World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen will take on world no. 3 Ding Liren in the semi-finals of the Charity Cup after a day on which the favourites all made it through their matches without the need for tiebreaks. Magnus (vs Hans Niemann) and Ding (vs. Jorden van Foreest) both won with a game to spare, as did Jan-Krzysztof Duda against David Anton. David Navara managed to hit back after losing the first game against Liem Quang Le, but the Vietnamese star won the third game and cruised through in the last.
You can replay all the knockout games from the Charity Cup, the 2nd event on the $1.6 million 2022 Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, using the selector below.
And here’s the day’s live commentary from David Howell, Jovanka Houska and Kaja Snare…
…and from Peter Leko and Daniel King.
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When the quarterfinal and semifinal matches of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour events for the 2022 season were cut from two days to one it seemed likely we would get more upsets, but in the Charity Cup quarterfinals the favourites all got the job done with a minimum of fuss.
Let’s take a look at the matches.
Magnus was asked if he’d been in complete control in this match, and shot back:
No, not at all! I thought the first and second games were very, very tense and pretty tough, so I think up to a certain point I was definitely in command of both of those, but they got a bit out of hand. He fought really well there in both of those games and they were both pretty tough.
Magnus had been on top with the white pieces in Game 1, but perhaps had already lost the thread when Hans went for a radical approach.
29…Bxf4!? 30.gxf4 Rxf4 gave Magnus a lot to think about. Objectively he emerged with a close to winning position, but he was clearly feeling the pressure when he let the game fizzle out into a draw.
Magnus got down to 10 seconds on his clock before playing 38.Qd3!? and after 38…Rf1+ 39.Ke3 Qe1 40.e6 Qf2+ the game was drawn by a repetition of moves.
Instead 38.Qg2! or 38.Ng3, defending against a check on f1, seem to keep an edge.
Hans also played boldly in the 2nd game, though by this stage of the game the tactical sequence was all but forced.
20.Nxd5! cxd5 21.dxe5 Nxe5 22.Qxd5+ Qxd5 23.Bxd5+ and, since 23…Kh8 24.Bxb7 is winning for White, 23…Rf7! was essential.
It meant Hans would eventually have a rook against Carlsen’s two minor pieces, a material balance that usually favours the side with more attacking units. So it proved, though Hans felt he could have held.
The second game I definitely should not have lost… With a little bit of precision in that endgame, before I lost the c5-pawn, it probably would have led to some repetition.
Instead it became a long grind, but eventually Hans was forced to give up a rook for the last pawn and was left with a bare king against Carlsen’s knight and bishop.
Magnus’ coach Peter Heine Nielsen tweeted a polite version of typing “Resign!!!” in chat.
But to be fair to Hans, he did resign, just a couple of moves later, without waiting to see if the World Champion had ever practiced mating with a knight and bishop.
Hans confessed of the final game of the match:
I think the third game was just a bit of tilt. It’s very difficult to play Magnus in a match, especially when you’re down a game, so perhaps that negatively affected my psychology. I played very fighting chess and I wanted just to play. I wasn’t just trying to make draws.
Magnus pinpointed the moment it went wrong.
I guess the last game was relatively easy. I think he made a poor decision there when he went for 14…e4? instead 14…exd4!, which I think was reasonable. That was clearly dictated by the match situation at that point — he felt that he needed to win this game as Black, or at least to keep the game alive a little bit more rather than play for a draw in a somewhat worse position, but as you could see from what happened in the game, that really just meant that it was positionally lost. So after that it was a relatively straightforward mopping up job.
After 14…e4? 15.Nc4! Magnus crashed through in the centre and wrapped up victory in 37 moves.
Magnus said of his play, “I would say it’s been ok and I probably need to play better in the last two rounds to win”.
Up next for Magnus is the player he earlier in the tournament said he never wants to be drawn against, Ding Liren.
The Chinese no. 1 took a 6-minute think when surprised by Jorden van Foreest early in the first game, but it did no harm since after spotting 21.d5! he was simply winning.
