Pro Chess League 2023 – Live games:

The second Deep Blue – Kasparov match was the first defeat of a reigning world chess champion by a computer under tournament conditions, and was the subject of a documentary film, Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine. The match marked the end of human attempts to meaningfully challenge “the machine”.

In a podcast with a Russian-American computer scientist, artificial intelligence researcher, and philosopher Lex Fridman, Garry Kasparov spoke about the matches with Deep Blue and how it felt losing to an engine in 1997.

The European Individual Chess Championship 2023 is a qualifying event for the FIDE World Cup 2023. According to the FIDE regulations for World Cup and the ECU Board decision, 23 players* will qualify. The total prize fund of the tournament is 100.000 EUR with 20.000 EUR reserved for the Winner of the event. Besides the prizes for the best-ranked 23 players, the organizers provided special prizes for best-ranked Juniors (U18), Seniors (S50+) and doubled the prize fund for the best-ranked female players.

The championship will be played in 11 rounds, swiss system, with time control of 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one.

Official regulations of the event can be found here.

European Individual Chess Championship 2023 – List of registered players (as of 30.01.2023):

Predicting the first and last finished games of the ninth round wasn’t too difficult. In their tournament game, the supposed showdown, co-leaders Levon Aronian and Gukesh were not looking for a fight to the death. In a well-known variation of the Ragozin, both opponents headed straight for a repetition that many grandmasters have used to quickly split the point.

The two had thus postponed the decision about the tournament victory and who would win the first prize of 40,000 euros and the trophy to the tiebreak – and risked Ian Nepomniachtchi disputing this prize. But before Nepomniachtchi got the chance to do so, he had to win against Vincent Keymer. The World Championship finalist needed a full point to catch up with Gukesh and Aronian.

While all the other games of the day gradually petered out, Vincent Keymer once again had to put in a six-hour shift. Opposite of him, Nepo didn’t let up, looking for opportunities to sharpen things up even with reduced material. For five hours Keymer kept the position balanced, then he rashly let his passed pawn run, and it was over: On the other wing, Nepomniachtchi’s play against the white king would prove decisive, while Kemer’s passed pawn didn’t reach the eighth rank. Nepomniachtchi had managed to intercept Aronian and Gukesh on the home stretch.

Three players tied at the top of the table – a rarity, but it happens. Levon Aronian has experience of this: in 2018 at the Sinquefield Cup in Saint Louis he, Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana ended up at the top with equal points. A drawing of lots was scheduled there – and the players negotiated it away at short notice. They preferred to share first place. Such negotiations were not planned in Düsseldorf, and they did not arise. The rules in the event of a tie at the top of the table were clear.

Nepomniachtchi, after his hard-fought victory over Keymer, nevertheless first had to ask main referee Gregor Johann how things would proceed. “A round robin, double round robin, 10+2,” he got in reply. After an 82-move and more than 6-hour tournament game, he was now to face a potentially more than five-hour playoff against two rested opponents.

After winning the first tiebreak game against Gukesh, Aronian added another win in the second against Nepo. Nepomniachtchi seemed to have created nice attacking chances, but had made structural concessions. And these weighed heavier.

After that Nepomniachtchi had to play again, this time against Gukesh, and it was already a decisive game. Only the winner would still have a chance to challenge Levon Aronian for the tiebreaker. It went back and forth, both had chances, and at the end of an open game the Indian prevailed. That gave him a must-win game against Aronian: now one more win and the youngest competitor would be back on the heels of the oldest.

It started well for Gukesh, who first smashed up Aronian’s structure, then took aim at some pawn weaknesses and seemed to be on the winning track with two extra pawns. But Aronian didn’t let up, continuously creating problems, and Gukesh failed to turn his big advantage into a decisive one. In the end, the game turned completely around.

After these three full points in a row, Aronian could no longer be denied the tournament victory. The last two games of the tiebreak were not played.

The time control will be 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 60 minutes for the next 20 moves, and 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment per move starting from move 61

Round 9 live video coverage:

Keymer, back in the 2700-Elo club, expressed his relief after the game. “Super happy” he was with this victory over one of the very best in world chess. “Wesley So in top form is on a par with Magnus Carlsen, a hugely strong player,” explained Keymer, who has now climbed from “minus 2” to 50 percent. However, if someone were to offer him to play a second round of nine now, given his good results recently, Keymer would hesitate: “Don’t underestimate the energy that such strong competition takes.”

The WR Chess Masters makes very different demands than a “normal” tournament with “normal” opponents, he said. “There is no relaxed moment here.” If the opponents are not world class, “then you just make normal moves, which may not always be precise, and you don’t get punished. It’s very different here.” Speaking to Yasser Seirawan, Keymer recalled his black game against Jan-Krzysztof Duda: “I allowed myself one inaccuracy, and then as punishment I had to sit and defend for 6.5 hours.”

Levon Aronian demonstrated in the eighth round against Andrey Esipenko not his best chess, but his chess psychological extra class. In a game in which he thought he had no chance after an opening mistake, Aronian sent a perfectly timed draw offer across the board – just at the moment when he had built up a little counterplay and Esipenko was threatening to run out of time. Now the 20-year-old had to deal with not only Aronian’s activity during his ticking-down seconds, but also the question: “To accept or not?” Esipenko accepted, and Aronian was happy to have escaped.

Nodirbek Abdusattorov also escaped after an opening mistake, in a classical Sicilian, with which he wanted to surprise Anish Giri. But the latter was prepared. “I can’t explain it exactly, but somehow I guessed what Nodirbek would play,” the world number five said after the game. What happened to Giri was what he believes happens to him too often: After catching his opponent thanks to superior opening preparation, he let him slip into a draw. “That was unfortunate, of course,” Giri said.

Gukesh had his eyes on two boards during his battle with Jan-Krzysztof Duda. Tied with Levon Aronian at the top of the table, “of course I followed how he was doing.” But even when Aronian was supposedly on the losing side, “it didn’t affect my game”. Now Gukesh is looking forward to the showdown in the ninth round. “Levon is a great player, for sure it will be an interesting match. I’m excited about it.”

Praggnanandhaa experienced a déjà vu with the black pieces – almost. Just two weeks ago in Wijk aan Zee he had beaten the World Championship finalist Ding Liren with black in an Italian game. Now he was facing Ian Nepomniachtchi, the other World Championship finalist, in Düsseldorf, and once again the Italian was on the board. However, the game went the other way. Nepomniachtchi, encouraged by his win the day before, put on the pressure to catch up with the two leaders if possible. Pragg, however, defended with precision and came away with a perpetual check and half a point.

In the post-game interview, Nepomniachtchi explained his decision to move on with the game: “When Levon even went for the arbiter to get a draw, I saw how big his desire for a draw was. I don’t have so many classical games before the World Championship match. I should use them“. Ian’s decision was justified with a nice victory against the WR Chess Masters leader. Replay the game here

Paul-Stelian Mihalache, aged 41, scored 0.5/4 points. After three consecutive losses, he drew against lower-rated Sida Flavius-Ovidiu and got expelled from the tournament as the tournament officials found his smartphone in the restroom.

The time control will be 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 60 minutes for the next 20 moves, and 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment per move starting from move 61

Round 8 live video coverage: