“He deserves to lose!” said Peter Leko after Magnus Carlsen played 1.f3, but the World Champion had winning chances before drawing that game against Jan-Krzysztof Duda on the way to a 2.5:0.5 victory in Round 1 of the Oslo Esports Cup. Praggnanandhaa matched Magnus all the way, also winning two games with the black pieces, as he overcame Jorden van Foreest. Anish Giri won a rollercoaster 3rd game to defeat Eric Hansen, while Shakhriyar Mamedyarov took advantage of a Liem Quang Le mouse-slip on a day where no tiebreaks were needed.
Magnus Carlsen defeated Jan-Krzysztof Duda 2.5:0.5 in Round 1 in Oslo
You can replay all the games from the Oslo Esports Cup using the selector below.
And here’s the day’s live commentary from Tania Sachdev and Peter Leko, including a 1-hour Pre-Show with Maurice Ashley, Sagar Shah and Lawrence Trent…
…and from the Oslo studio with Kaja Snare, Jovanka Houska and David Howell.
All four matches in Round 1 of the Oslo Esports Cup were wrapped up in the rapid games, with Magnus Carlsen and Praggnanandhaa winning with a game to spare.
Magnus Carlsen and Jan-Krzysztof Duda prepare for battle
Carlsen-Duda clashes have become modern classics, and this one didn’t disappoint. There was no disguising the favourite, with Maurice Ashley commenting in the Pre-Show.
Let’s be real, as Sagar said, it’s Magnus’ world and we’re all living in it, right? This guy does whatever he wants. He’s talking about retiring from chess, he’s telling us his only challenge is maybe to become 3200 or something and he’s busy playing poker. What? How is he doing all this? And spanking people at chess as well. Currently he is the favourite in the event every time he plays. If I had to put money, my house, it would always be on Magnus, but we’re excited to see other people try to somehow take some of his shine.
Duda has shown himself to be fearless against Magnus, however, and capable of landing heavy blows. It makes for great chess, with Magnus going for a bold exchange sacrifice in the first game.
Here he continued 15…dxc3! 16.Qxa7 cxb2 17.Rb1 Qa5+!, having correctly assessed the position. When it was put to him that Duda likes this kind of unbalanced position, Magnus replied:
I knew that I was playing a bit into his hands, but I thought it was the correct way to play. The first game of the tournament is not the time to duck the challenge!
Just when things looked bad for Duda he found 20.Rhe1!, giving up a pawn to evacuate his king to safety on f1.
Magnus spent over three minutes on each of his next two moves but could find nothing better than 20…Bxf5 21.Kf1 Bg6 and admitted he was soon getting “kind of outplayed”, but he noted that time proved the crucial factor.
It seemed like I was holding a draw, and then towards the end, with little time, the position shifted a bit as soon as I got my pawns running — then I couldn’t lose. It went very quickly downhill for him from there, which was a bit surprising, but nevertheless a good win.
41.Rb1? was the last mistake (41.Qd4! was the only way to try and hold things together).
After 41…a3! it was over, with 42.Ra1 b4! 43.Kf2 b3 ending the game.
A tough day for Duda didn’t get any easier when Magnus opened the second game with the shocking 1.f3?! Peter Leko’s reaction said it all.
What! No, don’t tell. No, no, no, it cannot be. 1.f3, it can’t be. If this is really on the board and Magnus played f3… He deserves to lose! Whenever I see something like this, first of all, the whole world is watching, chess players are watching, you are not supposed to play f3, it’s the worst possible move in the position!
When 1.f3 e5 wasn't followed by 2.Kf2, but 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.e4 Bc5 4.Na4 it became clear, however, that Magnus had some ideas. Anish Giri approved, pointing to a chess and psychological basis for the move.
I really appreciated that… I think the inspiration comes from the line 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 d6 3.f3, that he played already before [vs. Firouzja and MVL], an idea of the Dutch Chess School [Jorden van Foreest also tried it], and it’s quite clever. And he took it to the next level — he thought, let’s play f3 on move 1! I thought it was very smart, because you gain a psychological edge, and you have a small disadvantage on the board, but if you prepare it very well, and you know all the subtleties like Na4, you neutralise that advantage on the board and you keep that psychological advantage.
Magnus himself put it down to wanting to try something new.
He added in a later mini-interview that it was his plan before the day started.
I planned to play that regardless. I’ve been trying to experiment, seeing what first moves you can make playable. I cannot say the experience was too successful, because I didn’t remember really what to do... I don’t think that experiment is going to be repeated anytime soon!
It didn’t go badly at all, however, with Peter dismayed midway through when Magnus had escaped unscathed.
There were more twists and turns after that, but in the end we got an endgame where Jan-Krzysztof Duda escaped by the skin of his teeth, but still found himself needing to win one of the next two games to keep the match alive.
Online chess has never involved bumping into so many friends before
The 3rd and, as it turned out, final game of the match followed a similar scenario to the first. Magnus grabbed an initiative early on and looked to be cruising, before Duda created some chances, Then, however, just as in Game 1, everything fell apart for Jan-Krzysztof in time trouble, and Magnus had wrapped up victory with a game to spare.
