Hikaru Nakamura beat Wesley So in Armageddon to set up a Grand Final rematch against Magnus Carlsen on the last day of the 2023 Airthings Masters. Wesley had earlier overcome Arjun Ergaisi to join Carlsen and Nakamura in securing a spot in Division I of the next Champions Chess Tour event in April. Fabiano Caruana and Yu Yangyi will fight it out for the remaining spot in the Division II final, while Sam Sevian won Division III.
Magnus Carlsen had a day off on Thursday as he waited to see who he would face in the Grand Final of the Airthings Masters. He paid a visit to a local chess club in Toronto, Canada, from where he's playing.
The action switched to the Division I Losers bracket, which began with a 2-game match between Wesley So and Arjun Erigaisi.
Both games were intense, with the first a complex Anti-Marshall where Wesley So got an edge in the opening but was then willing to repeat moves for a draw. “In retrospect maybe I should just have taken a draw in the first game”, said Arjun, who instead grabbed a pawn only to find himself in trouble.
Converting winning positions has been a problem for Wesley in the Airthings Masters, however, and he missed a chance to land a crushing blow with 39.c4!
Black can’t take en passant on c3 as the e4-rook is hanging, but if the b5-rook moves the a5-knight falls. None of the trickier ways to try and defend work.
Instead 39.Bg3!? kept an advantage, but when Wesley later traded queens he came very close to throwing away the win. He recovered, however, and went on to grind out a 101-move win.
Wesley was, as always, full of praise for his opponent:
Arjun is an amazing player — I have a lot of respect for him. I think Fabiano Caruana also mentioned that out of all the Indian youngsters it seems Arjun has a lot of potential and he could possibly reach 2800 one day. Also, he’s a theoretician, he’s good in the opening, so I’m very happy to do well in the opening against him today in both games.
Wesley noted he remembered over 20 moves of opening theory for the second game, but Arjun was also “in book” and 21.Qxc6 almost gave him a chance.
Wesley spent five minutes here, and later explained he was considering 21…Bd7!?, when in fact the computer gives White a clear edge. In the end, however, he played the best move 21…Be6! and the game effectively came to an end six moves later with 27…Kg7!
Wesley had originally been planning to play the ending after 27…Qd8, but the move in the game left only one “good” option for White, accepting the rook sacrifice with 28.Rxd1, but then 28…Qxe3+ would force a draw by perpetual check.
Arjun Erigaisi thought for six minutes:
At that point I realised I messed up and I thought a draw is inevitable, and I just went for this pretty much out of desperation, but that didn’t help either.
His attempt to play on with 28.Nh5+ was easily brushed aside by Wesley, who ultimately took a match-victory-clinching draw in a won position.
That victory meant Wesley had secured a place in Division I of the next Champions Chess Tour event that runs April 3-7, alongside Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura. He was delighted.
It’s huge! So that’s exactly what I was fighting for today, not necessarily the prize, but to avoid the Play-In, because it’s very tough.
He also pointed out he’s planning to travel on March 13, the day of that Play-In.
That wasn’t all for Wesley in the Airthings Masters, however, since he’d now reached the final of the Losers bracket, where he would face Hikaru Nakamura, who dropped down after losing to Magnus. It was the second Nakamura-So match of the tournament, and once again the regular games were drawn, leading to Armageddon.
Just as in the first match, Wesley So was able to press with the white pieces, aided by Hikaru Nakamura, who said he lost his mind when he played 9…Ng4!? in the first game, simply wasting two moves.
Wesley got a long-term advantage which endured into a heavy piece and then queen endgame. The game was full of dramatic moments.
Here 36.Qe6! was a move Wesley considered, though it’s easy to dismiss since after 36…Qxe6 37.dxe6 the black king can pick up the e6-pawn and Black is a pawn up. Nevertheless, after White pushes f4 it turns out the white kingside pawns will win the game, while the doubled black b-pawns are unable to help.
Wesley still had various ways to win, but none more dramatic than on the penultimate move.
Wesley blitzed out 53.Qe6+? and after 53…Kg7 the game was drawn as the position had been repeated three times.
Instead 53.Qf3! would have won the game. Hikaru said he’d initially thought that after 53…Qf6 54.Qxf6+ Kxf6, and his king coming to e5, it’s Black who wins, but once again it’s that tricky pawn endgame. It wasn’t so tricky, however, that Hikaru couldn’t realise his mistake in a split second, leading to an epic reaction!
Hikaru commented on how it must have been for his opponent:
If you miss a win in one where there’s no counterplay and you just trade into a king and pawn endgame which you’re going to win 100% of the time, it is somewhat devastating. That being said, it’s very tricky, because after that I wasn’t sure if I should make the draw or try to beat him…
Hikaru instead decided “I’d rather flip a coin” and, as in their previous match, he went for the instant 14-move Berlin draw with the white pieces to take the contest to Armageddon. The déjà vu then continued, as Hikaru again won the bidding war against Wesley, offering 8 minutes 5 seconds to play Black and only need a draw, while Wesley bid 8 minutes 29.
