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Carlsen Keeps It Classy, Nepomniachtchi Does A Houdini
Nepomniachtchi showed tremendous determination to win the match against Abdusattorov with a final score of 13-11 after starting with four losses in a row.

Carlsen Keeps It Classy, Nepomniachtchi Does A Houdini

VSaravanan
IM VSaravanan
Staff
| 51 | Chess Event Coverage

GM Magnus Carlsen crushed GM Tuan Minh Le with a dominating 20.5-3.5 score in a one-sided contest in the first match of the second day of the 2024 Speed Chess Championship. But the day belonged to the former world championship contender GM Ian Nepomniachtchi who showed tremendous determination in overcoming GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov in a match that went to the wire. Starting the match with four losses in a row, Nepomniachtchi showed great fighting spirit to claw back and level the score at 10-10 in regular time before prevailing 3-1 in the tiebreaker, thus winning with a final score of 13-11.

The next two Round of 16 matches will be on Monday, July 29. GM Alireza Firouzja vs. GM Alexander Grischuk begins at 11 a.m. ET / 17:00 CEST / 8:30 p.m. IST and GM Wesley So vs. GM Denis Lazavik begins at 2:30 p.m. ET / 20:30 CEST / 12:00 a.m. IST (July 30).

2024 Speed Chess Championship Bracket

Magnus Carlsen 20.5-3.5 Tuan Minh Le


After GM Hikaru Nakamura's dominating win against GM Jose Martinez on day one, the other global stalwart of faster time controls arrived at Chess.com today, and their combined domination of the Speed Chess Championship over the years was aptly summed up thus.

Before the start of the match, "Magnus has been ups and downs lately. He hasn't been infallible, he hasn't been impervious to the pressure," were the interesting utterances by commentator GM Daniel Naroditsky. Also, the fact that Le had a focused opening repertoire, thus giving him a solid foundation to play in such quick formats, was mentioned.

But, just after the third game, Carlsen showed his complete domination of the proceedings, prompting Naroditsky to come up with the description, "Magnus sometimes gets into that meat-grinder mentality—you feel like literally there is nothing you can do! There is no opening you can play. There is no trap that you can spring. ... There is no position that you can steer the game to. He is just superior across the board, literally and figuratively. This is the kind of Magnus that has shown up in the early going of this match."

Magnus sometimes gets into that meat-grinder mentality—you feel like literally there is nothing you can do!

—Daniel Naroditsky

Blitz 5+1: Carlsen 5.5-1.5 Le

As Carlsen ran off to a 3-0 lead, we saw an extraordinary spectacle of Le actually applauding Carlsen for his play after the third game.

Losing again in the next game, thus losing four games in a row, produced more extreme reactions from a disheartened Le.

If the whole match can be summarized in a nutshell, these two spectacles were good enough: it was a clear case of helplessness and frustration for Le, as Carlsen simply proved to be too good on the day. 

In the sixth game, Carlsen enthralled the audience with a beautiful win in that delightful variant of endgame lovers, the opposite-colored bishop ending. The aesthetic beauty on the board came up with Carlsen's delightful idea of walking his own king to the brink of the board with 54...Kh4, and then closing himself up the gate with 55...g5! setting up a simple but effective zugzwang.

A sign of trouble for Carlsen arose due to non-chess reasons when his internet connection froze and he forfeited on time in the seventh game from an equal-looking position. It was thus the first full point in the match for Le. Carlsen nevertheless bounced back to win the last game of the segment. 

Blitz 3+1: Carlsen 7-1 Le

If the audience hoped for a fightback from Le after a disappointing show in the earlier segment, their hopes were dashed when Le lost a simple-looking ending in the very first game of the segment.

The only consolation win for Le came in the second game of the segment when Carlsen's internet connection once again froze in a clearly better position.

Carlsen was up a monster pawn on d5 and looked all set to win another game when he got disconnected from the game and lost on time.

Undeterred, Carlsen plundered on, producing a cute miniature in the 11th game, crushing Le in just 18 moves.

At the end of the segment, Carlsen had opened up a stupendous 10-point lead, and the match looked competitively decided by this point.

Bullet 1+1: Carlsen 8-1 Le

A disheartened Le seemed to be hardly putting up any fight in the bullet phase, as Carlsen conceded just two draws while effortlessly outplaying his opponent in most of the games. The 21st game was a clear case in point, as Carlsen's simple positional play proved too much for the opponent.

Speaking afterwards, Carlsen acknowledged that the dominating score was more due to his superiority than Le's poor showing in the match.

