Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

Shamkir Chess 2018, one of the world’s strongest international chess tournaments, has wrapped up on April 28. The reigning world chess champion Magnus Carlsen became the winner of the super-tournament held in the Azerbaijani city for the 5th consecutive year.

The last, 9th round of the tournament, saw the decisive game between Carlsen and the Chinese grandmaster Ding Liren. If Liren won, he would become the winner of the tournament, but the game ended in a draw on the 28th move. Thus, Carlsen, who scored 6 points of 9 possible, became a three-time winner of Shamkir Chess.

However, the Norwegian grandmaster did not seem to be satisfied with his game in the super-tournament.

“I do not think there is any game of mine of this tournament that will enter any best-games collection but I thought the game against Anish Giri was a nice fight. There were mistakes for sure, but it was difficult. But that is probably the only game that I am more or less satisfied with,” Carlsen said at a press conference, adding that there were a lot of uneventful draws for him during Shamkir Chess 2018.

The tournament was first launched in 2014, after the untimely death of one of the best chess players in the world, an Azerbaijani Vugar Hashimov. In his interview with Azertac, Carlsen shared his memories of the Azerbaijani grandmaster.

“Hashimov was a good chess player. He was distinguished by his choice of debuts. It was impossible to play against him calmly, he coped with the most difficult positions,” the Norwegian said, adding that he was very sad to know about Hashimov’s death.

Carlsen mentioned that the organization of the tournament commemorating Hashimov is a wonderful idea.

“Azerbaijan does not forget him. The tournament is a worthy tribute to the memory of Vugar,” he said, adding that he is happy to win the tournament.

After his early successes, Gashimov had to put his activities on hold for a while for a surgery. His disease re-surfaced in 2011, causing him to suddenly lose consciousness during a match against the French national team in the European Championship. Then a long-term treatment in Switzerland and Germany began, but he failed to beat the disease.

Speaking about his participation in the previous Shamkir Chess tournaments, Carlsen recalled that he joined the very first tournament in 2014.

“At that time, the participants were very strong. After two defeats at the start, I recovered and then won several games in a row, which helped me to win the tournament. That year, Shamkir chess was my first tournament of the season, so it was particularly difficult,” the grandmaster said.

He added that the tournament in 2015 was also tough. “I remember my game with Viswanathan Anand. The position was very complicated, and the game drew much attention,” Carlsen noted.

The Norwegian chess player also said that he was impressed by mountains of Shamkir: “These mountains reminded me of Norway. Therefore, we decided to stay in Shamkir for another two days after the tournament.”

Besides Carlsen, Liren and Giri, Shamkir Chess 2018 gathered together such chess grandmasters as the Russian Sergey Karjakin, who became the third in the final ranking, the Polish Radoslaw Wojtaszek, the Bulgarian Veselin Topalov, for many the world-class player with more interesting style, Azerbaijani masters Shahriyar Mammadyarov, Rauf Mammadov and Teymur Radjabov, who in 2003 defeated Garry Kasparov, and the Czech David Navara, current world number 19th.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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