With the strongest Swiss chess tournament in history, with an average Elo of 2605 the chess tournament heats up as many players have high a lot on the line. Each player get an hour and a half for the first forty moves with thirty second increment from move one. Once move forty is reached the players get thirty addition minutes added onto their clocks, and if move sixty is reached an additional fifteen minutes for the remainder of the game.
Most of the 120 competitors are the best of best. Some of the top seeds are the current world champion, Magnus Carlsen, world number two Fabiano Caruana, the American chess player, Wesley So, and the previous world champion Viswanathan Anand.
Straight from the first-round players eager to win first to get the last entry into the 2020 Candidates Match which the winner of that will play Carlsen for the title. In the first round Najer had made on of the biggest upsets in history by beating Anand. And the tops seeds did not fail to disappoint with both Caruana and Carlsen winning their first matches. By far in the Isle of Man is round four which was the most exciting. Magnus Carlsen in a horribly lost position against Kovalev manages to escape his first lost in over a year with a draw. Magnus has a unbeaten streak of 90+ games and by luck and time pressure on his opponent he pulled a rabbit out of the hat. After that game Kovalev said “Oh my God! How did I not win that?” after being frustrated in beaten the champion. Along with the other leaders in the tournament rising the rising star under twenty world champion Maghsoodloo was not happy with the dress code policy not allowing him to wear his lucky jacket said “Yeah, and then I can put in some rule that I can wear my lucky jacket.”
In round five, the legendary American player Fabiano Caruana escapes from the English grandmaster Luke McShane in a lost position. Luke has been described as the strongest amateur player in the world, and one of the most creative. However, Caruana managed to find away to ruin Luke’s immortal game by drawing in one the hardest endgames in the world. Caruana was described as “doing a Magnus” after Magnus escaped a lost in a similar manner earlier in the tournament. Luke’s game with Caruana lasted six and half hours long and ending at move eighty-five. The long grind now imprinted in both players minds. In the same round Carlsen with the white pieces against Ganguly plays an insane Sicilian Defense, Najdorf with move like 6. h3, 7. g4, and later 10. a4! After sweeping the floor Carlsen was quoted “I don’t recommend this a4 business” despite having a swift victory. In that same interview when asked how he got in a bad position the day before Carlsen said “He actually reached for the rook, then I saw oh oh, Rae1. I realized I am probably just lost.”
In yesterdays round Magnus Carlsen showed no mercy to the fifty-one-year-old Alexi Shirov. Now only behind the leaders by half a point Carlsen starts to get more aggressive in his play. Levon Aronian now on his last chance on getting to the Candidates match also decides it is time to get serious. After his embarrassing loss in round one previous world champion Vishy Anand starts to make a come back by winning multiple games in row leaving him only one-point behind the leaders. After his win yesterday, Caruana now is half a point ahead of all the players. After one rest day and five more rounds to go the shackles tighten. Who do you think will win the Grand Swiss Isle of Man? I am rooting for Luke, Magnus, and Caruana.
N. Monk, nicknamed “the finale” in the chess world