Ian Nepomniachtchi is through to the quarterfinals of the Airthings Masters on a day when he could afford to squander two completely winning positions. Behind him, however, there’s mayhem, with only three points, or one win, separating 2nd place Magnus Carlsen from 10th place Levon Aronian. Only the Top 8 qualify, with Vincent Keymer and Eric Hansen, who beat Magnus, still in that pack with three games to go. It can change fast, as Vladislav Artemiev showed on Day 3, when he won three games and climbed from 10th to 3rd.
Magnus Carlsen was in trouble on the board, but a mouse-slip ended the struggle against Eric Hansen on the spot
You can replay all the Prelim games from the Airthings Masters, the 1st event on the $1.6 million Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, using the selector below.
And here’s the day’s live commentary from Tania Sachdev and Peter Leko…
…and Kaja Snare, Jovanka Houska and David Howell.
Ian Nepomniachtchi has now scored 9.5/11 since his first round loss to Levon Aronian, or in football scoring 27/33, which converted into cold, hard cash at $250 a point is $6,750 — a big change from last year’s Prelims, where for a Regular tournament all players received $2,500, and only more if they reached the knockout. Ian is 7 points clear of the pack and the only player who will definitely feature in Thursday’s quarterfinals.
You might expect him to be happy with how things are going, but he had a point when he sarcastically began his interview, “Today I played especially brilliant, not winning these two positions, against Vincent and against Le Quang”.
The first game of the day featured one of those Nepo moments, where with almost 13 minutes to Vincent Keymer’s one, he threw away all his winning chances in a single move, after thinking less than 30 seconds.
The white d-pawn needed to be stopped with 35…Rb7 or 35…Bd7, since after 35…a3? 36.d7 Bxd7 37.Rxd7 a2 38.Rxf7+ (this extra capture with check makes all the difference) 38…Kg6 39.Rxa7 it was only a draw.
16-year-old Praggnanandhaa took down 2nd placed Andrey Esipenko but got his king stuck in the middle of the board in what had been a good position against Nepomniachtchi
Ian would go on to beat Hans Niemann and Praggnanandhaa, before there was more drama in the final game of the day. Nepo’s 19.Kh2? only seemed to defend h3.
Either minor piece sacrifice on h3 is good, with e.g. 19…Bxh3 20.gxh3 Nxh3! 21.Bxh3 Rf3! being game over.
After 19…Ne6?, however, Nepomniachtchi soon took over and should have the won the game before it ended in a draw. He felt there were strange games wherever you looked.
Some games are being played here that are trying to break my belief in humanity, some games are really, really weird, so okay, probably, indeed, it’s fun to watch!
Some of that strangeness could be found in the games of the player who ended the day in 2nd place, Magnus Carlsen.
The World Champion has been feeling under the weather after contracting COVID, and commented of his play so far:
It’s been pretty bad. I’ve played a couple of decent games, but the rest of them have been poor, so I need to do a lot better than that… It’s been a little bit better today, but the first couple of days I was feeling like I’m ok, but I don’t have the energy, which made it kind of hard to focus, because every time I tried to think I’d blunder. It was a little bit better today, but still pretty bad.
He started Day 3 by bouncing back from the loss to Praggnanandhaa with a nice endgame grind against Liem Quang Le, but things would go off the rails again in the second game of the day, with White against Eric Hansen. The Ruy Lopez position was relatively normal until 29…Qb2.
30.Nc2! holds everything together for White, but instead Magnus was tempted by 30.Rb1? He commented:
Rb1 was insane. I calculated some long lines there, when he takes the a3-pawn, they don’t even work, which I’d seen, but I thought whatever, I’ll try it, and I just missed that he can go to c3 with the queen and then both d3 and d4 are attacked.
Eric pounced with 30…Nxf4!
31.Bxf4 Qxd4+ is clearly bad for White, but was still the best option, since after 31.Qf1 Eric played not 31…Qxa3 (when the computer does say White is better), but 31…Qc3!
White is suddenly in big trouble.
Objectively Carlsen’s 32.Bb5!? was a mistake, but only if you found 32…N4d5!, while in the game after 32…Ng6 there were decent drawing chances again. Until, that is, Magnus played 33.Bxa4?? (33.Bxd7!) and resigned without waiting for his bishop to be captured.
What had happened? Magnus explained:
I was trying to find a way to trap his queen with Nc4 and so on, and then, I don’t know even why I clicked on his a4-pawn, but I certainly didn’t realise that I’d clicked my bishop first, which is unfortunate. Obviously I didn’t intend to take the pawn on a4. My position was bad, but I do feel that in general I would be able to save the game there a fair amount of the time.
Eric wasn’t complaining, especially since he’d had a tough day otherwise, with two losses and a missed win.
Obviously it was a little anti-climatic with Bxa4 in the end, but overall I was pretty happy, because I was doing very well at that point. It was a very easy position to play, I think Magnus is obviously not in his best shape right now and he just made a couple of lazy moves in the opening with White and it got bad real fast, and I heard it might have been a mouse slip, but last time I played him in August first I had a winning position and then I messed up, and then I was about to repeat moves and I mouse-slipped a forced draw and lost. I’ve been on the other side, so I feel pretty good getting two positions against Magnus. I’ll take it however it comes, whether it’s a blunder or whatever, but I was pretty happy with the position I had and that’s a first time I’ve beaten him in a serious tournament.
