That episode led to Carlsen admitting that he was in a “deep funk”, while this week’s self-diagnosis was “a sorrily disgusting performance”. There had been no hint of what was to come in the best of three games first set on Tuesday, which Carlsen won 2.5-0.5 in commanding style, or earlier when Carlsen’s clever white tactic eliminated his old rival Hikaru Nakamura from the tournament in this week’s puzzle diagram.
Even at the start of the event, Carlsen articulated an underlying worry: “It’s a matter of pride, that I cannot have people’s impression, or my own impression, being that I’m as bad as I’ve played recently. I was thinking in Tata when I was at 50% after eight rounds – this is just not who I am! How can I look myself in the mirror when I’m 50% after eight rounds? Usually I should beat this guy, I should definitely not lose to that guy, and most of all now I just want to go and prove that I can do a whole lot better than I’ve done recently.”
Published February 11, 2021, 2:35 PM
Wesley So
Grandmaster Wesley So made short work of Polish Jan-Krzysztof Duda in their quarterfinal duel to barge into the semifinals of the Opera Euro Rapid of the Champions Chess Tour Thursday, Feb. 11.
After winning the first of the two four-game duel Wednesday, 2.5-1.5, the 27-year-old So went for the kill early as he smashed Duda twice to negate the last two games as it was all the former needed to leapfrog to the semis.
The win arranged the reigning world Fischer-Random and two-time United States champion a semis tussle with Azerbaijan’s Teimour Radjabov, who needed an extra two-game tiebreaker to eliminate Netherland’s Anish Giri.
This week Merijn van Delft wonders how Magnus Carlsen plans to counter the original and creative style of Daniil Dubov in their quarterfinal match of the Opera Euro Rapid. | Merijn's show is available at 16.00 UTC (17:00 CET, 12:00 EDT) and on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can <a href="https://account.chessbase.com/en/create-account" target=" blank">register a Premium account here</a>.
Opera Euro Rapid QF: Carlsen, MVL, Radjabov, So Through
GMs Magnus Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Wesley So, and Teimour Radjabov made it to the semifinals of the Opera Euro Rapid tournament. Carlsen lost his second match to GM Daniil Dubov but eventually pulled through in the armageddon game of the playoff.
How to watch?
The games of the Opera Euro Rapid 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 from 8:00 a.m. Pacific / 17:00 Central Europe.
Carlsen vs. Dubov
Dubov couldn t repeat his upset victory vs. Carlsen in the Airthings Masters, but he came as close as he could.
Aronian lagged behind Maxime Vachier-Lagrave after the first day of the tournament. On the second day, the sportsmen evened their scores. The French player will face .