Praggnanandhaa is in Oslo with his coach Ramesh
16-year-old Praggnanandhaa was the only player who managed to match Magnus, and in fact he followed exactly the same pattern, winning both of his games with the black pieces. The Indian prodigy had been talked up by our experts before the day began, and the only thing they feared in the match against Jorden van Foreest was that Pragg might fail to get out of the opening alive against Magnus Carlsen’s second.
Those fears looked justified when 15.g4!?, offering a pawn with check, appeared on the board.
It was a new move, and Pragg spent almost five minutes before deciding not to take the pawn but to go for 15…Qh3!? That seemed a good practical decision, but he needed to keep finding good moves, and instead 22…f6? could have led to disaster.
The computer suggests 23.Qd3!, threatening to bring the queen to g6, is simply winning, but Jorden’s 23.Nf5+?, when 23…Bxf5 was possible, let all the advantage slip, and then 28.Qd1?! proved to be the point of no return. After 28…Re4! Pragg was suddenly picking up the crucial g4-pawn, with a technically won position.
Pragg looked absolutely confident for the remainder of the game.
He came very close to winning the 2nd game with the white pieces, but when he didn’t Jorden again got to demonstrate how dangerous he can be. The critical moment came on move 21.
Here 21.Bxc4! was close to winning for Jorden, with 21…Naxc4 running into 22.Nf6+! gxf6 23.Rxf6!. It was clear Jorden was looking at similar ideas, but 21.Bf6?! turned out to be a mistake.
It needed great precision to prove it, but that’s just what Praggnanandhaa showed as he continued 21…Bxd3! 22.Qxd3 Nac4! (an only move to be better) 23.Rf3 Kh8! and already 24.Bxg7+? (24.Rh3!) was a mistaken piece sacrifice. Pragg kept finding all the right moves and wrapped up victory in the match.
An impressive start for the youngster.
Praggnanandhaa is still just 16 years old
The remaining matches were very tight, with both turning on a single game. Eric Hansen held off Anish Giri impressively with Black in the first game, noting afterwards how at home he feels with the Esports format.
With White in the second game Eric achieved an effortless 22-move draw, and at the critical moment of Game 3 he was significantly better.
Anish can’t currently play the desirable Qd3, due to Rxb3! Rxb3 Qa2+, picking up the rook. Eric said afterwards, however, that he forgot about that when he played 50…Qc7? and suddenly it was all over. Without that idea there was no stopping the mating attack of the white queen and bishop, and in the space of 3 moves Eric had gone from much better to getting checkmated.
Instead 50...Qa8!, which Anish had spotted, would have been strong, preparing to bring the queen to d8.
That was a hard blow to come back from, and despite Eric getting some chances in the must-win fourth game, all it took was a couple of inaccuracies for the game to fizzle out into the draw that confirmed victory for Anish.
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov said he prefers playing in person, with no family to distract him!
Liem Quang Le acknowledged, “Shakh played a very good match”, and in fact the score could have been heavier. Le said he mixed up the move-order in the first game and needed to defend tenaciously to survive. In Game 2 Shakh landed a dramatic blow.
It wasn’t fatal, but White was always on the back foot, and survival chances dropped dramatically on move 47.
Liem commented here:
In the 2nd game that I lost with White it basically was a mouse-slip. I think I had pretty decent drawing chances at that point, but I wanted to play Kh2, but then I touched a pawn in front of my king, and then tried to put it back, and then I played 47.g3. So that was very unfortunate.
The computer confirms that after 47.Kh2 White is only slightly worse, while after 47.g3? it was very tough. Liem nevertheless came close to holding, but Shakh managed to grind out victory in a rook endgame. He had chances to do the same in Game 3, where he had an extra pawn, but when he didn’t, it all came down to the final game.
Liem had to win on demand, so that he was far from unhappy to see Mamedyarov sacrifice an exchange in this position.
17…Rxe5!? was a move Shakh liked, noting that whatever engines say it wasn’t easy for a human. That was proved in the game, when Shakh later got to land another blow with 26…Rxe4+!
That achieved the draw he needed on the spot, since after the forced 27.fxe4 Qxe4+ the white king couldn’t escape from checks from c2 and e4 (since after 28.Kf1? Bh3+! it’s Black who wins).
That leaves the standings as follows after Round 1, with the winning players not only having 3 points but $7,500 in prize money.
Up next for Mamedyarov is Praggnanandhaa, in one of the most anticipated clashes of Round 2, while we also have Carlsen-Le, Hansen-Van Foreest and, perhaps the most heavyweight clash, Duda-Giri. Anish noted he’s been struggling against the Polish delegation as he lost at table tennis at the opening ceremony to Duda’s second Robert Kempinski!
Magnus, who also found a wooden chessboard in the venue, will take on Liem Quang Le in Round 2
Don't miss all the Oslo Esports Cup action live here on chess24 from 17:00 CEST!
See also:
We respect your privacy and data protection guidelines. Some components of our site require cookies or local storage that handles personal information.
Using chess24 requires the storage of some personal data, as set out below. You can find additional information in our Cookie Policy, Privacy Policy, Disclaimer and Terms of Website Use. Please note that your data settings can be changed at any time by clicking on the Data Settings link in the footer at the bottom of our website.
Comments 7
Be the first to comment!