Chessable Masters: Artemiev leads Group A

by Carlos Alberto Colodro
6/21/2020 – Vladislav Artemiev kicked off the first day of the preliminaries with two whites and two wins at the Chessable Masters. He drew the remaining three games of the day to finish in the sole lead with 3½ points. The winner of the previous event of the ‘Magnus Carlsen Tour’, Daniil Dubov, is in sole second place a half point behind — the Russian defeated Magnus Carlsen in round 4. | Photo: Patricia Claros Aguilar

ChessBase 18 - Mega package ChessBase 18 - Mega package

Winning starts with what you know
The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.

More...

Another upset by a young Russian?


World Champion Magnus Carlsen and eleven more of the world's best chess players are competing in the Chessable Masters by chess24, the third event in the $1 million Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour, taking place from June 20 to July 5.


Although their relative superiority has decreased with the years, Russia continues to be a hotbed of talented chess players. With the ‘old’ guard (Grischuk, Svidler, Vitiugov) still going strong, younger players like Vladislav Artemiev (22) and Daniil Dubov (24) seem to be en route to becoming constant figures in the Russian national team in the future — together with the likes of Karjakin, Nepomniachtchi and Andreikin, of course.

After Dubov won the previous event of the Magnus Carlsen Tour, when he defeated the world champion in the preliminaries, Artemiev, who is making his debut in the tour, left a strong impression on day one, scoring two wins and three draws to get sole first place in Group A. Dubov, in the meantime, bounced back from his loss against Artemiev with back-to-back victories, defeating Harikrishna and Carlsen in rounds 3 and 4.

Given the tournament format, having a strong performance in the preliminary round-robin only gets you the chance to choose the colour in the first game of each knockout matchup and which colour to play with in a potential Armageddon decider. However, we have yet to see if Artemiev performs well in the knockout — assuming he will go through — when strong nerves and the ability to strike when it matters most are key factors for success. We know Dubov has what it takes when in good form. 

Chessable Masters 2020

Artemiev starts with two wins

The 2019 European champion made good use of his consecutive whites in the first two rounds, beating Harikrishna by showcasing his technical prowess in a queenless position and taking down Dubov in 30 moves. Against Dubov, Artemiev based all his play on advancing his passer on the d-file and saw his compatriot blundering on move 27, when the most forced continuation was actually the way to go:

 
Artemiev vs. Dubov - Round 1
Position after 27.Rc7

Black could have actually gained an edge with 27...Rxc7 28.dxc7 Rc8, when White will lose his passed pawn and has no tactical continuation that keeps his strong initiative. Instead, 27...Be6 led to 28.Bd5 Bxd5 29.Rxd5 Nf7 and the killer 30.Nc6 — there is no way for Black to avoid losing material given White’s threat of Ne7+.

Dubov beats Carlsen

After drawing Grischuk and losing against Artemiev — as seen above — Dubov went on to inflict Harikrishna’s third straight loss and defeat Carlsen in consecutive rounds. Dubov had said after winning the Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge:

If you’d ask me what would I prefer, to win the Lindores Abbey or to win a series of matches against Magnus, I would definitely think about it. [...] And, in terms of the way I see things, I would probably prefer to beat Magnus, to be honest.

He had in fact defeated Carlsen in their game from the preliminaries in that tournament, and he repeated the feat on Saturday, again with the black pieces:

 
Carlsen vs. Dubov - Round 4
Position after 30.Bh4

The engines already think Black has a big advantage at this point and suggest 30...Rxa2 as the best way to move forward. However, Dubov’s plan of 30...Rb2, 31...Qc2 and 32...Qb1 left commentators Peter Svidler and Yasser Seirawan very impressed — the Russian is known for embracing creativity and a human approach to chess even at a professional level, as he has been proving by employing non-standard openings in first-class events.

Will this be his time to shine with two tournament wins in a row?

Turnarounds

It was a day of big swings, as a number of games saw one of the players either losing after having obtained a big advantage or drawing from a clearly inferior position. Carlsen, for example, could have lost in rounds 2 and 3, against Harikrishna and Grischuk respectively, but ended up with 1½ points instead. ‘Hari’ missed the same chance in two consecutive moves:

 
Harikrishna vs. Carlsen - Round 2
Position after 30...Ba4

Both now and in the next move the Indian failed to find 31.Rxa4 Nxa4 32.Qa7, forking knight and rook and getting a significant material advantage. The game continued 31.h4 h5 32.Be2 and Carlsen eventually got the full point.

It was definitely a strange day for Harikrishna, as he also saw Nakamura and Grischuk letting winning positions go to waste against him. ‘Naka’ misplayed a clearly superior ending and ended up splitting the point, while Grischuk could have finished the day with a win but instead gave up the full point against his Indian colleague:

 
Harikrishna vs. Grischuk - Round 5
Position after 23.g5

Svidler could not understand why his friend Sasha did not go for the strong 23...Bh3, when Black gets a clear material edge in all lines. 23...Ne6, on the other hand, allowed the immediate 24.Ng4 and White went on to quickly build up an attack. Grischuk resigned four moves later. 

