sickly Carlsen wins World Cup in Baku by beating Praggnanandhaa

Carlsen contracted food poisoning after his semi-final win last weekend and he was still recovering during the first two days of the final, where he played in an untypically cautious style, aiming for draws.

“I’ve been in pretty rough shape the last couple of days,” Carlsen said. “I got some food poisoning after the game against Abasov. I haven’t been able to eat for the last two days. This also meant that I was really calm because I had no energy to be nervous.”

In their second game, playing White, he even opened with an ancient version of the Four Knights 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 Bb5 Nd4 known to be highly drawish for over 100 years, to minimise risk. It was an obvious match strategy in the circumstances for Carlsen to aim for Thursday’s rapid and blitz tiebreaks, a genre where he is still the world champion and has vast experience.

The third game of the match, a 25-minute game with 10 seconds per move increment, virtually settled it. Praggnanandhaa had a small edge but burned up too much clock time and cracked at moves 42-44, after which he lost a bishop and resigned. Needing only half a point in game four, Carlsen swiftly simplified to a dead equal position.

For Praggnanandhaa, this World Cup has still been a major success. He now qualifies for the 2024 Candidates, the eight-player tournament to decide the challenger to China’s Ding Liren. He is the third youngest Candidate ever, behind only Carlsen and Bobby Fischer. In the race among the rising young generation, he has gained ground against his rivals Alireza Firouzja, Dommaraju Gukesh and Nodirbek Abdusattorov.

The third place playoff was a triumph for the US champion and world No 2, Fabiano Caruana, who had been upset by Praggnanandhaa in the semi-finals. Caruana was still in shock in his first game against the hometown hero Nijat Abasov when 23...f5! would have been fine. Three moves later, he resigned in the face of 26...exf5 27 Nf6+! gxf6 28 Qxh6+! Kxh6 29 Rh3 mate.

Then Caruana fought back strongly, grinding out a difficult endgame win in game two, and winning the final two games by fine attacking for a 3-1 scoreline. Both players qualify for the 2024 Candidates.

The Women’s World Cup went to Russia’s No 2 seed, Alexandra Goryachkina, who defeated the surprise finalist, Nurgyul Salimova, by 1.5-0.5, after the Bulgarian failed to spot an easy drawing chance late in their marathon 105-move second game. Goryachkina narrowly missed the world crown in 2020 when she lost a title match to China’s Ju Wenjun by 7.5-8.5 after being ahead at one stage. For the future in women’s chess, there could be greater Western interest as two rising stars are Eline Roebers, 17, from the Netherlands and America’s Alice Lee, 13.

The Northumberland Masters, the premier chess event in the north, takes place at Newcastle this weekend, with opportunities for Fide title norms and a £600 bonus pool donated by Mark Jordan, a former English Chess Federation publicity manager. GMs Keith Arkell and Danny Gormally are among the top seeds. Play can be followed live and free on chess24.com.

Several English players have been campaigning for GM norms and titles this summer. Three norms and a 2500 rating are needed, which is proving a stiff task for Harry Grieve, 22, and Peter Roberson, 34 (two norms each), Matthew Wadsworth, 23, and Shreyas Royal, 14, (one each) and Jonah Willow, 20 (no norms yet but some near misses). Of these, Wadsworth and Willow are competing at Newcastle.

England’s likely next GM, however, is Ameet Ghasi. The 36-year-old, whose family is from Kashmir and whose twin brother, Sumeet, is also a strong player, was a youthful prodigy who won the British Rapidplay at only 13, still an age record. Then he decided to give priority to his studies, abandoned chess for a decade, took a biochemistry degree at Birmingham, and qualified as an accountant. Returning in 2011, he swiftly gained his IM title and has since further improved his rating, mainly via games in the national 4NCL league, to its current 2506. He already has two GM norms from Southend 2023 and Wood Green 2023, so just needs a third for the title.

Ghasi’s playing style used to be patient grinds from closed openings, perhaps influenced by Mir Sultan Khan, who came to the UK from what is now Pakistan in the late 1920s, reached the world top 10 and beat José Capablanca in a marathon at Hastings. Sultan also preferred slow openings from which he could outplay opponents in strategical middle games.

Ghasi has gradually evolved to a more universal style, and won this incisive attacking game at his latest tournament, the King Mohamed VI Open in Casablanca, Morocco, the venue for the chess scene in Humphrey Bogart’s famous film.

At halfway in Casablanca last week Ghasi had an unbeaten 3.5/5, including a fighting draw against Alexey Shirov, the former world title challenger, and was on course for his third GM norm, before fading to 5/9 against the uniformly high-class opposition. A near miss, and his time should soon come.

The 22-year-old British woman champion, Lan Yao, who at Leicester achieved her WGM title and missed an IM norm by only half a point, tries again on 2 September at First Saturday Budapest, the city where she scored her first WGM norm in 2017.

3882: 1...Qg8+! 2 Kc2 (if 2 Kb4 Qb8+ 3 Kc3 Qh8+ and 4...a1=Q+) Qc4+ 3 Kd2 Qf1! 4 Qh8+ (if 4 Qxa2 Qf2+ and Qxa2) Kg1! wins after 5 Qg7+ Qg2+ or 5 Qd4+ Qf2+.