Magnus Carlsen streaks to win in first major chess tourney of 2015
By David R. Sands – The Washington Times – Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Remarkably, his last tournament win came April, but world champion Magnus Carlsen was back in a familiar place — first — at the just-concluded Tata Steel Masters tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands, the first elite super GM gathering of the year.
Riding a midtournament six-game winning streak, the Norwegian champ posted a 9-4 result, a half-point clear of French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, GM Ding Liren of China, and Philippine-born GM Wesley So, who was playing his first big international event representing the U.S. Chess Federation.
In the concurrent Tata Steel Challengers for up-and-coming stars, Chinese 15-year-old prodigy GM Wei Yi won the right to play in the 2016 Masters with a fine 10½-2½ score, a half-point ahead of Czech GM David Navara and 1? points ahead of young U.S. GM Sam Shankland.
It was a Dutch treat for the three young Americans playing in the two events, with Shankland not dropping a game in his 9-4 finish. Shankland was the top performer on last year’s U.S. Olympiad team, and Chessbase.com noted that he has now gone without a loss in the Olympiad, the Millionaire Chess Open, the Continental Championship, the Qatar Masters, Al Ain Open and now Tata. America’s newest grandmaster, 14-year-old New Yorker Sam Sevian, went plus-3 after dropping his first two games at Wijk to finish at a very credible 7?-5?, including a last-round win over Dutch chess legend Jan Timman, 50 years his senior.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com
So will destroy him next time.
Wesley So, coach Norlito Sugradom is now preparing some opening lines to be used by Wesley in his next tournament.
That’s what Naka has been saying for along time. Now comes another pretender who is threatening the same. Good luck guys.
No, he won’t.
So is good though, but not in Magnus’s class.