Jeffery Xiong beat Anish Giri on his Meltwater Champions Chess Tour debut as he raced to three wins that gave him the sole lead after Day 1 of the FTX Road to Miami. He was only stopped by fellow 21-year-old American Sam Sevian, who shares second place with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Wei Yi and Jan-Krzyszstof Duda. Some star names struggled, with Levon Aronian losing his first two games, while Teimour Radjabov suffered 3 defeats and owed his single point to a 14-move draw against Mamedyarov.
16 players must be cut to 8 after the first 4 days of the FTX Road to Miami
You can replay all the games from Day 1 of the Prelims of the FTX Road to Miami, the 5th event on the $1.6 million Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, using the selector below.
And here’s the day’s live commentary from David Howell, Jovanka Houska and Kaja Snare in Oslo…
…and from Peter Leko and Lawrence Trent.
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Let’s take a look at some of the highlights of Day 1 of the FTX Road to Miami.
US star Jeffery Xiong became a grandmaster at 14, won the World Junior Championship at 15 and crossed 2700 at 18, so although he’s yet to break through into the absolute chess elite no-one will be treating him lightly as he makes his Meltwater Champions Chess Tour debut.
The now 21-year-old got off to a perfect start by beating Anish Giri and Hans Niemann with the black pieces, before defeating Aryan Tari with White.
Even a loss to Sam Sevian in Round 4 couldn’t stop Jeffery finishing the day in sole 1st, with no-one else matching those three wins.
The wins were all marked by controlled aggression and great technique, with Anish Giri summing up his loss to Jeffery:
At some point I missed a move, then it’s equal, but he’s on the good side of equality and I didn’t quite see how exactly to fully equalise. Slowly but surely he outplayed me, so that was a good game on Jeffery’s part.
An early contender for move of the day was Wei Yi’s 25.Nxe5!, capturing a pawn, against Radek Wojtaszek.
The point was demonstrated in the game with 25…dxe5 26.Bxc5 Nxc5 27.Rb5!, hitting the bishop and knight, though Wojtaszek was able to stay afloat with Ra8, Ra1+, Rc1, targeting the loose bishop on c2, before finally missing a key detail and losing the game.
The most important and dramatic move of the day, however, was Sam Sevian’s 33.g4! against Mr. 100%, Jeffery Xiong.
The idea is beautiful: 33…hxg4 34.f5! gxf5 35.h5! and the h-pawn has broken free. It doesn’t stop there, however, since after 33…Ra6 36.h6 Rb6 it seems as though Black will be in time to play Rb8 and Rh8, stop the pawn and win the game.
Here, however, Sam would have 37.Re8! and after 37…Kxe8 38.h7 the pawn really is unstoppable.
Jeffery dug deep and found the best defence, 33…Ra6! 34.f5 gxf5 35.gxh5 f4! (preparing f5 and a path for the black rook to h6), but lost his way and ultimately did lose a fascinating endgame.
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov had a great first day of the FTX Road to Miami, starting with a win over Levon Aronian and then getting to checkmate Richard Rapport in Round 3. Richard, who was instrumental in his team Baden-Baden winning the German Chess League, was already in a tough position when he played 22…Ba4?, attacking the white queen.
Shakh didn’t need to be asked twice as he continued 23.Bd5+! Kf8 24.Rxb7! (you can save the queen and win as well, but who would do that!?) 24…Bxd1 25.Rf7+ Ke8 26.d7#
Levon Aronian said of what was an extraordinary game:
I had an immense advantage, and then for some reason I went and took the pawn, after which it was objectively drawn, but I think he played very fearlessly. From the moment when he got the chance, I think he played very well, in the last seconds. Of course it’s tough to play against everybody, because everybody’s so strong in this tournament, but Arjun is a very talented player who’s always looking to play for a win, and I’m a personal fan of his, and I think he’s also a very nice guy and I think he fully deserved to win that game. I think he played very well!
A remarkable king march really got going on move 47.
To avoid Rg7 being check, Arjun began a march with 47…Kd6!? which would ultimately see the king reach f1. It was still on e3 when Levon had his last chance to save the game.
The only move to hold on was 58.Qb6+! and it turns out that after e.g. 58…Kd2 59.Qd8+! the black king can’t escape checks with 59…Kc1 because then 60.Qxf6! hits the now undefended f3-bishop and Black no longer has checkmate.
In the game, however, after 58.Qd4+ Ke2 59.Qc4+ Kf2 60.Qc5+ Kf1 it was game over. Another check would be met by checkmate!
Levon talked about playing “kids”:
As before when Fabi and Anish were little, I was playing against them and learning against them, so it’s always a chance to learn against a new generation, a new style of play, the new things they do. I’m a chess fan, so every time I play against players that I can learn from, it’s very enjoyable!
This year, largely because of the players invited and 3 points for a win, we’ve had very few of the instant draws we saw in previous seasons of the Tour. That’s why it stood out when Teimour Radjabov and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov made the 14-move Berlin draw that we also saw in Nepomniachtchi-Nakamura from the recent Candidates.
The curiosity was that the single point Teimour achieved for that draw was the only point he scored all day, as he lost to Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Arjun Erigaisi and then Women’s World Champion Ju Wenjun.
This was a competitive category, with Arjun Erigaisi pulling off wonders against Sam Sevian and, as we’ve already seen, Levon, while Radek Wojtaszek found a beautiful study-like draw against Leinier Dominguez to avoid losing a 2nd game in a row on his debut. That game ended in 103 moves, however, so let’s go with Aronian-Giri, a 136-move marathon in Round 4 that was the last of the day to finish.
Levon was winning in 25 moves, and even after missing some clear-cut wins still had two extra pawns in the endgame. More chances slipped away until eventually the game ended in stalemate.
Levon tried to look on the bright side:
Yeah, it’s pretty disappointing! I think I missed a couple of easy wins, and then I just started playing not the best moves, but anyway to get such a position against such a strong player like Anish on such a turbulent day — I felt I haven’t played for so long that I’m completely out of shape — is already an achievement.
Anish was incredibly tenacious, but wasn’t putting it down to brilliant defence.
I was just very, very lucky! I don’t know how he didn’t manage to win that position. It’s unreal.
Many of the star names have a lot of work to do if they want to reach the knockout, and then finish in the Top 2 to earn a spot in the FTX Crypto Cup next month in Miami, but with 11 rounds to go there’s still plenty of time.
Watch all the FTX Road to Miami action live from 18:00 CEST (12:00 ET | 21:30 IST) each day!
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