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Magnus Carlsen’s erratic form since his 30th birthday a month ago received another setback on Wednesday when Russian Daniil Dubov used his labyrinthine tactical skills to eliminate world champion from the $ 200,000 online quarterfinals Airthings Masters and improve the of the 24-year-old Muscovite. own growing status as a darling of the swashbuckling and creative crowd.
In the other quarterfinals, Levon Aronian (Armenia) beat Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan) beat Ian Nepomniachtchi (Russia) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France) beat Wesley So (USA). USA).
The semi-finals continue at 2pm Friday with live commentary from the grandmaster on chess24.com, Radjabov won the first set (of two, with possible tie-breaks) 3-1 against Dubov while Aronian leads Vachier-Lagrave for the same punctuation.
The world champion’s form has dropped since he turned 30 a month ago, when a publicity photo for the Tour showed him with a tropical sea in the background and a tray full of gourmet treats.
While Dubov modestly attributed his success to luck, Carlsen called it a “meltdown” and added “I’m in a deep slump right now.” In the game that eliminated the Norwegian, the decisive mistake that turned a difficult victory one piece ahead into a quick checkmate defeat in final position came on move 34 when Qe7 lost while the active Qa5! would have won.
Dubov now has a large positive score against Carlsen in his online tournament games during the pandemic, leading 6-3 with four draws. However, the general form of the Russian includes days of inactivity, so he has yet to make the top 10 across the board or be close to qualifying for the world title candidates.
This week’s results put additional pressure on Carlsen for the next big over theboard tournament at Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee, which kicks off in the Dutch spa on January 15. Carlsen has an outstanding record at Wijk, where his 13 opponents include world No. 2 Fabiano Caruana, who has kept a low profile on the Online Tour, in addition to two rising stars Dubov and Alireza Firouzja.
Meanwhile, the UK online championship will have its final two rounds on Saturday and Sunday (starts at 7pm, visit chessbomb.com to watch the matches). England’s No.1 Michael Adams leads 6/7, half a point ahead of Matthew Turner. Adams has won seven British titles across the board, but his chances of matching Jonathan Penrose’s record of 10 wins are slimmed down because the online version will not count in official titles.
The most striking performance has been in the women’s championship. Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant, who in her peak years was a world-class player, won all seven games, but second at 5/7 was 12-year-old Nina Pert with a score of 1537. The Brentwood schoolgirl, daughter of IM Richard Pert and niece of GM Nick Pert, defeated the second seeded in the final round and has a bright future.
3704: 1 Be1! g3 2 Be2! dxe2 3 Rb4! Rxb4 4 d4 partner.
