CrunchLabs Masters: MVL takes down Carlsen

by Carlos Alberto Colodro
7/21/2024 – Two French representatives reached the final in the Division I winners' bracket of the CrunchLab Masters: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who defeated Magnus Carlsen, and Alireza Firouzja, who got the better of Jan-Krzysztof Duda. MVL needed to work hard to beat the world rapid and blitz champion, as their match, featuring all decisive games, went to Armageddon. Wesley So and Ian Nepomniachtchi remain in contention in the losers' bracket. | Photo: Vincent Michel / Ouest France
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MVL and Firouzja reach winners' bracket final

In September 2023, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave managed to get two match wins in a row over Magnus Carlsen to claim overall victory at the AI Cup. The memorable win allowed the Frenchman to reach the Champions Chess Tour Finals, which was eventually won by Carlsen.

MVL beat the Norwegian again in the winners' bracket semifinal of the CrunchLab Masters on Saturday. The match was decided in Armageddon, after all four 'regular' games ended decisively, with MVL winning the sudden-death decider with the black pieces (see analysis of the game below).

In the other semifinal of the winners' bracket, Alireza Firouzja got the better of Jan-Krzysztof Duda to set up an all-French showdown in the final. This match saw three games ending drawn and Firouzja winning the deciding encounter with the black pieces after Duda failed to make the most of a clearly superior position.

In the losers' bracket, Wesley So and Ian Nepomniachtchi knocked out Fabiano Caruana and Dmitry Andreikin, respectively.

Carlsen 0 - 1 Vachier-Lagrave (Armageddon)

Division I pairings

All games - Division I Placement

Division II: Aronian and Naka knocked down to losers' bracket

Two big names were knocked down to the losers' bracket in Division II, with Jules Moussard beating Levon Aronian and Vladimir Fedoseev beating Hikaru Nakamura on Saturday.

Moussard and Aronian will face Alexander Grischuk and Vidit Gujrathi in the winners' bracket semifinal. While Grischuk obtained a walk-over win over Karthikeyan Murali, Vidit defeated Frederik Svane by a clear 2½-½ score.

Besides Karthikeyan and Svane, Maxim Matlakov and Vladimir Kramnik remain in the race in the losers' bracket.

Svane 0 - 1 Vidit

Division II pairings

All games - Division II Placement

Division III

Arjun Erigaisi, Daniil Dubov, David Anton and Evgeny Alekseev reached the semifinals of the winners' bracket in Division III.

Division III pairings

All games - Division III Placement

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.