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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

See also:

  • Champions Chess Tour homepage
  • All the Airthings Masters games with computer analysis: Prelims
  • Carlsen, So & Nakamura back for Airthings Masters
  • Carlsen-Aronian in Round 1 of Airthings Masters
  • Airthings Masters Day 1: Five lead as Carlsen ends winless
  • Airthings Masters Day 2: Only Magnus moves up on day of draws
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World Chess News
Jan 23, 2017

Tata Steel 2017, 8: Richard Rapport defeats World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen

Richard Rapport kept his cool to score a sensational win over Magnus Carlsen in Round 8 of the Tata Steel Masters. The World Champion overpressed following the missed win against Anish Giri the day before, while the Dutchman also went down in flames after running into some devilish home preparation from Levon Aronian. The final winner of the day was Adhiban, who’s on an incredible 3.5/4 run and ended Dmitry Andreikin’s sequence of seven draws in a row. Wesley So drew to remain sole leader when Pavel Eljanov fell just short.

Magnus Carlsen lost only three classical games in 2016 (to Aronian in Norway Chess, Nakamura in Bilbao and of course Karjakin in New York), but he’s already suffered his first loss of 2017. The identity of his opponent is a surprise, but not a huge one, since Richard Rapport’s obvious talent and flare have made him a player to watch.

After a well-deserved rest day on Monday, Round 9 is again full of intriguing pairings: So-Aronian, Wei Yi-Adhiban, Giri-Rapport and Carlsen-Van Wely. It’s fair to assume Magnus will be out to steady the boat by beating his old friend Loek!

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World Chess News
May 18, 2021

Meltwater Champions Chess Tour – the strongest chess tournament ever?

Magnus Carlsen faces World Championship Challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi as the FTX Crypto Cup, the 6th event on the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, begins Sunday, May 23rd at 17:00 CEST. One of the strongest line-ups ever assembled features the full Top 10, meaning a Tour debut for the last challenger and world no. 2 Fabiano Caruana. The last Major on the Tour offers a direct spot to September’s Tour Finals in San Francisco as well as a record online chess prize fund of $320k, with sponsors FTX providing a $100k Bitcoin bonus.

The FTX Crypto Cup, to be played on chess24 from May 23-31, may be the strongest chess tournament of all time, with the 16-player field including the complete Top 10 on the May 2021 FIDE classical rating list.

Average rating: 2763
Average age: 30.4

That means that world no. 2 and 2018 World Championship Challenger Fabiano Caruana is making his Meltwater Champions Chess Tour debut, while the players outside the Top 10 include Candidates runner-up Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, the world’s hottest junior Alireza Firouzja, and blitz world no. 1 and New in Chess Classic runner-up Hikaru Nakamura.

The prize fund is being boosted by $100,000 from the new Official Cryptocurrency Exchange Partner of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, FTX. The dollar value will be converted into Bitcoin at 14:00 CEST today (Monday, May 17), so that the value of the prize will fluctuate before and during the event. It will be split among the players in proportion to the standard prizes, with the winner currently picking up around a $27k bonus.

The action kicks off at 17:00 CEST (11:00 EDT, 20:30 IST) on Sunday 23rd May and will once again be broadcast on Eurosport, Norway’s TV2 and right here live on chess24, with multiple streams for chess fans of all levels and nationalities.

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