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GM Anish Giri had a great first day after scoring four points out of five at the Skilling Open. GM Magnus Carlsen recovered from a tragic slip of the mouse to share the second third with GM David Anton Guijarro.
The Chess24 Champions Chess Tour Skilling Open matches can be found here as part of our live events platform. IM Levy Rozman and IM Anna Rudolf provide daily commentary on GM Hikaru Nakamura’s Twitch channel starting at 7:00 AM Pacific / 4:00 PM Central Europe.
Round 1
The first round began with one of the most anticipated encounters of the event, as world number four GM Ian Nepomniachtchi took on world champion GM Magnus Carlsen.
Carlsen chose to deviate from the main line of the Ruy López after playing 3 … Nge7 (the Cozio Defense). This move didn’t catch Nepo off guard, and the Russian was able to seize the initiative and slowly build an advantage. However, the world champion still managed to equalize and then get a better position after exchanging a few pieces.
Everything seemed to be going well for Carlsen when fate struck in the form of a terrible mouse slip that hung his queen. The Norwegian grandmaster resigned before Nepomniachtchi had a chance to understand what had happened.
“I decided one thing I didn’t want to happen was for him to think, ‘Should I offer a draw since he slipped into a winning position?'” Carlsen later revealed. “I just quit so he wouldn’t have to make any of those decisions,” another fabulous display of fair play from Carlsen.
I decided that one thing I didn’t want to happen was for him to think, ‘Should I offer a draw since he slipped into a winning position?’ I just quit so he wouldn’t have to make any of those decisions.
– GM Magnus Carlsen
Besides Nepo, GM Levon Aronian was the only player to score a full point after defeating GM Quang Liem Le in the first round.
Round 2
The second round of the day featured a great win by young prodigy GM Alireza Firouzja against GM Wesley So. Here’s the full analysis of GM Dejan Bojkov’s game.
GM Anish Giri also earned his first full point in the second round after facing GM Sergey Karjakin. Giri converted a favorable ending after trading most of the pieces to force Karjakin to create multiple islands of pawns.
Aronian, Nepomniachtchi and Anton Guijarro also won their games in the second round.
Round 3
It was in the third round that Anton Guijarro showed his true strength. After Nepo started the game with an off-beat opening and ignored chess tradition by failing to castle, Anton Guijarro punished the Russian super-grandmaster harshly.
Anton Guijarro saw the impressive 15 … Nh5 that made life very difficult for the white monarch. After closing the queenside and playing with surgical precision, the Spanish grandmaster won a pawn, trade and a full knight, forcing Nepo to resign.
On the other boards, Carlsen scored his first win against GM Teimour Radjabov, and So beat Aronian.
Round 4
The fourth round put Firouzja and Nepomniachtchi back in the spotlight. The young Iranian got a winning position after 20.Nf5 Rd7 (instead of the approved engine 20 … Rxe4). At one point, Stockfish 12 evaluated the position at +15.6.
Unfortunately for Firouzja, he found himself in a dramatic race against the clock. Nepo took advantage of that fact to rip off his opponent into a miraculous draw.
Attention also turned to GM Hikaru Nakamura when he scored his first win of the day playing with black pieces against Karjakin. The Russian chose to play the Vienna opening, and Nakamura quickly swapped his dark-squared bishop for Karjakin’s c3 knight.
Karjakin charged up his g-pawn to try to create trouble for Nakamura, who defended well. The turning point of the game came after White made a mistake and allowed 20 … c4, trapping their bishop. Nakamura went on to win the game.
Radjabov, Carlsen, So and Giri also won their respective games.
Round 5
The last round was decisive in determining the leader of the tournament of the day. It got him his first win against Karjakin, who was clearly not on his best day. Carlsen beat Firouzja, while Anton Guijarro defeated Radjabov, allowing both players to reach 3½ points and temporarily tie for first place.
Meanwhile, friends Giri and GM Santosh Gujrathi Vidit clashed. After 43 moves, they came to a knight, rook and two pawn ending against a bishop, a rook and two pawns.
Stockfish valued the position as a dead draw, but Vidit slipped 40 moves later on 83.Kd1, missing his chance to tie the game. Giri finally found the winning idea starting with 89 … Rd2 +, forcing Vidit to resign in a few moves. With this victory, Giri took the lead in the tournament.
“The scoring is good, obviously. Two more days to go, so it’s early to count the eggs, or whatever they say,” Giri commented on his results. “The positions were very good. It could have been more, perhaps, but it is a very good result for me, for sure.”
All games rounds 1-5
The Chess24 Champions Chess Tour Skilling Open will be held from November 23 to 30. The preliminary phase is a quick round-robin of 16 players (15 + 10). The top eight players advance to a six-day knockout consisting of two days of four-game snap games, which may advance to blitz (5 + 3) and armageddon tiebreakers (White has five minutes, Black four without increment) . if the elimination match is tied after the second day. The prize pool is $ 100,000 with $ 30,000 for first place.
