Three players are sharing the lead after round 1 in Wijk aan Zee, as Magnus Carlsen, Anish Giri and Nils Grandelius all obtained victories with the white pieces. It was a topsy-turvy win for the world champion, who bravely gave up two pawns to get the better of 17-year-old Alireza Firouzja. Endgame specialist Karsten Müller analysed the rook ending that gave Grandelius the full point against Alexander Donchenko. | Photo: Jurriaan Hoefsmit – Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2021
Pentala Harikrishna, Poland s no. 2
Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Sweden s no. 1
Nils Grandelius are excellent replacements.
Then, on the eve of the tournament, Daniil Dubov was also forced to cancel after someone close to him tested positive for COVID-19. His late replacement is 22-year-old German Grandmaster
Carlsen has won the Masters group of the event a record 7 times since 2008, when he shared 1st along with Levon Aronian. Caruana is the reigning champion and in fact only three other players (Levon Aronian in 2012 and 2014, Hikaru Nakamura in 2011 and Wesley So in 2017) have managed to win the event in the last 10 years.
Whether Carlsen can triumph again may depend on whether he recovers his form from earlier in 2020. The 30-year-old had an immensely successful year, winning a total of 9 online events and one over-the-board event (Norway Chess), but Wesley So crashed his 30th birthday party by winning the Skilling Open final, while his Airthings Masters came to an end in
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Press Release, Saint Louis, MO, January 13, 2021
The 2021 tour schedule consists of five tournaments as follows:
Superbet Chess Classic: June 3 - 15, 2021, Bucharest, Romania
Paris Rapid & Blitz: June 16 - 23, 2021, Paris, France
Croatia Rapid & Blitz: July 5 - 12, 2021, Zagreb, Croatia
St Louis Rapid & Blitz: August 9 - 16, 2021, St. Louis, Missouri USA
Sinquefield Cup: August 16 – 28, 2021, St. Louis, Missouri USA
The full tour participants will play in both classical events as well as in two of the three rapid and blitz tournaments.
Following the cancellation of the 2020 Grand Chess Tour due to the Covid-19 pandemic, invitations for the 2021 edition of the GCT were extended to the ten players who had qualified for the 2020 season. World Champion Magnus Carlsen and Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura have elected not to take part as full tour participants in 2021 and have been replaced by Grandmasters Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Teimour Radjabov. Gr
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A short day at the office
Both clashes on day 2 of the semifinals finished earlier than expected, as Teimour Radjabov and Levon Aronian secured a spot in the finals after playing two and three games respectively. Radjabov beat Daniil Dubov twice in a row from the get go, making it impossible for the Russian to get more than a draw in the second mini-match (Radjabov had won the first ‘set’), while Aronian got a 2:1 advantage after winning game 3 against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, which also made it impossible for the Frenchman to mount a comeback.
Given their strong performances throughout the event, we can safely say that we will see two well-deserved finalists in the deciding matchup to be played on Saturday and Sunday. Aronian has lost only once during the whole event, while Radjabov showed great nerves to take down Ian Nepomniachtchi in the quarterfinals and put forth a successful strategy to knock out Dubov in the semis Dubov came from elimina
Airthings Masters: Carlsen, Nakamura, Nepomniachtchi, So Eliminated
GM Magnus Carlsen suffered a shockingly early elimination at the Airthings Masters. The world champion was knocked out by GM Daniil Dubov, who won both his white games on Wednesday.
How to watch?
The games of the Champions Chess Tour Airthings Masters 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 6:00 a.m. Pacific / 15:00 Central Europe.
Carlen vs. Dubov 0.5-2.5
Although Dubov had the better chances in his first, tied match with Carlsen, the 24-year-old Muscovite was still the underdog on day two. Against Carlsen, everyone is always the underdog.