With only three rounds to go in the Tata Steel tournament, world champion Magnus Carlsen again finds himself in first place, half a point over American Fabiano Caruana. Carlsen started off with four boring draws, and then he won four games out of his next six (with three wins in row) in what seems to us to be inexplicably easy fashion. Caruana could easily be in first if he hadn’t lost a terrible game to Czech grandmaster David Navara, but as it is, Fabiano’s three remaining games, on paper at least, are easier than Carlsen’s. The other American player, Wesley So, is having a solid if somewhat boring tournament with one win and nine draws. With a strong finish, he can still end up among the top players. The final three rounds should be exciting.
Carissa Yip of Andover has been invited to the US Closed Women’s Championship at the St. Louis Chess Club in April.
A different sort of chess club meets weekly in Woburn and Reading. A group of older players meet on Thursdays at the Woburn Senior Center on School Street from 12:30 to about 3:30 p.m. and then at the same time on Fridays at the Reading Senior Center on Pleasant street in Reading. They play without clocks, and the contact person, John Shawcross of Winchester, evaluates the group’s playing strength from around 1100 to 1400. The group is always looking for new members. Shawcross can be reached at 781-799-0625.
Winners: MACA’s Winter Scholastic Team Challenge: Grades K-12: 1st: Newton North Tiger A (Alex Fauman, Charlie Fauman, David McCabe, Max Bennett) 4-0, Grades K-6: 1st: Rook and Roll (Vineeth Nareddy, Meghana Kancharla, Arjun Girish, Venkatraman Varatharajan) 3.5-0.5; Grades K-3: 1st Steve’s Team (Jonathan Lobo, Jonathan Traub, Alexander Meng, Kelsey Liu) 3.5-0.5,
Coming events: Thursday Night Swiss, Feb. 5, 12, 19, 26 Boylston Chess Club, www.BoylstonChessClub.org/; February Quads, Feb. 6, www.BoylstonChessClub.org, Spiegel Cup Series — 23rd NESSP Scholastic Chess Tournament, Feb. 7, NESSP, 290 Littleton Road, Unit 3, Chelmsford, www.nessp.org/chess.
Answer to today’s problem: Just 1.Qe6 is mate. 1.Rf7+ also leads to mate but is not as quick.
