3 Best Games of the Week – 16

For this week’s edition, we have chosen 3 games played in the recently finished top event Sinquefield Cup. We will take a look at the game where Aronian outplayed So in a complex attacking battle. The second game is a dramatic lose by the current world champion Magnus Carlsen to Veselin Topalov. And finally, the last game is the win of Grischuk against ex-world champion Anand.

Game 1:

The first one is an attacking masterpiece by Aronian, who also won the tournament, against Wesley So. The game looks like an one-sided affair, as white played a little careless in the opening, weakening his king and giving black a big development advantage.

Game 2:

Although the event was won by the Armenian Grandmaster, the early leader of the tournament was Veselin Topalov, who started with a clear win against the current World Champion Magnus Carlsen. He chose an interesting line as black in the Sicilian, that his opponent seemed unaware of. The piece sacrifice Carlsen went for is nevertheless interesting and seems to be giving white good compensation with an exact play.

Game 3:

Grischuk is a player that also had a good tournament. Although he is well-known for getting into time trouble, he scored a few important wins. One of them was against ex-World Champion Anand, where he played an interesting line of the London system.

The resulting position looks more or less equal, but white’s chances are always better thanks to his development advantage and black’s pawn weakness on a6 and lack of space.