Arjun Erigaisi stunned Alireza Firouzja 3:0 on the opening day of the Airthings Masters, the first event on the $2 million 2023 Champions Chess Tour. Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura also beat Alexey Sarana and Gukesh with a game to spare, while Wesley So lived dangerously before overcoming Rauf Mamedov in four games. For the losing players it’s not over yet, as they can still win the tournament via the Losers bracket.
Magnus Carlsen got some surprising tech help on Day 1 of the Airthings Masters
Day 1 of the 2023 Airthings Masters went well for the favourites in Division I, with one glaring exception.
It’s not that Alireza Firouzja was a clear favourite — India’s Arjun Erigaisi was one of the stars of last year’s Champions Chess Tour — but few can have expected 19-year-old Alireza, the world no. 4 and an online chess specialist, to get blown away.
The first game set the tone for the match, with Arjun’s 22…Qc8! cleverly neutralising most of Alireza’s aggressive intentions. The Iranian-born French grandmaster decided it was time to set the board on fire, but 23.f4? was a mistake that was brutally punished.
The black pieces were soon swarming around the white king, and Arjun got to do some showboating.
29…Qxe4! was based on 30.Qxe4 Nf2# not just winning back the queen but delivering mate-in-1.
After 30.Bc1 Arjun could afford to leave the queen en prise again with 30…Ng6, while after 31.Bc2 Qc6 32.c4 Rbe8 Alireza had seen enough and resigned.
Arjun kept up the momentum in the next game with White, going for a piece sacrifice and ultimately emerging a pawn up. Alireza managed to put up resistance, but then collapsed on move 52.
52…Kc7! and the game goes on, but 52…Ke7? walked into 53.Nxd8! and Alireza resigned, since recapturing the knight would simply allow 54.Qxf6+ and White is a piece up.
That left Alireza needing to win two games on demand to force Armageddon, and he went for it, playing a double-fianchetto of his bishops. 14.Nh4? would even have been a good move, except for one huge drawback — 14…Qd4!, relying on another fork, Nc2+.
Alireza thought for six minutes — the players have 15 minutes and a 3-second increment each move — but could come up with nothing better than 15.Rb1, which was refuted by the only move 15…Bxe4!
Logical moves then led to a remarkable position: 16.Qxd4 Nc2+ 17.Kd1 N6xd4 18.Bxe4 Nxa3 19.Ra1 b4 20.Bxa8 Nxb3 21.Ra2 Rxa8
Now that the dust has settled it’s clear that Arjun has an overwhelming advantage. We’re taught that a knight and two pawns are equivalent to a rook, but here the black queenside pawns dominate. Arjun was merciless as he eventually sacrificed a knight to ensure one of the pawns would queen.
Arjun will now play Magnus Carlsen, who was a surprised observer.
I thought it was probably more likely that I’ll play Alireza, but Arjun is very strong at his best, as he showed today.
Magnus Carlsen — and Anish Giri — are playing on the Chessbrahs Pro Chess League team, and Magnus seems to have decided that was as good a reason as any for a trip to Toronto to meet Aman Hambleton and Eric Hansen.
He was asked about the help his hosts had provided:
Getting things set up and such, but theoretical preparation was sorely lacking!
Magnus’ opponent was Russian Grandmaster Alexey Sarana, with Magnus commenting on Norwegian TV about playing a Russian opponent:
I think that every day the war goes on, it feels a little bit weirder to play against Russians. At the start, I was probably a bigger supporter than many of the fact that you had to think carefully before banning people, especially considering that you don't know what long-term effects it will have. Now that it's gone on longer and longer, maybe I'm more and more convinced that Russians shouldn't play, but it's not me who decides.
The case for sporting sanctions is to stop chess being used as a tool of state propaganda, but on an individual level 23-year-old Alexey is an outspoken opponent of the invasion of Ukraine. He’s changed his federation to FIDE, and told Chess.com last year:
What our government is doing now is absolutely disgusting. I cannot accept it, but I cannot do anything about it. But I have no sympathy for this war; all the reasons are absolutely terrible.
Back on the chessboard, Magnus Carlsen got off to a perfect start. He played more hesitantly than his opponent in the opening, but 9.h4!? was a new move, and when Alexey failed to capture a pawn on d5 things spiralled out of control.
Here Magnus didn’t immediately grab the f8-rook but undermined the key e4-pawn with 17.g4!, earning memorable praise from the commentating Jan Gustafsson.
After 17…fxg4 18.Bxe4 Ndf6 19.Nxf8 Qxf8 20.0-0-0! Magnus was both up material and had a huge attack, with the game finally ending when he threatened mate-in-5.
Game 2 was the real test, since Sarana is a beast with the white pieces and had beaten first Hikaru Nakamura and then Magnus on the final day of the 2022 World Blitz Championship, just when the stakes were highest. Magnus claimed it wasn’t on his mind:
I didn’t think about that. I ended up winning the World Blitz after all, so that’s fine!
What wasn’t so fine was the opening, with Magnus admitting “I sort of messed up”. Alexey was a couple of accurate moves (e.g. 18.f4!) away from getting a real stranglehold on the position, but Magnus snatched the opportunity to free himself and then take over.
