Carlsen Knocks Out Erigaisi, Secures Champions Chess Tour Victory Early
By reaching the semifinals of the Aimchess Rapid tournament, GM Magnus Carlsen has secured overall victory in the 2022 Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. The world champion knocked out GM Arjun Erigaisi and will face GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda next. The other semifinals match will be between GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and GM Richard Rapport, who eliminated GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov and GM Gukesh D. respectively.
The games of the Aimchess Rapid knockout can be found here as part of our live events platform.
Carlsen-Erigaisi 2.5-0.5
Carlsen has already sealed the overall Meltwater Champions Chess Tour title for the second year running and with an event to spare. This means that the Norwegian star will claim the $50,000 bonus prize on top of his overall winnings, which are $192,500 so far.
Having the tough battle in the Julius Baer Generation Cup of last month in mind, this time Carlsen needed just three games to eliminate Erigaisi. The first one was crucial. The Indian GM was up two pawns for a long time but let his opponent escape. Then Carlsen won the remaining two games smoothly.
Duda-Vidit 2.5-0.5
Duda was the only player who could still catch Carlsen in the overall tour standings, but for that he needed his rival to lose against Erigaisi (and to win the Aimchess Rapid himself). The Polish GM did his part, defeated Vidit convincingly, and will now face Carlsen next.
Afterward, Duda admitted that it wasn't so easy and indeed, in the second game he was in a bit of trouble:
Rapport-Gukesh 2.5-1.5
"I'm playing miserable chess, so I was really looking forward to Gukesh putting me out of my misery tonight!" said Rapport after eliminating the 16-year-old prodigy from India. The Hungarian GM was in trouble after drawing the first game and then losing the second as White, but he pulled it off by winning the next two.
After bamboozling his opponent tactically in a King's Indian in game three, Rapport decided the match by winning the infamous (and theoretically drawn) rook and bishop vs. rook endgame. It seems every great player should lose this endgame once in their career, and no doubt Gukesh learned a valuable lesson.
Mamedyarov-Abdusattorov 2.5-1.5
Mamedyarov also successfully defended the "old guard" as he knocked out another rising star. The first game was the only decisive one in this mini-match and saw an instructive moment in a rook endgame:
All games quarterfinals
The Aimchess Rapid, the seventh event in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, takes place October 14-20, 2022 on chess24. The preliminaries consisted of a round-robin among 16 players, from which the top eight advanced 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.
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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.”
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