Brandeis grad Sam Shankland has been playing like a house on fire, winning the 13th American Continental Open, in Montevideo, Uruguay, with an undefeated score of 9/11. Shankland has won three tournaments in row, including the US Championship, and has gone 60 tournament games without a defeat, pushing his rating to 2727 and making him No. 27 in world. We just wonder how long this streak can go.
The 2018 Grand Chess Tour (www.GrandChessTour.org, GCT) has started up with the “Your Next Move’’ rapid and blitz event in Leuven, Belgium, running from June 12-16. The field includes the Wesley So, Hikaru Nakamura, and Fabiano Caruana, along with Levon Aronian, Alexander Grischuk, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Sergey Karjakin, Viswanathan Anand, and the wild card Anish Giri. There are nine rounds of rapids, where each game is worth 2 points, followed by 18 rounds of blitz, where each game is just one point. The players’ points are then combined to find the overall winner.
After six rounds of rapids, (G/25 minutes; d10 which is unusual as most international events add time and not delay starting the clock) So’s great play continues. He won the Norway Chess blitz event and nearly won the whole thing, losing a very exciting game to Caruana in the last round. In Belgium, he is in clear first with 10/12. Aronian is in second with 8/12. The other Americans are not doing well. Nakamura is in sixth with 6/12, and bring up last place is Caruana with 3/12. There is plenty of time left for all this to change. The total prize fund is $150,000 with $37,500 to the winner. The next event in the GCT is the Paris GCT rapid and blitz event that runs from June 20-24.
We have just found out that 14-year-old Carissa Yip of Andover has earned her first International Master norm at an IM norm tournament at the Charlotte Chess Center & Scholastic Academy, in Charlotte, N.C. She needs two more norms to get the coveted title.
Coming events: June 23-24, Westford June Open, Westford Regency Inn & Conference Center, 219 Littleton Road, Westford, www.RelyeaChess.com;
Recent results: 2018 Malden Catholic Closed Championship (21 players), 1st: Zhipeng Chen, 5/5; Concord-Carlisle June G/30, 11&Older, 1st: Ashot Melkonyan, 3.5/4, U11, 1st-2nd: Dattasai Kilari, Shouri Rao Mosaliganti, 3.5/4,
Answer to today’s problem: 1.Qa7+! (1.Rxc7+ leads to a draw) 1…Kxa7 (1…Kc8 2.Qxc7 mate) 2.Rxc7+ Ka8 3.Nxb6 mate
Chris Chase can be reached at BostonGlobeChessNotes@gmail.com.
