ding Liren, is still at No. 10, but now tied with Vishy Anand.

Here’s the current top 20 in the world:

Rk Name Fed Rtg Gms B-Year
1 Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2855 9 1990
2 Kramnik, Vladimir RUS 2812 14 1975
3 Caruana, Fabiano USA 2804 0 1992
4 Aronian, Levon ARM 2792 9 1982
5 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime FRA 2789 10 1990
6 Nakamura, Hikaru USA 2787 0 1987
7 Ding, Liren CHN 2783 4 1992
8 Giri, Anish NED 2782 9 1994
9 Karjakin, Sergey RUS 2774 3 1990
10 So, Wesley USA 2770 4 1993
11 Anand, Viswanathan IND 2770 0 1969
12 Harikrishna, P. IND 2764 9 1986
13 Topalov, Veselin BUL 2761 9 1975
14 Svidler, Peter RUS 2759 7 1976
15 Li, Chao b CHN 2758 9 1989
16 Eljanov, Pavel UKR 2751 9 1983
17 Grischuk, Alexander RUS 2747 8 1983
18 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar AZE 2746 9 1985
19 Navara, David CZE 2744 11 1985
20 Andreikin, Dmitry RUS 2743 9 1990

Chessbase lists the complete top 100 and discusses about the top climbers and descenders in the list, among others.

May 2016 FIDE Ratings List

The updated ratings for May 2016 are out. Here’s the the top 20:

FIDE-May-2016-Top-20

See how 80% of the Top 10 are 90’s babies, i.e., they were born in the 1990’s. It speaks volumes about the quality of computer support these kids got especially when they were starting out.

Anyway, Wesley So retains his hold onto the 10th place, ahead of two former world champions Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov.

The World Championship we are about to witness in November is between the No. 1 player Magnus Carlsen and No. 8 Sergey Karjakin. Looks like a heavily lopsided match to me, I dare say.

Check out the top 100 players here.

Carlsen ahead by a full point with 2 rounds to go at Norway Chess 2016

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Chessbase reports on Norway Chess: Carlsen and Aronian win:

In round seven Magnus Carlsen played against Vladimir Kramnik, one of his predecessors as World Champion. Carlsen seemed well prepared and won a fine strategic game in which he exploited Black’s weak square f5 in textbook fashion. Levon Aronian used his space advantage to harass Black’s king and to win with a mating attack. The three other games were drawn.

With the way Carlsen is playing outstanding chess in recent months, I wonder if he gets to break the 2900 ELO rating barrier anytime soon?

Check out Carlsen’s win against Kramnik in Round 7 of Altibox Norway Chess 2016.