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2/7/2021 – Hi guys it's Queen here and I'm Back With a Awesome blog,Today this post is going to be about Magnus Carlsen, If you want more Post like this make sure to Follow me! Day 1 of the Opera Euro Rapid tournament finished with Magnus Carlsen alone atop the standings table on 4/5. Carlsen had lost his first game against Wesley So, but managed to win four in a row to go into day 2 half a point ahead of So and Ian Nepomniachtchi. The preliminary round robin serves as a qualifier to the knockout stage — 8 out of 16 players will advance to the quarterfinals. 

“A very enjoyable day of chess”

Four participants at the Opera Euro Rapid tournament played the supertournament in Wijk aan Zee during the second half of January. The rest have barely played anything other than online tournaments in about a year. Some of them are rusty, while others seem eager to show new ideas in the high-paying rapid event. These factors combined have led to a first day of action in which more than half the games finished decisively, with plenty of excitement throughout the five rounds of 15-minute games.

After scoring four consecutive wins to finish day 1 as sole leader, Magnus Carlsen was interviewed by Kaja Snare and said:

What I have to say in general is that this was a very, very enjoyable day of chess. I tried to win every game, including the first one — obviously in that one I was beaten quite soundly [by Wesley So], but I think the other games were just a lot of fun.

The world champion pointed out that he felt there were not many unbeaten players, and he was right, as only Teimour Radjabov managed to end the day without a loss (he won one and drew four games).

Going into day 2, Carlsen has two players a half point behind in the standings — Wesley So and Ian Nepomniachtchi — while the main goal for the rest of the field is to stay away from the bottom half of the table, as only eight of them will get a spot in the knockout stage.

Round 1: So beats the champ

Carlsen kicked off the event playing black against the winner of the Skilling Open — not an easy task by any measures — but that did not prevent him from playing the Sicilian. After 40 moves, White was a pawn up, but more importantly the black king was more vulnerable to attacks than his white counterpart:

Using the fact that only the black queen is defending the h7-square, So transferred his knight to g5 with 41.Ne6 Rc2 42.Ng5. White had the initiative and traded into a winning endgame at the right moment — the Filipino-born grandmaster got the full point on move 53.

A highlight from round 1 was Alexander Grischuk playing 4.Kf1 instead of castling against Anish Giri. It was a mouse-slip, of course, after which the Russian star managed to keep his cool and hold a draw despite the early accident.

Karsten Müller analysed Maxime Vachier-Lagrave’s victory over Daniil Dubov in a really instructive endgame. Well Guys that is All for now! See Ya!