Wesley So trounced Anish Giri in the 3rd round to emerge among the early leaders in the Airthings Masters preliminary stages on Saturday, December 26 (early Sunday, December 27, Philippine time).
Still wielding the form that lifted him to last month’s Skilling Open crown, the Cavite-born So drew with Spanish champion David Anton in the 1st round, world champion Magnus Carlsen in the 2nd, and three-time world blitz champion Alexander Grischuk in the 4th to tally 2.5 points out of a perfect 4.
It was the same total posted by 2020 Speed Chess champion Hikaru Nakamura, Armenian icon Levon Aronian, former world rapid champion Daniil Dubov, and Azerbaijani Teimour Radjabov.
The top-seeded Carlsen drew all his games, including a missed win over Aronian in the 1st round, and was bunched at 2 points with Grischuk, Indian Pentala Harikrishna and Russian no. 1 Ian Nepomniachtchi.
Handling black, So, who is now representing the United States federation, held Giri to an equal position before forcing the Dutch ace to yield in 25 moves of a Reti Opening with a pawn check leading to either a knight capture or impending mate.
After an inaugural victory over Grischuk, the second-seeded Nakamura got stalled with successive draws as only 7-of-24 games ended decisively owing to the level playing field among the 12 super Grandmasters vying for the $200,000 total purse.
French no. 1 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, with 1.5 points, and Giri and Anton with 1 each were in the bottom rung of the online event serving as second leg and first major of the $1.5 million Champions Chess Tour.
So, who is aiming to replicate his finals triumph over Carlsen in last month’s Skilling Open, will tackle Nakamura in the fifth round, Nepomniachtchi in the 6th, Aronian in the 7th, and Vachier-Lagrave in the 8th to conclude the second batch of preliminary games Sunday.
The last 3 games of the single round-robin will be held Monday, December 28, after which the top 8 advance to the knockout stages heading to the finals on January 3. – Rappler.com
There are no comments yet. Add your comment to start the conversation.