Grandmaster Wesley So drew all his four games including one against recent tormentor and fellow United States bet Hikaru Nakamura in the fifth round to keep his grip of the lead with five others and stay in quarterfinal contention in the Airthings Masters of the Champions Chess Tour Monday.
Published December 27, 2020, 12:57 PM
GM Wesley So and GM Magnus Carlsen (Fischer Random / Nick Barton / File Photo)
Grandmaster Wesley So smashed Dutch GM Anish Giri and drew his other three games including one against world champion Magnus Carlsen to grab a piece of the lead with four others after four rounds of the Airthings Masters of the Champions Chess Tour on Sunday.
So, who topped the Skillings Open that served as the season-ushering leg of the tour last month, shared the top spot with United States teammate Hikaru Nakamura, Armenia’s Levon Aronian, Russia’s Daniil Dubov and Azerbaijan’s Teimour Radjabov with 2.5 points apiece.
Airthings Masters | chess24
The second event on the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour is also the first Major, with a $200,000 prize fund. The winner gets $60,000 and a guaranteed place in the Grand Final. Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura and Skilling Open winner Wesley So are among the 12-player field, which will be reduced to 8 players by a 3-day preliminary stage. The remaining players will battle it out in a knockout that takes us into 2021.
January 16 – 31 |
Tata Steel Masters | Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands
This year’s 83rd edition of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament has been cut to just the main event due to COVID-19, but if everything goes as planned that will still mean a 14-player round-robin featuring Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave from the world’s Top 5 and a host of young talents that include 17-year-old Alireza Firouzja.
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The first Major of the Champions Chess Tour
The Champions Chess Tour is the successor to the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour. It consists of 10 events taking place over 10 months, with the prize fund rising from $1 million to $1.5 million. Six Regular tournaments, three Majors and the Finals will be played from November 2020 until September 2021.
Wesley So won the first event of the series by defeating Magnus Carlsen in a thrilling final match played on the world champion’s 30th birthday. Since the eight players who qualified to the knockout stage of the previous tournament automatically get a ticket in the next event, both Carlsen and So will meet again in the first Major of the series.
Alas, even wins against both Karjakin and Nepomniachtchi weren t enough for Daniil to earn a medal. He finished fourth, but thrilled spectators with his creative play and desire to fight in every game. We can t wait to see him online in the Airthings Masters, which starts on 26th December, as well as in the Tata Steel Masters in Wijk aan Zee from January 16th.
Dubov played some fine games but missed out on first place after losing to Vladimir Fedoseev in the penultimate round - he said he didn t regret his choice to take risks, since wins for Ian and Sergey meant a draw wouldn t have been enough to fight for the title | photo: Eteri Kublashvili, ruchess.ru