Ian Nepomniachtchi 13-11 Nodirbek Abdusattorov


After such a dominating show by the highest-rated player in the world, the second match of the day was expected to be much more combative. Especially as it was probably estimated to be one of the best heavyweight clashes of the round of 16, apart from the GM Alireza Firouzja vs. GM Alexander Grischuk, which is yet to happen.

And even the best of the world expected a great clash, inviting everyone to the party, to "people all around the world to tune in."

The match dramatically opened in a completely unexpected way, very much reminiscent of the Carlsen-Le clash. 

Blitz 5+1: Nepomniachtchi 2-5 Abdusattorov

Both Nepomniachtchi and Abdusattorov have a commonality in their play: both of them arrive at positions that seemingly offer no advantage to either side, but then continue to play around with pieces patiently. It very much helps that the format of the event has an increment of one second in all the time controls, which allows both of them to keep playing with their pieces endlessly, provoking and probing the other to make a mistake.

This was very much apparent in the initial games when Abdusattorov proved to be the beneficiary of such "probing" play.

After achieving two such victories, Abdusattorov scored a third win when Nepomniachtchi seemed to unnecessarily get ambitious in the third game, weakening his pawns with no real reason.

Thus, it was an unbelievable spectacle that greeted the spectators: Abdusattorov had raced to a 3-0 lead in the match. It was admirable to see Nepomniachtchi's desperation to score a win, but it ended in a tragedy.

The combatants had once again probed each other for 80 long moves in an equal bishop vs knight ending, and in this drawn position, White had to find the difficult 81.f4 to force a draw. He tragically blundered with 81.Kd4?? Black had a win here with 81...b6!! 82.axb6 Kc6! and the black king has enough time to capture the white pawn on b6 and move back to stop the other pawn on the f-file. However, to his horror, Black overstepped the time, and tragically lost, enabling Abdusattorov to start with an overwhelming 4-0 lead.

How did Nepomniachtchi react to this crisis at the very beginning of the match? He simply switched on his music, and visibly started playing the match with a careless abandon.

He was immediately rewarded for the unorthodox battle technique: it was Abdusattorov's turn to lose on time in the very next game. 

Blitz 3+1: Nepomniachtchi 4-2 Abdusattorov

This segment came with Nepomniachtchi trailing with a three-point deficit, and here is when he stepped on the gas, particularly in a hard-fought win in the 12th game.

With another long-drawn-out win in the 13th game, Nepomniachtchi had pulled himself to a score of 6-7, trailing Abdusattorov by just a point margin.

Blitz 1+1: Nepomniachtchi 4-3 Abdusattorov

The most dramatic segment of the match started tragically for Nepomniachtchi again, as he lost on time in a seemingly level position in the very first game.

In this position, Nepomniachtchi once again lost on time, and he went on to lose the 15th game too, after a marathon 118-move fight. The score now stood 9-6 in Abdusattorov's favor.

Lady Luck smiled on Nepomniachtchi in the 16th game.

Thus sailing on favorable winds, Nepomniachtchi went on to win two more games in the segment, thus leveling the scores at 10-10, forcing a tiebreak.

Tiebreak: Nepomniachtchi 3-1 Abdusattorov

Thus, the stage was set for a thrilling tiebreak, with an additional four games of 1+1 time control, and an armageddon with five minutes on the clock in case of a further tie.

The very first game of the tiebreak games was an aesthetic win for Abdusattorov, annotated as Game of the Day by GM Rafael Leitao.

Nepomniachtchi once again refused to accept his predicament and fought back to win the next two games convincingly. In the final game of the tiebreak, Abdusattorov blundered tragically, while needing a win to force armageddon.

Here, White went on to commit the tragic blunder 21.dxc5?? losing his queen to the simple discovered check 21...Bh2+, thus handing over the match to Nepomniachtchi. 

After the end of the match, Nepomniachtchi revealed multiple sources of inspiration for his comeback.

How to watch?
You can watch the event on Chess.com/TV. You can also enjoy the show on our Twitch channel and catch all our live broadcasts on YouTube.com/Chess. Games from the event can be viewed on our events page.

The live broadcasts were hosted by GM Daniel Naroditsky, IM Levy Rozman, and James Canty. 

The Speed Chess Championship is Chess.com's most important speed chess event. Some of the biggest names in chess compete to determine the best speed chess player in the world. The main event started with qualifiers on June 27 and 28 and concludes with the first-ever Final on September 8, live in Paris. The games are played with time controls of 5+1, 3+1, and 1+1. The prize fund is $173,000. 

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