Magnus Carlsen played Ding Liren four hours earlier than usual to be able to “sweat” the final day of the Fantasy Premier League, and while the football didn’t go so well Magnus racked up a 6th match victory in six with a 2.5:1.5 win over the world no. 3. Ian Nepomniachtchi has won as many matches but fell a point behind as he could only beat Vishy Anand in Armageddon, while Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Svidler also won in sudden death. Anish Giri was the other player to win in four games as he and Peter Leko defied the haters with the day’s lowest number of draws.
World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen went into the final day of the English Premier League season, and therefore the Fantasy Premier League season, ranked no. 4 out of more than 7.5 million players of that game. The media interest was high, especially in Norway, which brought with it some obligations. It was agreed a couple of weeks in advance that Magnus would play this round four hours earlier, with Ding Liren happy to agree to the chance to start playing at 6 pm rather than his usual 10 pm.
In football, as in chess, Magnus is all about taking calculated risks that maximize the upside for him, and in this case, it wasn’t impossible that he could top the table: “It’s a long shot, but as long as there is a chance that’s cool and I would like to thank Ding for agreeing to play at an earlier time today so that I can sweat the games properly later today”.
It did not work in football, but on the chessboard Magnus went from strength to strength. He described the first game of the day against Ding Liren as “uneventful”, with the 31-move draw most remarkable for the fact that the world nos. 1 and 3 managed to create a position never seen before at the top level by move 4.
The second game was no offbeat theory, however, with Magnus navigating straight into the shark-infested waters of the Anti-Moscow Gambit where he proved his prowess winning on move 33.
Magnus felt the result of the match hinged on Game 3, where he went for some bold defense after getting into a difficult position in the opening. Ding Liren decided to go for a technical position a pawn up, but although Magnus described it as “really, really ugly for Black,” he also felt his drawing chances were good. Ding Liren rushed his winning attempt and a draw was reached in 60 moves.
In the final game, Ding had to win on demand with the black pieces, and at the price of a pawn he did manage to marshal his pieces for a kingside assault. It never looked like being enough, however, and Magnus safely defused the situation to claim the full three match points. He’s now won all six matches so far, dropping a match point only to Vasyl Ivanchuk, who took their encounter to Armageddon.
Leko – Giri was the only other match that a player won without the need for Armageddon. After exchanging blows in games two and three, Dutch no. 1 scored a crushing win in the final encounter to clinch the match. Grischuk said Leko had suffered, “an old-fashioned opening catastrophe,” where you find yourself totally lost, unlike the more modern “catastrophes” where you just have no advantage or a slightly worse position.
Ian Nepomniachtchi also managed to win sixth match in a row, but not without some difficulties. He failed to convert a close to winning position in the first game and also thought he’d missed chances of a masterpiece in the 3rd game. Between those, however, he’d won the second game after a hyper-sharp opening didn’t go Vishy’s way.
Needing to win with the black pieces in Game 4, most people had written off Vishy’s chances, but that’s just when he’s at his most dangerous as, for instance, the 2014 Candidates Tournament proved. Ian confessed he got “over-optimistic” when he tempted Vishy to grab material in the opening. Anand didn’t need to be asked twice and went on to convert his advantage brilliantly.
That meant a 3rd Armageddon in a row for Vishy, and it proved to be a 3rd Armageddon in which he was just too slow. It may be purely a technological issue – if, for instance, he doesn’t have a good mouse – but Grischuk also saw some historical “revenge” on behalf of all the people Vishy had blitzed in his long career.
Gelfand – Kramnik match was a fantastic brawl between two players who first met 27 years ago in Linares 1993. Nowadays it’s 7-year-older Boris who’s working harder on chess, and he managed to catch Kramnik out in the opening in the first game until by the end it was already high time to resign.
After a tense second game, it looked as though Gelfand was about to win the match with a game to spare, but Kramnik managed to muddy the waters in a position where he was an exchange down and level the score.
In the final rapid game, it was Vladimir who was pushing for a win, but Gelfand held to take the encounter to Armageddon. Vladimir had White and had to win, which he duly did, in a sparkling game in which he quickly saw that he could exchange off all the pieces to force a won pawn ending.
Vasyl Ivanchuk had tortured Magnus Carlsen the day before and he showed exactly the same hunger and talent against Peter Svidler. He took the early lead and it looked like Vasyl would storm to an almost unassailable 2:0 lead but by making two mistakes in a row he allowed Peter to completely turn the tables.
Vasyl could again have finished off the match in the final rapid game, but instead, after draws in Games 3 and 4, we got yet another Armageddon. What followed was a great battle with mutual mistakes, but starting with Black and a minute less on the clock Vasyl eventually flagged in a position where Peter still had 7 seconds to spare.
The fate of the 3rd and 4th places in the Final 4 hangs completely in the balance with three rounds to go. Kramnik, Svidler, and Giri are currently engaged in a race, with Anish perhaps favorite to join the other youngsters at the top. The struggles of Ding Liren, however, mean we’re going to see at least one legend in the knockout stages.
Tournament rules and schedule
The time control is a rapid 15m + 10s from move 1 played in the chess24 Playzone. There will be two stages starting with a 10-player round-robin (July 21-29) with each round consisting of 4-game matches and Armageddon tiebreaks if needed.
The top four will advance to the knockout semi-finals (July 31-August 2) and two will go through to the final (August 3-5). July 30 is a free day. All sessions will begin at 16:00 CEST.
Highlights in English:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Rmx6IFrFYxYPrNhZVtxZbRWTiMAIICvc?usp=sharing
New files at around 23.00 CEST
Rough edit highlights:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SItw6DwCyoTsZ0WiVAjw4BkVHEaGQFDI?usp=sharing
New files ready around 02.00 CEST
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Leon Watson
leon@chessable.com
+447786 078770
Text: Colin McGourty, chess24.com