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.
One of the shortcomings of playing online is the ever-present possibility of a disconnection. In the much-anticipated semifinal between Magnus Carlsen and Ding Liren, the Chinese lost the first game after disconnecting on move 43, with a completely drawn position on the board. The general sense of discontent quickly turned into acclaim as, in a fantastic display of sportsmanship, the world champion jettisoned his queen on move 4 in the following encounter — 1.c4 e6 2.g3 Qg5 3.Bg2 Qxd2+ 4.Qxd2.
The world champion explained:
I have immense respect for Ding as a chess player and as a human being, and I thought against him this was the only correct way. And clearly I wanted to win on the board.
It is no secret that Carlsen is a fiercely competitive person, which he acknowledged by saying:
People probably know me well enough to know that I don’t make sporting decisions based on whether people will like me or not, but I think in this particular case I very much felt it was the right thing to do.
At the end of the day, things worked out well for the Norwegian, who managed to win the first set of the match, scoring a deciding full point with the black pieces in the second blitz tiebreaker game.
In the other semifinal, Anish Giri took down Ian Nepomniachtchi 3:1, obtaining wins in both his games with the white pieces. Talking to the commentators, the Dutchman praised Carlen’s fair-play attitude, noting, “I don’t think it would have occurred to anyone”. He added:
I think it also shows a lot of confidence, because many players would have shown that they’re upset about winning like that, but many of them would not be that upset, because at the end of the day chess is a very competitive sport and you want your points at any cost, frankly.
So Carlsen and Giri go into Wednesday’s second set knowing that one more mini-match victory will be enough to reach the final.
| First set | Game 1 | Game 2 | Game 3 | Game 4 | Blitz 1 | Blitz 2 |
| Magnus Carlsen | 1 | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 |
| Ding Liren | 0 | 1 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 0 |
Although Carlsen did get the upper hand in game 1, by the time Ding’s connection faltered, the position was completely drawn and Carlsen got what he felt was an unfair victory. Thus his quick resignation in game 2, which, as he pointed out, was not a perfect solution — but it did level the scoreboard. Game 3 saw the world champion getting a slightly better endgame:
Carlsen mentioned in the post-mortem interview that he had missed the good-looking 34.e7 here (34.Be4 was played instead). The idea is that after 34...Bxe7 White has 35.Ke5 — in case of 35...Bc5, for example, White gains a rook with 36.Rg7+ Kh6 37.Rg6+ Kh7 38.Rg4+ Kh6 39.Rxh4 (you can try your own variations on the board!). However, after the text, the best White could get was an ending with rook and bishop against rook, which Ding defended accurately until Carlsen blundered his bishop and the draw was agreed.
Another draw in game 4 took the mini-match to blitz tiebreakers.
Both players missed chances in the first 5-minute game, while Ding got a better position out of the opening in the second. Carlsen slowly recovered positionally, and was fully back in the fight when Ding made a strange decision on move 36:
36.Qe3 allows 36...Bb6 37.Bxb6 Qxb6 38.Qxb6 Nxb6, exchanging White’s strong pieces and giving Black a chance to regroup. Carlsen noted:
It was clear that I was making more progress than he was, and he just wanted to simplify the game. I mean, trading off your good pieces for my less good pieces is rarely a good idea regardless. But I can understand the feeling that you get when the clock is ticking down and you really don’t know what to do.
An endgame ensued shortly after, and Ding erred again on move 48. Carlsen made good use of his advantage and won the game — and the set — in 55 moves.
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| First set | Game 1 | Game 2 | Game 3 | Game 4 |
| Anish Giri | ½ | 1 | ½ | 1 |
| Ian Nepomniachtchi | ½ | 0 | ½ | 0 |
Giri repeated the formula he had used to defeat Alexander Grischuk in the second set of their quarterfinal match, winning games 2 and 4 and drawing the rest — except this time around he won both his games with white. The Dutchman did not fear entering sharp positions against a strong tactician and came out on top from complex battles that could have gone either way. Perhaps the most straightforward win for him came in game 2:
‘Nepo’ faltered with 20...Rfe8, permitting a tactically-aware Giri to continue with 21.Nxf7, getting a winning attack — after 21...Kxf7 White has the nice-looking 22.Re6, when Black cannot capture the rook due to 23.dxe6+ grabbing the queen. There followed 22...Qd8 23.Qf4+ Kg8 24.Rxe7 Rxe7:
White’s light-squared bishop is too strong — 25.d6+ Re6 26.d7 g6 27.Rd6 and Black resigned.
Sharp struggles were the rule of the day in this matchup, so we can expect an exciting second set on Wednesday!
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