Offbeat Opening News Today

Three out of four quarterfinal matches in Division I of the Airthings Masters had clear winners — i.e. players who only needed three games to remain in the winners’ bracket. One of these three players was Arjun Erigaisi, as he scored three consecutive wins to take down quick-play specialist Alireza Firouzja. Arjun will face Magnus Carlsen in semis. In the other semifinal matchup, Wesley So will face Hikaru Nakamura.

Leinier Dominguez won his round-7 game in the U.S. Championship after only ten moves. The opening debacle prompted Jon Speelman to locate similar examples both in a book by Yakov Neishtadt and in the database of his own games. And he also remembered to give the solution of the proof game from last week!

Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana have done it again. For a second day in a row, the frontrunners to take the title scored full points in Madrid. Nepo still leads Caruana by a half point, while Hikaru Nakamura now stands 1½ points behind Caruana in sole third place. It has become hugely unlikely for a player other than the tournament’s two protagonists to bounce back and win the whole thing. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage

Le Quang Liem and Pentala Harikrishna are sharing the lead with 3 points after 4 rounds at the Masters section of the Prague Chess Festival. The two co-leaders have three players standing a half point back going into the event’s one rest day. Meanwhile, Vincent Keymer is the sole leader in the Challengers section, also with 3 out of 4. | Photo: Petr Vrabec

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov defeated Vishy Anand to climb to sole second place with a round to go at the Norway Chess Tournament. The Indian star, who was having a great run in Stavanger, made a one-move blunder and immediately resigned the game on move 22. Meanwhile, Magnus Carlsen beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in Armageddon to keep the sole lead — the world champion goes into Friday’s final round a half point ahead of Mamedyarov. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

The first set of the final match at the online Chessable Masters ended on Wednesday with a 2½-1½ victory by Ding Liren over Praggnanandhaa. It has been a busy few days for the 16-year-old Pragg: the Indian chess prodigy shuttles between tournament matches and school exams. A second match will be played on Thursday — a draw will then be enough for Ding to win the tournament.

After four rounds at the preliminaries of the Chessable Masters, 22-year-old Wei Yi is leading the standings table on 10/12 points. Three of the favourites stand two points behind — Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren and Anish Giri. The 16-player online tournament is played with a football scoring system. Half the players will move on to the knockout stage from the single round-robin set to run until Sunday. | Photo: Niki Riga

It can be confusing when the opponent’s pieces don’t go where you were expecting them to go. After looking at a couple of games from the recent Grand Prix by Amin Tabatabaei, Jon Speelman decided to write about unexpected defensive moves! | Pictured: Murray Chandler, Jonathan Speelman and Jonathan Mestel at the British Zonal in February 1987

In an exciting second round at the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin, three players obtained full points in remarkable style. Hikaru Nakamura and Leinier Dominguez won to take the lead in their respective groups, while Richard Rapport bounced back from a first-round loss by taking down Vladimir Fedoseev in a game that featured a positional piece sacrifice and exceptional tactical accuracy. | Photos: World Chess

Three decisive games in round 8 of the Tata Steel Masters tournament left Magnus Carlsen and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov sharing the lead on 5½ points. The Azerbaijani defeated Praggnanandhaa to catch up with the world champion. Meanwhile, in the Challengers, Arjun Erigaisi won his sixth game (in eight rounds!) to go into the second rest day of the event with a 1½-point lead. | Photo: Jurriaan Hoefsmit