The greatest tournament ever !?

The « greatest tournament ever » takes place in the famous Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint-Louis, Missouri, from August 27th to September 7th. 

It’s strange to me to qualify a tournament to be the « greatest ever » without any Kasparov, Karpov or Fischer… Carlsen may be, by far, the best current player in the world, he cannot be compared - for the time being - to the greatest chess legends…

But Ok.. it’s an ELO point of view (Cat.23, 2804 avg ELO). So let’s call it like that…

Round 1
Topalov 0-1 Caruana

To start the tournament with clear ideas, Fabiano Caruana took the ice bucket challenge, and challenged himself Maurice Ashley, Yasser Seirawan and Levon Aronian. 

This have been a good idea, as he clearly demolished a too risky Topalov in the first round.

Aronian ½-½ Nakamura

Not a very funny game, but players played very precisely, without taking too many risks.

MVL - Carlsen
A very interesting and complicated game.Magnus was right when saying before the tournament that Maxime was very creative, a good tactician and a dangerous player.

The game was very sharp, and the world champion had to defend very precisely and actively.

					1		2		3		4		5		6
1.	Caruana, Fabiano	g	ITA	2801	*	*	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	1	.	1
2.	Aronian, Levon	g	ARM	2805	.	.	*	*	½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	2787
3.	Nakamura, Hikaru	g	USA	2787	.	.	½	.	*	*	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	2805
4.	Carlsen, Magnus	g	NOR	2877	.	.	.	.	.	.	*	*	½	.	.	.	½	2768
5.	Vachier-Lagrave, M.	g	FRA	2768	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	.	*	*	.	.	½	2877
6.	Topalov, Veselin	g	BUL	2772	0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	*	*	0

Here’s the games, with commentaries from GM Ben Finegold (Chessbase)

 Full day one in video:

Official site / Live games / Games in pgn