English Chess Forum

http://grandchesstour.org/watch-live

For the official site,

and

https://chess24.com/

should both offer coverage although bear in mind there were many difficulties with coverage in Paris.

It appears that Anand has replaced Fressinet, that aside the line up is the same:

Viswanathan Anand • Levon Aronian • Fabiano Caruana • Anish Giri • Vladimir Kramnik • Hikaru Nakamura • Wesley So • Veselin Topalov • Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

Wildcard: Magnus Carlsen

JUNE 17-20, 2016 • LEUVEN, BELGIUM • RAPID & BLITZ

Round 1 is as follows.

1.
GM Kramnik, V. (0) 2812 V GM Nakamura, H. (0) 2787
2
GM Caruana, F. (0) 2804 V GM Topalov, V. (0) 2761
3
GM Aronian, L. (0) 2792 V GM Giri, Anish (0) 2782
4
GM Vachier-Lagr. (0) 2789 V GM Anand, V. (0) 2770
5
GM So, Wesley (0) 2770 V GM Carlsen, M. (0) 2855

MVL V Anand Round 1 grabbing all the attention so far...interesting game for sure.

Vishy has made his mark already with a brilliant quick wIn as Black over MVL.

Fressinet was only a wild card for Paris because Vishy (one of the regular Grand Tour players) was committed to playing another event that clashed.

https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tourn ... 2016/1/1/1

Commentary by Jan Gustafsson and Anna Rudolf who are on the spot in Leuven town hall.

Some great first round games. Caruana just won!

Kramnik and Aronian also won; Carlsen drew with So.

Giri mishandled that endgame, I thought he queened first yet he lost within moves.

MJMcCready wrote:Some great first round games. Caruana just won!

Agreed, four decisive games and a round that had a bit of everything. A king hunt, sacrifices and two tricky rook endings.

MJMcCready wrote:Giri mishandled that endgame, I thought he queened first yet he lost within moves.

He did queen first but white's king was much closer to the pawns, even having the luxury of the final position being won with a rook pawn.

Interesting that Carlsen in round 2 is using Harry Golombek's favourite system of Nh3 and f4 in the reversed Dragon English, to which his opponent MVL has replied h7-h5, which Golombek probably never faced.

And he hasn't handled it very well, Carlsen that is.

Nasty tactic appeared in Giri V Caruana.

Leonard Barden wrote:Interesting that Carlsen in round 2 is using Harry Golombek's favourite system of Nh3 and f4 in the reversed Dragon English, to which his opponent MVL has replied h7-h5, which Golombek probably never faced.

1. c4 e5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. Nc3 Nb6 6. d3 Be7 7. Nh3 Nc6 8. f4 h5 9. Be3 h4 10. Rc1 Bf5 11. Ng5 Qd7 12. Qb3 O-O 13. gxh4 Nd4 14. Qd1 Bc5 15. Qd2 exf4 16. Bxf4 Rfe8 17. Nce4 Bxe4 18. Bxe4 Qe7 19. Kf1 Rad8 *

Golombek reached the position at move 7 against Foltys in 1946, but played 8 O-O. With the subsequent development of h pawn pushes in the Dragon, the reply 8. .. h5 comes to mind. Golombek had used the Nh3, f4 idea in the 1930s. In the 1950s and 1960s he played a more conventional Nf3 against Penrose and Wade. In his beginner's book for Penguin, he mentions a Nh3 idea, his game with Foltys in fact.

The idea of Be2 and h4 against the Dragon was seen in the 1958 World Championship match.

It's been a while since I've been able to say that Topalov is the only winner of the round

It seemed to me that black went wrong several times but I stopped following around move 20 as I thought Naka would win quite easily.