TWIC is 30. First issue 17th September 1994.
Airthings Masters 2020 (Day 5)
Carlsen knocked out by Dubov in the Quarter-finals of the Airthings Masters
Mark Crowther - Wednesday 30th December 2020
Carlsen lost to Dubov in the Quarterfinals. Photo © | https://chess24.com
The quarter finals of the Airthings Masters saw the top four finishers in the preliminary stages all eliminated in the quarterfinals of the knockout. You could also argue that Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So have been the most successful players in the top class online events this year. This was the most action packed day of the event so far. Dubov won games 1 and 3 to eliminate Carlsen 2.5-0.5 even though the champion had chances enough to reverse that score, Aronian won both his games against Nakamura. MVL and Radjabov both drew with black in Armageddon tie-breaks to go through against Wesley So and Ian Nepomniachtchi. A fuller summary in the body of the article.
Semifinals 31st December 2pm GMT: Dubov-Radjabov, MVL-Aronian.
Quarterfinals Day 2
Carlsen was eliminated 2.5-0.5 by Daniil Dubov, on another day Carlsen might easily have won by that score but it's been clear for a little while that Carlsen isn't playing anywhere near his best. Carlsen's had a very long and good year but he's played more high pressure chess than anyone and he looks out of gas to me. However Carlsen doesn't have long to rest - there's only got a couple of weeks before he's in Wijk aan Zee for over the board chess.
Dubov was rewarded for his relentless aggression that kept the World Champion under pressure throughout and eventually was rewarded with serious errors. In game one Dubov got the kind of unbalanced game he likes, Carlsen was at least equal until 38...Qa1+? lost immediately (38...Qh8 defending the King is equal) . In game two Carlsen got a winning Rook and Pawn endgame but 51.f3? (51.gxf5 had to be played) allowed Dubov to draw. Dubov again got a tremendously sharp struggle in game 3 and was surely much better at one point but 27.Nc5? Rxc5! left Carlsen with a winning position, all be it one where his King was under threat, 34...Qe7?? (34...Qa5 was just one of a few winning Queen moves) lost the game almost immediately and sent Carlsen crashing out of the competition.
People may play have good days or bad days against me, and I against them, but after another collapse the bottom line is that I'm in a deep funk right now, and it's really frustrating. @MagnusCarlsen on twitter.
Levon Aronian won the first two games of the day against Nakamura to guarantee his progression to the semifinals. In game one saw the London System again from Aronian after his successful employment of it yesterday and against it proved problematic for his opponent, from 16...Kf7 on Nakamura was in trouble. In game two Nakamura certainly wasn't better out of the opening with white but it was 25.a5? Ng4+ that cooked his goose. Although Nakamura could have theoretically drawn the second mini-match it still wouldn't have been enough to keep him in the event.
Teimour Radjabov took advantage of a very serious error by Ian Nepomniachtchi in game one of their mini-match. 18...Qb7? left the black Queen unprotected and after 19.Qe4 threatening checkmate Nepomniachtchi couldn't play 19...Nf6 because it lost his Queen, instead he had to sacrifice an important pawn protecting his King and Radjabov had no difficulty bringing home the full point. In game two Nepomniachtchi got a large if not winning opening advantage but after not finishing Radjabov off 30.Nc6? allowed various perpetual check themes and even later 36.Rxf5? briefly gave Radjabov winning chances if he'd played 36...Ne1. This game finished in a draw as did game three where Nepomniachtchi equalised but never got winning chances. In the final game Radjabov played the King's Indian as black and got a fantastic position but gradually he started to go wrong and lost a very long game taking the match into a tie-break. Radjabov then lost the first tie-break game but equalised the match in game two before drawing with black in the Armageddon to go through.
Wesley So won the first game of his match against MVL in a Reti vs Gruenfeld where he started off better out of the opening and just increased his advantage until he won. Game 2 was a Berlin Ruy Lopez where Wesley So seemed to hold reasonably comfortably. Game 3 Wesley So took a very short draw with the white pieces. In the final game So was under a lot of pressure at the start but gradually took over and eventually got the draw he needed to take the match to a tie-break. MVL took the lead in the tie-breaks, Wesley So struck back but he couldn't win the Armageddon game with white and went out.
Airthings Masters (two levels of English commentary) 2020
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