The six strongest performers of the Airthings Masters Play-In will join Magnus Carlsen and Wesley So in Division I of the tournament’s knockout phase starting Monday. Meanwhile, 16 players will battle it out in Division II, and 32 will play in Division III. In Friday’s Play-In, Dommaraju Gukesh was the clear winner of the 9-round Swiss after impressively collecting 7½ points. The Indian prodigy then went on to get a 2-0 victory over former world champion Vladimir Kramnik.
Nodirbek Abdusattorov dominated the field at the Gashimov Memorial in Baku. The 18-year-old from Tashkent was the top scorer in the rapid and finished the blitz in third place. Since none of the players who had ended the rapid near the top of the standings performed strongly in the blitz, Abdusattorov managed to clinch first place with five rounds to spare! | Pictured: The players visited the grave of Vugar Gashimov on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, the ten participants of the Gashimov Memorial played the last three rounds of 15+10 rapid chess in Baku. Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who had grabbed the lead early on, scored a win and two draws to remain atop the standings. Paco Vallejo and Rauf Mamedov shared second place, two points behind the youngster (points count double in the rapid). Following the rest day, 18 rounds of blitz will take place on Thursday and Friday.