The Nutcracker was a generational team tournament held at the Central House of Chess in Moscow. The event saw two teams of four players compete in both rapid and classical chess: one team, the "Kings," representing the current world elite, taking on the "Princes," a collection of some of Russia's best teenage chess talent.

Team Rosters

Kings: Alexander Morozevich, Alexey Dreev, Peter Leko, Alexei Shirov


Princes: Daniil Dubov, Vladislav Artemiev, Gregory Oparin, Vladimir Fedoseev

Results

Despite being significantly outrated, the Princes got off to a surprisingly strong start when it came to the classical portion of the tournament. In particular, Fedoseev was quite successful, scoring wins against both Shirov and Leko en route to a 2.5/4 score. For the Kings, Shirov and Morozevich led the way, each scoring 2.5 points themselves. In the end, this portion of the tournament was played to a draw, with both sides scoring eight points.

That meant that the event would be decided by rapid play, with each competitor playing two games against each of their opponents. Once again, Fedoseev shined, scoring an impressive 6/8 in this segment of the tournament to keep the Princes in contention. But he was the only young player to make a positive score in rapid play, and while one of his teammates had a disastrous time, the Kings were able to chip away against them. Led by 5.5 points from Dreev and 5.0 from Leko, the Kings were able to take the rapid portion of the tournament by the narrowest of possible margins, winning 16.5-15.5.

That meant that they also won overall by the same slim margin: the final score was Kings 24.5, Princes 23.5.