New In Chess Classic: Radjabov On Par With Carlsen
GM Magnus Carlsen won the preliminaries but couldn't beat GM Teimour Radjabov on the first day of the New in Chess Classic's quarterfinals. They drew all four games. GMs Levon Aronian, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, and Hikaru Nakamura did win their first matches.
The games of the New in Chess Classic knockout stage 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 10:00 a.m. Pacific / 19:00 Central Europe.
Carlsen-Radjabov 2-2
This first day of this match was a very solid and rather quiet affair with four "grandmaster draws," as they were called in the old days. If anyone had a chance, it was Radjabov, who built up a dominating position in game two but failed to convert.
Aronian-So 3-1
This match was in sharp contrast with the aforementioned quietness. In the first game, GM Wesley So dropped a full exchange due to a mouse slip. The American GM then also lost the second one as Aronian won a spectacular game that involved a knight promotion—not easy when playing online with "auto-queen" in the settings, but Aronian managed:
So won his first must-win game in a complicated endgame but then went wrong tactically in game four:
Nakamura-Le 2.5-1.5
Nakamura took the lead right away in the first game and then finished with three solid draws. The American GM played a thematic middlegame and then nicely outplayed his (U.S.-based) Vietnamese opponent GM Le Quang Liem in the endgame:
Mamedyarov-Firouzja 3-1
Mamedyarov remained undefeated as well, winning the first and fourth games. As he had to win the last game on demand, GM Alireza Firouzja had his chances and was slightly better, but the tactics worked totally against him:
All Games QF Day 1
The New in Chess Classic runs April 24-May 2 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 with $30,000 for first place.
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