Chessable Masters QF: Must-Win For Firouzja, Mamedyarov
GM Alireza Firouzja and GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov need to win on demand on Wednesday after losing their first quarterfinal matches of the Chessable Masters vs. GM Le Quang Liem and GM Levon Aronian respectively.
GM Jorden van Foreest had a good first day as he held top seed GM Wesley So to 2-2. The same result was seen in GM Hikaru Nakamura vs. GM Vladislav Artemiev.
The games of the Chessable Masters knockout can be found here as part of our live events platform. Daily commentary is provided on GM Hikaru Nakamura's Twitch channel starting at 8:00 a.m. Pacific / 17:00 Central Europe.
The first day of the quarterfinals started with a shocker as So, the favorite in this event, lost in just 19 moves to Van Foreest. That was the second rapid game in their match.
"It was a really bad day for me, or maybe Jorden just played really well," said So afterward. He thought he was lucky to get two points from the positions he had.
Le won both his white games against Firouzja. He was only in trouble in the third game, but when Firouzja failed to win that one he "tilted" somewhat in game four, said Le. The Vietnamese GM, who recently took over GM Susan Polgar's job as the chess coach at Webster University, seems to be in excellent shape. Here's his first win:
Aronian was finished the quickest as he started with a draw but then beat Mamedyarov twice. Artemiev and Nakamura played a lot of fighting chess but couldn't break the deadlock.
All Games Day 4
The Chessable Masters runs July 31-August 8, 2021 on chess24. The preliminary phase was a 16-player rapid (15|10) round-robin. The top eight players advanced to a six-day knockout that consists of two days of four-game rapid matches, which advance to blitz (5|3) and armageddon (White has five minutes, Black four with no increment) tiebreaks only if a knockout match is tied after the second day. The prize fund is $100,000, including a $30,000 first prize.
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