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The Chessable Masters marks the start of the new Champions Chess Tour 2025. The winner of the tournament will receive USD 25,000. Up to fourth place, the prize money will be reduced until reaching USD 5,000.
On the first day of the knockout phase of the online tournament, which will again be held as a double-elimination bracket, the first two rounds were played in the winners' group, with the round of 16 and quarterfinals, and the first round in the losers' group. In the winners' group, the matches are played in a maximum of four games, plus a tiebreak if necessary. In the losers' group, a regular match consists of two games. The time control for the regular games is 10 minutes per side without increments. Time therefore plays a major role in this format.
Perennial favourite Magnus Carlsen played against Andrey Esipenko in the round of 16. Carlsen won the first and fourth games, while games two and three ended in draws. In the second game, Esipenko escaped with a draw from a lost position.
In the quarterfinals, Carlsen faced Yu Yangyi, who had previously sent Wesley So to the losers' group. Carlsen won the first two games and secured overall victory with a draw in game three.
On the "adjacent boards" there were two Indian-Chinese duels. First Wei Yi won 2½-½ against Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu. One of the games lasted 100 moves, as the Indian grandmaster had to be shown at the end whether Wei could mate with king and queen against king in deep time trouble. Everything is played to the end in these online games.
In the quarterfinals, however, Wei was defeated Arjun Erigaisi. Arjun had previously won the round of 16 against Vladislav Artemiev by a 2½-½ score.
The match between Hikaru Nakamura and Alexander Grischuk ended with a clear 2½:1½ win for Nakamura. Ian Nepomniachtchi was Nakamura's opponent in the quarterfinals. The two-time World Championship challenger had reached this round with a 3-1 win over Jan-Krzysztof Duda, but suffered an outright 0:3 defeat against Nakamura.
Fabiano Caruana and Alireza Firouzja met in the fourth quarter-final. Caruana had won 2½:½ against Sam Sevain, while Firouzja had defeated Anish Giri by the same score. This was the first Armageddon decider. Each player had won two of the regular games. The Armageddon was won by Firouzja.
The losers of the round of 16 continued in the losers' group. Esipenko won in the Armageddon decider against So. Artemiev also eliminated Praggnanandhaa in Armageddon. The match between Grischuk and Duda was decided in favour of the Polish GM, while the match between Sevian and Giri was also decided in favour of the Dutch star.
