Chessable Masters: Ding Beats Nakamura To Set Up Clash With Carlsen
GM Ding Liren defeated GM Hikaru Nakamura on Monday in their third match of the Chessable Masters quarterfinals. The Chinese grandmaster will next face GM Magnus Carlsen in the semifinals that start on Tuesday.
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.
We won't see a repeat of the Lindores Abbey semifinal between Carlsen and Nakamura, but instead, a repeat of the Magnus Carlsen Invitational semifinal where Carlsen, behind 1.5-0.5 vs. Ding, won 2.5-1.5.
In the preliminary phase of that tournament, Ding had beaten Carlsen 3-1. He also won against the Norwegian in last year's Sinquefield Cup playoff—because it started as early as 10 a.m., according to Carlsen.
Time is now on Carlsen's side as the rounds in his events start at 10 p.m. Beijing time. Besides an unstable internet connection, Ding might have been suffering from fatigue in recent online matches that lasted many games and ended in the middle of the night for him.
Carlsen even joked that his plan was to drag out the match, adding: "That's my best chance, I think!"
After a long and dramatic second day, Ding managed to keep it conveniently short on day three, when he beat Nakamura in just three games.
After a quiet draw, Ding struck in game two with a remarkably strong pawn push on move 25. White seemed to be doing very well positionally, but all collapsed quickly when Nakamura allowed a tactical shot three moves later.
In the next phase of the game, the big question was whether White had a fortress. It seems Ding's early pawn break on f5 was the right way to start breaking it, although Nakamura's pawn push on move 48 might have helped his opponent.
Nakamura didn't wait until his next white game but immediately started to take more risks in game three where he played his old love, the King's Indian. It backfired as Ding proved to be up to the task. The Chinese GM won in great, positional style.
Games QF Day 5
The Chessable Masters runs June 20-July 5 on chess24 as part of the Magnus Carlsen Tour. The prize fund is $150,000 with the 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.
Previous reports:
- Chessable Masters: Giri In Semis, Nakamura Forces 3rd Match
- Carlsen, Nepomniachtchi In Chessable Masters Semifinals
- Chessable Masters: How To Win Without Winning?
- Chessable Masters: Nakamura Knocks Out Dubov
- Giri, Vachier-Lagrave Lead Chessable Masters B Group
- Strong Start For Artemiev At Chessable Masters
