Each day in the group stage you play two Fast Classic games (45 minutes plus 30 seconds a move) against the same opponent, once with White and once with Black. A win gives you 3 points, a draw 1 and a loss 0. Out of the 24 games played on the day, 10 were decisive. And yet not a single player managed to win both games!
Magnus plays the Dutch against the Dutch no.1
In the first game Anish had the white pieces. Magnus answered 1.d4 with 1...f5, the Dutch Defence, against the best player of the Netherlands! Anish went for an early b4, and after ten moves this was the position.
Anish played 11.Qb3. The right square was c2! From there the queen attacks the knight on e4, and Black has no comfortable way to keep it in the centre. White would have had a huge edge. After 11.Qb3 Anish was still pressing, but Magnus defended well. He broke up the white centre with ...b6 and ...bxc5, the queens came off on move 20, and the game was drawn in 35 moves.
Anish sacrifices a bishop
The second game was a tremendously intense battle. Magnus, with White, got a position with an isolated queen's pawn and active pieces. Anish pushed his g-pawn, brought his knight to h4, and then came this moment.
Anish did not move the bishop away. He played 26...Bxg2! Magnus took it, the knight landed on f3 with check, and after the king went to h1 Anish pushed his e-pawn.
Magnus had to give his rook for the knight on f3. Anish had a rook and two pawns for two pieces, the white king was open, and both players were down to a minute or two. Neither of them slipped. They played extremely accurate chess for another thirty moves, and the game was drawn on move 62.
twitter.com/i/status/2120584393739657328
An instructive chess moment
Magnus played 14.Bxd5! A move that I would have never made. Why? Because usually you don't give up such a nice bishop for a knight just like that. But after Black recaptures with 14...Bxd5, the knight on c3 is no longer under pressure. In fact, it is the one putting pressure on d5!
Also, two pairs of minor pieces do not get exchanged, and that is actually quite good for the side with the isolated pawn. The more pieces there are on the board, the better it is for Magnus.
Kudos to Anish for defending excellently as well.
The match ended 1-1. But this format rewards a win much more than two draws! Magnus and Anish are on 2 points each. Nepomniachtchi beat Abhimanyu Mishra in the first game, drew the second, and leads the group with 4. Even Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Haik Martirosyan, who lost a game each, are ahead of the world no.1 with 3 points.
Pragg looks shaky, but survives
Praggnanandhaa was up against Vincent Keymer, and it was not an easy day for him. In the first game he had the white pieces in a Caro-Kann, and he developed his rook in a very unusual way.
The idea is to bring the rook into the game along the second rank. But the position was tough for White, and Pragg was running out of time. On move 25 his clock showed four seconds! He kept his nerve, held the endgame and the game was drawn in 44 moves.
The second game was worse. Pragg, with Black, was completely lost.
Vincent found the first move, 39.Ne5! The knight attacks the queen, and after the rooks came off on e1 Pragg had to go back with his queen to c8.
The winning move was 41.g4! The knight has to take on h6, and then the white queen comes in to e7.
Vincent played 41.hxg7 instead, and the queens were soon exchanged. He got one more winning chance in the knight endgame, with only seconds left on his clock, and missed that as well. Draw in 57 moves, and a big sigh of relief for Pragg.
Arjun: one solid game, one crazy game
Arjun Erigaisi played Hans Niemann. With the black pieces in the first game he was very solid. The queens were exchanged on move 13 and the game ended in a draw by repetition on move 31.
With the white pieces it was completely wild! Arjun offered a pawn with b4 on move three, later gave up a rook for a knight, and was on the verge of losing.
A move like 26...Qh6! hits the weakness on e3 and gives White a lot of trouble. Hans played 26...Rde8, and Arjun got his central pawns rolling with d5 and d6. Hans could not convert his extra material, and with Arjun down to seconds the game ended in a draw by repetition on move 51.
Vaishali: one move away from a draw, then a great save
Vaishali played two fantastic games against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who finished second in the blitz. She looks like she is getting into the groove before her World Championship match in 2027.
In the first game she had White, and after the queens came off early the players reached a pawn endgame. Vaishali had about a minute on her clock.
The amazing move is 34.b4!!
Vaishali played 34.Ke3. MVL replied 34...c4! and now the white pawns on b2 and c3 were stuck. He broke through with ...d4, his king walked all the way to b2, and Vaishali had to throw in the towel.
