Older players face increasing handicaps in international chess. Schedules and time limits are continually being speeded up, and in 2025 a significant number of open tournaments have moved to adopt two games a day, to combat rising venue and organisational costs. True, there are world and European individual and team senior championships for over-50s and over-65s, but these come with low prizes and sometimes extra problems, as evidenced by the widespread complaints at the World Senior Teams in Prague about overzealous security officials and anti-cheating checks.
Given this background, the story of Vasyl Ivanchuk’s journey in the past few weeks is inspiring. The Ukrainian, 56, who reached World No2 on three occasions between 1991 and 2007 during his career as a top grandmaster, now competes at a lower level, although he retains a fiercely perfectionist ambition.
That was demonstrated last December at the World Blitz in New York, when Ivanchuk was beaten in the decisive game for quarter-final qualification, and broke down in tears at the board, as the whole game and its consequences were caught on YouTube.
Ivanchuk’s ranking had dropped to outside the top 100 players when he began play in last month’s Reykjavik Open. His result there was impressive, an unbeaten 7/9 with a performance rating of nearly 2700, and second prize behind Iran’s Parham Maghsoodloo.
The Ukrainian did not even stay for the prize giving, as he was on the plane to San Vicente, Spain, where another Open began the next day. He was unbeaten there, too, with 7.5/9, placing third on tiebreak, and winning in round six with a ferocious attack.
On to Menorca, again with no break, where his rivals included Nihal Sarin, one of the leaders of the new young Indian group headed by the 18-year-old world champion Gukesh Dommaraju. Sarin v Ivanchuk came down to a level rook ending, where the younger man blundered a key pawn and the game.
In his final Menorca game, Ivanchuk almost spoilt everything. Twice he erred into lost positions, but blunders by his young Indian opponent at moves 42 and 50 allowed the Ukrainian to finish the game with a pretty finish, which could have ended with a pawn promotion to knight checkmate.
The final moments were caught on camera. At the end of his Odyssey, Ivanchuk had won 18 games. drawn nine, and lost none, with an overall performance above the 2700 elite grandmaster level. He has long been regarded as one of the most creative players in the game, and these results will cement his reputation.
Monday’s eighth and final episode of BBC2’s Chess Masters: The Endgame was a victory for Thalia Holmes, 20, from Chester, the youngest contestant. Holmes had played competitively as a child, then gave up the game for several years before returning as chess boomed in the 2020s. Her name is a clue to her playing style, as she is an admirer of Mikhail Tal, the Latvian genius who became world champion by winning risky and complex sacrificial attacking games.
Reactions to the series have been mixed. Strong older players, who remember BBC2’s The Master Game series of the 1970s and 1980s, hark back to the programmes where the world champion Anatoly Karpov met England’s Tony Miles and Nigel Short. The current programmes have generated their own identity, though,
The grandmaster presenter, David Howell, has been excellent. Howell has created several innovative challenges for contestants, including pawn races, memory tests set by his friend Magnus Carlsen, puzzles involving checkmates in one, two, three, four and five moves, and mini-simultaneous exhibitions by the young prodigy Bodhana Sivanandan and by himself, all as part of the elimination process to produce a single winner.
The viewing figures for Monday’s final edition, supplied by Broadcast, were impressive — a jump from 535,000 to 655,000 and 5.5 per cent of the viewing public. This strong number confirms the impression from anecdotal evidence that Chess Masters has created a loyal fan base of social players, novices and beginners, and children who find the concept inspiring and makes them eager to learn more about the game.
Reports from insiders suggest that a decision on whether the BBC will commission a second series is in the balance. Last night’s positive audience figures could swing it.
Puzzle 2622
Philip Crocker v Alan Merry, Blackpool 2017. Black to move and win.
Click here for solution
Read the full article here