21…Nxd5 runs into 22.Rxd5!, with the rook defending the g5-bishop, while in the game we saw 21…exd5 22.Rxe7! Qxe7 23.Nxd5! and there was nothing better than giving up the queen with 23…Nxd5 24.Bxe7. The rest was easy for Ding.
The match could have been all but over in the 2nd game, but Ding failed to convert a very promising endgame a pawn up.
He shrugged that off, however, and played some brilliant chess in the third game. Jorden looked to have chances, but Ding accurately calculated everything and then outplayed his opponent in a knight and pawn endgame. The b-pawn could have been stopped much earlier, but by the time it reached b7 Ding was able to play the tricky 48.Nf6!
The b-pawn has to be stopped with 48…Nb8 and after 49.Nxh7 Ding also won the g6-pawn and there was no stopping him clinching the match to set up a semi-final against Magnus.
The Polish no. 1 Jan-Krzysztof Duda was a late replacement for his countryman Radek Wojtaszek, but has now reached a semi-final of the Tour for the first time. He also wrapped up victory in three games, though he didn’t feel he was firing on all cylinders.
It’s of course great to reach the semi-final and win in such a convincing manner. I don’t think I played very great chess today, I just didn’t commit too many errors and just grabbed my chances.
David Anton was playing his first quarterfinal and had said the day before that his advantage lay in the opening, but Duda noted he had no opening difficulties with the black pieces. He played the Berlin Defence, and identified Anton’s 23.Re5!? as a mistake.
That was met by 23…Be4! and suddenly the rook is in some danger. Duda commented:
I was slightly worse of course, with this not-so-great knight on a5, but I’m not sure it was anything serious, and then he just played one too aggressive move, I think, and got his rook almost trapped in the middle, and I just converted it pretty smoothly, I think.
It seems 24.Nd2! and White could have saved the rook, but David chose to go for an exchange sacrifice with 24.Bd3?! f6 25.Rxe4?! which worked out badly, as Jan-Krzysztof went on to win in 57 moves.
The second game initially looked promising for Anton, since Duda admitted his knight manoeuvring had been “extremely ridiculous”. Instead of going from b1 to d2 to c4, it had taken a scenic route via g3.
Here, however, 21…Qb4? ruined a much better position in a single move, since it allowed 22.Nxa5+!
22…bxa5 (22…Qxa5 23.b4!) simply ran into 23.Rb3 and the queen is lost.
That left Anton needing to win on demand in the final game, but while Duda approved the approach his opponent chose, he noted, “I just had a solution”, and he was able to blitz out his moves into a dead-drawn endgame.
It was a smooth day at the office for Duda after an up-and-down tournament. He called his 3rd day of the event, when he lost three games in a row, “so pathetic, so ridiculous!”, but he’d done well enough before that that it didn’t matter.
This was the one fierce battle, though it also opened with a win for the favourite. In the space of a couple of moves everything fell apart for David Navara, who facing 23.Rc1!, threatening Rc5, had nothing better than 23…b6.
That did nothing to defend the hanging pawns on g4 and c7, and the rest was easy for Liem.
Game 2, however, was all about Navara, who played a new move after the players had blitzed out their first 18 moves.
David was soon a pawn up in a bishop ending, and the way he converted was masterful.
Liem shrugged that off, however, and won another fine game with the white pieces where he had full control on both sides of the board. There was a picturesque final position.
Liem commented:
Once i struck back in the third game I knew I only needed a draw in the last game, and that makes things a bit easier.
The match essentially ended as a contest on move 22, when David played 22.Ref1?
That dropped a pawn to 22…Qg6!, which threatens Nxh3+. 23.Kh2 defended against the threat, but 23…Qxe4 left Black a pawn up and as the only player with an attack. Liem was soon completely winning, but he settled for a draw that ensured he’d wrapped up victory in the quarterfinal.
Le will take on Duda in Thursday’s semifinals as he aims to reach his 2nd Tour final — he lost to Wesley So in last year’s Chessable Masters. It will be a first ever final for Duda if he can make it through, while the player they face will be a monster — either Magnus Carlsen or Ding Liren.
Don’t miss Thursday's semifinals of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Charity Cup, live from 17:45 CET right here on chess24!
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