Carlsen Blunders Piece vs. Pragg: Chessable Masters, Day 2
GM Wei Yi continues to lead the 2022 Meltwater Champions Chess Tour's Chessable Masters. The Chinese GM is three points ahead of the pack. World Champion Magnus Carlsen again lost to GM Praggnanandhaa R. as he blundered a knight in a drawn endgame.
After his 3.5/4 on day one (or rather 10/12 with the 3-1-0 points system), Wei added another eight points on Friday with two draws as Black and two wins as White. His win vs. GM Eric Hansen, which saw the AlphaZero-esque h2-h4-h5-h6, was very convincing. Hansen has been showing decent preparation in this tournament, but this line in the Anti-Grunfeld just isn't good for Black:
The talk of the town was Praggnanandhaa's second win on the Tour against the world champion. This time, it was a game that was about to end in a draw when Carlsen suddenly dropped a full piece with a basic double attack. Painful!
Praggnanadhaa, who is also busy with school exams during the event, said afterward: "I'm not so thrilled about my game quality. I'm missing some stuff, some tricks, and some tactics so tomorrow I need to be sharper."
In a game with another prodigy in the next round, Carlsen recovered well as he beat 13-year-old GM Abhimanyu Mishra nicely:
The following sharp fight is quite entertaining as well:
Chessable Masters Day 2 Standings
All Games Day 2
The 2022 Champions Chess Tour's fourth event, the Chessable Masters, runs May 19-26, 2022 on chess24. The preliminaries are a 16-player round-robin from which the top eight qualify for the knockout stage. The time control is 15 minutes plus a 10-second increment; the scoring system is three points for a win, one for a draw, and zero for a loss. The prize fund is $150,000.
