NICK BARNETT CHESS
The Russians must be basking in the glory of GM Ian Nepomniatchi’s unexpected win in the 2021 Candidates in Yekaterinburg. Especially since the favourite, GM Fabiano Caruana from the USA, only managed 4th place.
The final standings were: Ian Nepomniachtchi (8.5) Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (8) Anish Giri (7.5) ) Fabiano Caruana (7.5) Ding Liren (7) Alexander Grischuk (7) Kirill Alekseenko (5.5) Wang Hao (5) The second surprise was GM Maxime VachierLagrave who obtained his place in the tournament when Teimour Radjabov withdrew, citing concerns about COVID in March 2020. In hindsight, Nepomniachtchi is the justified winner as the Russian GM was never in trouble in the second half of the tournament and grabbed his chances when they were presented to him.
For Carlsen, this will be the third opponent in a row from his own generation, i.e. born in the early 1990s. Perhaps more than ever, the world champion cannot be too confident about the outcome. Nepomniatchi and Carlsen have history: back in 2002, Nepo won the U12 World Youth Championship where he edged out Carlsen on tiebreak. Nepomniachtchi is the only top grandmaster who has a plus score against him, leading four to one in classical games, with six draws.
Magnus Carlsen, typically scandi-noir laconic, described the outcome and prospects as ‘interesting’.
The Candidates proper will start in November in Dubai.
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Asked what he thought Carlsen may think about his win, Nepomniatchi asked what the time was and said he thought Carlsen was probably preparing for his Meltwater online game. He was exactly right. The New in Chess Classic is the fifth event of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. The quarterfinals started on day 4 with Carlsen playing Radjabov, Aronian against So, Mamedyarov against Firouzja, and Le Quang Liem faced Nakamura.
But undoubtedly all eyes were on 15-year-old Praggnanandhaa who won his entry to the tournament via the Polgar challenge. He went on to astound by beating Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Sergey Karjakin to finish the day on 3/5, tied for 4th place with Levon Aronian, Hikaru Nakamura and Vidit. Leading the pack as at the time of writing on the 28th April was Teimour Radjabov on 4/5, with Magnus Carlsen and Alireza Firouzja half a point behind. Wesley So was the one player to beat Pragg, but the tour leader lost a shocking 3 games, while Sergey Karjakin scored only 1.5/5.
It will be interesting to see how his Praggs’ rating soars!
This part of the tournament ends on the 2nd of May 2021.
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Remember to check facebook.com/ SACHESSPLAYERS for tournaments in South Africa. You need to do it often because notice is usually quite short.
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