Raymond Keene

We still have Paris

issue 07 July 2018

The second leg of this year’s Grand Tour was contested in Paris, almost immediately after Leuven. For Paris, Anish Giri was replaced by the former world champion Vladimir Kramnik, increasing the overall strength of the competition.
 
Final results and top prizes in Paris were as follows: Hikaru Nakamura 13 ($37,500), Sergei Karjakin 10 ($25,000), Wesley So 8 ($20,000), Lev Aronian 7 ($15,000). The overall standings after completion of the first two elements of the circuit are: Wesley So 21, Hikaru Nakamura 20, Sergei Karjakin 19 and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 15.
 
It can be seen once again that the world title challenger, Fabiano Caruana (who has a total of just four points in the Tour), who will face Magnus Carlsen for the championship in London this November, has an Achilles heel: playing at non-classical faster time limits.
 
This week, some highlights from Paris. Viktor Korchnoi notoriously accused Magnus Carlsen of hypnotising his opponents. If there is a hypnotist at large in world chess, this week’s extracts point the finger at Nakamura, so egregious were the blunders in Paris which his rivals fell over themselves to commit.





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