[ad_1]
GM Wesley So won the final of the Skilling Open on Monday by beating GM Magnus Carlsen 1.5-0.5 in the blitzkrieg. So he made $ 30,000 in what was the first leg of the online Champions Chess Tour that runs through September 2021.
All games from the Chess24 Champions Chess Tour Skilling Open can be found here as part of our live events platform.
“First of all, I’d like to apologize to Magnus for ruining his birthday,” that’s how his interview began after he had just won the tournament. “I have to try to win from time to time!”
Carlsen turned 30 on November 30, but he was playing from a sunny, undisclosed location where it was already past midnight when the game ended. Hours earlier, she had posted a photo of an impressive birthday brunch on Instagram.
Carlsen didn’t want to blame the last hour of the game for his loss (“no excuses!”), And noted that it was his own decision to celebrate elsewhere on the planet. He referred to the new decade of his life when he joked: “Today I made a mistake as an old man.”
Carlsen congratulated his opponent on “a well deserved victory” and admitted that he had not been able to play his best chess. “I never really got it right in this tournament. If I was going to win it was always going to be tough. Overall, Wesley deserved to win and I have to be much, much better.
Then: “He lost many opportunities and made many mistakes here and there that would have sealed the game.”
The day started well for Carlsen, who outplayed his opponent very well from the black side of a Caro-Kann:
As he had pointed out the day before, Carlsen still couldn’t play two good games in a row. In the second, he made a mistake in a position where he was already trying to force a draw because he knew that White had nothing:
Until now, players had been trading wins for six games in a row in this tournament! That could have been seven if Carlsen had capitalized on So’s big mistake in the third game.
“I actually saw the winning move,” Carlsen said. “I just decided that what I did was win too and for some reason I thought easier, which was a total lapse.”
After all the drama, the players took a breather in game four, where they went for a quick draw. It was time for a blitzkrieg.
After the first day, So said that he liked his chances if he managed to get to a tiebreaker, and he proved his point. He won a first game of backward blitz when Carlsen first made a mistake, then managed to come back, but then made a mistake again:
So it looked ultra solid in the second game as players reached a queenless midgame with an accepted Queen Gambit. Other than the pair of bishops, Carlsen had nothing.
However, So was sloppy in one move and allowed a tactic in which Carlsen could trade two minor pieces for a rook and a pawn, leaving him with two queenside pins. The computer liked his opportunities, but the world champion could not find the correct piece configuration to support his pawns and soon got stuck, while So was calm and in control:
After beating Carlsen at Chess960 last year, So has now managed to do the same in standard chess. When asked what his secret was, he replied, “There really is no secret. It really depends on whether Magnus has a good day or a bad day. When he has a good day, he is basically unstoppable.”
In October, So convincingly won the United States Online Championship. With this second win in a month, he is clearly making a mark on the online chess business, which Carlsen also noted:
“I think I’m definitely the best player here, but there are a lot of strong players and I think Wesley is probably the best in this format right now. Frankly, losing to him is not a shame, it’s not a disaster. I feel like it’s a little bit. Too bad I couldn’t show my best here in this tournament, that’s all I’m not satisfied with. “
Just as Carlsen finished his birthday, So pointed out that for him the festivities just started: “I can finally celebrate Thanksgiving!”
All the games
The Chess24 Champions Chess Tour Skilling Open took place November 22-30. The preliminary phase was a quick round-robin of 16 players (15 + 10). The top eight players advanced to a six-day knockout that consisted of two days of four-game snap games, progressing to blitz (5 + 3) and armageddon tiebreaks (White has five minutes, Black four without increment) only if the eliminatory match was tied after the second round. The prize pool was $ 100,000 with $ 30,000 for first place.
Previous reports:
[ad_2]