To come back after such a loss and play again a couple of hours later is not easy. In the second game Vaishali, with Black, lost a pawn and landed in an extremely difficult rook endgame. MVL had more than nine minutes on his clock, she had less than one.
Vaishali played 41...b3! She gave up a second pawn to bring her rook to life on the b-file, won the pawn back three moves later, and held MVL to a draw in 65 moves!
Bibisara holds Wesley So twice
On the day of the blitz Bibisara Assaubayeva scored only half a point from nine games. A day later the Kazakh GM held Wesley So, the top seed of Group D and rated nearly 240 points above her, to a draw in both games! That is an amazing show.
The four groups after day one
A win is 3 points, a draw is 1. If two players are level, the one who finished higher in the Blitz Swiss is ahead.
Group A
Rank | Player | Win | Draw | Loss | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Alireza Firouzja | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
2 | Jan-Krzysztof Duda | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
3 | Levon Aronian | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
4 | Jorden van Foreest | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
5 | Andrew Hong | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
6 | Nodirbek Abdusattorov | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Firouzja beat the top seed Abdusattorov in a 74-move first game and drew the second. Duda drew and then beat Andrew Hong. Aronian and van Foreest won a game each, both with the black pieces! Abdusattorov, who had a rough blitz, is at the bottom for now.
Group B
Rank | Player | Win | Draw | Loss | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Fabiano Caruana | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
2 | Le Quang Liem | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
3 | Vincent Keymer | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
4 | R. Praggnanandhaa | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
5 | Richard Rapport | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
6 | Vladislav Artemiev | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Caruana beat the local hero Richard Rapport with Black and then drew. Le Quang Liem drew and then beat Vladislav Artemiev in 32 moves. Pragg is two points behind the leaders, and today he plays one of them.
Group C
Rank | Player | Win | Draw | Loss | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Ian Nepomniachtchi | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
2 | Haik Martirosyan | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
3 | Shakhriyar Mamedyarov | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
4 | Magnus Carlsen | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
5 | Anish Giri | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
6 | Abhimanyu Mishra | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Mamedyarov and Martirosyan also won with Black against each other, and Martirosyan needed only 21 moves for his win! Abhimanyu Mishra lost the first game to Nepomniachtchi and then held him in a 98-move marathon, the longest game of the day. Magnus is fourth. I don't think he will stay there for long.
Group D
Rank | Player | Win | Draw | Loss | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
2 | Hans Niemann | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
3 | Arjun Erigaisi | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
4 | Wesley So | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
5 | Bibisara Assaubayeva | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
6 | R. Vaishali | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
MVL's win over Vaishali was the only decisive game of the group. Everything else was drawn, so four players are on 2 points and nobody is far from anybody.
Playing two games a day is very tiring for the players, even though the time control is 45 minutes plus 30 seconds. Some of them were at the board for close to a hundred moves in a single game, and then had to come back and do it all over again. With four more days like this to go, energy is going to matter as much as preparation.
Pairings for the 12th of November
The players listed first have White in game one. The colours are reversed in game two.
Group | Game one (7.30 p.m. IST), White vs Black |
|---|---|
A | Nodirbek Abdusattorov vs Jan-Krzysztof Duda |
A | Levon Aronian vs Andrew Hong |
A | Alireza Firouzja vs Jorden van Foreest |
B | Le Quang Liem vs Vincent Keymer |
B | Fabiano Caruana vs R. Praggnanandhaa |
B | Vladislav Artemiev vs Richard Rapport |
C | Magnus Carlsen vs Abhimanyu Mishra |
C | Shakhriyar Mamedyarov vs Ian Nepomniachtchi |
C | Anish Giri vs Haik Martirosyan |
D | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave vs Wesley So |
D | Arjun Erigaisi vs Bibisara Assaubayeva |
D | R. Vaishali vs Hans Niemann |
It is a big day for the Indians. Pragg faces Caruana, the leader of his group, first with Black and then with White. Arjun plays Bibisara, who has just held Wesley So twice. And Vaishali meets Hans Niemann, whom she beat in the very first round of the blitz!
The first game begins at 7.30 p.m. IST and the second at 11 p.m. IST. You can follow the games live on chessbase.in/live, with commentary on the ChessBase India YouTube channel.
