A surprise to some extent, as this is generally not the way that MVL prefers to start a game. Has he come specifically armed for a particular variation played by Sevian today? Interesting!
We have the four knights variation of the King's English. In its own way this is an interesting opening, as this is nothing but the Sicilian Defense with colors reversed!
We have a dynamic fight on the cards, with an open center. Only, with both the players opting to place their kings on the same side, we shall not see much of a tactical battle today. But it will be an active positional game, for sure.
This is an advantage of playing any opening with colors reversed. Being White, an extra move is the asset in any opening. Here, MVL uses it to start immediate action on the queenside, expanding his territorial domination with a pawn push.
Though White has a mild space advantage in the queenside, it is not an easy task to gain any tangible advantage. Such positions are deeply analyzed, and we can rest assured that both the players know the opening deeply beforehand.
It is not easy to find any targets in the black position to attack. The game will now almost assume a maneuvering character, though with a heightened sense of dynamism due to the open nature of the center.
This is a characteristic position of the variation. White's light bishop will have a long innings, in this openings, exerting tremendous pressure on the long diagonal. Essentially, the whole game now centers around Black's ability to withstand the pressure from White's light Bishop.
Obviously, this is part of his preparation for the game and hence analyzed by him at home. White's pawns get pushed on the queenside, thus setting up an onslaught on the black pawns. It will be interesting to see how Sevian will counter this simple but effective-looking attack.
Though it looks strange, this knight retreat is a ploy to avoid the exchange of pieces by White. Not only does he aim to chase the black knight all over the board, but also his bishop on the long diagonal has also started its job of staring down on the opponent's pawns on the queenside.
Though it serves the purpose of defending the attacked pawn, the black Queen doesn't belong to this square, and might get passive doing this lowly duty.
It will be one of Black's problems in this game to decide on a stable position for the knight.
If you observe otherwise, too, almost all the knights do not have effective jobs in this game, both colors included! This is natural, as the pawn structure in the center is not fixed, which is one of the ways that knights can find footholds to anchor themselves.
The white queen comes to a modest square, preparing to develop his knight on the first rank, as well as sidestep from the opponent's rook's gaze in the semi-open file later on.
There is a certain clumsiness in the placement of the pieces in both camps. This makes the game complex to understand and play. It is from such games that there is interesting play always emerges, as the players are forced to come up with creative on-the-spot ideas instead of well-rehearsed and known plans.
The rook move is intended to support his dark bishop. But one can't help but feel that Black is handling the position passively here. After all, this opening setup, being from the reversed side of the Sicilian Defense, makes one expect more dynamism from both players in the middlegame.
MVL has a small positional edge here in the position. It remains to be seen if he will be able to take advantage of that.
Being out of the first rank, the knight should be relieved to take up an active duty in the position. He will help White mount good pressure on Black's queenside pawns.
With White's powerful bishop gone, his influence on the queenside has come down too. However, it also means that Black might develop a weakness in his light squares in the long run.
Having exchanged off the light-colored bishops, MVL decides to open up the kingside. Typical of him, not to bother much about the weakening of the kingside. Now, Black has the unenviable job of deciding on the correct pawn structure in the center—a complex decision.
Though this helps Black to further simplify the position, it helps White to obtain a space advantage on the kingside.
The white queen gets placed on an odd square here, with the pretense of pinning the black knight. However, it is not clear if the White Queen will get an active role from afar.
The black Knight gets unpinned from the white queen's gaze. Once again, Sevian continues to play simple and economic moves, leaving the complexity part to MVL!
However, White's pieces lack coordination here, hence not having much potential for a threatening attack. At this point, exchanging off all the bishops seems to have worked well in black's favour.
The rook being in the semi-open file will greatly help him in nullifying any initiative that White can hope to have. Finally, it looks like Sevian's worst is behind him, as he can look forward confidently to hold the position against MVL
Sevian seems to have given White an opportunity to pile up an attack on Black's queenside. With both the players having around 20 minutes on the clock, the game enters a tense phase now.
MVL misses an opportunity to gain the initiative and brings his knight back to shoo away the black queen. Now, his pawn in the central file is really a weakness to defend.
Neither side seems to hold any edge over the other. Only, the approaching time trouble will test both the players' nerves now!
All in all, Black seems to have solved most of his problems now and is in no way inferior in the game now. In fact, it is MVL who has to be careful here, as the black rooks are threateningly doubled up on the central file, casting a huge domination on the position.
