Sinquefield Cup 2015 R2

Today it was great fun playing chess. Mostly because of the good fight. Black against Fabiano Caruana (who won the Sinquefield Cup so convincingly last year) is always a challenge. Today I managed to get a reasonable position in an Arhangelsk Spanish opening transposing to Anti-Marshall. Fabiano played the middle game slowly but well and I was forced to calculate deeply to find countermeasures to keep the balance.

Short on time long before the first time control we could both have chosen more drawish continuations. Both desperately wanted to win as I lost to Topalov and Caruana to Aronian in round 1 yesterday. My b4-push kept the position messy while probably objectively dubious. Despite having to blitz out moves Caruana played well nearly all the way to the time control. Then he went from clearly better to about equal and in move 40 blundered away the game by first trying to avoid a perceived mate threat (where the saving combination eluded both of us) and by capturing on d2 on reflex.

After the horrible result and play in Stavanger in June (7th place) I hope the training camp with Peter Heine and Levon Aronian – who is playing very well here in the Sinquefield Cup – at the East coast a week ago helps bringing me back to normal form. I’m feeling fine and it is fun playing chess. I can’t ask for more really.

Sinquefield Cup is part two of the new Grand Chess Tour (following Norway Chess in Stavanger), and Topalov, who won in Stavanger, has taken the lead with 2 points here.

Tuesday I’m white against M.Vachier-Lagrave who started with a win against Wesley So and a quick draw against Aronian.