Fedoseev Wins Play-in, Triumphs In Final Round With Black Win Vs. Wesley So

GM Vladimir Fedoseev won the Play-in of the Julius Baer Generation Cup 2024 with a final-round victory with the black pieces against GM Wesley So. Although Fedoseev lost in round four against GM Vasif Durarbayli, he won seven of the eight other games. As a reward, he gets to sit out on the first round of Division I Placement on Thursday.

The top 11 finishers of the Play-in move on to Division I Placement, 18 players to Division II Placement, and 40 to Division III Placement.

Division Placement begins on Thursday, September 26, starting at 11 a.m. ET / 17:00 CEST / 8:30 p.m. IST.

Players Qualified For Division I Placement Stage

• What's The Format, Who's Playing, And What's At Stake?
• Baton-Handing Of Tournament Leaders Ends With Fedoseev
• Division II And III Placement Pairings

What's The Format, Who's Playing, And What's At Stake?

The Julius Baer Generation Cup is the last of four online events that lead to the in-person Champions Chess Tour Finals at the end of the year. Three players have already qualified for the Finals by winning previous events: GMs Magnus Carlsen, Alireza Firouzja, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

For the 11 players in Division I Placement, it's their last chance to make it in. Of last year's finalists, So has the best chance of making it back after finishing second in the Play-in. GM Denis Lazavik finished the Play-in with 6.5/9 (zero losses, but five draws) and can only get into Division II, but he has a mathematical chance of qualifying for the Finals through the leaderboard. GM Fabiano Caruana won't, with 5/9 (four losses, including one in the very first round vs. GM Alexander Donchenko); neither will GMs Hikaru Nakamura nor Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who did not participate in this Play-in.

Like the last event, the CrunchLabs Masters, this event will last about a week. It will conclude on October 1. The Play-in is first of two stages that determine the division that players will enter later—and there are three divisions in total.

Based on their performances in the last CCT event, some players get to skip the first two days of this tournament. Vachier-Lagrave (Division I winner), Firouzja (Division I runner-up), and GM Alexander Grischuk (Division II winner) are already in Division I and will start on September 27 with the other five players still to be determined.

Four other players we didn't see on the first day are GMs Ian Nepomniachtchi, Carlsen, Vidit Gujrathi, and Arjun Erigaisi. Thanks to their performances in the CrunchLabs Masters, they start the tournament on September 26 in Division Placement round two—just like Fedoseev, for winning the Play-in. They need to win one match, not two, to enter Division I.

The Play-in saw 184 participants, nearly all of them grandmasters. The tournament was a nine-round Swiss with a time control of 10+2. The top 11 have a shot at getting into Division I on day two, if they manage to win two matches on Thursday (except for Fedoseev, who sits out of round one). 

Play-in Final Standings | Top 15

(You can see the full standings here.)

Baton-Handing Of Tournament Leaders Ends With Fedoseev

In every other Play-in of this year's Champions Chess Tour, the winner went undefeated. The general path to victory has been to get several wins early so that one can make quick, safe draws in the last rounds. While Fedoseev lost his round-four game, the leaders kept passing the baton—first it was GM Levon Aronian, then it was GM Tuan Minh Le, then So, and it only came to Fedoseev for the first and last time at the tail end.

Nobody had a better first half of the tournament than Aronian, who was the last player on a perfect score after five rounds. Like Fedoseev and So, the good form he showed in the 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad 2024, which ended just three days ago, persisted. Fedoseev, of course, defeated Carlsen in that very event with the black pieces as well.

In round four against GM Pranav Venkatesh, Aronian found the brilliant 26.Nd4!! to convert the advantage, the only outright winning move. Taking the knight would lead to disaster, but refusing the sacrifice didn't bode well either as Aronian found a second sacrifice, 28.Nxe5!, one that Black woefully accepted.

After the first five rounds, however, Aronian's momentum slowed down. He scored one win out of the next four games, though that one is actually featured as our Game of the Day. GM Rafael Leitao goes over the absolute annihilation of Durarbayli's French Defense, which started when he accepted the knight sacrifice of 18.Ne4!. Leitao notes about the opening:

This variation of the French Defense is tough to face because if the player with the black pieces knows all the theory, according to the current stage, it's very likely that the game will be drawn after a long forcing sequence. However, the other side of the coin is that any lapse of memory is fatal and a draw is the most that can be achieved against a well-prepared player, in addition to having to defend against any possible new idea.

Though he lost that game, Durarbayli still finished in the top 11 and will have a shot at placing in Division I on Thursday. He won his first four games, drew three, lost the one above against Aronian, and critically defeated Caruana in the final round to make it.

It was Le who brought about the end of Aronian's reign, in round seven. Hess remarked: "It seemed like Levon was untouchable thus far, and yet here Minh Le is giving him all he could handle." The exchange sacrifice 24.Rxe6! was the best move, and he conducted the attack flawlessly after.

But Le didn't hold onto the lead long either, as So took it over by winning in the next round. If you ever wonder why grandmasters often rave about the power of the bishop pair, this is a great game to look at.

Wesley So puts up an endgame masterclass to take over the lead from Tuan Minh Le!https://t.co/l61Srr5z9N#ChessChamps pic.twitter.com/4dStlHnw2T

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 25, 2024

So would have presumably been content with a draw, based on his tournament standing, but Chess.com banned draw offers in several prize events at the end of last year. While Fedoseev and So may have agreed to a draw if allowed to, the fact that they were forced to play had a significant role in the result of the game and tournament. Fedoseev explained:

I did not expect to get such a win against Wesley, but as Chess.com changed the rules for draw agreement in events, we are no longer making quick draws and if somebody is blundering before move 30, it's his responsibility.... His a3-move was a little bit out of mind, in my opinion. He probably just got extremely tired.

In a solid Petroff Defense, So must have lost his focus as he played 15.a3?, blundering the d5-pawn for no compensation.

So can't be too upset, however, as he will still have a chance to make it into Division I, having finished second in the Play-in. Someone who will understandably be upset is GM Gata Kamsky, who, winning in the last round, mouse-slipped his bishop away.

In a winning position, Kamsky hangs his piece in the last round! 😱https://t.co/5P3sxeWQM0#ChessChamps pic.twitter.com/ttTQ7HQ7ms

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 25, 2024

GM David Anton thought for 30 seconds before finally deciding to take the bishop, and Kamsky let his six minutes run down. As we have seen in many other CCT editions, online chess comes with its own trials and tribulations.

The players who finished higher in the Play-in got to choose their opponents in Division I Placement one at a time. That is, So chose his opponent first, then Aronian, then GM Oleksandr Bortnyk, and so on. We'll see on Thursday if they chose well!

Division I Placement Round 1 Pairings

Divisions II And III

Below, you can find all the players who will be playing in Division II and III Placement.

Division II:

Division III:

The 2024 Julius Baer Generation Cup is the last of the Champions Chess Tour's four events and determines one of the players who'll make it to the in-person CCT Finals. The event starts on September 25 at 11 a.m. ET / 17:00 CEST / 8:30 p.m. IST and features a $300,000 prize fund.

Previous coverage:

• • Julius Baer Generation Cup: The Final Leg of the 2024 Champions Chess Tour