But this also creates another weakness in the white camp—his king pawn, which has turned out to be backward here. With such mutual weaknesses in their pawn structure, the game gets complicated too. Coming as it does on the threshold of time pressure, we might still get to see some interesting action in this game!
Black gets ready to pile up on the fresh weakness now - the backward pawn on the king file. It will be difficult for MVL to find a way to press for an advantage here.
It might be difficult at this point to find any other course of action. And they still have about 11 moves to go for the time control, with about 11 minutes each left on their clocks to reach the move.
As one of those 'Every Russian Schoolboy Knows' theories goes, strong players instinctively shut down any knight fork threats even miles away. Such moves are considered to be healthy strengthening moves.
But this also unnecessarily weakens black's kingside position, even though no harm can be expected in the immediate future.
MVL moves in to exploit the small weakness created by Black's previous pawn move, but he overlooks the fact that Black can immediately exchange off his advanced knight
With this exchange, Black has captured the initiative here, and it will be MVL who has to be careful in the incoming skirmish.
This is how dynamism combined with self-confidence works! Instead of playing safe under time pressure, MVL prefers to gamble in mutual time pressure!
Down to his last minute, Sevian aims to protect his position, more than anything. He aims for a rook exchange, after which his queen and knight should be able to defend his position and may even gain an advantage due to White's isolated weak pawn in the center.
The resultant endgame shouldn't be able to offer any great chances for either side to win. Only, both the sides shouldn't commit any obvious error in the result position, as it has some imbalances to cover for both sides.
The position is further simplified into one of simple equality. With time control having been reached, too, the game is surely moving towards a draw.
MVL aims to keep his knight and queen centralized, and probes to see if he has any winning chances. After all, black has a big minus in this position: the black king cannot play any part in the game, almost. Whereas, the white king is nearer to the action. But the white king also has the danger of getting exposed to attack.
Sevian wants to make sure that White won't have a free hand. Since the white king too is mildly exposed, the black queen takes the opportunity to keep an attack.
It is not clear how much risk MVL is ready to take to win the game. Since the white king himself is not very safe here, he may quickly arrive at a draw here.
Sevian dares the white king to go further up, or move a pawn to cover the king.
White is forced to exchange queens and enter a knight endgame here
White threatens to win the black pawn on the queenside. The knight endgame must be a drawn one, without any danger for Black.
Both the queenside pawns have been exchanged. The rest of the game is just a formality for both the players now. A draw is expected any time.
From the way it began, it looked like MVL might have a slight edge, but he made errors in the middlegame which saw his edge vanishing.
Once he identified weaknesses in White's position, Sevian defended accurately, pinning down White to defend his pawns in the center.
Though MVL fought on for quite some time, the result was never in doubt, after a certain point.
So, both the players remain winless in the tournament, having drawn all their games. It is quite a surprise to see MVL at this stage, especially with his playing style.
Odd for a chess game, both the queens are at extreme ends of the board, with long diagonals ahead / behind them!
MVL's pawn push in the bishop file might look like another regular push, but the devil is in the details. Now, it is not an easy task for Sevian to decide what to do with the offer: to exchange the pawns or to leave them as they are.
Often in chess, at the highest levels, it is by offering such choices for the opponents that the best of the players test them psychologically. The best in the business in 'killing the opponents with choices' is, of course, Magnus Carlsen!
Caruana has already drawn his game against Aronian, which must be motivating enough for all the players on three points to try and win their games, to get closer to the tournament leader! 🪙
MVL has been playing faster than his opponent, thus showing the strength of his opening preparation. Only, chess engines actually do not approve of MVL's treatment of the position.
But hey! The opponent doesn't have a computer on the board to consult, right!?
Welcome to the seventh round of the Sinquefield Cup! As the tournament enters final stretch, the gap between both our combatants and the leader Caruana is barely a single point! This should definitely make them work harder, to score their first win in the tournament.
The dynamic French Grandmaster MVL must have probably done this for the first time in his career? Right from the very first game, MVL has given it all, trying for a win in each and every game. But the victory has strangely eluded him. Against Gukesh and Aronian he probably came the closest to winning but missed it by a whisker.
On the other hand, we have Sam Sevian, who played solid chess throughout the tournament. Good strategic understanding and keen defensive abilities have helped him to avoid a single defeat so far, but he couldn't win any game either.
So what can we expect today? Well, MVL being White, he will definitely play for a win with all force as the tournament enters its final stretch. Let's hope for a decisive result today!