“The chess speaks for itself!” said Hans Niemann after crushing Magnus Carlsen in Game 1 of their match, but Magnus stormed back to win 3:1. Anish Giri had joked that he was babysitting Praggnanandhaa, but a blunder in the last game saw the 17-year-old Indian join Magnus on a perfect score. Levon Aronian is 3rd after beating Jan-Krzysztof Duda on tiebreaks while Alireza Firouzja picked up a first win, over Liem Le.
Day 2 of the FTX Crypto Cup, the 6th event on the $1.6 million Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, featured more drama, with Firouzja-Le over in three games while Duda-Aronian went to blitz tiebreaks.
You can replay all the games from the FTX Crypto Cup using the selector below.
The most entertaining match was between World Champion Magnus Carlsen and the top US junior Hans Niemann.
A disgruntled Hans Niemann had crashed to a 0:3 defeat to Jan-Krzysztof Duda on Day 1 in Miami, so that little was expected of him when he faced the World Champion on Day 2. The first game, therefore, was a shocker to all concerned!
Magnus commented on the game, and the position above (he’s not mixing up his kids!).
That was surprising and unpleasant, all at the same time. We played this line where I knew there was this game between Nils Grandelius and I think Nihal Sarin — I hope I’m not mixing kids up. That’s all I knew, really, so I decided, whatever, I’ll just go for this, and then he played something else, and then I went for c4, which is a really ugly move. I just wasn’t sure what to do with the rook on the 4th rank, it was a bit weird, but that was a horrible decision. He just got the chance to put his pieces on good squares and I just had a passive and poor position. I shouldn’t have collapsed like I did, but I was in shock.
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15…Bf5 varied from Nihal’s 15…Bxf3, 16.c4?! was a bad move, and we saw Magnus simply blown off the board.
Better yet, Hans Niemann gave an instantly unforgettable one-sentence interview.
“The chess speaks for itself!” was asking for trouble, with Magnus later describing his state of mind to Tania with, “I wasn’t so pissed as much as just in shock, because I don’t usually lose that way, so it was just super-weird”.
He had a plan for Black in Game 2, but joked:
I looked a little bit at my prep for the next game, but of course I played the French, so you don’t want to look too much at the positions because then they don’t appear as good!
He needn’t have worried, since the game went like a dream. Magnus won a pawn and converted without a hint of trouble.
He commented:
But after that I felt like I was pushing, and losing the second game without a fight must have been a cold shower for him. After that I felt like I was doing well.
It seemed that playing solid, technical chess had worked perfectly, so what would Magnus choose for the critical 3rd game? 1.a3!
Magnus said he probably won’t try it again anytime soon — “it’s a decent move, but it’s not super-exciting” — but he gave a general defence of offbeat openings.
Making one strange move in the opening usually means that your position is at least semi-playable and you have the advantage of more knowledge. People often make the mistake of thinking if you make one strange move then you’re going to make a lot more, but that doesn’t have to be the case.
Magnus immediately added, however:
I mean, it was the case in my game with 1.a3 today! I had to take some self-criticism on that one, but it doesn’t have to be.
Magnus noted two critical moments, the first after 12.Nf4.
The computer was giving 12…Bxf4 with a clear advantage for Black, but Magnus noted, “he’s probably better, but I thought the position is pretty playable and sometimes in these structures not having the dark-squared bishop is really bad for the queenside”.
Hans instead went for 12…Bg6!?, and a few moves later Magnus admitted that he just blundered with 16.g4?, allowing 16…e5!
The really bad moment was when I played 16.g4. That was just insane! I’d just thought 16…e5 17.g5 exd4, I go 18.Na4 and I win a piece… then of course the knight is trapped. I spent three seconds on g4. That was just stupid, because at that point I had a perfectly playable position.
The problem is that after 18.Na4 Qd8 19.gxf6 Black has 19…b5! trapping the knight.
That was no worse than the position after 18.exd4 Nh5 19.Nxd5, but with 19…Qxd4?!, winning a pawn but exchanging off queens, Hans gave away almost all Black’s advantage. Magnus was sure that his opponent would play that move due to his clock situation.
After that I thought I wouldn’t lose, and I was just trying to keep the game going by not exchanging pieces, and it worked out very well, probably better than it should have.
It was a complete turnaround as Magnus stabilised, won a pawn, and then took a 2:1 lead in the match.
Now Magnus only needed a draw to clinch the match, but his appetite for adventure hadn’t dimmed.
Magnus was in form, but he did manage to miss the trapping of a knight, again!