So, at half time, Grischuk and Harikrishna are at the bottom of the standings table with 2 and 1½ points respectively. Carlsen and Nakamura are only a half point ahead of Grischuk though, both on fifty percent — while Carlsen lost one and won one, Nakamura drew all of his games on the first day of action.


Standings after Round 5 - Group A

Rk. Name Pts.  TB1 
1 Artemiev Vladislav 3,5 0,0
2 Dubov Daniil 3,0 0,0
3 Carlsen Magnus 2,5 0,5
4 Nakamura Hikaru 2,5 0,5
5 Grischuk Alexander 2,0 0,0
6 Harikrishna Pentala 1,5 0,0

All games - Group A

 
New ...
Open...
Share...
Layout...
Flip Board
Settings
MoveNResultEloPlayers
Replay and check the LiveBook here
1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.Nc3 Nc6 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nxd4 e6 6.e4 Bb4 7.Nxc6 bxc6 8.Bd3 e5 9.0-0 0-0 10.h3 10.Qe2 is setting a new trend. B44: Sicilian: Taimanov: 5 Nb5. d6 11.Be3 Bxc3 12.bxc3 The position is equal. Nd7
13.Qd2N Predecessor: 13.Qa4 Nc5 14.Bxc5 dxc5 15.Qxc6 Bxh3 16.Rfd1 Qg5 17.Bf1 Bg4 18.Rd5 Rac8 19.Qd6 1-0 (59) Vishnu,P (2538)-Thybo,J (2464) Lund 2017 13...Nc5 14.Bc2 Be6 15.Rfd1 Nb7 16.c5 dxc5 17.Qxd8 Rfxd8 18.Rxd8+ Rxd8 19.Rb1 White has good play. Nd6 20.a4 Nc4 21.Bxc5 a5 21...h6= 22.Be7 Rc8 White leaves nothing to chance now. 23.Rb7 h6 24.Kf1 c5 25.Ke1 Rc6 26.Rb5 Na3 27.Rb8+ Kh7 28.Bb3 Bxb3 28...Nc4± 29.Rxb3± Endgame KRB-KRN Nc4 30.Rb5 Rc7 31.Bxc5 But not 31.Rxc5?! Rxc5 32.Bxc5 Kg6± 31...f6 32.Ke2 Rd7
intending ...Rd2+. 33.Be3! Rc7 33...Kg6 34.Rc5 Nxe3 35.Kxe3 Ra7 34.Kd3+- Nxe3 35.fxe3 KR-KR Rd7+ 36.Kc2 Kg6 37.Rxa5 White is clearly winning. Kg5 38.g3 h5 39.Rd5 Rc7 40.a5 Accuracy: White = 100%, Black = 58%.
1–0
  • Start an analysis engine:
  • Try maximizing the board:
  • Use the four cursor keys to replay the game. Make moves to analyse yourself.
  • Press Ctrl-B to rotate the board.
  • Drag the split bars between window panes.
  • Download&Clip PGN/GIF/FEN/QR Codes. Share the game.
  • Games viewed here will automatically be stored in your cloud clipboard (if you are logged in). Use the cloud clipboard also in ChessBase.
  • Create an account to access the games cloud.
WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Artemiev,V2769Harikrishna,P26901–02020Chessable Masters by chess241.1
Dubov,D2770Grischuk,A2784½–½2020Chessable Masters by chess241.2
Nakamura,H2829Carlsen,M2881½–½2020Chessable Masters by chess241.3
Harikrishna,P2690Carlsen,M28810–12020Chessable Masters by chess242.1
Grischuk,A2784Nakamura,H2829½–½2020Chessable Masters by chess242.2
Artemiev,V2769Dubov,D27701–02020Chessable Masters by chess242.3
Dubov,D2770Harikrishna,P26901–02020Chessable Masters by chess243.1
Nakamura,H2829Artemiev,V2769½–½2020Chessable Masters by chess243.2
Carlsen,M2881Grischuk,A2784½–½2020Chessable Masters by chess243.3
Nakamura,H2829Harikrishna,P2690½–½2020Chessable Masters by chess244
Carlsen,M2881Dubov,D27700–12020Chessable Masters by chess244.2
Grischuk,A2784Artemiev,V2769½–½2020Chessable Masters by chess244.3
Harikrishna,P2690Grischuk,A27841–02020Chessable Masters by chess245.1
Artemiev,V2769Carlsen,M2881½–½2020Chessable Masters by chess245.2
Dubov,D2770Nakamura,H2829½–½2020Chessable Masters by chess245.3

Links


Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.

Discuss

Rules for reader comments

 
 

Not registered yet? Register

We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, analysis cookies and marketing cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies. Here you can make detailed settings or revoke your consent (if necessary partially) with effect for the future. Further information can be found in our data protection declaration.