Goldmoney Asian Rapid: Aronian, Ding Lead
After the second day of the preliminaries in the Goldmoney Asian Rapid, GMs Levon Aronian and Ding Liren are tied for first place with 7/10, closely followed by GM Wesley So and Vladislav Artemiev. GM Alireza Firouzja and Daniil Dubov need a good third day to qualify for the knockout phase; GM Hou Yifan cannot make it anymore.
The Goldmoney Asian Rapid preliminaries games can be found here as part of our live events platform. IM Levy Rozman and IM Anna Rudolf are providing daily commentary on GM Hikaru Nakamura's Twitch channel starting at 4:00 a.m. Pacific / 13:00 Central Europe.
Goldmoney Asian Rapid Preliminaries | Round 10 Standings
| # | Fed | Name | Rtg | Perf | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Pts |
| 1 | Aronian | 2781 | 2855 | ½ | 1 | ½ | 1 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | ½ | 1 | 7.0 | |||||||
| 2 | Ding | 2799 | 2838 | ½ | ½ | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 7.0 | |||||||
| 3 | So | 2770 | 2828 | ½ | 1 | ½ | 0 | 1 | 1 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 6.5 | |||||||
| 4 | Artemiev | 2704 | 2817 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | ½ | 1 | 6.5 | |||||||
| 5 | Carlsen | 2847 | 2800 | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 6.0 | |||||||
| 6 | Giri | 2780 | 2808 | ½ | 1 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 6.0 | |||||||
| 7 | Erigaisi | 2567 | 2745 | 0 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 1 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | ½ | 5.5 | |||||||
| 8 | Duda | 2729 | 2729 | ½ | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 0 | 1 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 5.0 | |||||||
| 9 | Salem | 2682 | 2700 | ½ | 0 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 0 | 4.5 | |||||||
| 10 | Dubov | 2714 | 2674 | ½ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4.5 | |||||||
| 11 | Firouzja | 2759 | 2676 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 1 | ½ | 1 | 4.5 | |||||||
| 12 | Svidler | 2714 | 2712 | ½ | 0 | ½ | ½ | 0 | 1 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 1 | 4.5 | |||||||
| 13 | Gukesh | 2578 | 2643 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 0 | ½ | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 4.0 | |||||||
| 14 | Vidit | 2726 | 2637 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 0 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 0 | 1 | 4.0 | |||||||
| 15 | Hou | 2658 | 2516 | ½ | 0 | 0 | ½ | 0 | 0 | ½ | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2.5 | |||||||
| 16 | Adhiban | 2660 | 2463 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 1 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 0 | 0 | 2.0 |
Just like on the first day, World Champion Magnus Carlsen started with a loss. This time it was Aronian, one of the two players who are currently in the lead.
The Armenian and soon American grandmaster outplayed his opponent in a Rossolimo endgame with the standard trade-off between the better pawn structure vs. the bishop pair. As Carlsen's light-squared bishop was a total disaster in this game, Aronian's structure prevailed but the Norwegian player had chances till the end:
So far, the biggest surprise is the Indian GM Arjun Erigaisi, who finds himself in seventh place and therefore in the group of players who would be qualifying for the next phase. His score could have been even higher if he had drawn his well-played endgame (until some point) with Aronian in round seven:
Carlsen couldn't bounce back straight away as he had done the day before. An "insane" game, as GM Anish Giri called it, ended in a draw after the world champion faced a queen sacrifice and got under a tremendous attack.
Giri is really channeling his inner-Tal in this tournament! However, this time his enterprising play wasn't rewarded. At some point, the Dutchman could choose between two brilliant wins, but didn't find either and let his opponent escape:
wtf was that #ChessChamps
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) June 27, 2021
As if he needed to calm down a bit (and Aronian consolidate his position in the standings) Giri's next game was a nine-move draw: 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 Ng4 7. Bc1 Nf6 8. Be3 Ng4 9. Bc1 Nf6 ½-½. In tournaments where it's all about finishing in the top half, such games cannot really be ruled out, it seems.
Carlsen also drew his next game, with GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda, before scoring his first win of the day in round nine against a former second of his. The world champ was a true pawn grabber as he used different tactics to hang on to the material, but GM Daniil Dubov was close to the draw in the double rook endgame that ensued:
At the end of the day, Ding caught Aronian in first place with a win against GM Peter Svidler in round 10. The Chinese GM seems to finally have found back his top form again and, as was pointed out before, the more pleasant starting time of the rounds can't hurt:
All Games Day 2
The Goldmoney Asian Rapid runs June 26-July 4, 2021 on chess24. The preliminary phase is a 16-player rapid (15|10) round-robin. The top eight players advance to a six-day knockout that consists of two days of four-game rapid matches, which advance to blitz (5|3) and armageddon (White has five minutes, Black four with no increment) tiebreaks only if a knockout match is tied after the second day. The prize fund is $100,000.
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