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To the semifinals
In the previous three Meltwater Champions Chess Tour events, at least one of the quarter-final matches went to Armageddon. A very different situation was seen at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational, as none of the matches made it to the blitzkrieg tiebreaks, with three of them ending after 3 games (each mini-match lasts 4 games, unless a winner has been found after 3 games).
Additionally, the finalists from the previous event, Magnus Carlsen and Wesley So, only needed 6 games in total to advance to the semi-finals. Carlsen will face Ian Nepomniachtchi, who knocked out Hikaru Nakamura by winning the first two games and drawing the third on Wednesday; while So will play Anish Giri, who surpassed Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.
We can safely say that all four players clearly deserve their places in the semi-finals. While Carlsen is the favorite against Nepo, who did not show a stable performance in the preliminaries, So and Giri have been playing entrepreneurial chess successfully throughout. A couple of very exciting matches await us!
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So 2½: ½ Firouzja
To say that So’s victory was convincing would be an understatement. The Philippine-born star proved that she can squeeze positional edges and find precise tactical assets if position calls for it. Their victory in the second game on Wednesday was particularly impressive:
Firouzja had played his usual Caro-Kann, but found a very well-prepared opponent in So. Here, the American spent 6 minutes before deciding on 15.Bd3 – the idea is that after 15 … Bxd3 White has 16.Bxa5 Kxa5 17.Qxd3, attacking the knight on g6.
The game went on 17 … Kf7 18. Nxa5 Qxa5 (18 … g4 was better) 19.Qf5 Qd8:
White now brought all his pieces to the attack with decisive effect: 20.Rae1 Ngf8 21.Re7 + Bxf7 22.fxe7 + (open check) Kxe7 23.Re1 + Rd6:
24.Ne5 and the last piece adds to the onslaught. There he continued 24 Kh7 … 25.Nxd7 Y 25 … Qxd7 allowing mate-in-one – 26.Qd6 #.
Final analysis of GM Karsten Müller
Karsten Müller analyzed the ending that emerged in the third game of the day: a knight fork festival!
Nepomniachtchi 2½: ½ Nakamura
Nepomniachtchi also had a good victory in attack with White in the first game of the day against Nakamura:
White threatens to play Qe4 next, so Nakamura decided to solve the problem by immediately handing over a pawn with 22 … g6 23.Rxh6 Kg7. But White’s attack has not been completely neutralized, as Nepo pushed his h-pawn with 24.h4 Bf5 25.h5.
The game went on 25 … Rc8 26.Bd2 Bxd3 27.Qxd3 And although the queens left the board afterwards 27 … Qf5 28.Qxf5 gxf5 29.Rd6 White’s attack is still very much alive:
Black cannot defend the d4 pawn, allowing White to activate his a1 rook through e1-e3. Nepo combined his rooks with the h-pawn and the dark-squared bishop on the long diagonal to increase the pressure and ultimately score a 39-move victory.
Final analysis of GM Karsten Müller
The finals specialist analyzes a game from the first set of the match.
Giri 3: 1 Vachier-Lagrave
After drawing twice with Black and winning Game 2 with White, Giri only needed a draw in Game 4 to secure a spot in the semi-finals. Vachier-Lagrave played carelessly in a win-win situation and was defeated in 20 moves:
Learning from world champions
With famous classic examples of the works of the giants, the author talks in detail about the principles of chess and the playing methods that we can use during each stage of the game.
White seized the initiative with 17.Ra4 Rfb8 18.Rxb4 Bf8 19.Rb6:
19 … Ng4 and MVL resigned after 20.Bc4. Black is stagnant and White threatens to play 21.Be4 next (20 … Ng6 fails at 21.Bg5).
Carlsen 2: 1 Aronian
After earning a clear victory in the first mini-match, Carlsen started Day 2 of the quarterfinals with a victory. A draw in the second game meant that the world champion only needed a draw to advance to the semi-finals. Aronian had a sizable lead in Game 3, but couldn’t turn it into a win. Carlsen later evaluated their performance:
It was not very good. Today in general I felt that I played much worse than the other days. But luckily I got the job done. […] I need to recover tomorrow because I need to play a little better than today.
The semi-finals start on Thursday at 16:00 GMT (17:00 CET, 11:00 ET, 21:30 IST).
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