Page 8 - Annotated Games News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

The 2023 FIDE Grand Swiss and Women’s Grand Swiss are heading into their final weekend in Douglas, Isle of Man. The 11-round tournaments are not only some of the strongest Swiss System (rather than Round Robin or knockout tournaments, as are common in high-level invitationals) events of the year, but also critical for the 2024 Candidates and Women’s Candidates tournaments to be held in April in Toronto, ON.  

Greetings chess friends! I beg your indulgence for this month’s column; I am just now finishing up the manuscript for a book that is to be released next year (details later!), and this month’s column is an idea I have had for some time, and for which I have many recent games (including several of my own) to work with. This allows me to make use of some recent post-game analyses. So, without further ado, I offer you my testimony on behalf of the Queen’s Gambit Declined!

Image

Nothing compares to the excitement of the final round. The audience loves the adrenaline, and the raised stakes can aggravate the pressure but also serve as a motivator for the players: a final boost to the finish. Round 11 of the 2023 U.S. Championships certainly lived up to the excitement, with the live cameras capturing nail-biting moments that could have been in a movie.

The penultimate round of the 2023 U.S. Championships saw a drastic shift in the course of events. In the Open, GM Fabiano Caruana completed his fantastic run with a classical victory over the youngest participant, GM Abhimanyu Mishra.