Magnus Carlsen described his play as “decent” and his lead as “solid” as he top-scored with 6.5/9 on the first day of the Tata Steel Chess India Blitz, extending his lead over Hikaru Nakamura to a massive five points. Hikaru was 2nd top scorer alongside Ian Nepomniachtchi with 5.5/9 while no-one else could manage more than 50%. Vishy Anand’s qualification for the London Grand Chess Tour finals remains the great unknown, with his current score just enough to see him qualify ahead of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

It’s hard to summarise a day of blitz, but as you can see, Magnus Carlsen didn’t slow down: his one loss, to Ding Liren, was sandwiched between a streak of four wins. Other top performers were Hikaru Nakamura, who like Magnus has only lost one game in Kolkata, and Ian Nepomniachtchi, who finally got some sleep and is recognisably himself again. The same can’t be said about Levon Aronian, who described his play as a “disaster”:

By this stage Wesley So and Ian Nepomniachtchi have no hope of reaching the London Grand Chess Tour finals, so the remaining intrigue is whether Vishy Anand or Maxime Vachier-Lagrave will join Magnus, Ding Liren and Levon Aronian. Vishy still needs to get 5 points by finishing in 6th place or better.

See also:

• Official website
• Grand Chess Tour page
• All the Tata Steel India Rapid & Blitz games with computer analysis
• Tata Steel India Rapid & Blitz kicks off in Kolkata
• Tata Steel India Day 1: Magnus back on top
• Tata Steel India Day 2: Magnus rapid no. 1 again
• Tata Steel India Day 3: The Carlsen exhibition

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