The early games of the World Championship in New York between Magnus Carlsen and Sergei Karjakin did little to contribute to the gaiety of nations. In the first two games both contestants seemed more anxious to display their ability to avoid loss than to strive heroically for a win. If the two were ‘willing to wound, but yet afraid to strike’, their willingness was of a most muted variety.
Fortunately, there was no lack of entertainment from the parallel Champions Showdown in St Louis, which pits Veselin Topalov, Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana and Viswanathan Anand against each other in multifarious formats. Meanwhile, the European Club Cup, from which this week’s extraordinary game is taken, also showed a plethora of exciting clashes.
Aronian-Rapport: European Club Cup, Novi Sad 2016; Chigorin Defence
1 d4 d5 2 c4 Nc6 3 Nc3 I first encountered this move when the Dutch grandmaster Donner played it against me in the annual Anglo-Dutch match at London 1971.
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