11…a6! was the move, since after 12.Nxc7? Ra7 the knight has no squares. Instead Hans would have to play e.g. 12.Nc3 and give up the e5-pawn. Magnus commented:
I could have spared myself a lot of time by just playing a6. That’s such a well-known motif as well, but it just wasn’t on my radar. Also, he was playing confidently, so I thought he’s not going to play this confidently and just blunder something that loses the game in one move, or at least makes sure he doesn’t win.
That was crazy, but anyway, the way that I played he was probably better, but he couldn’t make anything of it. His a4-a5 plan just didn’t work.
Magnus gradually took over and clinched a 3:1 victory. That meant he had 6 points and $15,000 for winning his first two matches in rapid chess, with only one player, Praggnanandhaa, matching him.
It was hard to compete with “the chess speaks for itself” in the category of asking for trouble, but Anish Giri’s pre-match tweet came close!
Would could possibly go wrong?
The first game saw Anish on top out of the opening, with Praggnanandhaa commenting, “somehow I managed to escape”. He continued:
In the 2nd game I probably had some slight advantage, but I think that game was fairly even, and the 3rd one I had a simple win, which I actually saw, but then I decided to repeat once, and then thought I’ll go for that, but ok, I just forgot that he just could go back with the king, and then it’s fine.
41.Rxh5! was the win, but after 41.Rb6+? Anish didn’t repeat the mistake 39…Ke5? but this time chose 41…Kf5! and the black king can defend the h5-pawn.
That meant it all came down to the 4th game, which looked to be heading towards a draw, and a playoff, until Anish made one bad move, 21.Rd3?, which ran into 21…Rc2!
22.Qxc2 would run into 22…Qxe1+, but after a few minutes of bitter reflection Anish found the best way to fight on with 22.Ba3! and an exchange of queens.
"He's smelling some Dutch blood in the water!" said the watching Magnus, but a long, tense struggle ensued. Magnus was impressed by Praggnanandhaa.
But it wasn’t just about the technique.
He also played really well in the Olympiad, so he’s just very good. I wouldn’t expect him to beat Anish every day, but it’s not a shocker.
In the end the baby beat the babysitter.
The curiosity was that the final position was very similar to the crucial game that Praggnanandhaa had won against Javokhir Sindarov in the penultimate round of the Olympiad.
19-year-old Alireza Firouzja is new to the hybrid online/one-venue format being played in Miami, but this match suggested he’s learning fast. While the first game was a quiet draw, Alireza scored a crushing 30-move win with the black pieces in Game 2. He then wrapped up victory with a game to spare, though Liem had a fleeting chance to turn the tables.
Liem said he’d missed this 29.Rc1 move, and after 29…Bd3+? 30.Nxd3 cxd3 31.Re1 d2! 32.Rd1 b3! 33.axb3 Ba5 Alireza went on to win relatively smoothly (there was one hiccup). Instead 29…Bd7! would have defended (30.Rxc4? Bb5), and in fact it’s White who needs to be resourceful to survive.
So Firouzja is off the mark, while Liem commented, “I’ll just try to forget about the last two matches and try and do better tomorrow.”
Jan-Krzysztof Duda said after this match:
Today Levon just played better than me. I basically wasn’t able to get anything with White. It’s difficult to win the match if you can’t score with White.
For a second day in a row, Levon Aronian got off to a very fast start, with Duda in dire trouble with the white pieces in Game 1.
Here he tried 33.Bxh6!?, which might even have worked after Levon failed to find the killer response 33…Nxd4!, but short on time Duda also didn’t find the correct follow-up of meeting 33…gxh6 34.Qxh6+ Kg8 with 35.Re1! Instead he played 35.Nf5, and after that miss there was no way back.
Against Liem Le on Day 1 Levon had held a terrible position in Game 2, and for a while it looked like history would repeat. This time, however, Duda squeezed out a win and the scores remained level in the next two rapid games.
That meant the first playoff of the FTX Crypto Cup, with Magnus Carlsen making Jan-Krzysztof the favourite to win. It didn’t work out that way, however. Duda only just escaped in the first game but then found himself in a terrible position in the second.
Levon made no mistake as he clinched victory, taking 2 points and $5,000 for winning in a playoff, while Duda took 1 point and $2,500.
That makes the scores as follows going in Wednesday’s Round 3.
Aronian-Carlsen is the key match-up for the standings, alongside Giri-Firouzja, Niemann-Praggnanandhaa and Le-Duda.
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