Magnus Carlsen demolished generations – Newspaper Kommersant No. 178 (7379) of 09/27/2022

World champion Magnus Carlsen, whose name has recently been heard more often in the context of the loud demarches he arranges, has finally recorded a very noticeable sporting success to his credit. He won the large online tournament Julius Baer Generation Cup, showing an overwhelming superiority over his rivals, including the next Indian prodigy Arjun Erigaisi, who got him in the final. However, Erigaishi, thanks to participation in the decisive confrontation of the tournament, also qualified for the final competitions of the prestigious and expensive Champions Chess Tour series.

The Julius Baer Generation Cup tournament, the seventh in the Champions Chess Tour series with a very large prize pool of $1.6 million by chess standards, turned into an informational hit solely thanks to Magnus Carlsen. At first, they talked about him solely because of the next demarche of the Norwegian. Even in the summer he shocked refusal to defend his title in the next championship match, and then, already in September, by the fact that starred from the Sinqefield Cup in St. Louis, after losing the game to the American Hans Niemann, in fact accusing his opponent of cheating. The story continues online. Now Carlsen defiantly surrendered to Niemann after the second move at the start of the Julius Baer Generation Cup, forcing grandmasters, chess functionaries and experts to argue again about how relevant the topic of cheating is in principle and specifically in the case of Hans Niemann and is it fair that the Norwegian, casting a shadow on reputation as an American and doing his tricks, goes unpunished.

Then Magnus Carlsen surprised us no longer with his eccentric behavior, but with the same thing that he used to always surprise with, that is, with sports results. The Julius Baer Generation Cup brought together an extremely powerful line-up of participants representing, as its name actually suggests, chess players from different generations, including those who can play great in the format used at the tournament, i.e. rapid chess. There were also titled veterans like Boris Gelfand and Vasily Ivanchuk, and stars in their prime – Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Anish Giri, Levon Aronian. But Magnus Carlsen’s performance turned out to be as if he was playing in a simultaneous game session with amateurs.

That very defeat from Niman was his only one at the preliminary stage. In four more games, Carlsen, who had already won three stages of the Champions Chess Tour before, drew, and won in ten. Really incredible performance for this level of tournament.

He did not notice his rivals in the playoffs either. The eight quarter-finalists came out as a perfect illustration of the current chess trend. More than half of them were teenagers – 19-year-old Niman and Indian Arjun Erigaisi, 17-year-old compatriot Erigaisi Rameshbabu Pragnanandha and German Vincent Kaymer, plus American Christopher Yu, who is generally 15 years old. Carlsen crossed paths with the youngsters after he dealt with Aronian and left them no chance either. He defeated Kaimer in the semi-final and Erigaishi in the final, using what the world champion called “anti-youth chess” against his opponent. The point was to deliberately evade well-known theoretical lines, dragging the opponent into a jungle of strategic and tactical complications. As it turned out, Erigaishi was not ready for such torture.

However, the Indian still got his valuable prize. According to the rules of the Champions Chess Tour, both finalists of the Julius Baer Generation Cup automatically qualified for the crowning supertournament, which will take place offline in November in San Francisco. Six more vacancies are at stake. Two will go to the finalists of the October tournament that ends the “regular season” of the Champions Chess Tour. The remaining four will be distributed to the leaders of the overall standings of the series, as well as to the holders of the wild card from the organizers.

Alexey Dospekhov