The Week in Chess

Teimour Radjabov took the lead in the final of the Airthings Masters against Levon Aronian after a very tough day of competition. Rajdabov won the final game of the day exploiting probably just a single misjudgment. In the first game Radjabov got a nice position against Aronian's Ragozin, there wasn't a whole lot but most likely 35.g4 (35.h6) was inaccurate as Aronian drew comfortably after that. Radjabov thought he was lost in game two and he certainly had to play very energetically indeed to keep some chances, but there wasn't any moment Aronian missed something completely clear and the game finished in a draw by repetition. In game three, another Ragozin Defence, Radjabov was again the one pushing out of the opening but Aronian equalised and Radjabov cleverly liquidated into a forced draw before he could get into difficulties himself. The final game of the day was a Berlin Defence, Rajdabov seemed to surprise Aronian with his precise choice of variation. Radjabov pointed to 23.f6? as the fatal error, he believed Aronian must have miscalculated something, and although this was indeed a poor move it was followed by some very aggressive chess by Aronian that tested Radjabov fully, but once this temporary initiative was over Radjabov just picked off pawns at will to finish the game and take the lead in the match.

Radjabov referred to the relentlessness of the format "it's like going every day without any break, for old people like me it's so easy, and also the opponents are very strong." - "You have to be on top of your game to keep on competing." He said that while he did some preparation looking at his opponents games - making sure he knew the lines he intended to play - he also tried to relax and keep a good energy level because it was always likely that you would be surprised over the board.

In the 3rd-4th playoff Daniil Dubov completely dominated the first two games and took a 2-0 lead. In game three he allowed MVL back into the match and in a final dramatically sharp game Dubov was winning but it wasn't easy and when he didn't finish his opponent off the game turned round and the set finished 2-2.

Final day of competition Sunday 3rd January 2020 starting at 2pm GMT.