The 117th annual US Chess Open ended

World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen takes on US Champion Wesley So when the Opera Euro Rapid kicks off at 17:00 CET on Saturday. The 3rd event on the $1.5 million Meltwater Champions Chess Tour features 16 players, who will be reduced to just 8 after a cut-throat 3-day preliminary stage. Tour leader Teimour Radjabov will be joined by the likes of Hikaru Nakamura, Ding Liren and Daniil Dubov, with Tata Steel Masters runner-up Anish Giri already eyeing a Valentine’s Day date with Magnus.

The event begins less than a week after the end of the Tata Steel Chess Masters, so for some of the players it’s a chance for redemption!

World Champion Magnus Carlsen called his Wijk aan Zee performance “shameful”, while Candidates Tournament leader Maxime Vachier-Lagrave dropped 10 places on the world rankings from 5th to 15th after a disastrous event. Polish no. 1 Jan-Krzysztof Duda failed to win a game, while a great event for Dutch no. 1 Anish Giri ended bitterly in a playoff loss to another Dutch star. Still – a new week, a new goal!

See also:

• Champions Chess Tour homepage
• Live games from the Opera Euro Rapid Prelims
• Magnus Carlsen tops 16-player Opera Euro Rapid line-up

Magnus Carlsen could afford to “have a little bit of fun” with a double Bong Cloud draw (1.e4 e5 2.Ke2 Ke7 3.Ke1 Ke8…) against Hikaru Nakamura in the final round and still top the preliminary stage for the 4th Meltwater Champions Chess Tour event in a row. He plays Levon Aronian in the Magnus Carlsen Invitational quarterfinals after the Armenian star squeezed in on the tiebreak of beating Sergey Karjakin in their head-to-head clash. Ian Nepomniachtchi was the only player to qualify after starting the day outside the Top 8, taking the place of Daniil Dubov, while Alireza Firouzja is in the knockout for the 1st time.

Among the other players, Jorden van Foreest in particular had an impressive final day and overall showed he’s capable of beating the very best, but qualification never came close. Last-placed Alan Pichot, who got the chance to play through the qualifier at the very last moment, perhaps gave the best impression of the level of the world’s top players.

See also:

• Champions Chess Tour website
• All the Magnus Carlsen Invitational games: Qualifier, Prelims
• Spaced-themed Magnus Carlsen Invitational returns
• Grandelius and Pichot complete Magnus Carlsen Invitational line-up
• Magnus Carlsen faces Firouzja and Giri on Day 1 of his Invitational
• MCI 1: Giri beats Carlsen and So to snatch lead
• MCI 2: Giri still leads Carlsen as battle heats up

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