GM Magnus Carlsen won the Norway Chess tournament for the third time in a row, and the fourth in total. Like in the first half of the tournament, the world champion won the armageddon game against world title challenger GM Ian Nepomniachtchi, who came fourth. GM Alireza Firouzja ended up beating and.
Magnus Carlsen Invitational Winner Anish Giri will return to the FIDE Candidates next week.
The second annual Magnus Invitational was held March 13-21. The event is a serious one in its own right, but it s also a direct preparation for the upcoming FIDE Candidates chess tournament for some of the participants.
The Magnus Invitational players who are also preparing for the upcoming Candidates tournament included Anish Giri, Maxime Vachier Lagrave (known as MVL), and Ian Nepomniachtchi; each of them had very different trajectories in the recent tournament.
MVL, who is tied for first place with Nepomniachtchi after the first half of the Candidates, surprisingly failed to advance to the Magnus Invitational Semifinals. Saving his preparation for the Candidates, MVL avoided critical lines and instead played more innocuous lines. Unfortunately for the Frenchman, his plans backfired.