Peaceful solution

In the recent super-tournament in St Louis, Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Lev Aronian opted to share the laurels. According to the regulations, any tie for first place should have been resolved by a playoff. But the three co-victors decided that they would prefer to share the trophy. This peaceful solution was in line with the tournament as a whole, where no fewer than six of the ten contestants remained undefeated, with two of them, the former world champion Viswanathan Anand and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, drawing all their games. A staggering 82 per cent of the games were draws. As noted in this column last week, if this state of affairs continues, classical chess among the elite will die a natural death, with games at fast time limits, full of thud and blunder as they may be, taking their place. It is clear that rapid and blitz games, though possibly anathema to the purists, are far more exciting than the stolid fare served up in St Louis.