#vladimir-kramnik

#vladimir-kramnik

I got kind of caught in the opening, said a subdued Caruana at the post-game press conference. The US champion got into heavy time pressure, and after 20 moves was down to 10 minutes to reach move 40, with no per-move increment.

The nine-round Reykjavik Open, which began on Wednesday afternoon at the Harpa Conference Centre, is an iconic event first played as an all-play-all in 1964, when Mikhail Tal won.

Caruana was second to the former Russian, Mikhail Antipov, in the Saint Louis Masters, though he was unbeaten with 7/9, so this was still a good result. But then, in the American Cup, a double elimination format knockout, he lost to both Wesley So and Levon Aronian in similar fashion, winning the first classical game with White, losing the second with Black, then losing the speed tie-break 1.5-2.5.

It's certainly not every day that you have to prepare yourself to play what turned out to be 78 games of chess simultaneously, all in the name of breaking a national record for the number of simultaneous chess players, a record that had stood since 1977, nearly 50 years ago.

Magnus Carlsen, the world No 1, visited Central London last weekend and won the chess.com speed championship for the fourth time in a row. The Norwegian, 35, defeated France's Alireza Firouzja, 22, by 15-12 after a three-hour struggle. Last year in Paris the same two players met, but Carlsen's winning margin was a much wider 23.5-7.5. The format for speed chess is 90 minutes of five minutes blitz, 60 minutes of three minutes blitz, and 30 minutes of one minute bullet. All the segments had additional increments of one second per move.

This time he led early, had a wobble with three draws and a loss, but was strong in the final two rounds. It was a long way for me, he said. I was very close every time and I failed year after year. I'm extremely happy to finally be able to win this tournament and to win in a very nice style.