Carlsen Wins Champions Chess Tour Finals With Round To Spare
GM Magnus Carlsen clinched the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Finals with a round to spare as he won his sixth match on Saturday against GM Praggnanandhaa R. GM Wesley So is in second place, after beating GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda, but five points behind Carlsen.
The games of the Champions Chess Tour Finals can be found here as part of our live events platform.
IM Tania Sachdev asked Carlsen after his sixth match win in a row: "Ever since you announced you will not be playing the world championship, does every tournament have that extra meaning for you, where you want to prove that regardless of which tournament you play, you're still the best player in the world?" Carlsen's answer was a firm: "Yeah!"
Once again, Carlsen needed just three games to win his match. In fact, it was the second day of the tournament that saw just three games in all matches.
"I'm relieved. It was a tough match today," said Carlsen. "The score doesn't tell the whole story at all."
Pragg was doing well in all three games actually, but as the games progressed, the world champion took over. "I think in the first two games, in both games, I was the one who was pushing, and I think with little time I was just playing terrible today," said the 17-year-old from Chennai.
The second game is fascinating:
The battle for second place hasn't been decided yet, but So is now having the best chances after an important win against Duda. So lost his first two matches but then won four in a row to move from last to second place.
After he won the first as Black, the second was critical as So managed to win from a lost position. "Objectively he should have won the game, but then he got very low on time and he just started blundering one move after another," he said.
In fourth place we find a surprising name. GM Arjun Erigaisi, who had such a bad start as he was likely struggling with playing after midnight, won yet another match. He beat GM Le Quang Liem and leapfrogged over his opponent in the standings.
Erigaisi won the first two games and drew the third. Here's the first game:
If there is a fight for last place, it was the match between GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and GM Anish Giri. Mamedyarov emerged victoriously after winning both of his black games in the Open Ruy Lopez, pushing the Dutchman further down the standings.
Day 6 Standings
| # | Fed | Name | Rtg | Score |
| 1 | Magnus Carlsen | 2848 | 17 | |
| 2 | Wesley So | 2774 | 12 | |
| 3 | Jan-Krzysztof Duda | 2798 | 10 | |
| 4 | Arjun Erigaisi | 2733 | 9 | |
| 5 | Le Quang Liem | 2775 | 8 | |
| 6-7 | Praggnanandhaa R. | 2750 | 6 | |
| 6-7 | Shakhriyar Mamedyarov | 2756 | 6 | |
| 8 | Anish Giri | 2732 | 4 |
All games day 6
The Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Finals take place November 14-20, 2022 on chess24. The format is an eight-player round-robin; each round has four-game rapid matches, and the winner gets three points. The time control is 15 minutes for each game plus a 10-second increment. A tiebreak follows immediately in case of a 2-2 tie and in that case, the winner gets two points and the loser, one.
Previous coverage:
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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