The Week in Chess

Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura drew their first set 2-2 in the Quarterfinals of their FTX Crypto Chess tie. All four game were pretty one sided with white getting large advantages out of the opening. Carlsen "mixed something up" in the opening in game one and got crushed, in game two Nakamura allowed a bishop to live in a variation where he'd taken it previously and Carlsen sacrificed it immediately for a decisive attack. Carlsen felt he was fine in game three out of the opening but then took a long time over 16...d5, missed that 18.f4 was stronger than it appeared and quickly went on the wrong track and lost. Nakamura too was probably fine at some point in the final game but the powerful queen side passed pawns allowed Carlsen to level the match. It should be an interesting day 2.

The Carlsen-Nakamura match very much overshadowed the other matches but they were all lively and interesting. Fabiano Caruana was on the back foot all day against Ian Nepomniachtchi, losing the first game and after two draws blundering badly in the final game, but Nepomniachtchi didn't finish him off, at first he equalised and then with the trend going his way he even managed to level things up with a last minute victory. Teimour Radjabov had much the better of it against Anish Giri too, he had a decisive advantage in a fairly simple endgame in game two but managed to botch it up but made up for that by winning the final game. Wesley So has been solid so far in the event but today he upped his game winning games three and four against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave to take the lead. The second set and any tie-breaks take place Thursday 27th May starting at 4pm.