Here 23…Ne7!, transferring the knight to c6, turned the tables (24.Nxb7?? would be unwise due to 24…Rd1#), and after 24.g4?! Nc6 25.Nb5, defending the pawn, Magnus became active with 25…Rd3!
Alexey was unable to switch to the defensive in time and was soon overwhelmed.
Magnus admitted the new time control this year — with an increment of three seconds instead of 10 — had made things much tougher.
It’s a little bit unusual, especially when you get into time scrambles like I did in the second game. It was a little bit unusual for me that I wasn’t actually able to think much — I just had to play on instinct there. I think it will take a little bit of time getting used to it, being more of a pure blitz finish than I’m used to, but it’s fine.
Alexey then had to beat Magnus on demand with the black pieces, but instead was close to lost in 16 moves. The world champion had a winning advantage near the end, but decided to force a draw which clinched match victory.
Hikaru Nakamura was just as convincing.
16-year-old Indian prodigy Gukesh was the star of the Play-In to the Airthings Masters, not losing a game as he finished a point ahead of the field in the Swiss tournament before beating Vladimir Kramnik 2:0. Hikaru had scraped through that qualifier, but the balance of power shifted in the first game of their match.
Gukesh played the very rare 10.h4!?
All the games in this position had seen Black reply with what looks, objectively, to be the best move, 10…Ba6, but Hikaru, wanting to shut down the bishop on d3, instead went for 10…e5!?
Hikaru, who despite sad personal news not only played the tournament but made a recap video, noted that after the game his second Kris Littlejohn told him that 11.d5! and then 12.Ng3 leaves White almost winning, if you look at the position deeply enough with a computer.
Gukesh, however, made a human decision not to close the centre and push on with 11.h5!? instead. It backfired, as Hikaru soon picked up a pawn and later emerged victorious in a tricky knight endgame.
Then in the second game Gukesh looked to have chances of hitting back after a wild opening.
It turns out it was necessary to ratchet up the tension one more notch with 18…N6h5!, ready to play a piece down with 19.exf4 Nxf4, or 18…e4!, while after 18…Nxg2+?! 19.Qxg2 Nh5 20.cxd5 White was able to stabilise. Soon Hikaru got both his rooks onto the 7th rank, and when Gukesh missed some fleeting chances to save himself the score was 2:0 to Hikaru.
Few people are as experienced as Hikaru in such situations, and he gave no hope to his opponent in the final game, eventually accepting a draw offer in a position where he was the only person who could have played on for a win.
That leaves the final match, which had more draws than all the others combined, but was in fact the most tense.
Azerbaijan speed chess specialist Rauf Mamedov pulled off one of the sensations of the Play-In by winning a match against Ian Nepomniachtchi, and he also had chances against the 3-time U.S. Champion. Wesley began his post-game interview:
It’s been pretty tough. I think Rauf came to the match very well-prepared, especially in the opening. I didn’t get anything in Game 1, but I almost managed to swindle him.
That was true, as Wesley suddenly whipped up winning chances in a drawish endgame, but later on in the same game Rauf missed a clearer win himself.
Game 2 was a quieter draw after Wesley admitted to being surprised in the opening, while everything turned on Game 3, where in a roughly equal position he blundered with 25.g5?, allowing 25…Bxb2!
The point is that after 26.Qxb2? d2 Black is threatening both mate on g2 and to promote the d-pawn. Wesley instead had to play the sad 26.Rg1, and Rauf did almost everything right until move 34.
He could have kept dominating the position with his bishop pair with 34…Bc3!, attacking b4, preparing d2 and preventing what happened in the game.
Instead after 34…Kf8? 35.Nd2 Bxg1 36.Kxg1 Black’s grip of the position had gone. Soon Wesley was even winning.
There were one or two more twists, but Rauf was unable to avoid a gut-wrenching defeat.
Wesley summed up:
I blundered a pawn on b2 and after that I guess Black has the initiative, but I was able to outplay him in the endgame, so that was nice. And Game 4 was pretty safe.
Rauf briefly seemed to get real chances in the final game, but they were soon extinguished, and it’s Wesley So who will play Hikaru Nakamura in the semi-finals. Wesley commented, referring to beating Hikaru 5:3 in the Chess.com Global Championship Finals last year:
I’m sure he’ll want his revenge for the Global Championship a few months ago, so it’s going to be interesting.
Hikaru Nakamura concedes defeat against Wesley So in the Chess.com Global Championship semi-final
The players who lost on Day 1 aren’t out of the tournament, however, since it’s double elimination and everyone can afford to lose one match. They drop down to the Losers bracket, where we’ll see the 2-game matches Sarana-Firouzja and Mamedov-Gukesh to start Day 2.
The Airthings Masters also features two more divisions, with 16 players in Division II and 32 in Division III. Division II in particular has a lot at stake, since the winner will qualify to the next Division I without the need for a Play-In.
Notable results on Day 1 were Martyn Kravtsiv defeating Daniil Dubov in Armageddon, while Salem Saleh defeated Vladimir Kramnik and prevented a Caruana-Kramnik quarterfinal. You can follow all the games on our live broadcast pages.
Tune in to all the action from 8am PT, which is 11am ET, 17:00 CET and 21:30 IST.
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