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Magnus Carlsen scored 6.5 / 9 on the first day of the blitz when he edged out Wesley So to regain the lead in the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz. The World Champion was rewarded handsomely for doing his best in almost every moment of every game, with 6 wins and 2 losses, although he could easily have lost another 3 games. Wesley is only half a point off the pace and the final day will be a two horse race. Hikaru Nakamura was the second leading scorer in the blitz with 5.5 points, but losses in his first (Carlsen) and last (Nepomniachtchi) games knocked him out of contention.
You can replay all the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz games using the selector below (click on a result to open the game with computer analysis).
And here is the live commentary of the day from Yasser Seirawan, Jennifer Shahade and Maurice Ashley.
Magnus’s Day of Chaos
A 9-round blitz day is always fraught with incident, but Day 1 of the St. Louis Rapid & Blitz was all about Magnus, whose focus was on the spirit of Vladimir Kramnik at the end of his career: a “drunk machine.” gunner, ”as Nigel Short put it.
Magnus wasn’t interviewed afterwards, but a tweet summed things up.
Magnus was referring to his appearance on Samay Raina’s show earlier that day, when Vishy Anand and Vidit had also teamed up to play a little hand, brain, and card chess (you draw cards and have to move the pawn / piece that corresponds to the letter, if you can).
It was certainly a lot of fun!
Magnus started the “serious business” of the St. Louis bombing by playing Hikaru nakamura, who had once achieved notoriety for breaking one of those beginner’s rules (“don’t take out your queen early”) by playing 1.e4 e5 2.Qh5. This time Magnus gave Hikaru some of his own medicine, although he waited until move 5.
This had been played by Magnus’ second Daniil Dubov against 2550’s Urii Eliseev at the 2013 Moscow Blitz Championship. Urii tried to punish the opening, but was left with only the best option but to quit on move 9! Hikaru made a similar mistake with 5… Nc6 6.Bb5 Nb4 ?!, threatening Nc2 +, but later 7.Qxe5 + Be6 8.Qe4 the black knight was soon rejected and Magnus was simply a pawn up.
He switched to technical mode, though not without a few flourishes.
42.Rxg7! Kxg7 43.f6 + and the end of the tower was a very easy victory that was enough for Magnus to catch Wesley.
From then on, Hikaru was back to playing his usual blitz strength, scoring an impressive 5.5 over the next 7 games, but a loss to Nepo in the final round of the day extinguished any outside hope of a title fight.
Magnus would win all five of his games with White, although he often had a friendly hand. 19 years old Jeffery xiong he came close to a draw in Round 2, but instead of playing 34… Rxe5! the juice 34… Rf3?
Suddenly it’s over! 35.g5! Kh3 36.Rcc8! and Black cannot stop mate on h8.
There was a backstory for Magnus’ first game of the day with Black, as he tweeted:
That was trolling, but not from Harikrishna but not the world. 2 Fabiano Caruana, who had played 4… h6 !?
earlier in the day in the Bundesliga and happened to be crushed in style by Erwin l’Ami.
For a look at how the action is going over the board in Germany, where the likes of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Levon Aronian and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov are also in action, check out this video.
Back in line, however, Harikrishna dodged what awaited him by playing 1.e4… And win two pawns and, more or less smoothly, the game! As we will see, Magnus would suffer with the black pieces all day.
First, however, Magnus had White against Levon Aronian. He refuted a seizure of pawns by the Armenian no. 1 and won a piece, but just when it looked like he was going to win easily, he completely lost control of the situation.
After 56… Rg8! here the computer tells us that Levon has a crushing advantage, but after 56… Re8? 57.Bxh4 g2? (57… Rg8!) 58.Кг1 е3 59.Рд1 +, and assuming d6, the once proud black pawns began to fall. Having flirted with disaster, Magnus won in 80 moves!
It was a difficult day for Levon, who won his first game against Alireza Firouzja and then lost three, including a rare error against Nakamura, where he simply placed his queen in a square attacked by Hikaru’s knight and resigned on move 20.