Eric ended the day in 6th place, just a point behind Magnus, but commented:
You have to assume that you need to win, at least +1 tomorrow, to finish in the Top 8. You’ve got to put up wins, you can’t draw your way into qualification.
Magnus, meanwhile, decided it was time for a timeout, or rather he had no objections when Ding Liren, who had just suffered a heavy defeat to Anish Giri, was willing to take a very quick draw.
It was arguably the only such draw we’ve seen in the Prelims since three points for a win was introduced.
It worked out well for Magnus, however, since his last-round game was against a Jan-Krzysztof Duda desperate to score points in any way he could. Magnus played the Closed Sicilian with 2.Nc3 and Duda went for a Dragon-style setup with 2…g6. Soon the game was following exactly Bobby Fischer’s plan for crushing the Dragon: “Pry open the h-file, sac, sac... mate!”
The h-pawn had done its job and it was soon time to cash in.
15.Bxg7 Kxg7 16.Rxh5! gxh5 17.Nxe5! dxe5 18.Qg5+ Kh7 19.Qxh5+ Kg8 20.Bd3! and Duda resigned.
All that remained was for Magnus to castle queenside and bring his rook to h1 to deliver checkmate.
That quick win was great news for Magnus in a round with the highest number of draws we’d seen all tournament (5 out of 8), but he didn’t think it was anything special.
I think he played way too riskily and I just needed to find a couple of good moves, which I did.
Magnus bristled at the suggestion that he was already guaranteed a place in the knockout.
That’s not certain at all. I was shared 5-9th before the game and I won mine now, but I have to do well tomorrow to be safe, so I wouldn’t say that at all.
That loss for Jan-Krzysztof Duda dealt a huge blow to his chances of qualifying for the knockout, but despite lying in 13th place, three wins, and nine points, on the final day might still be enough. He certainly played some of the most entertaining chess of Day 3, being involved in a crazy clash with Levon Aronian at the start.
Duda sacrificed a piece early on, and though he had compensation he misplayed it. Just when Levon was completely winning, however, he was tempted by a move that would have been magnificent if it had worked — giving up his queen for a knight on e6!
The flaw showed up after 33.Rxe6 Rxf4 34.Re8+ Kh7.
A beautiful, study-like back-rank mate position. 35.Qxf4 Rd1+ is checkmate next move, and if the queen goes to a neutral square then Black will just take on e8. However, 35.Qe2! covers f1 and d1 and prepares to meet 35…Rxe8 with 36.Qh5+, regaining the rook with check. Black could resign.
Duda didn’t play that, however, but instead attacked the f4-rook with 35.Qc1?, when all would be good if not for another spectacular move, 35…Be3!
Duda had nothing better than 36.Rxd8, giving up his queen, but he couldn’t save the day.
The Polish no. 1 would then draw a game where Shakhriyar Mameydarov sacrificed two pieces, before beating Anish Giri after spotting 34.Nxg7!
34…Kxg7 35.Qg4+ would pick up the rook on c8.
The more effective strategy for the day, however, appeared not to be Duda’s gung-ho approach, but grinding out wins in technical positions. That was the modus operandi of the day’s top scorer, Vladislav Artemiev, at least after he finished with the flourish 59…Rf2+! against Alexandra Kosteniuk.
60.Kxf2 Qe2+ 61.Kg1 Qg2# is how the game might have ended.
Artemiev then beat Aronian in 87 moves and Keymer in 51. He almost made it a perfect 12 points for the day, but couldn’t squeeze out a win with an extra pawn against Mamedyarov.
17-year-old World Rapid Champion Nodirbek Abdusattov was joint second highest scorer (8 points) with Nepomniachtchi after beating Liem Quang Le and Eric Hansen, but his most impressive moment came in a draw against Ding Liren in the final round of the day. 46…Kf6 was in fact a mistake by the world no. 3.
Here Abdusattorov was able to play 47.Kg2!, defending the h2-pawn and allowing Black to capture a rook with 47…Nxc2, since it turns out that after 48.Re6+ the black king can never escape from checks!
One of those flashes of genius that makes it clear that Nodirbek has the potential to be one of the chess world’s very best players.
He’s far from certain of qualifying for the knockout, however, since he’s currently just outside the Top 8, losing out on tiebreaks to Andrey Esipenko and Ding Liren. Levon Aronian is another point back, while Liem Quang Le and Praggnanandhaa on 15 points can certainly still dream of a place in the knockout.
Underdogs Vincent Keymer and Eric Hansen are still flying high, but nothing is guaranteed. When Magnus commented about his own situation he was no doubt aware that he faces Aronian and Giri with Black, and Mamedyarov with White, on the final day — not an ideal set of pairings for such a tight race.
One of the players who isn’t going to make the knockout is Alexandra Kosteniuk, but the Women's World Rapid Champion has never stopped fighting, and if she does pick up a Fighting Chess Index prize at the end of the season it would be deserved!
Don’t miss the final three rounds of the Airthings Masters live here on chess24 from 11:45 ET | 17:45 CET | 22:15 IST.
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