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Anish Giri has won the Magnus Carlsen Invitational after defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi 2: 0 in a lightning playoff. The Dutchman does not. 1 wins $ 60,000 and as a Major winner joins Teimour Radjabov as a confirmed participant in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Finals in San Francisco this September. Magnus Carlsen took third place with a game to spare after beating Wesley So. Although that was not what the World Champion wanted in the tournament with his name, he is now only 5 points behind Wesley in the overall Tour standings. .
You can replay all knockout games from the Magnus Carlsen Invitational using the selector below.
And here is the comment of the last day of Peter Leko and Tania Sachdev.
And David Howell, Jovanka Houska and Kaja Snare.
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The final day looked like it was going to end early after Carlsen and Giri took the lead, but in the end we got some great drama in the match that mattered the most.
Let’s start, however, by taking a look at the match for third place.
Magnus Carlsen 2: 1 Wesley So
If it weren’t for Wesley So, we wouldn’t be talking about a mini crisis for Magnus Carlsen. The US Chess Champion has single-handedly prevented Magnus from winning tournaments since mid-October by defeating the World Champion in the Skilling Open and Opera Euro Rapid finals. This was, therefore, a kind of revenge. Magnus commented, when asked if he was “very happy”:
I would say very happy is a huge exaggeration. Third is better than fourth for sure, and for the future obviously there will be a lot more events like this and it’s good to beat Wesley. He was clearly not 100% motivated and he was not in his best shape, but like I said, it is much better than losing the last game and I spoke about it yesterday. After winning the first game, he definitely had a clear desire to win this match.
The first game saw Wesley So surprise by playing the hyper-aggressive 4.f3 against the Nimzo-Indian, but after 2 minutes of thinking, Magnus returned the surprise with 4… Nc6 !?
A curiosity is that the highest rated player who has tried that, according to the chess24 database, is our commentator Peter Leko, who once played it blindfold against Vasyl Ivanchuk.
Wesley immediately started wasting time as well, and although the computer wasn’t convinced by the settings, Magnus did all it took was lose 13.Nf3 !? Nh5! 14.g3? to allow black to take over.
14… g5! 15.fxg5 hxg5 16.Nxg5 Nf4!
Wesley thought for more than 5 minutes, though 17.gxf4 it was a sad necessity, and then 17… Rxh4 only a very precise game could have held together White’s over-extended position. Instead, Magnus soon had an overwhelming position and achieved a smooth victory.
That, essentially, was that. Wesley got nothing in the next game and was left with the need to win the next two games on demand to force a tiebreaker. Magnus had shown that this was possible in the semi-finals, but in Game 3 Wesley never had a chance and it was Magnus who claimed victory with a draw.
Of course, it was a disappointing result for Magnus, who participates in every event that he plays as the favorite, but there were also positives. In fact, it went up to no. 2 in the Tour’s overall standings, after beating Wesley in the match for third place while co-leader before the event, Teimour Radjabov was eliminated in the preliminary stage.
Magnus also saw an improvement in his game:
It’s pretty clear during the preliminaries and the first day of the quarterfinals that I really played quite well when the stakes were low, and you could see that when the pressure was highest in the semi-finals, I was a bit wrong, but I think En Overall, I played much better in this tournament than in the previous one, so I think it’s a small step forward, although of course I would have loved not to have my worst two days during the semi-finals.
However, the key action was elsewhere.
Ian Nepomniachtchi 2: 2 Anish Giri (Anish wins 2: 0 in playoff)
This final remained a Sicilian themed match, with Anish playing Najdorf again in the first match of the day. It was a match where neither player seriously derailed, but we did get to witness some aesthetically pleasing moves.
Giri 24… Rc3! Of course, it was possible due to the immobilized b-pawn, and it carries some royal poison. The sloppy 25.Na1 ?? or 25.Nc1 ?? he would meet mate-in-2: 25… Rxa3 +! 26.Kxa3 Qa4 # Of course Nepo didn’t fall in love with that, and then 25.Qf5 + Kg8 26.Nc5 he soon went on to force a tie by perpetual check.
It was in the second game that the draw streak finally ended, as Ian, with more than 9 minutes on his watch, played 18… Nc6? instead of 18… Ng6. That allowed 19.g6! and suddenly Black’s position was collapsing.
Then 19… 0-0-0 20.gxf7 Qxf7 21.Bc4! Anish picked up the electronic pawn and won a surprisingly smooth game.
Ian now needed a quick win, but once against Giri’s Najdorf he stood his ground in another intense draw, meaning Anish only needed a draw with White in the final game to clinch the title. However, as we’ve seen, drawing on demand is harder than it sounds, and what followed was a brilliantly played game by Ian, culminating in a memorable ending.
