The Week in Chess

Magnus Carlsen beat Wesley So 2.5-0.5 and Daniil Dubov beat Sergey Karjakin 3-0 in the first rubbers of their matches in the Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge.

In this knockout phase the ties are best of three mini-matches. Carlsen won the first game in a sharp variation where So allowed a Queen sacrifice that left him hopelessly tied up. In game two So was much better and at various stages winning (the final win was 45.R5e3) but in a position that had spiraled out of control. Near the end So turned down a draw by repetition and just lost. So repeated early on in game 3 to take a draw, clearly he'd had enough for the day.

Daniil Dubov took the battle to Sergey Karjakin and won 3-0 as a result. The first game was a very sharp computer line where Dubov was extremely familiar with all the ideas deep into the endgame. It proved a bit much for Karjakin who went astray and lost. The second game was a wild battle where Karjakin had computer wins all over the board but it was not so easy for humans and he eventually lost on time. In the final game Karjakin got the kind of messy position he was seeking with black even though he was several tempo down on a not very good setup in the first place. Dubov however outplayed him and won. Afterwards Dubov said he got upset at Karjakin being disconnected for about 10 minutes and played to win the game when a draw would do (Carlsen too spoke about how disturbing it is to have your opponent disconnected).

We're back to Yu Yangyi vs Ding Liren and Nakamura vs Aronian on Monday 25th May at 3pm BST. Both Ding and Aronian must win in this second set of mini-matches in order extend these ties into the final day on Wednesday.