Well, that's the only conclusion I can come to after yesterday's events in Round 6 of the Norway Chess tournament being held in Stavanger. There simply isn't any other possible explanation. As the Iron lady said, "There is no alternative."
You only have to go back to the post of April 3rd to find the key piece of evidence. The report of the A team's win over Stratford A (which clinched our fourth successive LDCL Division 1 title) contained the beautiful queen sacrifice finish which Billy pulled off against Richard Dobedoe. If you can't remember what happened, here it is again, in all its glory.
Well, knock me down with a feather, but what happened yesterday in Norway but this. World number 1 Magnus Carlsen used Billy's exact motif to deliver checkmate against current - but clearly ailing - world Champion, Ding Liren.
So I think I'm on safe ground in being pretty confident that Magnus must be a KCC Blog reader, because there is simply no other way he could ever have come up with such a great idea if he wasn't copying Billy
Anyway, now we've established exactly where Magnus gets his best ideas from, it can only be a matter of time before we see some of Joshua's bizarre opening systems appear in his repertoire. And I expect he'll soon be fianchettoing his knights, too!!
Meanwhile here's an old favourite (though not with me, I can't stand the song!), but this post has clearly shown that its not only the history book on the shelf which is always repeating itself!
