Giri maintains lead after second day of Skilling Open

The second day of the Skilling Open was an exciting chess day. After two days and ten rounds of action, GM Anish Giri is still in the lead with a score of 6.5 / 10.

GM Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren, and Wesley So are tied for second-fourth at 6/10, while GM Hikaru Nakamura is tied for fifth to seventh alongside GMs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Ian Nepomniachtchi at 5.5 / 10. The tension is starting to build with five rounds to go in the free-for-all portion of the tournament, as all 16 players are still likely to be in the top eight.

The final five rounds of the preliminary stage will be played on Tuesday, November 24 before the knockout phase of the top eight begins on Wednesday, November 25.

Round 6

Round six was a bloodthirsty affair with five deciding games. He started with two similar and unusual h-pawn moves in the opening, both Carlsen and GM Alireza Firouzja moved their respective h-pawns up one square on move four, a completely elusive theory. GM Levon Aronian had white against Carlsen, who played 4 … h6 after a normal Queen’s Gambit declined:

Aronian responded with 5. g3 and the game morphed into a Catalan-style position. Despite giving up the bishop pair early on and giving himself bent and isolated d-pawns, Carlsen was able to comfortably draw the game.

Firouzja had white against GM Teimour Radjabov and opted for a four-horse opening. Firouzja’s 4. h3 surprised everyone:

Although the play itself was not the cause of Firouzja’s suffering, Radjabov took advantage of Firouzja’s subsequent mistakes and won the game convincingly.

Vachier-Lagrave defeated GM David Guijarro Anton in the final and GM Le Quang Liem was able to come back from a bad position to beat Nakamura. GM Sergey Karjakin won a good match against GM Santosh Gujrathi Vidit while Nepomniachtchi had an instructive victory against GM Jan Krzysztof-Duda with the black pieces.

Round 7

Round 7 had some exciting games and featured a fantastic victory for Vachier-Lagrave, who won with the black pieces in just 25 moves. Here’s the full game with analysis from GM Dejan Bojkov.

Firouzja played a King’s Indian Defense against Anton and made an early and unsound piece sacrifice. His counterplay was almost non-existent until Anton opened the queenside with 23. dxc6 and then allowed 26 … b5 a few moves later. After Anton’s last mistake with 29. Qc6 ?, Firouzja launched a devastating mating attack:

Radjabov won his second game in a row by easily defeating Aronian. Carlsen won a soft game against Duda and moved to a score of 5/7, joining Giri in the lead after seven rounds.

Round 8

The eighth round saw Radjabov win his third game in a row by defeating Duda in excellent fashion. Duda used an unusual double fianchet to move the order in the opening that eventually transpired to an Englishman. The position seemed balanced until Radjabov began to play on the kingside. After the 29 of Duda. Qe1? Radjabov was firmly in control and was converted.

The rest of the games were drawn in this round, the most interesting being the Carlsen-Ding game. Carlsen had Black and he repeated his 4 … h6 in the Queen’s Gambit and rejected that he played in the sixth round against Aronian. Ding got into a nice position from the opening and kept the pressure going throughout the queenless halfgame. It looked like Ding might have some chances, but Carlsen drew smoothly after he was allowed to develop his queenside pieces and the game ended.

Round 9

The ninth round saw four decisive results. Firouzja defeated Aronian with a powerful attack and So scored his first win of the day against Le Quang Liem.

Radjabov had white against Ding this round and his winning streak came to an end. They played a poisoned pawn Najdorf where Ding went to grab pawns. After 15 … Qxe5, Ding was raising three pawns but was far behind in development. Ding resigned from the exchange to solidify his position and later exchanged queens. The materially unbalanced ending was not easy, but Ding finally coordinated his knights after 34 … Ng4:

The two tournament leaders, Carlsen and Giri, faced each other in this round. Carlsen attempted an early 4. Qxd4 against Giri’s Sicilian and a balanced position was reached from the opening. Carlsen tried to create some imbalances, but Giri had no difficulty navigating the position and the game was tied.

Duda’s bad day at the office continued with a loss for Anton.

Round 10

The final round of the day saw another five deciding games as players competed for position in the leaderboard. Karjakin had the white pieces against Carlsen who attempted a Philidor Defense. Karjakin obtained a promising position from the opening and began to expand on the kingside quickly. Magnus surrendered his queen to throw the position off balance, but did not get enough compensation and Karjakin won without much difficulty.

Nakamura got into a nice position from the opening against Nepo and had the bishop pair and extra space. Nepo was wrong with 14 … b5? and Naka was in the driver’s seat. He won a piece with 19. Qf3 and was victorious, ending his day on a high note.

Nakamura called this a “strange day” on his Twitch channel after the tournament. Apparently a Geico commercial was being filmed at the TSM facility that he had been playing all day!

Duda was able to end his day off with a win over Firouzja, Ding defeated Anton and Le Quang Liem defeated GM Peter Svidler to end the second day.