Strong Start For Artemiev At Chessable Masters
GM Vladislav Artemiev leads the A group of the Chessable Masters after day one. The Russian grandmaster scored 3.5/5, half a point more than GM Daniil Dubov, who beat GM Magnus Carlsen in round four.
The games of the Chessable Masters can be found here as part of our live events platform. GM Aryan Tari, IM Levy Rozman, WGM Qiyu Zhou, and IM Aleksandr Ostrovskiy are providing daily commentary on Hikaru Nakamura's Twitch channel, embedded on Chess.com/TV.
After the Magnus Carlsen Invitational and the Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge, the Chessable Masters is the third event of the Magnus Carlsen Tour. The series of online events has a total prize fund of $1 million.
Besides Carlsen himself, 11 top grandmasters are playing, initially in two separate, double round-robins held over two days. The top four of each group qualify for the knockout stage. The winner of the tournament will join Carlsen, Dubov, and the champion of the fourth event in the Grand Final this August.
| GROUP A | Fed | Name | Rtg | GROUP B | Fed | Name | Rtg | |
| 1 | Magnus Carlsen | 2881 | 1 | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | 2860 | |||
| 2 | Hikaru Nakamura | 2829 | 2 | Ding Liren | 2836 | |||
| 3 | Alexander Grischuk | 2784 | 3 | Ian Nepomniachtchi | 2778 | |||
| 4 | Daniil Dubov | 2770 | 4 | Fabiano Caruana | 2773 | |||
| 5 | Vladislav Artemiev | 2769 | 5 | Teimour Radjabov | 2758 | |||
| 6 | Pentala Harikrishna | 2690 | 6 | Anish Giri | 2731 |
In recent weeks, Artemiev has once again shown to be a force to be reckoned with in online play. He won the first edition of the Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix on June 2, and thanks to a shared third place two weeks later he is now in second place in the overall Grand Prix standings.
The 22-year-old grandmaster from Omsk, Russia, had a good start in the Chessable Masters and is the sole leader after day one. He started with an impressive win against GM Pentala Harikrishna, where the bishop pair and a more active rook brought him the win.
With pairing number one, Artemiev also got to play white in round two. His win against his compatriot Dubov was far from flawless, as the latter missed several chances for equality or more:
Carlsen himself had a rather mediocre start that included a loss in round four to Dubov. The world champion sacrificed an exchange in the opening and soon got excellent compensation, but then he spoiled it with one very passive queen move.
"I just went nuts," Carlsen said. "This is just fascinatingly stupid."
Group A Round 5 Standings
| # | Fed | Name | Rtg | Perf | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Pts | SB |
| 1 | Artemiev,Vladislav | 2769 | 2937 | 1 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 3.5/5 | |||
| 2 | Dubov,Daniil | 2770 | 2861 | 0 | ½ | 1 | ½ | 1 | 3.0/5 | |||
| 3 | Nakamura,Hikaru | 2829 | 2779 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 2.5/5 | 6.25 | ||
| 4 | Carlsen,Magnus | 2881 | 2769 | ½ | 0 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 2.5/5 | 5.5 | ||
| 5 | Grischuk,Alexander | 2784 | 2718 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 0 | 2.0/5 | |||
| 6 | Harikrishna,Pentala | 2690 | 2660 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 0 | 1 | 1.5/5 |
Games Group A, Day 1
The Chessable Masters runs June 20-July 5 on chess24 as part of the Magnus Carlsen Tour. The prize fund is $150,000 with a first prize of $45,000. The time control is 15 minutes for all moves with a 10-second increment after each move. No draw offers are allowed before move 40.
