If every round of the London Chess Classic is like the first round, then it is going to be a very exciting tournament.
The tournament began Wednesday and three of the four games ended decisively. The most stunning result was the victory of the English grandmaster Luke McShane over Magnus Carlsen of Norway. Carlsen played some speculative moves and was punished brilliantly by McShane.
The other two wins were also quite exciting. Michael Adams, one of the four English players, checkmated his countryman David Howell in 27 moves with a scintillating attack, while Vladimir Kramnik of Russia overwhelmed Nigel Short, the other English player, with a central pawn break that eventually led to a mating attack.
Even the drawn game was not dull. Viswanathan Anand of India, the world champion, won a pawn out of the opening against Hikaru Nakamura of the United States, and then pushed and pushed trying to win the game. But Nakamura defended well and resourcefully and Anand finally agreed to a draw.
This is the second year of the tournament, which was won last year by Carlsen. If there is a drawback to the tournament’s format, it is that it is a single round-robin, meaning that each player only faces the other competitors once. So some players will have four Blacks and three Whites. Nakamura really got the short end of the stick this year as he has Black against Anand, Kramnik and Carlsen, the top ranked players in the field.
