Women’s World Champion Ju Wenjun beat Richard Rapport, Sam Shankland and Wei Yi as she climbed into the qualification spots after Day 2 of the FTX Road to Miami. Teimour Radjabov pulled out of the tournament after scoring just one draw in five games, while Sam Sevian took over as leader by winning all his games. Arjun Erigaisi seized 2nd place after scoring 10/12 on Day 2, a score matched by Anish Giri after a slow first day.
Sam Sevian beat Levon Aronian to cap a perfect day for the young American
You can replay all the games from 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 Kaja Snare, Jovanka Houska and David Howell…
…and from Peter Leko and Lawrence Trent.
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Day 2 of the FTX Road to Miami saw a shake-up among the leading pack, with Sam Sevian taking over in first place.
Teimour Radjabov had a spectacular end to the FIDE Candidates in Madrid, crushing the tournament winning hopes of Hikaru Nakamura and Ding Liren and then beating Richard Rapport in the final round to finish in 3rd place.
The Azerbaijan star couldn’t carry that momentum over into the FTX Road to Miami, however, as he lost to Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Arjun Erigaisi and Ju Wenjun on Day 1, and scored just a single point for a 14-move draw against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. He began Day 2 against Anish Giri and, in a pawn down position where it looked as though he had decent chances to hold, he simply collapsed.
Teimour resigned here, and promptly asked to withdraw from the tournament since he was feeling unwell. We hope he gets well soon!
Teimour’s withdrawal means all his opponents, including Mamedyarov, will now get 3 points, and $750, for a win in their games against him.
Ju Wenjun had a spectacular day in the FTX Road to Miami
That withdrawal took nothing away from Ju Wenjun, who played a fine game to beat Teimour in the final game of Day 1, and then managed to carry over that form into Day 2.
First up was Richard Rapport, whose risk-taking with the black pieces backfired. Ju Wenjun could have won in the middlegame, but instead found some nice endgame tactics to finish things off. This was the final moment.
59.Bxf8! Kxa7 60.Bc5+ and Richard resigned before a new queen appeared on f8.
Radek Wojtaszek beat Ju in the next round with a quiet opening, but the Women’s World Champion stormed back in the next game after a puzzling tactical “solution” by Sam Shankland.
Instead of moving or defending the knight he went for 31…Rxa4? 32.Rxd6+ Ke7, when after 33.Rc6 Kd7 the rook is chased around and it should be a draw — but why would you go for this? Wenjun, however, had something much better: 33.Rd7+!
Sam resigned, since 33…Kxd7 34.Bb5+ is game over, while otherwise White is just a piece up.
That wasn’t all, since in the final round of the day Ju Wenjun won a complex game against her Chinese colleague Wei Yi, a player Peter Leko noted had impressed him in the last 1.5 years and who he’s tipping to get back towards the Top 10 in the near future.
30…Re8!, rather than taking on c3, was a brilliant unexpected decision by Ju Wenjun, given Wei Yi had just 16 seconds on his clock.
It turns out White does have a solution, 31.Rg4!, when 31…Nxg4? loses to 32.Qf7+.
That would likely have been a draw, but it was an incredibly tough move to find with so little time, and instead after 31.Rg1 Rdxe5! Ju Wenjun was winning. She went on to play powerfully to bring home yet another win.
Ju Wenjun remained modest afterwards.
I’m kind of like surprised that this time I play much better than previous times and I think maybe because they want to beat me, so they choose some unclear game and I get some chances.
At first on Day 2 it looked like there was no stopping Jeffery Xiong, as the sole leader began by beating Levon Aronian in crushing style.
Levon resigned, since 34…Kxf8 would run into checkmate with 35.Rg8#
Then Jeffery was slated to play Teimour Radjabov in Round 6 and instead got a forfeit win to keep him top of the table, but perhaps that enforced break worked against him, since Xiong was lost in 17 moves against Richard Rapport in the next game, and had no way back.
He ended the day with a draw against Radek Wojtaszek, allowing two players to leapfrog him.
Sam Sevian had beaten Jeffery in the final game of Day 1 and was unstoppable on Day 2.
That was despite claiming to have modest intentions.
Today was just an incredible day. I came into today trying to play solid, because I knew I had three Blacks out of the four games, but I decided to take some risk in the first game with this dubious opening in the Spanish. It did pay off, and then the 2nd and 3rd games were just better after that.
Sam won two utterly convincing games with the black pieces and then took down Levon Aronian, after the Armenian player, now representing the US, pushed too hard in what had become an equal position. 30…Rf5 was the point of no return.
31.Qb3! and, it turned out, there was no avoiding an exchange of queens into an endgame where White was winning. So Sam, himself of Armenian heritage, claimed another win and could then relax, since his final game of the day was meant to be against Teimour Radjabov but was converted into a forfeit win.
Arjun Erigaisi, meanwhile, took over in 2nd place, after winning three games and drawing one. Once again he showed fine tactics and resourcefulness, and turned around a desperate position.
Sam would have been completely winning after a move such as 35.Rb7, but instead played 35.e7?, when after 35…Kf7 the passed pawn was suddenly a liability. Arjun even found a way to win the game.
Anish Giri matched Erigaisi’s three wins and a draw, including what Peter Leko described as a “positional masterpiece” against Radek Wojtaszek, while the last game of the day was a crushing Najdorf against Sam Shankland. Sam had a miserable day, making just one draw.
Another player quietly getting the job done is Jan-Krzysztof Duda, who is perfectly poised to qualify for the knockout stages after winning two games and making two draws on both of the first two days.
The battle for the qualifying spots is set to be tense, both on and off the board. Hans Niemann started Day 2 with a crushing win over Leinier Dominguez, where a queen sacrificed ended the game.
Then he tweeted…
...and promptly lost the next three games. Anish Giri, who is fighting a running battle against Hans on Twitter...
…wasn’t going to miss the chance to poke some more fun.
Don’t miss Day 3 of the FTX Road to Miami, when there are another four rounds, before the final three rounds of the Prelims on Wednesday.
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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