Levon Aronian admitted it was “kind of a miracle” that he survived the 2nd game of the day against Vladislav Artemiev before he won the 3rd to clinch the first set of the Goldmoney Asian Rapid final. It means Vladislav now has to win on demand on Sunday to force a playoff for the $30,000 top prize. Magnus Carlsen said a 3rd place match is “not where I want to be”, but a flawed attack by Ding Liren in the first game of the day gave the World Champion a lead that he didn’t let slip despite a shaky final game.
A single crushing win put Levon Aronian in the driving seat
You can replay all the games from the knockout stages of the Goldmoney Asian Rapid, the 7th event on the $1.6 million Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, using the selector below.
Despite several near misses, there was just one decisive game in each match on Saturday.
And here’s the day’s live commentary from Danny King and Tania Sachdev.
And from David Howell, Jovanka Houska and Kaja Snare.
The final of the Goldmoney Asian Rapid got off to a slow start when the players made a draw by repetition in 24 moves, but a rare 6th move by Levon set the tone for a day on which the players were creating on their own early in the openings.
In Game 2 that nearly backfired badly for Levon, since objectively he found himself busted in under 10 moves. Vladislav spent 5 minutes on 11.0-0, but 11.Nb5! would have posed huge problems for Black, with the computer’s best response of 11…Na5 running into a knight fork on d6:
The move in the game gave Levon a 2nd chance, but he didn’t take advantage as he went on to walk into another tactical blow, 20.Nxf7!
After 20…Kxf7 21.Bxg7 Black is just down a pawn, though that seems to be the best he could objectively have got out of the position. In the game we got to see the tactical point based on the undefended bishop on b5 — 20…Bxd4 21.Qxd4 Kxf7 22.Qd5+ and the bishop fell, though for the record White’s best option was in fact 21.Nh6+! Kg7 22.Qxd4+, when the exposed black king will get into deep trouble if it dares to take the knight on h6.
It should have been game over, but Levon kept on fighting and got some help from his opponent.
Vladislav could have kept his a-pawn and strong kingside structure intact with 37.a3, but instead went for 37.fxg5?! Kg6!? 38.Kf4!? (there was a last chance to play 38.a3) 38…Nxa2. In pure chess terms it was a difficult decision to explain, but it made sense in terms of the position on the clock — Artemiev was down to just 10 seconds, while Levon had over 7 minutes.
Levon would later comment:
Throughout the tournament I’m just trying to follow my instincts and sometimes it leads to blunders, but sometimes it works out, so it’s always a thin balance that I need to find. I think I managed in the 3rd and 4th games, and I’ll try to build on it.
Levon made the escape look easy, though it involved finding some beautiful moves.
47…Nc3! here was the only move to hold a draw. The knight can’t be taken, of course, without allowing the a-pawn to queen, and hitting the bishop gave it the tempo it needed to plot a course to eliminate all three white pawns before it finally laid down its life on e6.
That was a hard blow for Artemiev to recover from, and in the 3rd game, a variation on the opening in the 1st, he soon found himself in a very difficult position before collapsing with 22…g6?
Levon would have had decent winning chances if he simply played 23.Bxe4, but 23.Rh3! just won on the spot. 23…Qf6 was forced to stop a quick checkmate, but after 24.Qh7+ Kf8 Levon could just pick up the knight for free, since 25.Bxe4! also saw the f1-rook hitting the queen on f6.
That meant Artemiev had to win on demand with the white pieces to tie the match, but instead it was Aronian who got a chance to make his score more imposing.
After the game Artemiev pointed out 23…Qf7! as winning for Black. It’s even more forcing to play 23…Bh2+! 24.Kh1 Qf7!, with the queen coming to h5 to wrap up victory.
Levon only needed a draw, however, and after 23…Rhf8 he got one, with Vladislav having no better option than to force a draw by perpetual check at the end.
It had been a tough start to the final for Artemiev, but he came back against Ding Liren in the semi-finals and will be hoping for a repeat.
Today was a difficult day. Unfortunately I lost the first match, but it’s normal, it’s a fight, and it happens on your way, so ok… I was not very good today, but I have a chance tomorrow, so I will fight and we’ll see!
Levon is expecting a challenge:
It’s the finals and I’m sure that Vladislav is going to bring everything he has, because he’s a great player, so I have to be ready for it.
Magnus was asked if he had a problem with motivation going into the match for 3rd place.
No, it was ok. I thought we’ll just play chess, but then after I won the first game I thought let’s try and at least consolidate that plus score today, so I have something to work with tomorrow.
He talked about getting the chance to play a match against world no. 3 Ding Liren:
It’s a bit like the time I faced Wesley in the 3rd place match, it’s a bit anticlimactic, but it’s fine. He’s a very strong player and an interesting opponent, so in terms of training it’s good, and there’s obviously some bonus for winning as well, so that’s nice. Everybody knows it’s not where I want to be, but sometimes you’ve got to play the cards that you’ve been dealt, or at least you’ve dealt yourself!
As in the 3rd place match against Wesley, Magnus opened with a win, though this one was a little strange. Ding Liren was in an uncomfortable position when his 28…Ng4?! seems to have been the start of a completely flawed combination. It was met by 29.Rf1.
Here Ding “unleashed” 29…Nxf2?, when 30.Rxf2 would lose to 30…Bxe3. There was no reason to take immediately, however, and White has multiple refutations. 30.Bd4 works, as does 30.Bb4 (the queen now guards e3), but simplest and most direct was the move Magnus made in the game, 30.Nc4!, both protecting e3 and hitting the bishop.
Ding put his head in his hands as he realised what he’d done. You didn’t need to be Magnus Carlsen to finish things off, with the game ending 30…Nh3+ 31.Bxh3 Qxh3 32.Nxb6 and Ding resigned. Perhaps the Chinese star had just missed in advance that after 32…axb6 the f7-square is unguarded, so that 33.Qxf7+ is mate-in-2.
Game 2, where Magnus had Black, fizzled out into a 62-move draw, though there was one fleeting moment where Magnus could have won on the spot.
21…Nd4! was the move, with the point that 22.Nxd4 loses to 22…Qxd5!, with some echoes of how Ding earlier wrapped up his quarterfinal match against Jan-Krzysztof Duda. Instead Magnus went for 21…Nb4?! and the chance had gone.
Game 3 was quiet, before Magnus described the final game of the day as “really, really sloppy”. Just when the World Champion seemed to have solved his problems, a misguided pawn grab ran into 29.e6!
Suddenly Ding had chances of levelling the score, and after 32…b3 there was a winning move.
Ding went for the obvious way to stop the b-pawn with 33.Rc7 b2 34.Rb7, but after 34…Nc3 35.Rxb2 a4! the a-pawn gave Magnus enough play to hold the draw he needed.
Instead 33.Bh5!! was winning, but you had to have spotted that you can meet 33…b2 with the only move 34.Re6!, not stopping the b-pawn but threatening to meet it queening with checkmate on e8! White then has time to stop the b-pawn with Bg6 or Rc7-b7 without having to give up his own passed pawn.
That means that Ding Liren will have to make a comeback to force a playoff on the final day of the tournament. Magnus, meanwhile, has been able to focus on the chess, since being in quarantine during the event has limited his options!
When you finish quickly in the evening and the weather is nice and all my friends are in the city and to just be inside and not meet anybody has been not ideal. The only thing I’ve done really is I’ve gone for quick swims in between games somehow, just trying to avoid people at all costs, but it’s not easy these days!
Tune into the final day's action live from 13:00 CEST here on chess24 with all the moves, computer analysis and commentary.
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