The Lindores Abbey Distillery in Fife, Scotland was an idyllic setting for an exciting rapid event last year, won by Magnus Carlsen. This year, the ‘views’ were of a different sort, as the Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge was held online. The Tironensian Abbey is now a ruin, but a quaint entry in the inventory records from the 1480s makes note of ‘twa pairs of thabills wt thair men’, (probably: two chessboards with pieces), which suggests that the monks enjoyed a game too. The online reboot marked the second leg of the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour, following on from the Magnus Carlsen Invitational held in April and May. Three more events are planned in the coming months, culminating in a Grand Final in August, with a $1 million total prize fund across the series. Such a series of high-profile online events is unprecedented and timely, and I predict that online events will remain popular even when over-the-board play eventually returns.
‘It’s a bit weird winning … without beating Magnus,’ admitted Daniil Dubov, who narrowly defeated Hikaru Nakamura in the final, taking home $45,000. It marks a major career success for Dubov, though perhaps it does not surpass his victory in the 2018 World Rapid Championship. Nakamura had much to celebrate too, as it was he who knocked out Carlsen in the semi-final, overcoming the weight of his own dismal head-to-head record against the world champion. As Dubov graciously put it: ‘The one who beats Magnus gets all the respect.’
Dubov won his semi-final match against Ding Liren convincingly — the puzzle below was not the only quick win from their match! But he was especially pleased with the creativity he showed in the quarter-final against his Russian compatriot, Sergey Karjakin, in a seesaw match where nearly all the games were decisive.
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