The Week in Chess

The first day of the Magnus Carlsen invitational saw two lively battles and a first day leader in Ding Liren at the end.

With the coronavirus emergency ending all over the board chess activity this $250,000 online event with the players competing from their homes over two weeks aims to step into the gap created. The 8 players will play each other over 7 rounds of 4 game rapid matches followed by a single decisive Armageddon game (black gets draw odds) if any of these are tied 2-2. 3 points if you win your match over 4 games, 2 points if you win the tie-break, 1 consolation point if you lose this match.

There are two matches each day and so this was the first day of two of Round 1. The remaining four players start their event tomorrow.

Magnus Carlsen was forced into a final tie-break after all four rapid games against Hikaru Nakamura were decisive. Carlsen won both the games with white (games 1 and 3) grinding down Nakamura twice in the same theoretical endgame of the Bf4 Queen's Gambit. Nakamura checkmated Carlsen in a Ruy Lopez Archangel variation where Carlsen was doing OK for some time but then his position rather suddenly fell apart. Even worse was to come, needing only a draw Carlsen had a nice edge with black in the final game but then blundered a tactic for equality and a move or two later really lost his composure and blundered his entire position away with 19...Qb6+. Having played a lot of blitz over the last week it seems Carlsen was not using his time correctly at this slower rapid time control. There was controversy in the final Armageddon game, Carlsen won the toss and chose black, he needed a draw, and very quickly indeed Nakamura was in a lost position. However although in the Chess24 play zone the clocks were correct they were not displayed correctly elsewhere, Nakamura was then messaged to abort the game which didn't happen and Carlsen won the game and match. Briefly a reply was talked about but Nakamura did not make a big issue of it when the result stood.

Ding Liren beat Alireza Firouzja 2.5-1.5 with three draws and a win in game two where he played the Najdorf Defence as black and obtained a fantastic attacking position which he converted not into a checkmate but a totally winning endgame. Ding was also winning the next game but allowed Alireza to escape with a draw and he then had to work hard to draw the final game to secure match victory.

Points: Ding Liren 3pts, Carlsen 2pts, Nakamura 1pt, Firouzja 0pts

Pairings Round 1 Part 2 at 3pm Sunday 19th April 2020: MVL-Giri and Nepomniachtchi-Caruana