Thanks to his performance in the previous Meltwater Chess Champion tournaments, Magnus Carlsen started the finals of the series with a four-point lead. In round 1 he convincingly defeated Jan-Krzysztof Duda but in rounds 2 and 3 he had to go into tiebreaks and in round 4 he lost against Vladislav Artemiev. But in round 5, against Hikaru Nakamura, Carlsen bounced back in style. He started the match with a fine win in a rook endgame.
The second game ended in a draw, but the third game saw another rook endgame that led to the same result as the ending in game 1: Carlsen won – and the match was over.
The Norwegian TV channel TV 2 broadcasts the tournament live, and in an interview after the match, Carlsen said Nakamura had not offered much resistance this time, adding: "With so little resistance, it's not hard to play well."
In the match between Anish Giri and Wesley So, who is Carlsen's closest (and only serious) pursuer, Giri suffered from a sudden blackout that cost him the match. He was leading the match 1.5-0.5 and had a won position in game 3, when he suddenly blundered:
So equalized the match and won the blitz-tiebreak.
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Vladislav Artemiev had a lively battle.
Mamedyarov won game three, but with a win in game four Artemiev decided the match in his favour, winning 2.5-1.5. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave also defeated Jan Krzysztof Duda 2.5-1.5 and this was also the result of the match between Teimour Radjabov Levon Aronian.
In the table, Carlsen is now again five points ahead of So but with a score of 10 points out of a maximum of 15 he would also lead the finals without the bonus points.
