Airthings Masters quarterfinals

It’s Carlsen-Dubov, MVL-So, Nakamura-Aronian and Radjabov-Nepomniachtchi in the Airthings Masters quarterfinals after a nail-biting finish to the preliminary stage saw heavyweights Alexander Grischuk and Anish Giri knocked out by the finest of margins. Grischuk missed a win then lost a drawish ending to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, while Anish Giri lived to regret going all-out to beat Hikaru Nakamura. In the end a draw would have been enough for him to clinch a quarterfinal spot.

For most of the Airthings Masters Preliminary stage it had looked more or less random who would finish top, with a 6-player leading pack going into the last day’s final three rounds. In the end, however, we got the same Top 4 as in the Skilling Open, with the only difference that this time Wesley So finished 2nd, level on points but just ahead of Hikaru Nakamura on tiebreaks (since Magnus beat Hikaru). In fact the Top 7 were all the same as in the 16-player Skilling Open Prelims.

Magnus Carlsen: “It was a good day today!” | Airthings Masters | Day 3