Magnus Carlsen beat reigning World Rapid Champion Nodirbek Abdusattorov in brilliant style as he scored 4.5/5 on Day 1 of the World Rapid Championship in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He was held to a draw only by Arjun Erigaisi, with Vladimir Fedoseev and Jorden van Foreest the other co-leaders in the Open section. Valentina Gunina leads the Women’s section on a perfect 4/4.
Magnus Carlsen won a spectacular game against the reigning World Rapid Champion Nodirbek Abdusattorov | photo: Lennart Ootes, FIDE
Day 1 of the World Rapid Championship is the longest day, with five rounds compared to four on the next two days, and for Magnus Carlsen it was even longer, as he attended a pre-tournament press conference. He handled some standard questions with aplomb!
He’s known as a slow starter in the World Rapid and Blitz, but not this time, as he raced to 4/4 and was only held to a draw in the final round of the day, to leave him in a 4-player leading pack with 8 rounds to go.
Magnus dominated with Black against Samvel Ter-Sahakyan, though he struggled to find the knockout blow, then played 1.b3, got nothing from the opening, but suddenly outplayed Eric Hansen in Round 2. He looked in trouble against Evgeny Tomashevsky in Round 3, before not only surviving but correctly realising he could play for a win.
That set up a huge Round 4 clash against Nodirbek Abdusattorov, the 18-year-old Uzbekistan prodigy who had not only beaten Magnus in the same event in Warsaw a year earlier but taken the World Rapid Championship title. Magnus again played 1.b3.
What followed was a fantastic game, where 28.Ng5! was a spectacular move, inviting the fork 28…Nxe2.
29.Qc4! would have been fantastic, with the idea that after e.g. 29…Nxg3+ 30.Rxg3 Re7 White has 31.gxh7!, threatening Qg8#, but it turned out 29.Nf7+ also won fast, with a little help from Nodirbek. Jan Gustafsson has analysed that remarkable game.
“It’s never revenge, but it was a good win!” said Magnus, who was "very happy" with his day's work.
Nodirbek went on to win his final game of the day, and was far from disappointed himself.
I’m feeling pretty good because I scored 4/5, only lost to Magnus, in an interesting game. I’m pretty satisfied.
The one player to stop Magnus was Arjun Erigaisi, with the World Champion confessing of the draw, “I think I was probably much worse to lost at some point.”
Arjun Erigaisi has emerged almost from nowhere in the last couple of years to become one of the favourites in any rapid or blitz event | photo: Anna Shtourman, FIDE
Arjun had also felt he was simply a clear pawn up, but credited his opponent for defending well.
Arjun noted, “maybe the second game I could have played better, but of course I won the game so I cannot complain”. That was something of an understatement, since Arjun had been completely busted against his compatriot Raunak Sadhwani, but his finish was nice. He invited Black to win a queen.
37…Rxc2+ 38.Kxc2 Qa2+ 39.Kc1 Qxf2 looked good for Black, until 40.h7+ appeared on the board and Raunak resigned, since the new white queen will be decisive.
The spacious playing hall and fewer players has meant that every game can have its own table | photo: Lennart Ootes, FIDE
Also on 4.5/5 is 2017 silver medallist Vladimir Fedoseev, who ended the over-achievement of local IM Arystanbek Urazayev with a 22-move win in Round 5. Arystanbek had previously beaten Sam Shankland and Dmitry Andreikin, who in a winning position blundered with 49.Ke3?
49…b3! left Dmitry in deep trouble, since after 50.Rb7 b2! you can’t take the pawn due to the fork Nd1+.
The final player on 4.5/5 is Jorden van Foreest, whose eventful day included a 110-move win from a drawn rook endgame against Zhamsaran Tsydypov and a fightback from an apparently hopeless endgame against Javokhir Sindarov.
White is an exchange up with a hard-to-stop e-pawn, but here Jorden found the only way to keep the tension with 65…Ne4! (66.Kxe4? b2!) and after 66.Rh6 b2 67.e7? (67.Rh1! had to be played) 67…Kf7 Jorden was suddenly winning. He’ll face the toughest test at the start of Day 2, when he has Black against Magnus in Round 6.
Star names such as Anish Giri, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Nihal Sarin and Ian Nepomniachtchi are just half a point back, while some other top players struggled.
Jan-Krzysztof Duda had the best combined results in Rapid and Blitz in Warsaw in 2021 | photo: Lennart Ootes, FIDE
Hikaru Nakamura is on 3.5/5 along with the likes of Alexander Grischuk and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and it could have been worse, since in Round 1 he found himself busted against Amin Tabatabaei.
20.Bb1! (threatening 21.Qc2) 20…g6 21.Bxg6! was crushing, but Hikaru managed to hang on and make a draw.
Tabatabaei had made headlines recently in Sitges by forfeiting his Round 1 game against an Israeli opponent, and once again politics cast a shadow over an event as Boris Gelfand got two forfeit wins in a row against Iranian players.
Boris Gelfand is not a player to take any pleasure in getting a win without playing chess | photo: Anna Shtourman, FIDE
One of them was the 16-year-old current Iranian Champion.
While those players bowed to the demands of their chess federation rather than risk a ban or worse, two female Iranian player made a statement by playing without the hijab. Atousa Pourkashiyan now represents the USA, but Sarasadat Khademalsharieh was playing under the Iranian flag.
Flags also drew attention for another reason, since competitors playing under the FIDE flag were far more numerous (63 in the Open and 20 in the Women’s section) than even players representing the country hosting the event, Kazakhstan.
That’s another reminder that chess, with a former Russian Deputy Prime Minister as the head of its governing body, has not followed other sports in applying sanctions to individual athletes following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Valentina Gunina beat Nino Batsiashvili in Round 4 to take the sole lead | photo: Lennart Ootes, FIDE
The Russian Women’s Chess Champion for the last two years, Valentina Gunina, heads the Women’s Rapid Championship standings after powering to a perfect 4/4 on Day 1 of the event (the women play two rounds less than in the Open section).
The surprise was that the second seed in the Women’s section, Kateryna Lagno, suffered two defeats on Day 1, to Olga Badelka and Daria Voit.
16-year-old Christopher Yoo will in Round 6 play Hans Niemann, the player he said made him feel "disrespected on every level" after their recent US Championship clash | photo: Lennart Ootes, FIDE
Don’t miss Day 2 of the World Rapid Championship, that is set to get off to a dramatic start with Carlsen-Van Foreest, Fedoseev-Arjun, Abdusattorov-Duda and Nihal Sarin-Nepomniachtchi among the Round 6 pairings.
The games are live from 10:00 CET and you can watch with commentary from Jan Gustafsson and Peter Leko live here on chess24.
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 6
Be the first to comment!