The Week in Chess

The final round of Chess24's Legends of Chess Preliminary stages produced pairings of Magnus Carlsen against Peter Svidler and Anish Giri against Ian Nepomniachtchi. Anish Giri beat Peter Svidler 2.5-1.5 after winning games three of their match, this meant that he finished above Svidler and avoided playing Magnus Carlsen. Carlsen had a say in his semi-final opponent as he needed to avoid losing to Kramnik in the rapid games to stop him overtaking Svidler. Carlsen was frustrated in the first two games by Kramnik but he broke through to win game three and Kramnik's attempts to win game four just got him a bad game. Vasyl Ivanchuk beat Viswanathan Anand in an Armageddon tie-break, his second win and Anand's fourth loss in this tie-break. Boris Gelfand inflicted a second loss on Ian Nepomniachtchi beating him in an Armageddon tie-break. Ding Liren beat Peter Leko 2.5-1.5 to move to 8th place but there's no hiding that this was a disappointing result and it guarantees that Hikaru Nakamura will play in the final event of the Magnus Chess Tour in August as the best finishing player not to win an event.

Round 9: Boris Gelfand 3-2 Ian Nepomniachtchi, Ding Liren 2.5-1.5 Peter Leko, Vasyl Ivanchuk 2.5-2.5 Viswanathan Anand, Peter Svidler 1.5-2.5 Anish Giri, Magnus Carlsen 3-1 Vladimir Kramnik.

Final Standings of the preliminary stage: 1 Magnus Carlsen 25pts, 2 Ian Nepomniachtchi 20pts, 3 Anish Giri 18pts, 4 Peter Svidler 14pts, 5 Vasyl Ivanchuk 13pts, 6 Vladimir Kramnik 12pts, 7 Boris Gelfand 11pts, 8 Ding Liren 9pts, 9 Viswanathan Anand 7pts, 10 Peter Leko 6pts.

Final stages day 1 Friday 31st July Carlsen-Svidler and Nepomniachtchi-Giri.