The Week in Chess

The seventh day of the Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge produced some of the most exciting chess of the event so far. Magnus Carlsen defeated Wesley So 2.5-0.5 again in their second mini-match to go through 2-0. Carlsen outplayed So wonderfully in game one in a Ruy Lopez Berlin/Giuoco Pianissimo position, a classy positional display, game two was quickly draw, in game three So threw caution to the wind and got a genuine mess on the board, according to computers Carlsen was better for much of the game but he had no idea what was going on late in the game and 31.Kh1 would have posed him problems.

Daniel Dubov will wonder how he is not through to the second round after losing a final decisive Armageddon game to Sergey Karjakin. Karjakin scored his first win against Dubov in this tie beating him with white in the first game of the day. 1.e4 Nc6 was Dubov's surprise choice as black and it got him equality but he then started to go astray (maybe starting with 19...Bg5) and lost a pawn and in spite of stout resistance later the game. Dubov struck back in game two winning a long manoeuvring game. Game 3 was a fiasco for Karjakin who thought he remembered the theory for the line of the Scandinavian Dubov played, but in fact was playing moves for a different line and he could have resigned after just 15 moves. So far, so good, for Dubov who only needed a draw with white in game 4, he chose a very solid setup and asked Karjakin to break through. Dubov seemed to have everything under control until he assumed he was repeating a position when he wasn't and allowed a winning piece sacrifice for Karjakin. In the final Armageddon game Karjakin chose black and this meant Dubov had to win to win the match, Dubov got a winning attack but couldn't find his way through the complications, 30.Nh4 was winning but maybe 30.Qf2 was a better way, 34.e6? was a mistake leading to more or less equal play 34.Bxg6 was the winner, 34.Rf6 was good for Dubov. Karjakin said thinking of his win from 2-0 down against Svidler in the World Cup kept his spirits up.

Tomorrow Wednesday 27th May at 3pm BST Karjakin and Dubov play a final match alongside Ding Liren and Yu Yangyi while Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen who face each other in the semi-final have a day off.