The Week in Chess

The first day of the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour Final benefiting Kiva saw many decisive games and both matches go to a blitz tie-break and one go to an Armageddon. Carlsen plays Ding Liren and Hikaru Nakamura plays Daniil Dubov in five set semi-finals - the winners will play for the title over seven sets.

Carlsen has been increasingly dominant as the series has gone on but today he was beaten by Ding Liren after an Armageddon tie-break. Carlsen was roundly defeated in the first rapid game of the match where Carlsen ended up with a poor Sicilian and Ding gradually ground him down. Game two was a London where Carlsen found a very creative pawn sacrifice to leave Ding's King unable to castle Kingside and when he did eventually castle Queen side his position was still very difficult and after 19...Ne4? Carlsen brought the point home easily. Game three was affected by a software glitch where Carlsen didn't receive Ding's move and when it was resumed Carlsen quickly got into major trouble only to be allowed a draw by perpetual check. Carlsen decided to draw the final game with white and take the match to blitz which he did rather easily. The first blitz game was again affected by issues and this time Carlsen lost on time in a position that was at least equal. Carlsen won another London System to take the match into an Armageddon tie-break where Carlsen chose white probably because he had done so well with the London but Ding switched systems against it and Carlsen was struggling throughout and a number of tactical errors was exploited in exemplary style and Ding gave perpetual check to win this set.

All four rapid games were decisive in the match between Hikaru Nakamura and Daniil Dubov. Nakamura called the first two games quite poor - he suffered a complete opening fiasco (10...Nxd5 is just wrong you have to take with the Queen) and he resigned in 17 moves. Game two was a wild Sicilian where Dubov was winning at various points according to the computer but after 32...Ke7? (32....Ra8! with the idea of Qa7 and mate is the rather special idea the computer came up with as a win for black) it turned out Nakamura had a winning attack instead. Game three was a very fine game indeed from Nakamura with black playing a Benoni structure and eventually dominating the whole board without allowing Dubov a sniff of a chance. In game four Nakamura tried to shut out the match with white but eventually drifted into trouble and Dubov won a fine endgame. The first blitz game was a well played drawn. In the second blitz game Dubov was initially better but after Nakamura found a nice sequence to gain the two bishops he quickly took over the initiative and had unstoppable passed pawns on the queen side, Dubov had four connected passed pawns on the Kingside but they barely moved.

Summary Day 1 Ding took the lead after he got the draw he needed in a final Armageddon tie-break vs Carlsen. Nakamura beat Dubov 3.5-2.5 by winning the second blitz game - only the first blitz game was draw the rest of the games were decisive.

The second of up to five sets will be played on Monday at 3pm UK time.