Magnus Carlsen from Norway won the London Chess Classic. He could have dominated it more convincingly if he had converted several won positions. Clearly he is a future world champion. His compatriot, the impressive Jon Hammer, also comfortably won the FIDE Open which was run alongside. We have just had a Viking raid – they came, they saw and they conquered. A millennium ago the Vikings brought us hnefatafl, now they bring chess.

A big chess event in London must be overdue after so many obscure locations like Elista and Khanty-Mansiysk. The Olympia conference centre makes chess seem so professional in contrast to the usual amateurish UK chess events. The trappings are impressive – ushers, VIP tags, fresh sandwiches. It is superior to the British Championships and the venerable Hastings Chess Tournament. Congratulations to Malcolm Pein of Chess & Bridge for staging it.

Magnus Carlsen in the last round watching the other games.

Photo: John Saunders

First, into the hushed auditorium. Chess at this level is not a noisy crowd sport. There are four tables on the stage with six players present. I sit beneath Magnus Carlsen. He is waiting for his opponent, Ni Hua, to play. Unlike Vladimir Kramnik and Hikaru Nakamura, Carlsen doesn’t hide away behind the back curtain between moves. He paces around the stage glancing at the other boards. Even when he sits down again, he still prefers to look at the other boards on the electronic display. Presumably his own game is being processed in the subconscious. Meanwhile the Chinese Champion Ni Hua sits transfixed, knowing that his position is hopeless.

Some spectators are using various electronic devices to analyse the position. Some are just staring into the middle distance; whispered conversations are about the right move or about the right time to leave. There is a limit to the amount of pleasure one can derive from watching grandmasters sitting and thinking. The bored-of-waiting scale ranges between paint-drying and the kettle-to-boil marks. After a polite interval, I move on to the commentary room.

Luke McShane received the brilliancy prize.

The commentary room is presided over by British champion GM Jonathan Rowson. The panel is focusing on Nakamura v McShane. The challenge is to keep the interest levels up. It doesn’t take long to go through the main lines which are conveniently presented on a large Chessbase display. Some increasingly spurious variations are suggested by the audience. There are several members of the audience whom one would not hesitate to describe as chess addicts. It is not just the unkempt appearance, it is their inability to be bored by chess.

Rowson extemporises on the subtleties of the endgame. McShane was later awarded the tournament’s overall brilliancy prize of €10,000 for his win against the American champion. The commentators are running out of substantive things to say. The rhythm of chess games consists of long periods of stasis punctuated by a flurry of moves at time control. How desperate it must it have been when McShane ground down Nigel Short in 163 moves in the first round. I thought my game viewer had gone into a loop when I replayed it. At time control, the audience breaks up and heads for the foyer.

Jon Hammer won the FIDE Open

The London Chess Classic is the biggest chess event in London since the Phillips & Drew tournament of 1984. That was the time of a previous City boom when the imminent financial deregulation (the “Big Bang”) led to massive amounts of capital moving into London. Institutions were vying for recognition in the new global financial centre. Chess was still a prestigious activity a dozen years after the Fischer-Spassky World Championship match. The Greater London Council co-sponsored the event which was held at County Hall. Margaret Thatcher abolished the GLC soon after on account of its excessive spending – surely not related to the modest chess expenditure. 1984 was also the first year of publication for that estimable magazine, New In Chess, which continues to set the standard for writing about the culture and personalities of chess.

Even though the festival was sold out and crowds of up to a thousand people attended on Saturday, the cost of the event must have been greater than the ticket receipts. It remains something of a mystery who underwrote the London Chess Classic. No sponsor has been mentioned. Perhaps an anonymous chess enthusiast who was successful in the world of finance has created a memorable project. Let’s hope that they maintain the interest.

It would be wonderful for the state of British chess if the Chess Classic could establish itself as a regular event such as Wijk aan Zee and Linares. However, this is not very likely. We had unique circumstances here with four superb British players – two veteran super-grandmasters and two promising younger players – together with three young national champions (USA, China, Norway) and a former world champion. This timely format can only be reproduced once each generation. Nigel Short was the exciting young British player in the Phillips & Drew events and came at the back of the field this time. The Classic can be seen as a showcase event rather than a precursor to the professional circuit. A more practical hope is for London to host the world chess championships e.g. to coincide with the Olympics in 2012.

GM Chris Ward explaining what is happening

Stepping out of the commentary room, I enter a brainery of chess enthusiasts. Adam Raoof, the Festival Organiser, is busily hunched over a laptop. GM Chris Ward is conducting an entertaining commentary on the games and whizzing the pieces around on a display board. Across the foyer, people browse the well-stocked book and software stall. Chess luminaries scuttle about, their VIP tags round their necks. I hear stories from the front line of other events for the casual players: the weekender and the evening blitzes. I bump into no less than four Kingston Chess Club players, which is more than we can get together in a team sometimes. Caius Turner is mentally preparing himself for the simul with Viktor Korchnoi.

In the main hall, a few games in the FIDE Open are still being played. All the top games finish within four hours which also avoids the dreaded 30 minutes quickplay finish. IM Susan Lalic is top rated at the Women’s Invitational and beats WIM Arianne Caoili, her nearest rival, but laments losing some points to weaker opponents allowing the Australian to take the first prize. A small group gathers round a board as they try and reconstruct a game. They are positioning the pieces from quite early on – suggesting, unusually, that the middle game was time scrambled.

Arianne Caoili won the Women’s Invitational Photo: Mark Huba

Leaving the event, I find myself sharing an elevator with Magnus Carlsen and a few other Norwegians. Congratulating him on his win could seem trite. We are supposed to encourage effort rather than result. And it didn’t really seem to be that much effort for the prodigy. If he had paid slightly more attention he could have swept the board. The tension of silence is broken by an exchange in Norwegian. We stroll outside into the freezing night and I am impressed that the Norwegians do not bother wearing coats. The thought occurs that perhaps they are intelligent life forms from another planet and do not feel the cold. The alternative explanation is that they are staying in a nearby hotel.

Hammer v McDonald
Queens Gambit Declined
ECO B87

In this game, GM Jon Hammer lives up to his name against GM Neil McDonald. McDonald doesn’t play any obviously weak moves, yet loses to a sudden kingside attack.

Notes by John Foley

A brevity from in the Women’s Invitational.
Olivia Smith (2026) – Maria Ikonomopoulou (2065)

Black to play
Black is pressing hard on the queenside which is held together by the knight at a2. By what tactic did she break through?

(Scroll down carefully as the answer is below the diagram.)

…

…

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1…Bxh4!

The queen is overloaded so black skewers the queen and rook. Capturing the bishop removes the extra protection provided by the queen to the knight at b3. There followed 2. Qxh4 Nxb3 3. Nxb3 Qxa2+ 0-1 A nice example of how a tactic on one edge of the board can produce a result on the opposite edge of the board.