The Week in Chess

Magnus Carlsen took a lead in his semifinal tie against Ian Nepomniachtchi by winning the first set of games 2.5-1.5. Carlsen. In game one the players followed a couple of previous Giri games against Nepomniachtchi until 14.Bh3 which was new from Carlsen, there then follow 14...Kg8 15. Qc3 Qb8? (15...Qc7 is absolutely fine for black) 16. d6! just won a piece for Carlsen mid-board and soon the game. In game two Carlsen drifted into trouble after a good opening and when he exchanged Queens he entered a lost knight and pawn endgame, but then within sight of the winning line Nepomniachtchi blundered with 50.Ng6 (50.a5 or 50.Ke4 won) and Carlsen liquidated all the pawns. Carlsen experienced some technical problems during game three, it's unclear if it had an impact but with 21.Bf4 he started to go very wrong and by move 30 he was dead lost. Carlsen took the game into a lost Rook endgame and after move 50 Nepomniachtchi started to make mistakes and by move 55 Carlsen had equalised. Nepomniachtchi didn't even seem to try very hard in the final fourth game which was drawn without incident.

Wesley So played a very controlled set against Hikaru Nakamura winning 2.5-1.5. After a quiet draw in game one So slowly outplayed Nakamura in a Giuoco Piano and quickly reached a winning position after move 30 and securing the win in 41 moves. So then had few if any problems in the final two games where Nakamura played for complications but So was often just better placed. After the game So said "I feel very good today, but at the same time I think Hikaru played sub-par today."

The final day of the semifinals take place on Saturday 28th November starting at 5pm GMT.