SUMMARY
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In the end, favorites Magnus Carlsen, Wesley So, Hikaru Nakamura, and Ian Nepomniachtchi head the quarterfinals cast of the Airthings Masters, virtually duplicating their performances in last month’s Skilling Open.
They also topped the preliminary phase of the Skilling Open with eventual winner So and Nakamura switching third and second slots and Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi keeping first and fourth spots, respectively.
The Filipino-born So and Nakamura won their final round games on Monday, December 28 (Tuesday, December 29, Philippine time) to join Carlsen, who settled for a draw with Nepomniachtchi, at the summit with 6.5 points each. Nepomniachtchi tallied 6 points.
Other qualifiers were Teimour Radjabov, also with 6 points, Levon Aronian (5.5), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (5), and Daniil Dubov (5), who scraped through despite losing to So in the wild 11th round.
After the tie-break, world champion Carlsen emerged No. 1 and gets pitted against Dubov, So tackles Vachier Lagrave, Nakamura battles Aronian, and Nepomniachtchi faces Radjabov.
After 7 straight draws, So flashed his tactical prowess anew, exploiting the power of two bishops, to tame Dubov in 35 moves of a Ruy Lopez Moeller Defense for the day’s best game.
Unlike in Sunday’s preliminaries which produced only 3 decisive games out of 24, Monday was a slam-bang affair with 8 out of 18 games producing winners.
Vachier-Lagrave beat Alexander Grischuk, Nakamura thwarted Anish Giri, and David Anton stunned Aronian in the 11th round. Radjabov drew with Pentala Harikrishna in the other last round pairing of the Airthings Masters serving as the first major event and the second leg of the $1.5 million (P72 million) Champions Chess Tour.
The quarterfinal duels start Tuesday with Carlsen, reigning US champion So, 2020 speed chess champion Nakamura, and Russian No. 1 Nepomniachtchi tagged as favorites in the first set of four-game mini-matches.
After the second set of mini-matches, the winners will advance to the semifinals. – Rappler.com
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