Ian Nepomniachtchi
became the only player to beat Magnus twice so far at the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz. His victory in Rapid was mainly due to the failure of the World Champion’s Internet connection, but in the blitz it was 1.b3. Nepo played that move in his five games with White, also beating Leinier Domínguez and matching Hikaru Nakamura in the last game of the day:
“Even if I didn’t tie, 1.b3 Jobs! “Said Hikaru, which could also sum up his game against Magnus. Black was fine in the opening, but an inaccurate move allowed Nepo to win a pawn and take over. Magnus still managed to generate opportunities, but eventually Ian was able to execute a tower trap that he had seen beforehand.
Nepo would end the day in only third place, but at 3 points behind Wesley and 3.5 behind Magnus, he cannot realistically hope to fight the leaders. What motivations remain? “I should defend myself and show that b3 is worthy!”
Magnus needed to recover again, and he had the perfect opportunity against Alexander Grischuk, even if the way he was hunched over in his chair might have lulled his opponent into a false sense of security …
The Russian had punished Magnus’s ambitious opening move in the last round of rapid chess, but this time Magnus repeating a risky line he had defended at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational worked like a dream. Back then, Magnus had beaten Firouzja but then lost to Giri. Grischuk did not follow Giri’s improvement of 12… Bd6, and Magnus instead managed to improve his game against Firouzja with the visual appeal 13.f4!
A brutal attack soon followed.
Grischuk also lost to Nakamura, but scored 50% in blitz with wins over Domínguez and Harikrishna, both with good tactics.
The next thing for Magnus was Alireza Firouzja, a showdown that, of course, has additional significance due to Alireza’s victory in the Banter Blitz Cup and also the potential narrative that Alireza is a serious contender for the World Championship title. The initial battle seemed to go the way of Magnus, but 29… Bb4 allowed Alireza to cement his positional advantages.
30.d5! he offered a trade sacrifice, when after 30 … Bxd2 31.dxe6 Qxe6 32.Rxd2 the powerful white knights and the holes around the black king make it a very dangerous position to play. It was no less dangerous in the game when Magnus retired with 30… Ng7 !? and soon Alireza was winning. She missed some chances and found others until the game went to move 51.
52.Qxf7! Rxf7 was completely winning for White, but Alireza confessed, “what I calculated was embarrassing!” She just missed 53.Kxh3! and the pawns cannot be stopped (53 … Rxf5 54.d7), he saw that other moves were losing and played 52.Qd8?
with just 1 second on your watch. After 52… Bxf5 the black rooks and the bishop were more than a match for the queen and Magnus won in 70 moves. It had been emotional!
Alireza would remain in last place at the end of the day, but he ultimately managed two wins and felt his game was a huge improvement.
Today in the blitz I was happy with my game but I don’t know why I didn’t get results… I had so many winning positions today, but what to do?
He finished very high with what he called, “a very beautiful game” against Harikrishna, whom he caught in the opening.
16.e6! (sacrificing the bishop) 16… cxd2 17.exf7 + Rd7 18.Qe4!
(offering the knight as well) 18… Nc6 19.Bxd2 And finally went on to hunt down the black king on a3!
The drama was not yet over for Magnus, who, as against Aronian, built a great attack with the white pieces against Leinier Dominguez but then he couldn’t find a killing blow. Leinier fought back, tied and was one step away from winning the game when Magnus played 43.Re2?
43… Rf8! she simply wins the bishop on f5, as she cannot be defended and cannot move without allowing mate on f1 (Samay Raina might have suddenly felt better back in the day!).
Instead, Leinier played 43.Bf4? in 1 second and missed a few more chances until, to no one’s surprise, Carlsen scored another win.
His last round of the day was against Wesley as well, whom Magnus led by half a point. If Wesley could win with the white pieces, he could regain the lead, or if Magnus did win, his lead would increase to a significant 1.5 points, but to no one’s surprise, this was the World Champion’s only uneventful game of the round. .
Wesley had lost to Xiong in the first round of the day, then beat Harikrishna and Nepomniachtchi and then tied their remaining 5 games. Again, it might not be the most exciting strategy to watch, but it leaves Wesley firmly in contention for the overall victory.
The tournament ends on Saturday with another 9 rounds of blitz, and if it’s something like Friday, you don’t want to miss out. Tune in to chess24 from 20:00 CEST!
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