Aimchess Rapid: Abdusattorov Leads, Mamedyarov Shines
Uzbekistan's GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov leads the preliminaries of the Aimchess Rapid tournament after four rounds of play. It was GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov who stole the show, beating GM Magnus Carlsen and, brilliantly, GM Anish Giri.
The games of the Aimchess Rapid preliminaries can be found here as part of our live events platform.
The Aimchess Rapid tournament is the last "regular" in the 2022 Meltwater Champions Chess Tour before the end-of-season final event that starts on November 14. Aimchess Rapid features 16 players in a round-robin prelim stage before the field is cut to eight and knockouts begin.
The first four rounds of the preliminaries were played on Friday, and Abdusattorov reached the highest score: three wins and a draw, good for 10 out of 12 possible points. His strongest opponent was GM Richard Rapport, who was under pressure from the start of the endgame:
"It's pretty nice to start with three wins," said Abdusattorov. "I just want to play some interesting games to see what I can learn from them. Today was a very good day obviously."
Mamedyarov scored two fine wins on the first day. For starters, he took down Carlsen in the very first round, mostly because of a big, one-move mistake by the world champion:
In his next white game, Mamedyarov threw everything but the kitchen sink at Giri: a sacrificed pawn, an exchange, a piece, and then a queen!
Giri had just played a nice, sacrificial game himself the round before:
Aimchess Rapid | Round 4 Standings
| # | Fed | Name | Rtg | Perf |
| 1 | Abdusattorov, Nodirbek | 2678 | 10/12 | |
| 2 | Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar | 2712 | 7/12 | |
| 3 | Carlsen, Magnus | 2902 | 7/12 | |
| 4 | Duda, Jan-Krzysztof | 2754 | 7/12 | |
| 5 | Keymer, Vincent | 2740 | 7/12 | |
| 6 | Rapport, Richard | 2735 | 7/12 | |
| 7 | Gukesh D | 2606 | 6/12 | |
| 8 | Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi | 2691 | 5/12 | |
| 9 | Erigaisi Arjun | 2720 | 5/12 | |
| 10 | Aditya Mittal | 2569 | 5/12 | |
| 11 | Giri, Anish | 2737 | 4/12 | |
| 12 | Naroditsky, Daniel | 2617 | 4/12 | |
| 13 | Anton Guijarro, David | 2706 | 3/12 | |
| 14 | Hansen, Eric | 2618 | 2/12 | |
| 15 | Harikrishna, Pentala | 2679 | 2/12 | |
| 16 | Grandelius, Nils | 2632 | 1/12 |
All games rounds 1-4
The Aimchess Rapid, the seventh event in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, takes place October 14-20, 2022 on chess24. The preliminaries consist of a round-robin among 16 players, from which the top eight advance to the knockout stage. There, they play a match of four rapid games (15+10) in each round and if necessary, a blitz + armageddon tiebreak. The prize fund is $150,000.
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
Company Contact and News Accreditation:
Email: peter@chess.com FOR SUPPORT PLEASE USE chess.com/support!
Phone: 1 (800) 318-2827
Address: 877 E 1200 S #970397, Orem, UT 84097