The simple 37… Qf2 is perfectly sufficient, but Ian saw the much more elegant 37… Rxe5! 38.Rxg3 Bxg3
Re1 comes next to win the queen, and White can’t do anything about it.
That meant Ian Nepomniachtchi had forced a playoff against all odds, but Anish had at least one reason for optimism:
What really helped was Ian’s match against Magnus, because there Ian ruined two games that shouldn’t be missed and then won, and he did it right there a day ago, so I never had any doubt that the match was over once. . I went to the playoff.
If anything, Anish was perhaps too optimistic, opting for a speculative piece sacrifice.
17.Nfe5 +?! fxe5 18.dxe5 Bc5 it left White with only one pawn a piece, but for a blitzkrieg, White certainly had a trade-off in the form of attacking opportunities. Nepo was forced to spend more time than usual, but nevertheless had a winning position on move 25.
The good options here are 25… Rg8 or 25… Qe8, but after 47 seconds (this was a 5 minute blitzkrieg), Ian collapsed with 25 … Kh7? Giri’s queen pounced with 26.Qd7 +!, when Black could no longer defend with 26… Be7 as the c8 rook now only defends once and can be captured.
Ian would comment later:
Considering the comeback in Game 4 and a completely winning position in the first blitzkrieg, I’d probably say I deserved a bit more, but then you spend a minute for a move like Kh7 and then you see that Kh7 is wrong and you play right. Rh7 anyway, so this is probably karma or something!
Giri went on to convert victory with surgical precision, with Ian able to see the funny side at the end.
That meant Nepo had to win on demand once again, and ended a sequence of 9 Sicilians in a row playing. 1.b3.
Anish saw that as an odd choice, as well as a vindication of how he had played the Najdorf:
I was very happy, of course, especially since the Najdorf had passed the test. In the final game it didn’t even get to 1.e4, which was surprising, because people usually play 1.b3 because they want to get an interesting position, because they are sick and tired of boring openings, but I play Najdorf! I really don’t see why you would avoid the Najdorf in a forced win, it’s anything but solid, but I can imagine that he probably felt that he was very well prepared and that he didn’t want to end up in a situation where he meets my preparation. I just wanted to have men against men, it’s fair enough.
However, it did not work, with 16.Nd2? a losing move in an already unpleasant position.
Anish had eagle eyes again when he replied 16… Bg5!, with the weak f3 square forcing Nepo to exchange minor pieces with 17.Bxd4 Bxd2 18.Rd1 cxd4 19.Rxd2. 19… Nc5 he saw the black knight occupy a dreamy outpost where he could not be challenged and hit White’s weak e4 pawn.
White’s bishop became a glorified pawn after 20.Bd3 and although the material was the same, Black had a great advantage in a game that only needed to draw. Anish never wavered as he calmly took home the victory to claim 1st place at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational.
The tournament was the second of three Majors on the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour and thus awarded Giri an automatic spot, alongside Teimour Radjabov, in the Finals to be held in San Francisco in September.
It also meant a good amount of points and cash.
It was Giri’s first online victory on the Tour, but he was later eager to point out that this was not his first major tournament win (other highlights include Reggio Emilia in 2012 and the Shenzhen Masters 2018).
Obviously it’s great to win, but I wouldn’t call this a defining moment for the race or anything like that. Contrary to these fake news that my main competitor has spread, I have won several tournaments, on several occasions, including the prestigious MrDodgy Invitational and a few more.
In less than a month, on April 19, Giri will have Black against Nepomniachtchi, who is followed by a point, when the Candidates Tournament interrupted by the pandemic finally resumes in Yekaterinburg. Anish felt her online success give her a boost.
Above all it is good for the vibrations of the Candidates, for the preparation. It is also good because I have the firm conviction that destiny does not exist. Some people say champions are made of something, this kind of nonsense. I absolutely do not believe this, and it is good against the Candidates that I win a tournament like this and that I know that if I get to a very lucky situation I will be close there, which is a long way to go, but if I ever get to that situation I will not have no doubt, despite what many people are trying to create.
It is clear that Anish will be armed to the teeth for Yekaterinburg, but Ian Nepomniachtchi enters the event as a co-leader and obviously in good shape. Beating Nakamura and then Carlsen in online matches is something special, and he came incredibly close to entering the final blitzkrieg needing only a draw with White. As he noted later, he did so by avoiding the vacancies he plans to use in Candidates.
In the end, however, he fell short and had to be content with the $ 40,000 prize for the runners-up.
He made no secret of his joy that it was all over.
That also means the end of 9 intense days for chess fans, but we don’t have to wait until the Candidates return for the best action. The new Julius Baer Challengers Chess Tour will see Judit Polgar and Vladimir Kramnik team captains of some of the best young players in the world in a 5-event $ 100,000 series that also qualifies the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour winners.
For more details, check out our launch article, as we announce the lineups and more soon.
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