“That was pretty shocking, because I think it’s insane to go that low,” said So, who therefore, with 15 minutes, got 6 minutes 31 seconds more time than Nakamura. Hikaru also had his doubts, though more about his choice of opening:
Obviously after yesterday [when Magnus outbid him by one second] I wanted to bid low just to ensure that I got Black, and I did get it, but I think my bid was probably ok but the opening that I played was very shaky, not so much in that it wasn’t playable, but it was a very double-edged position where I can win or I can lose, because I’m sac’ing a pawn, and when you’re in that position that you’re down on the clock it’s really not optimal.
Once again Wesley was much better, but there was no clear-cut win, and he confessed he’d been too focused on his clock.
I think I was just slower. I didn’t have good nerves in the end… I played too timidly…
Wesley did feel that any other player would have collapsed, but Hikaru held on and then seized on the one real mistake, 52.f3?, to play 52…axb3! 53.Kxb3 Ba4+! 54.Kb2 Qe2! and it was clear White could no longer hope for a happy ending.
Instead Hikaru went on to win, and you could see what it meant from his reaction.
That means we’ve now got a rematch between Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen, who meet in the 4-game Grand Final.
The twist is that since Magnus is still unbeaten, if he loses that match he gets one more chance, with a 2-game Grand Final Reset. Hikaru said that because he needs to win two matches he may play with more risk, and his attitude sounded spot on (the opposite of Wesley’s, “it would be nice to beat Hikaru, but at the same time then I’ll play Magnus tomorrow…”).
It’s always good to be in the finals, and it’s always fun to play against Magnus. We’ve played a lot over the years and he’s the best of the best, so if you want to win you have to beat the best, and that’s how I view it.
What sets the players apart, in Hikaru’s view?
Magnus is much better at getting winning positions and converting them. That’s a simple answer. I haven’t really had many opportunities. I don’t think I’ve had any real opportunities to win a game since the first day when I played against Gukesh, so he’s very good at converting, I’m very good at defending and hanging on for a long time.
The other action on the final day of the Airthings Masters is the Division II Grand Final between Fabiano Caruana and Yu Yangyi, where the stakes are also high — the winner gets $10,000, 50 Champions Chess Tour points and, perhaps most importantly, the 4th and final invite to the next Tour event. (The remaining four places will be decided by a Play-In)
Yu Yangyi beat Fabiano Caruana in Armageddon in Norway Chess 2019 | photo: Lennart Ootes
Fabiano Caruana has had a nearly perfect Airthings Masters, beating Diptayan Ghosh, Salem Saleh, Nodirbek Yakubboev and Yu Yangyi with two wins and a draw in all four matches, and he finished in the tie for 2nd in the Play-In. The one blot on his record, and the reason he ended up in Division II, is that he lost his Play-In match to Alexey Sarana after winning the first game and seeming to be cruising through in the second.
Fabiano now also has the luxury of losing the Grand Final and getting a rematch. His opponent, Yu Yangyi, had to come back through the Losers bracket after losing to Fabi, which he did with a win over Nodirbek Yakubboev. The 21-year-old Uzbekistan grandmaster had earlier beaten Yu Yangyi in the Play-In, and on the penultimate day of the event he also knocked out the 14th World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik.
Kramnik’s frustration in the game above was that he’d almost held a draw that would have taken him through with a 1.5:0.5 victory, but instead he had to go to Armageddon, where his extreme 7 minutes 30 seconds bid gave him the black pieces but no success in the game.
Division 3, meanwhile, is over, with Sam Sevian taking home $5,000 and 20 Tour points.
The US star had been on target for Division I after scoring 5.5/7 in the Play-In, but lost his last two games, and then a match against Matthias Bluebaum.
In Division III he went on to beat Rodrigo Vasquez, Vasif Durarbayli, Parham Maghsoodloo, Olexandr Bortnyk and then Praggnanandhaa… twice! In the Grand Final he needed to hit back after losing the first game to Pragg, but he did so in style, before the final game ended with a blunder from the Indian prodigy just when Armageddon looked on the cards.
e.g. 38.Re1 Qxa2 and it would only be Pragg playing for a win with an extra pawn, but after 38.Qg4+? Rg5! it was time for White to resign. 39.Qd1 defends the a1-rook, but 39…Qxg2+ is mate-in-3. 39.Qe4+ Rf5+! is similarly hopeless.
Don’t miss the final day of the Airthings Masters, when Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura will play for the $30,000 top prize and also the first spot in the 8-player Champions Chess Tour Playoffs in December. You have to reach those Playoffs to have a chance of winning the $200,000 top prize.
Tune in to all the action from 8am PT, which is 11am ET, 17:00 CET and 21:30 IST.
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